GeekFurious: Raging Against Misinformation: Recent Episodes

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So... I wrote a book. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time doing it. And it is NOW available! What's it about?

IT HAS BEEN A CENTURY SINCE DISPLACED ICELANDERS TRICKED MARS SETTLERS INTO HANDING THEM CONTROL OVER THE PLANET, RENAMING IT ÝDALIR. BUT NOW, THE ÝDALIR HAVE A DEPLETED MILITIA OF SPACE-VIKINGS ROAMING AROUND THE SOLAR SYSTEM, ATTEMPTING TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OVER SHIPPING LANES AND MINING OPERATIONS. MEANWHILE, EARTH IS BOOMING, ITS PEOPLE LIVING THE SAFEST LIVES, NO LONGER GROWING OLD OR SUFFERING DISEASES, FOCUSED ON ENTERTAINMENT, THEIR MAIN CULT-OF-PERSONALITY A MAN THEY CALL TOMMY RAVEN. BUT WHEN HE ENDS UP MISSING, THE ENTIRE SYSTEM GOES INTO A PANIC.

MILLIONS OF MILES AWAY, HIS OLDEST FRIEND AND ONCE LOVER, ALEINA, WAITS WITH DREAD IN HER HEART AND A QUESTION SHE HAS LIVED WITH FOR TEN-YEARS: “HOW WAS I SO EASY TO DISCARD?” SHE DOES NOT KNOW IT, BUT THE ANSWER IS RACING TOWARD HER, AND WITH IT FOLLOWS DEATH.

Buy the AMAZON EBOOK or AMAZON PAPERBACK or B&N HARDCOVER now! Or you can even read it for free on Amazon if you have Kindle Unlimited. You can also read the novel for FREE here, on this blog, (parts slowly being uploaded), though it won't be as convenient... but hopefully you'll enjoy it enough--if you don't choose to buy it--to eventually get the pay version. Either way, reviews would be greatly appreciated on Goodreads and/or Amazon. They are better than money!

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| | | It's good... but also not |

Since the passing of Carrie Fisher --and only a week before her passing, the discussion was going on about a movie in which she appeared but for another character- I've seen dozens of arguments made pertaining to the use of CGI to "recreate dead actors" in new movies. In virtually every single one of these arguments the position of "it should not be done unless" or "it should not be done, period" has been made. I have not seen any argument made that it should be done under ANY circumstance. And that's my position.

I can already hear the outrage by my two readers, "what do you mean under ANY circumstance?! Have you no respect for the dead? For their families?!" Sure. I sympathize for those who lost someone they cared about and respect their love for that person. I would happily and passionately argue the life and death of their loved one should be kept private and is not in the public's interest unless their cause of death is a public health concern. Otherwise, that actor's life/death is of no interest to me except in the manner in which they wanted it in the public eye.

But the character they played, in almost all instances, does not belong to the actor, even if they think they do. The actor is a professional. As a professional, they are paid to do a job. That job is to make us believe the character they are playing is not the actor. If the actor passes away and the character remains so important a studio/producer wishes to bring the character back, inspired by the work and look of an actor who passed, I see that as the ULTIMATE respect and honor. The actor did such an amazing job, and the character was so important, that not even the death of the artist who brought the character to life can silence it forever.

Apple didn't stop making iPods because Steve Jobs died. They didn't only make the final generation of the last technology he made because it would be disrespectful to keep making more. They kept making more and will keep making more, because doing anything else would be to deny the passion of the art Steve Jobs saw in that which he brought to life.

A facsimile of art will never be the original, and yet musicians sample the work of those who came before; perform and sell covers originally written by their heroes; and dress, behave, and act on stage in ways they saw from those who came before them.

All art has methods of reproducing what came before. It isn't going to stop in film or television because some people have a negative reaction to a character being played by someone else with an avatar carefully filled in. The original actor is gone. That piece of 1s and 0s acting like a version of a real person is just a costume, not too different from the one the original actor wore when they created the character.

Would you demand no one else ever use words or terms created by a famous writer once they passed on because they were so unique to that writer it would be impossible to not associate with them? If so, abandon the many words Shakespeare coined/invented that became part of our everyday cultural expression. The silence of the world would be deafening... a word some think was one of Shakespeare's but wasn't. However, had I not told you that, you would have believed it because you have no clue how many words or terms you use every day were not originally part of the English language before some artist gave them to the world.

Bring forth your grand CGI machine and unleash the soul of avatars performed by living actors. Let's save our outrage for when they stop using human actors at all. Though, let me close with this caveat: it should be done whenever it can be done provided it doesn't take the audience out of the movie due to the technology not living up to the needs of the human eye, like it does in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." While the CGI is impressive, I can't stop noticing Tarkin looks like a highly rendered video game character. I've watched the movie more than half-dozen times and no matter how much I squint or how many ounces of vodka I drink, it doesn't work for me in any scene.

In conclusion, please recreate characters with CGI after actors, who originally played them, pass away, on to the great Force cloud in the sky... but maybe hold off until 2025. Or whenever you've figured out how to not make it look creepy. Until then, recast.

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| | | The last Skywalker begins to rise |

NOTE: This will be a breakdown of a Star Wars journey and the reaction to seeing "The Rise of Skywalker" the first time, getting past some negative thoughts about it, and what scenes, sequences, characters, and dialogue became the most loved. Four bullet-points will address my biggest criticisms with TROS, but this article will undoubtedly not satisfy the bleeding itch of negativity that too many people seem to enjoy scratching at endlessly. If you came here to feed that addiction... enjoy yet another disappointment.

So... "Star Wars Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker" is possibly my least favorite of the new Star Wars movies and yet I've seen it TWENTY TIMES in the theater. Why would I see my least favorite Star Wars movie--of the modern era--20 times? Because I love Star Wars... and because I can.

Let me just qualify this: I don't consider myself a "fan." I am a Star Wars lover... a Star Warser if you will. I've been going to the theater to see a Star Wars movie since 1978--when it finally arrived in my birth-country of Iceland. From July 1978 until some time in 1980, I saw "A New Hope" at least 20 times (I didn't think to keep count, I just know we went every weekend for several months, then a few times throughout the following year). Unfortunately, my mom and I were busy moving to America when "Empire Strikes Back" arrived in Icelandic theaters, and it was out of theaters by the time I was ready to watch it in America. So, I saw "Return of the Jedi" opening day in 1983 (having not seen "Empire" but knowing a lot about it since the kids in my school complained about it endlessly), and possibly one more time after that. I, of course, saw those original movies many times on HBO and VHS over the years.

When the prequels started, I made it a point to see them multiple times, with "The Phantom Menace" receiving a ridiculous theatrical count of THIRTY-SEVEN viewings! I then saw "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" seven times each. When the new era of movies arrived, I thought it was possible I could break my "Menace" record with at least one of them.

"The Force Awakens" got SEVEN. "Rogue One" got FOUR. "The Last Jedi" got SEVEN. "Solo" got SEVEN. Having failed to get even a little bit close to TPM... I aimed for it with "The Rise of Skywalker," which was doable via AMC A-List (a membership service with AMC theaters that allows you to see 3 movies per week for around $20 per month). The way I figured it, I had collected several rewards over the year, some readmit passes, and Tuesdays would cost me around $2 per ticket with Fandango rewards, so I could possibly reach 38 viewings, for the least amount of money, before it left theaters. And I was confident I'd love the movie since I've loved them all, even ones I didn't enjoy as much as others. Plus, it was JJ Abrams! He made my favorite Star Wars movie. What could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, something went wrong for me in that first viewing... I didn't like it--as we left the theater, I hugged my friend goodbye and whispered, "Man, The Force Awakens was a good movie." Now, that's not entirely unusual. Some of my favorite Star Wars movies were ones I didn't initially enjoy. But this one was different. I didn't just dislike it, I felt dejected, so turned off by what I had just watched that I almost canceled the pre-orders for the next 3 showings--I told my friend it felt like JJ had a checklist of things to cover and decided little setup was needed between those beats. I had never felt that way before about a Star Wars movie. I knew I needed to see it again, perhaps it was just first-viewing jitters, but I was too tired to enjoy my second viewing--it was nearly 11pm, home was an hour away, and I tend to go to sleep by 9pm & get up at 4am--so I left without finishing (NOTE: I do not count that one as part of the 20).

It wasn't until I saw it with my girlfriend that I was able to enjoy the movie. Walking out of that showing, I immediately bought another ticket and caught it again an hour later. After that, I was in a groove. All the significant problems I had with pacing and plot/story justification were either going away or I was able to ignore them in favor of focusing on the things I enjoyed. I wanted to see it more times that weekend, but we were going away for Christmas, and it would be a week before I could see it again. I wondered how I would feel with time away from it.

Once we returned from our trip, I jumped right in, seeing it six times over the next week. I then took a little break, saw it two times a week later, then took another break before seeing it four more times over the next two weeks. I then took a two-week break, wanting to have fresher eyes on the movie before getting in five more viewings.

I note all that to further qualify my impressions. It was the final five viewings that gave me the best idea of what I loved or liked, and what I disliked. I will mention four specific areas of dislike in this article and then I'll dive into the things I loved/liked (note: I only somewhat know what people's complaints have been since I left most of social media right after the movie came out, and stayed far away from the usual sources of toxicity and discontent, so I may be treading old or new ground):
The Rey and Leia scenes don't work for me. Daisy, who I think delivers the best all-around performance in the movie, is given basic dialogue, and the editing seems to do her few favors. But hey... I was one of those in favor of recasting the role if they felt it was so essential to the film. And I think a lot of the problems in the movie are a result of not being able to fully utilize the Leia character the way they would have liked. * I have a problem with the abruptness of some scenes, giving little time to absorb important information and moments (accentuated by the fact that Rey waiting for then running away from an incoming Kylo in a TIE is an entire minute of screentime... about as much time as is given to the final confrontation between the Palpatines). There is a lot of expositional dialogue tossed into various scenes in order to answer questions about the plot (you might be surprised how many of the things people think weren't addressed are in lines of dialogue), but because there is so much of it, and not enough showing while doing the telling, I think longer scenes would have helped the audience absorb the information and remember it later when it applied. * Having Lando go off on this extremely important mission to convince the masses to help in the final battle and not showing any of his efforts contributes to my lack of investment in scenes when our heroes mention waiting for them or the moment when they arrive. I can understand wanting to keep the audience guessing, but there are ways to do that while showing Lando trying (side note: we could have used an extra 20 to 2000 seconds of this battle). * I find it strange that a movie so dependent on new information skimmed through a lot, but thought it was important to show Luke and Leia training for a few seconds in order for Force ghost Luke to drop on-the-nose exposition about Ben dying and someone else picking up Leia's blade to finish what she started... while doing very little to sell the punchline of the confrontation between the Palpatines: what does "I am all the Sith" and "I am all the Jedi" even mean? Is that why the Emperor has uber Force lighting? What does it mean that the Jedi are with Rey? If you're not going to even suggest how it works, then why introduce it at all? It's important to be sold this concept within the movie BEFORE pulling the trigger on it, but it's just stated and the audience is expected to accept it (I'm sure many do). Look, not all things need an explanation... but the movie could have been better served with more of it where it mattered most. It reminds me of Anakin's turn in "Revenge of the Sith" where he goes from a guy trying to do the right thing to willing to betray his adopted family and kill children in order to save his wife... without being shown ANY indication he should believe Palpatine's ability to deliver on a suggestion he made. A storyteller has to pick their shortcuts carefully and not use them in the most important moments*. Want to shortcut how the Sith fleet was built? Fine. How Palpatine returned? Alrighty. Which medal Leia is holding when she dies? I just figured it's Han's. Why her reaching out to Ben has such an effect on him? I can imagine why based on the previous movie. Or how Ben acquired a TIE on an exploded Death Star? He's resourceful! How about where Ben's blaster disappeared to once the Knights of Ren showed up outside the Sith arena? Ignore that part! Or why exactly does crossing two lightsabers make them more reflective? Because it looks cool! But all the Sith and all the Jedi somehow being part of their respective Palpatine? How? And why is that important in the scene? In what way does it apply to the Emperor now? And why does a pep-talk from Force-realm Jedi help Rey rise and in what way does that affect her ability to face her grandfather? Again, I don't need everything or even most things explained, but I needed more setup and more showing with respect to this whole "I am all the [Sith/Jedi]" deal. I don't feel it is enough to just say something is true, especially in this situation. I think the filmmakers could have done more to introduce the concept, then justify it, then use it to resolve the main conflict, emphasizing its importance over the course of the whole movie.

These bullet points are the main reasons the movie ranks lower for me. Otherwise, it could have very well been in the top 3. I genuinely love a lot of it... as you'll see below.

Now, for the positive stuff.

PERSONAL JOURNAL OF LOVES/LIKES (from notes taken over 20 viewings, in the order they appear in the movie):

• [Mustafar] looks great.
• Love the visual of Kylo's blade in Emperor Palpatine's face.
• Dejarik and the double-talk conversation about Chewie cheating, then shutting the board off.
• Arrival at [Sinta Glacier] has great energy, and love the Falcon's slide parking job.
• Like the conversation between Finn and Boolio. This whole sequence with the Falcon may have been a better way to start the movie.
• John Williams' music when the First Order TIEs arrive.
• Klaud's reactions during the "lightspeed skipping" (shouldn't it be called hyperspace skipping?) are funny.
• Kylo manipulating the training droid and Rey's reactions as her frustration and anger grows.
• Love when Rey moves her head from one side of the blade to the other as she tracks the droid's movement.
• The connection they share creating a vision of the past and future works well here.
• The Falcon returning on fire and the chaos around it. Love every bit of Poe and Rey's back-and-forth.
• "No spy?" into "No, spy!" is fun writing/acting. Makes me smile every time.
• Poe saying Rey is their best fighter.
• The conversation about the spy's intel is full of exposition which I shouldn't like but I think it's pulled off well. Tons of info is dumped very quickly with the actors doing their best to not make it feel like an info-dump. I often wonder if what Beaumont Kin says about "dark science" and "cloning" is meant to be canon or his conjecture [edit: Since posting this article, this bit has been confirmed in the novelization and is part of canon; the Emperor is a clone.]. Anyway, it works on me.
• Kylo and the Knights of Ren walking by the stormtroopers & one calls them, "Ghouls."
• Kylo tossing Boolio's head on the table.
• Pryde eyeing Hux with suspicion at the mention of a spy.
• The helmet gag.
• The suspicious First Order officer who seems to be the only one seriously considering the ramifications of why Palpatine wants to help them. MVP! Oh... I think Kylo just killed him.
• Pasaana... this is just going to be a gushfest because I love almost all of what is coming.
• "The Aki-Aki Festival of the Ancestors! This celebration occurs only once every forty-two years!" I was hoping they'd make some kind of 42-years reference and I pumped my fist when I heard this. Yeah. I'm cool like that.
• The gang turning around to look at Threepio who turns around to see what is behind him. Only once in twenty viewings did the audience laugh and I wanted to marry that audience.
• Lots of fun energy as they walk through the crowd.
• "I've never seen anything like this" into "I've never seen so few wayfinders," is the type of cheesy Star Wars dialogue I live for.
• I don't know if this gag with Chewie having to hunch over is a nod to Han doing it in "Solo" but I'm taking it that way.
• "I'm just Rey." Right there, if you have even five-minutes in a Writing 101 class, you know how this movie is going to end.
• This is probably my favorite Force-connection in the movie. I love how the world around them slows down, and how Kylo's room is bright while the world around Rey turns to night.
• Their back-and-forth is powerful and I love how it ends with him grabbing her necklace.
• The First Order officer telling Ren about the necklace. I'm obsessed with how she exits the scene. I don't know why. Don't look at me like that!
• Pryde's "Yes, Supreme Leader" with that sinister look.
• The stormtrooper taking an arrow to the eye. Love the noise he makes. Funny gag.
• Lando and Chewie hugging.
• Lando telling Rey to give Leia his love and Rey responding, "You should give it to her yourself." That's right, old man! She's not your secretary! But seriously, it's a warm scene.
• Poe hotwiring the speeders and Finn looking at him suspiciously. "How do you know how to do that?" I know it's to set up Poe's "shifty" past, but I also like to imagine it's the filmmakers taking a small jab at how male "fans" ask how a female character knows how to do something without ever seeing them "train" to do it but never do the same for male characters.
• Threepio's "No need to worry, I made it!"
• The speeder chase. It has both an OT and PT feel to it.
• The First Order [treadspeeders] have shields! That's why Rey can't Force-shoot them all in the brain, guys!
• Love Williams' music cue after "They fly now."
• Rey dodging the laser bolt without looking. That should be a meme... the personification of every woman on social media instinctively dodging dumb brochacho attacks about anything and everything they say or do.
• The jet trooper firing three rockets and the explosion that follows looks damn cool.
• The immediate shot after again reminds me of both the OT and PT. (Now this is podracing, folks!)
• BB8's trick and Rey's callback line about never underestimating a droid.
• Poe and Finn dispatching the [treadspeeder] in a very PT kind of shot. Even the music feels right out of TPM.
• Chewie blasting a jet trooper who crashes in front of the camera, then Rey and crew passing by as we see Ochi's ship.
• Everyone getting blown up and landing in the sand, then shooting back. There's something so cool about them firing from a near-prone position. I don't know why I like this shot so much but I do.
• Taking out the jet trooper, and sinking. "Will this agony ever end!" Oh, Threepio.
• Rey's face as she struggled in the quicksand then turns to face Finn as he tries to tell her something. That face... makes me chuckle every time.
• The scene with Rose, Wexley, and Leia is one of the few times shoving in a discarded scene from TFA and marrying it to a newly written scene for TROS works well. I still laugh when Leia says, "Do me a personal favor, be optimistic," followed by Wexley's response. Rose's reaction also sells it really well.
• The gang drops into the tunnels. Poe calls out for his friends and Threepio's response makes me laugh every time.
• Chewie falling/landing looks so funny to me. Meme it!
• "This isn't the afterlife, is it? Are droids allowed in here?" Followed by Poe saying, "I thought we were goners," to which the droid responds, "We might still be." Threepio is given some of his best lines in the entire saga in this movie and he's tossing out gold in the background of a scene! At this point, I was thinking to myself, "This is going to be my favorite Star Wars movie ever!"
• The lightsaber and flashlight gag works way better in a theater full of women than one full of men. I chuckle every time.
• Love the conversation about secrets... I would not have minded another 5 minutes of these characters searching around in the tunnels having fun conversations. Come on, JJ! Give me that super-duper extended cut!
• "I do not want to know what made these tunnels," followed by more humor from our favorite golden droid. And again, I could have used another 5 minutes of this! JJ! I love you. Please... gimme more.
• Love this bit about Threepio being able to read the dagger but forbidden from speaking Sith due to some Senate rule.
• Rey hands Finn the lightsaber... hmmmm... message!
• "We gotta keep moving. Find someone who can translate that dagger... like a helpful droid." Poe's jabs at Threepio are great.
• Dig the general energy of Poe, Finn, Chewie, and the droids entering Ochi's ship.
• The shot from Finn's perspective of Rey walking out to meet whatever is coming.
• Finn telling Rey that Chewie's been captured.
• Rey Force grabbing the transport. The shot of her leaning back, free arm bent as she makes the effort is one of my favorite shots in all of Star Wars!
• The intensity on Rey's face as the camera pushes in on her, right before she notices Kylo emerging from the destroyed TIE, is amazing. Daisy sells this so well. I feel like too many people are sleeping on her performance in this movie. Lots of praise tends to go to Adam but she's my star.
• The push and pull between Rey and Kylo.
• The Force lightning moment and Rey's cry of "Chewie!"
• After Poe yells to them the First Order is coming, Rey's confused, multifaceted processing of information, is just more superb acting on Daisy's part. I feel like this sequence exhibits the best acting by a single actor in any Star Wars movie. It's maybe too good for Star Wars.
• The way Rey then whispers, "Chewie" is heartbreaking. I've noticed people in the theater becoming visibly shaken by the moment, not just because they believe Chewie is dead but because Daisy sells the moment so well.
• Rey's near-drunken trot back to her friends, still in total shock... topping an already incredible sequence.
• "That power came from me." Dammit, Daisy! You're so good in this movie!
• Finn and Rey's conversation about the Throne of the Sith.
• Chewie-is-alive!
• Hux's hair.
• My favorite Threepio moment is probably here where Poe, Finn, and Rey are super sad about losing Chewie and the Dagger... and Golden Rod reminds them the information is stuck in his memory. Even after 20 times, the timing of the joke makes me giggle.
• "Let's do that!" Boyega's best delivery.
• I could just say everything on Kijimi because I LOVE ALL OF KIJIMI! But that would be too easy.
• I love seeing the First Order troopers going door-to-door harassing the locals as a background to what is happening on this planet. It's an excellent bit of showing-exposition.
• I think some part of my love for this planet is that it's cold and snowing. I am a sucker for cold and snowy.
• "I wanna see your brains in the snow." Zorii rules. Give. Me. A. Zorii. Disney+ show! Best ST secondary-character.
• "You were a spice runner?" into "You were a stormtrooper?" bit is great. I will never get tired of it. This movie's humor is spot on.
• Love snow! Love blue! Love blue and snow! What is wrong with me? Oh... I'm Icelandic.
• "Jakanga!" and Poe's "No jakanga."
• Dig this brief little fight between Rey and Zorii's crew... and Finn's "Ooh!"
• "Not that you care... but I think you're okay."
• "Poe Dameron, spice runner. Runner of spice!"
• Hey! Is that bartender John Williams?!
• Babu!
• "Who are you hanging out with that speaks Sith?!" I love you, Zorii.
• "Droid... memory go blank. Blank blank." I love you, Babu.
• Threepio repeating Poe's line about "All we've done..." is sweet.
• Zorii and Poe's little trust discussion ending with, "Nope."
• Kylo giving Hux a Han-finger-of-silence.
• Threepio's, "I just had an idea. There's something else we could try--" and Rey's reaction.
• I love pretty much everything about Zorii and Poe's discussion here, especially the music which, having watched Attack of the Clones way too many times, I'm pretty sure is from the scene when Kenobi calls from Kamino to tell Yoda and Mace about Jango [while writing this, Seth Blurrgowitz, on Twitter, informed me it is taken from the AOTC track "Return to Tatooine"]. Anyway, "They win by making you think you’re alone... There's more of us." I have been saying this a lot lately. TROS could have used more scenes like this one where attention is given to characters having meaningful conversations.
• D-O exists to basically tell the audience Rey is a good person and I'm here for it.
• "Droid is ready!"
• Babu's cheer after red-eyes Threepio finishes talking.
• Rey's reaction to sensing Chewie.
• "And you are," into "Okay, that's gonna be a problem," into "Hello, I Babu Frik." GOLD MINE! Cash those checks, kids! Have I mentioned yet that TROS is the funniest Star Wars movie?
• "Threepio, move your metal ass! We're almost there," into "How dare you? We've only just met!" All our debit cards belong to you, JJ.
• Zorii rejecting Poe's advances. More JJ dollars.
• Zorii's little spin as she leaves.
• Love the general feel of the sequence of them arriving and getting into the shootout as they exit their ship.
• Rey using the Jedi mind-trick. Funny stuff capped off by Poe's "Does she do that to us?"
• Pryde's little proper First Order officer's trot, followed by spinning toward the camera: "Whose ship is this?"
• Love the Chewie, Finn, Poe shootout sequence. So dynamic. Everyone but Chewie--who hits everything he aims at--misses a few shots.
• Poe getting shot feels like a sort of callback to Leia getting shot in ROTJ.
• Chewie's little growl at the end of their capture is note-perfect.
• Dig the way they transition between settings in Rey and Kylo's Force connection and how the environment gets affected as they fight.
• Kylo looks really menacing as he talks about Palpatine. I'd pay for a painting depicting some of this. Beautifully shot.
• Love the look of them cutting through the Vader's mask mantle and crossed lightsabers after.
• "She was in my quarters. Lockdown the ship!" I always imagine Kylo walking away from this scene and the trooper just standing there like... "What am I supposed to do? I don't have any ground-to-ship communications equipment on me!"
• The pre-execution chatter about Finn's secret. It's played really well by the actors.
• The stopped execution. "I'm the spy" into "What?" and "You!" then "I knew it!" and "No you did not!" At this point in my first viewing, I thought at least half the critics had lost their minds.
• "That's not even a language!" It's sad Rey murders him. He's my favorite stormtrooper ever.
• "Oh dear, my first laser battle." Look, this is my loves/likes list but... HE WAS JUST WITNESS TO ONE MINUTES EARLIER! Alright, fine... maybe he meant one in which he was physically standing in the middle of... I'll let it go, JJ! I can't stay mad at you.
• I like the general vibe of the Kylo/Rey conversation. It's quiet.
• Something about the way Adam says "Palpatine" works for me.
• "My mother was the daughter of Vader. Your father was the son of the Emperor. What Palpatine doesn't know is we're a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one." Music is solid here.
• "I do." Oh, Daisy, you kill it every time! Music too.
• I don't know how this whole Falcon engine blowing the stormtroopers back without moving the craft forward works... but I don't care. It looks cool.
• I like this Goonie's bit with the knife.
• Conversation between Finn and Jannah about their stormtrooper experience and the Force. It really feels like there was a lot more supposed to happen with respect to this conversation. In any event, I love it. Just another example of the movie doing meaningful conversations well (and needing more of them).
• Rey sailing and the music.
• I'm into the overall feel of Rey on the Death Star.
• Her confrontation with the dark-side version didn't work for me at first but now it's one of the things I looked forward to in this sequence. I like seeing Daisy play with--though too briefly--what could have been her character's journey.
• "Give it... to me!" Love how Daisy emphasizes the "to me." As with much of the second half of the movie, the first time through I wasn't sure I bought this scene at all. But now I see what they were going for and dig it. This is Rey's dark-side taking some control over her desires. She wants to make Palpatine pay and her focus is entirely on the wayfinder that will take her toward that goal. If I have any issues with this still it's because of the feeling that things are starting to get rushed toward the finish-line.
• I am in total love with this lightsaber battle. The jumps. The strikes. The styles. The intensity. Love Finn trying to get to Rey and Rey pushing him away. The passion in this battle is way more like what I wanted in Kenobi v Anakin in ROTS.
• Though we're in likes/loves, I do have to note that I have a difficult time believing that Kylo was about to kill Rey here and that he's only stopped by Leia. IF that is what they were going for, I don't think it works. However, if that wasn't his intention and Leia distracting him, followed by Rey stabbing him, was more of Leia's plan to reach Rey, then it works for me better. In any event, what follows is amazing.
• The looks. The water splashing over them. Rey's tears. Kylo/Ben's eyes... his expression of first loss, acceptance, then confusion and whatever else is going on in his head. There is so much there. The only thing that would have made this better would have been more conversation.
• Chewie's reaction to Leia's death.
• Han and Ben mirroring the TFA scene is something I had a powerfully negative reaction to in my first viewing but now have a genuine love for. What changed? I think the movie slowed down for me over several viewings and it didn't feel as rushed... at least in this scene.
• I really like this scene with Beaumont Kin translating the transmission. "The Sith flame will burn." I think Monaghan did a pretty good job with the material he was given... and he was in a lot more of the movie than I expected.
• Poe's talk with the dead Leia is quality acting. Hell, Oscar does a pretty great job throughout.
• "We had each other, that's how we won."
• Poe and Finn calling each other "General."
• Beaumont's "Holdo maneuver" line is the best! Small-part MVP!
• Rey arriving on Exegol in Luke's X-Wing and the music playing is very cool.
• Finn's craft jumping from evil hyperspace. The music is kicking.
• "Captain, we have Resistance crafts incoming." The shot of the officer walking flanked by two Sith Troopers works on me in magical ways.
• Rose running into battle!
• Rey walking between the... ice walls? I don't know but it looks cool and the music is dark and awesome.
• Lots of shots here of the Emperor and Rey look amazing.
• "My parents were strong. They saved me from you." I totally adore this line delivery and the music.
• The sequence where the Emperor sells Rey on striking him down, as a means to becoming the new emperor and having the power to stop her friends from dying works way better on me than the way this notion is executed in ROTS with Anakin turning dark to save his wife. It's too bad the two movies couldn't have a conversation and mix and match what they got right to make two great movies.
• Ben revealing the saber in his hand and the little shrug.
• If I ignore the ridiculous amount of flashy flashes going on, I am wild about Rey's fight with the... Emperor's Guards? Sith Guards? Whatever they are, I dig how she deflects and Force absorbs and pushes and crushes and all the Force stuff. The music being a version of her theme is very cool too. And it ends with Ben showing up to assist. Their looks after and the music are spot-on for me.
• Emperor Palpatine standing over the seemingly incapacitated Rey and Ben. "Look what you have made." Followed shortly after by, "As once I fell, so falls the last Skywalker." A lot of this stuff with the Emperor feels like Harry Potter and I dig it.
• I knew most of the plot before going into this movie and one of the things I was not excited about was this moment when Palpatine uses the uber-lighting to short-out the Resistance and their helpers. But, to my great surprise, I love the way it's executed. The visuals and sounds really work on me. As you can see, I don't mention the sky-battle on this list much... but I love this part. I guess I'm a sucker for things losing power and tumbling toward the ground.
• I like the shot of Rey turning over and looking up... and the music.
• The Emperor shooting lightning at Rey and her blocking it looks gorgeous. I'll just toss the next shot too where she has both sabers into this one. The look of it is eye-candy.
• Pryde running to the front of his ship and then blowing up.
• The whole sequence of Rey on the ground, looking dead, to the camera moving away, down, then revealing Ben... the visuals, music, sound effects, all superb.
• Adam's best acting in the movie, for me, is here. As Ben struggles to pull Rey's body up, looks at her, then turns away... gets me every time. Powerful stuff.
• Rey returning to life, the music swelling, the two reacting to each other.
• "Ben."
• I knew going into this that there were two possible ways this scene could play out. I preferred the version where they didn't kiss and, in that first viewing, I felt this moment didn't work. However, with multiple viewings, I have changed my mind and now think it makes sense. It's not necessarily a passionate kiss, but instinctual. They have this intense emotional connection and her reaction is the most natural thing for her to do at that moment.
• One of the best choices made with the Leia problem (of not having Carrie) was having her body wait for Ben in order to disappear into the Force. So, while I obviously have issues with the way her character was used in this movie, this moment almost justifies the decisions made with her character.
• Zorii shooting Poe down again.
• The hug between Rey, Finn, and Poe. I've seen it 20 times and it still makes me emotional. The perfect ending. It's good they decided to go out on this sho--oh, there's more.
• I do like the little slide, a callback to the moment in TFA that made me cry.
• Glad to have a new lightsaber color in film-canon... for a nanosecond.
• Uhhhh... what is another nice thing can I say? Oh, the music is good!

FAVORITE SEQUENCES
1. Kijimi: Arriving, running into Zorii, the fight, Babu, talky talk, evil Threepio, the Chewie realization, and escape. 2. Pasaana: Search for the wayfinder, escape from the First Order, getting out of the caves, and the Chewie incident. 3. Kef Bir: The Rey and Kylo fight on the Death Star and everything that happens up to Ben throwing the lightsaber away.

FAVORITE SCENES
1. Rey using the Force to try to stop the First Order transport, Kylo interfering, Rey accidentally blowing the transport up, and her reaction afterward. This could be my favorite Star Wars scene. 2. Ben climbing out of the hole to bring Rey back to life. 3. Poe and Zorii talking about things. 4. The last part of Rey and Kylo's final lightsaber battle on the Death Star. 5. Our heroes seeing each other, embracing, holding hands, and crying.

NOTABLE DIALOGUE MOMENTS (I'm sure I'll forget some)

• Poe: "What did you do to the droid?" Rey: "What did you do the Falcon?" Poe: "The Falcon’s in a lot better shape than he is!" Rey: "BB8 is not on fire!" Poe: "What’s left of him isn’t on fire!"
• Rey: "Bad mood?" Finn: "Me?" Rey: "Him." Finn: "Always."
• Rey: "I need to go alone." Finn: "Yeah, alone with friends."
• Kylo: "I sense unease about my appearance, General Hux." Hux: "About the mask? No, sir. Well done."
• Rey: "I see through the cracks in your mask. You’re haunted. You can’t stop seeing what you did to your father."
• Leia: "Do me a personal favor. Be optimistic." Wexley: "Yes, ma’am. Uh, this is terrific. You’re not going to believe how well this is going to turn out. It’s going to be great."
• Poe: "Rey? Finn?" Threepio: "You didn’t say my name, sir, but I’m alright."
• Poe: "We’re going to die in sand boroughs and we’re all keeping secrets?" Finn: "I’ll tell you when you tell us about all that shifty stuff you do."
• Finn: "That was the only clue to the wayfinder thing and it’s gone." Threepio: "So true. The inscription lives only in my memory now." Poe: "Hold on. The inscription that was on the dagger is in your memory?" Threepio: "Yes, Master Poe. But the translation from a forbidden language cannot be retrieved. That is short of a complete redactive memory bypass." Finn: "A complete what?" Threepio: "It’s a terribly dangerous and simple act performed on unwitting droids by dregs and criminals." Finn: "Let’s do that!"
• Finn: "You were a spice runner?" Poe: "You were a Stormtrooper?" Rey: "Were you a spice runner?" Poe: "Were you a scavenger? I mean we can do this all night."
• Zorii: "Hey, they win by making you think you're alone. Remember? There's more of us."
• Finn: "Wrong way!" Poe: "Not really a right way, is there?"
• Jannah: "I received a transmission from someone named Babu Frik." Threepio: "Babu Frik? Oh, he’s one of my oldest friends."
• Threepio: "What a dreadful situation. Is every day like this for you people? Madness."
• Kylo: "The dark side is in our nature. Surrender to it."
• Han: "Hey, kid."
• Luke: "Rey, some things are stronger than blood. Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi."
• Poe: “We’re not alone. Good people will fight if we lead them.”
• Rey: "All you want is for me to hate, but I won’t. Not even you." Emperor: "Weak, like your parents." Rey: "My parents were strong. They saved me from you." Emperor: "Your master, Luke Skywalker, was saved by his father. The only family you have here is me."
• Emperor: "They don’t have long. No one is coming to help them. And you are the one who led them here. Strike me down. Take the throne. Reign over the new empire and the fleet will be yours. Only you have the power to save them. Refuse and your new family dies."
• Emperor: "Do not fear their feeble attack, my faithful. Nothing will stop the return of the Sith!"

FAVORITE PERFORMANCES
1. Daisy Ridley: Apart from her scenes with Leia (not her fault), I feel like she owns this whole movie. 2. Oscar Isaac: Gives his best overall performance in the sequel trilogy. Even in scenes I don't particularly like, his performance in them works. 3. John Boyega: Plays a great support character for both Rey and Poe while getting in some of his best facial acting in the series. 4. Adam Driver: Always solid. His best work is in the second half. 5. Keri Russell: She makes the most out of every second of screentime. Give me a Zorii stand-alone movie or TV show! 6. Anthony Daniels: While I don't think Daniels brings any more or less to his performance than he has before (he's never phoned anything in), he's given more to do with the character so there's more to notice. 7. Babu Frik: Not played by an actor. That's actually an alien from another world.

SINGLE BEST MOMENT IN THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
I know you think I'm going to say the transport scene but... I'm going with Ben Solo, the last Skywalker, rising from the cold chasm, hobbling over to Rey, the last Palpatine, wrapping her in his arms, looking away, pained by loss, deciding to give his life force to her, and finally ascending into the Force... with his mother. Oh yeah and there's also a kiss and a smile.

FINAL NOTES
Overall, I enjoy "The Rise of Skywalker" a lot. Clearly, I like the first half more than the second. Much like the entirety of the prequels, it has execution problems. I do think JJ needed another 6-months to finish the movie he wanted to deliver. But I also don't like to dwell on negativity, especially when doing it will not change anything. I am fine with the plot. I am fine with the story. I am more than fine with Rey taking the Skywalker name. I am less fine with some execution, especially in the third act. But so be it.

Looking forward not backward. Bring on the Holy Wars.

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Despite what you may have heard from your favorite liars on the Internet, the theatrical cut of "The Rise of Skywalker" is the director's cut. If you want a longer cut because you think it will improve the movie, then ask for an "Extended Cut."
Asking for something no one can give you will result in the producers, director, and studio rolling their eyes. People requesting a version that already exists based on some silly "insider" on Reddit who made up a story about the studio "forcing" JJ to "compromise" his vision will guarantee there will be no version of the movie they may like more (which would be an extended cut that doesn't change anything about the plot/story but can flesh out scenes they may feel were rushed).

To sum up:

Director's Cut = Theatrical Cut
Extended Cut = Still a possibility if people stop wasting time and energy on delusions.

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| | | This is how redemption arcs begin? |

I've read articles and watched videos about how "Kylo Ren can't be redeemed because he killed his father" but Darth Vader could be redeemed because "we didn't know those little kids he murdered in cold blood."

So Kylo Ren killed an overconfident, self-absorbed, narcissistic, proud-scoundrel who was once a smuggler of illegal drugs that likely ended up in the hands of poor brown alien children desperately trying to survive the oppression of the white-humans in the Empire; who considered abandoning his would-be-friends over money; who needlessly yelled at and treated his most loyal friend like an idiotic pet and questioned and mocked him when things he was likely just as responsible for didn't go well; and emotionally abandoned his wife and child at some point in his life; who was so valuable to you, his son cannot be redeemed for killing him, but that kid's grandfather is redeemable because he only murdered children whose names you didn't know? And this is a reasonable argument? What's your next argument? "It's not real! So I can be irrational about it!" In the story it's all real. That's how story telling works. If you don't respect the truth within the story, do we have to respect your argument? Perhaps this is an issue of a lack of critical thinking and not just about some people irrationally refusing to be fair, so let's analyze this.

Consider, the small children killed at the Jedi Temple came out of hiding because they trusted Anakin Skywalker. They looked to him to save them. He didn't only betray the trust of the Jedi Order, for his own selfish-needs, he also lacked a basic human sympathy instinct for children, and used their trust for him to draw them out so he could murder them.

Meanwhile, Han Solo was overconfident and believed he could turn his son by confronting him. Because that's the kind of thing a guy like Han Solo would believe.

Those children had no reason to believe Anakin Skywalker would murder them. They were hiding inside a room with no way out. They didn't walk to their death, they were tricked... given hope right before their deaths. What about their lives mattered less than a guy who could have avoided his killer? I don't say this to blame Han Solo for trying, but to illustrate the choice these respective victims had to avoid death. Han went forward to confront someone he knew was a dangerous killer. Han was a capable warrior. Han was only tricking himself... even then, he had a chance to come out alive (and based on JJ's comments, could have convinced Kylo to turn to the light).

But those children at the Jedi Temple saw their hero, were given hope, came out to be saved, and hemurdered them for it.

Anakin Skywalker, by any reasonable modern standard, is irredeemable. Yet he saves his son and "turns to the light" and is made "one with the Force" and is now a Force ghost. Great. So, in this story, a single act of kindness can turn you away from the darkness, and into the light, give you eternal conscious life, and be forgiven by the fans. And some are fine with that. The creator of Star Wars seems to be fine with that too. But the argument against Kylo Ren being given the same consideration makes no sense.

Darth Vader cannot be redeemable unless Kylo Ren is also redeemable. Anakin didn't pay for his crimes, he paid for one good deed with his life. That's not enough for a redemption arc if what his grandson did is "irredeemable." At least Kylo Ren has the possibility of a redemption arc if it begins in "The Last Jedi" and, at the end of Episode IX, has him turned to the light and willing to spend the rest of his life earning it.

Either a single act of goodness leads to redemption for every big-bad in this story, or a single act of kindness can't wash away many deeds of terror. But if not, then once turned from the darkness to the light, and no longer acting as Darth Vader, Anakin needed another 20 years of making up for what he did before he could be considered redeemed. The same for Kylo Ren. He needs to abandon the darkness, discard the name Kylo Ren, and live the life of a do-gooder for the rest of his life to be considered redeemed. But at least, as of this upcoming movie, Ben Solo still has that chance. Anakin Skywalker doesn't and didn't.

By the logic of the Star Wars Skywalker Saga redemption rule, both Kylo Ren and Darth Vader are equally redeemable. But by modern concepts of redemption it is Anakin, not Ben, who is the irredeemable Skywalker. Ben may not ever be redeemed, but he's at worst equally redeemable to Anakin. At best, the only redeemable dark-side Skywalker.

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Whenever a modern movie breaks some box office record you’ll inevitably read an industry professional, journalist, or fan comment about how it doesn’t match up to some old movie when “adjusting for inflation.” People seemingly note this to indicate the current movie box office numbers are not as impressive since fewer tickets were sold. What’s troubling about this qualifier is that it completely discounts all other variables that have decreased box office ticket sales.
Let’s take the original Star Wars from 1977. It made a ton of money in a time when box office smash hits could be counted on one hand (missing some fingers); in a time when there were a handful of channels on TV; in a time when the top 20 TV shows had nearly 3 times as many viewers as the top 20 in 2017; in a time when there was no Internet; in a time when video games were barely a thing.Once Star Wars became a hit, a unique pop culture developed around it which had no competitor for several years. It was such a huge hit that it was brought back into theaters several times before its sequel came out in 1980. There was no home video version until several years later. If you wanted to see Star Wars, you had to see it in the theater. Many movies, prior to VHS rentals in the 1980s, and VHS --and later DVD-- ownership in the 1990s, were shown in theaters for years, not weeks or months like now. Therefore, the only reasonable standard by which to even compare box office sales is to count only the first-theater-run for the movies. And even then it’s not fair since it discounts all the other variables affecting box office sales. But, since I brought Star Wars into the discussion, let’s just compare the 1977 Star Wars and the 2015 Star Wars releases. I will count the first-theater-run only for the first Star Wars versus the only theater run for 2015’s “The Force Awakens” and adjust for inflation based on 2016 (when TFA ended its run).I’ve broken down the actual inflation rate versus ticket sales in 1977 and 1978 (its initial run) and adjusted accordingly. Below is the math behind this (again, this is based on 2016 adjustment for inflation, not 2017 since I’m counting it against the final theatrical box office take of TFA).STAR WARS, EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPETotal Take 1977-1978: $215,537,332Break-Down1977 Take 195,666,111 * 3.9(inflation) = $763,097,832.91978 Take 19,871,221 * 3.71(inflation) = $73,722,229.91Total FIRST RUN adjusted for inflation = 836,820,062.81STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENSTotal Take 2015-2016: $936,660,090Even when adjusting for inflation, TFA beats the original by nearly $100 million. And that’s before we account for other variables suppressing box office ticket sales in 2015-2016 and inflating them in 1977-1978. We could have some fun with that and divide by just TV viewership in 1977-1978 versus TV viewership in 2015-2016. We’d have to assign at least a 2X modifier since viewership, percentage wise, is down (by more than 2X, mind you) as people have more options. Then we could add another modifier to Internet activity in 1977-1978 versus 2015-2016… except we can’t since the Internet wasn’t even public 40 years ago. And we could include another modifier for video game use in their respective years but that’s such a ridiculous difference how could we even agree on a reasonable one? Not to mention the availability of home video options in the modern age versus then… when there was none.

All those variables make what “The Force Awakens” did even more impressive than what 1977’s Star Wars did. Perhaps we should have an “adjusted for inflation of options” to give modern movies a fair representation in this argument. Or, perhaps we could just stop trying to compare eras since they don’t apply due to huge shifts in modern culture.It would be like saying that we have more murders in America now than in 1977 (8.8). Of course we have more murders now… there are 100 million more people. But the percentage of murders has decreased (5.3).It’s the skewing of data that allows people to dismiss progress. You might read this and say it isn’t important. It’s just box office data. But this is a modern problem that washes over and drowns reason at all levels. If we can’t even be reasonable about a seemingly innocuous thing like box office data, then how can people be expected to be reasonable about more complex issues? We encourage a lack of critical thinking. We dismiss correlations because they don’t match up to some severity we’ve attached to other numbers, then dismiss those more “important” numbers whenever it suits us because we’ve become used to skewing data to fit our agenda.

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Spider-Man has been my favorite superhero since I was a kid. He was the first comic-book hero I followed, and I collected every single one of his books until I stopped reading comics (at some point in the 90s). So, I’ve felt a great attachment to the character, and the movies --even when I didn’t like them. But it’s been years since I watched most of them (I returned to SPIDER-MAN 2 several times over the years, though).
Leading up to SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING I decided to re-watch all the previous Spider-Man movies:Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN (2002), SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004), SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007); and Marc Webb’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012) and 2014 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014).

Because they were fresher in my mind and essentially reboots of the series, I decided to tackle Marc Webb’s versions first. I knew I hadn’t liked either movie but was willing to give them a shot anyway since one’s opinion can be influenced by a moment in time (or other people’s opinions). Below are my reactions to each movie (I watched them all over several days), including SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (which I just returned from seeing for the first time).Marc Webb’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012)I found myself bored throughout most of this movie. Unlike many people I know, I am not a big fan of origin stories. I don’t need to see how someone came to be the hero, and this movie decided to cover an origin story I knew all too well –considering Raimi did it only 10 years earlier. Sometimes a movie gets the origin story right (IRON-MAN and WONDER WOMAN come to mind) but once we get to the second movie, I tend to feel I don’t need to return to the first (as you will soon see, maybe I should change that opinion). There are some fun Spidey moments that felt like the comic-book version, perhaps more so than Raimi’s Spider-Man, but so much of the atmosphere in this movie is dark and too… cool. This is not Peter Parker at all. Over the years I’ve heard many people praise Andrew Garfield’s acting in these movies and re-watching them I don’t see it. Is he a terrific actor? Yes. I think he’s turning into one of the best of his generation. He had a great 2016 and I’ve gotten to see an early cut of his next movie (I’m not allowed to say much) and I think he only solidifies his greatness in it. But he does not deliver the Peter Parker from the comic-books. Webb doesn’t make him a goofy nerd like Raimi did. He makes him kind of a cool guy… way too cool for Peter Parker. And I respect a director’s artistic freedom but I don’t have to like it. There are a handful of excellent acting moments for Garfield but not once did I feel like I was watching him channeling Peter Parker.His Spider-Man is better at times than Tobey Maguire’s –more talkative and jokey, like in the comics- but at least Maguire’s entire portrayal of Spidey is consistent with his Peter Parker. And, as I’ll mention in a bit, re-watching the Sam Raimi version after Webb’s was an eye-opener. Unfortunately, we get a lot of Peter Parker not working for me and not a lot of Spider-Man. I didn’t hate the movie but I will never watch it again… unless someone pays me a lot of money.Marc Webb’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014)I saw this movie once, in theater, and swore I’d never watch it again. Obviously, I didn’t follow through on that promise, but as with Webb’s first, I feel confident saying I will definitely never revisit this movie unless paid large bags of cash. It’s not as terrible as I remember but it falls apart quickly in the final hour, with one really powerful scene toward the end that still kind of doesn’t make much sense. There were a lot of good actors in this movie doing their best… with poor execution to blame for it not working. Also, why is Peter Parker such a cool guy?! This is not Peter Parker! Oh, I already said this? Well, he’s even “cooler” in this movie.Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN (2002)I don’t know why but when I originally saw this movie, I didn’t love it. I remember having a long conversation with a friend about it after seeing it and I was down on a lot of the beats in the story. I imagine it was a moment-in-time type of thing but it shaped how I viewed the movie over the next 15 years. I’ve revisited once since but I don’t remember when and I don’t remember if I gave it a serious chance to change my mind at the time. And perhaps it is good I watched Marc Webb’s origin story of Spidey first, because this time… I found Raimi’s Spidey origin story terrific.Sure, there are little problems here and there with it –MJ is kind of stupid and nothing like the character in the comics; Aunt May’s “yellow eyes” moment is cringe-worthy; and there’s some theatrical acting in several scenes that doesn’t feel like it belongs in a movie- but overall it’s a knock-out origin story. Rewatching it, I was reminded of Donner’s SUPERMAN and the most recent (as of this review) WONDER WOMAN. All three movies are origin stories with earnest heroes… with directors not afraid to amplify the genuineness of their journeys. Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)This movie has remained one of my favorite comic-book movies since I saw it. Re-watching it, I feel it earned the praise it continues to receive. This movie has two villains, both who care about Peter on some level; a great Peter Parker; a wonderful arc for Spider-Man; a plot that builds until the final moments that pay off beautifully. This is a near-perfect emotional roadmap for any protagonist’s journey. All the performances are good to great; every character is developed well (even MJ, who was the one problem in the first); and the hero vs villains arc feels thought out and earned. The only flaws I can find are early in the movie and a few gags that don’t really work for me now (like the elevator scene when Spidey has started to lose his powers).Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007)This was a troubled production. Raimi was forced to put things into the movie he didn’t want and it shows. It’s too busy; the characters feel like they've overstayed their welcome; and the villains feel unfocused. Also, the Peter and MJ relationship is painfully annoying. There are some terrific scenes that likely would have been better if Raimi had been given more control, but it now stands as an example of Sony meddling too much. Jon Watts’ SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)Finally someone has made the comic-book version of Peter Parker AND Spider-Man! Raimi delivered a very good version of Peter Parker. Webb delivered a closer-to-the-comic version of Spider-Man than Raimi. But Watts and Tom Holland give us the best version of both. Even if the story doesn’t work as well as Raimi’s first two, it doesn’t matter since Watts (with many writers) sets the standard for all future Spider-Man movies with his version of the character.Sony has finally given up narrative control and it shows. This movie has the mark of Marvel all over it. There is just enough Tony Stark to not feel overwhelming. Peter’s school mates are mostly good to excellent. His best friend feels genuine and not forced. The jokes are, for the most part, solid and don’t feel tacked on. Spidey’s gadgets are fun. The high school story lines all feel like something you would have found in the comics. And the action is fun and exciting… save for one sequence that feels like a strobe-light of every bad modern-action sequence in every Transformers movie, but worse. Thankfully, it is the one blemish on this beautiful character piece that has, arguably, the best final line of any Spider-Man movie (and my favorite final post-credit scene… because it’s essentially meaningless but hilarious). Oh and the villain! Marvel gave us a good villain! Though, there is one story element about the villain I thought felt too… small-world for my taste. But otherwise, he was great.SummationSam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN and SPIDER-MAN 2, along with Jon Watts’ SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, are fantastic movies in the franchise. The other three? Thankfully I never have to watch them ever again. I’m officially retiring from those… unless someone pays me large bags of cash to watch them again.

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PunkaTess & GeekFurious discuss GAME OF THRONES Season 6 in its entirety and many other GOT and A Song of Ice and Fire topics. This episode was recorded June 28th, 2016. Due to problems in the edit, it was abandoned and never released... until now! Consider some opinions may have changed in a year but most of the opinions in this episode have not changed. Included below are notations of almost every major discussion and time of the discussion. Please share this podcast with your gramma because she doesn't understand how the Internet works.

RIGHT CLICK HERE & SAVE to download the MP3 for the AUDIO ONLY version and/or SUBSCRIBE VIA iTUNES!

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You can also "watch" the video version that is on YouTube below.

Note the times of the discussion are noted below for your convenience:

Position Name
00:00:00;00 June 2017 Intro to a June 2016 Recording
00:00:15;26 Introductions (28 June, 2016)
00:01:40;06 We talk about the books & specifically A Feast for Crows
00:03:55;22 The Winds of Winter story show vs book
00:05:09;07 What will the book do the show did?
00:07:17;27 What sucks about Season 6? A book reader perspective.
00:08:36;00 Hardcore loyalists in the book, traitors on the show
00:08:58;02 Lyanna Mormont
00:09:59;28 Lazy writing + viewer intellect = Best season ever
00:11:51;21 GRRM cares to not write the story dumb as fuck
00:12:27;27 Angry morons love bad writing
00:16:32;20 Battle of the Bastards works because it's not complicated
00:18:12;21 Show vs books vs story telling
00:19:44;08 Slaughter everyone
00:20:13;18 Season 6 finale music
00:21:49;11 Godfatheresque
00:22:34;07 CGI
00:28:35;07 THE REAL PROBLEMS WITH SEASON 6
00:30:44;05 Season 6 is D&D's YouPorn 30 second video
00:37:02;01 D&D once intended to stick to the books
00:38:02;15 Arya's Karate Kid training
00:38:39;24 Frey Pies
00:40:05;27 Yaddi Yadda the whole fuckin' thing
00:40:20;04 Best finale
00:40:26;04 Sansa plays Littlefinger
00:40:35;04 Male nudity & telling people how to create
00:46:44;24 Female directors?
00:48:56;10 The problem with GOT and D&D now
00:49:36;11 George RR Martin no longer writes for the show
00:50:31;00 George CUT THEM OFF
00:52:46;24 Meereenese Knot Yaddi Yadda
00:53:25;13 Take Your Time George
00:54:02;01 George loves the fans
00:54:28;26 Don't go to GRRM's house
00:55:24;10 Everyone wants a selfie
00:56:23;02 Anybody can take a screenshot of it
00:56:35;29 What happens when one of those friends doesn't like you anymore?
00:56:49;16 GAME OF THRONES Season 6 Episode by Episode Opinions
00:57:07;01 6.01 - The Red Woman
00:59:35;08 6.02 Home
01:02:46;22 6.01 and 6.02 Correction
01:04:17;23 We jump back to 6.02 Home
01:05:10;09 We don't need Arya's Luke training
01:05:39;21 Drunken Blind Master Shit
01:06:25;28 6.03 Oathbreaker
01:08:09;17 Fuck IMDB
01:08:20;08 6.04 Book of the Stranger
01:09:36;16 GRMM won't do this...
01:11:05;07 D&D try to create their own phrases
01:12:39;29 6.05 The Door
01:13:27;12 Euron's only good scene
01:13:44;16 Another mistake corrected
01:14:14;13 Show Kingsmoot makes no sense
01:15:12;13 Action sequence is cheesy
01:16:02;04 Terrible writing
01:16:12;18 D&D have to go on vacation so...
01:16:29;07 Sinister breathing
01:17:23;22 First Five Episodes
01:18:01;22 None of this will happen in the books... because George is not a cheesy little bitch
01:18:49;25 6.06 Blood of My Blood
01:19:02;15 Coldhands is not Benjen
01:20:12;22 Jon = Stannis and Young Griff
01:21:48;19 Sam's family
01:24:09;29 Queen of Thorns giving orders
01:25:40;10 Terrible extras vs good extras
01:27:42;01 6.07 The Broken Man
01:29:24;27 D&D have to go on vacation
01:29:48;06 6.08 No One (worst episode of the season)
01:30:34;10 Half great, half terrible
01:32:52;23 YouTube action scene
01:33:40;20 6.09 Battle of the Bastards
01:36:34;20 Stupid people think Jon is stupid
01:37:06;18 That's my brother!
01:37:19;11 There's no fuckin' logic in watching your brother die, you fucknuts
01:37:45;27 This is exactly within Jon's character in book & show
01:37:58;19 Blame Davos you dopes
01:38:35;03 PunkaTess goes nuts
01:41:26;21 Sansa's smile is dumb as shit
01:42:46;17 Season is fan service in between great acting
01:42:51;16 6.10 The Winds of Winter
01:43:13;05 OK, we're gonna make an effort on this one!
01:47:07;00 Book Jon would do the right thing
01:47:39;27 A very GRRM moment
01:48:43;24 R+L=J
01:52:27;19 Dragon riders
01:53:00;24 Dragon imprint
01:54:54;11 King in the North
01:56:26;00 Fan Service 101
01:57:29;02 Frey Pies
01:58:53;14 Hand of the Queen
02:00:03;03 D&D are brilliant and everything they do is amazing
02:00:53;28 Long may she reign... fuck
02:01:43;24 Arya and the Mad Queen
02:02:06;20 Jaime prediction
02:07:05;10 No rape, no pillage
02:09:24;27 Season rankings
02:10:32;11 GOODBYE!
02:10:38;14 "It's gonna come out in 2017" - Best Prediction
02:10:55;10 OUTTAKES

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| | | Not a self-portrait... |

There is a vast sea of podcasters, bloggers, YouTubers, and reporters covering the entertainment business who seem to not understand important basics of the business and topics they are covering.

There are simple things like the differences between a TV director's and film director's impact on the written material. Or a TV writer's vs film writer's power over the material. Or the control a TV executive producer has over their show vs the power a film executive producer has over anything. Not to mention the difference between a writers room show-runner vs a show-runner who mostly deals with the business side, and those who do both. Or how a film may have 200 producers credited who had virtually no creative input. Or how some writers are credited on a movie as a courtesy (for example, Empire Strikes Back and Guardians of the Galaxy each have a writer credited who had no input in the final screenplay). Or how McG gets his name onto everything, does nothing, and has one party at his mansion per year that everyone goes to because it's pretty jammin' and he gives cool SWAG. Or what a movie director actually does and how it is different from a TV director --plus when and why it doesn't apply. Or what a cinematographer is. Or why and when demanding a show "right its course" with a plot-line you don't enjoy is ridiculous when you should know all the episodes are in the can. Or what in the can means and why it matters to know such a thing.How do some wake up every morning and put out garbage content about a specific subject they claim to be passionate about (say Marvel, Lucasfilm, or Pixar movies) but make virtually no effort to understand the business side of, yet comment on with confidence (like thinking Disney runs day-to-day operations at Marvel, or Lucasfilm, or Pixar, and dictates the creative process)? Are they afraid of finding out facts because facts stall the creative process if fictionalizing news? Because too many cover the entertainment business as if it exists only in their mind. Sadly, most people who read, watch, or listen to these individuals think they're an authority on an industry they cover so extensively and incorrectly. And they disseminate that lack of knowledge all over the Internet as if it is fact because lazy reporter #587 said it. For example, the consistent notion of "new Star Wars canon" or "Disney Star Wars" when it's just Lucasfilm canon now made official, instead of the nebulous "hey, is this canon?" fans had prior to Kathleen Kennedy taking over the company. A story canon Disney doesn't have any vast input in creating nor running, yet somehow reporters who make actual human money to understand the business say "Disney canon" or "Disney's Star Wars" with shocking and embarrassing confidence even though everything we've ever heard about it, and the company as a whole, is Kennedy runs it and Lucasfilm creative types control it without Disney interference --and before you scream "you have to be stupid to think Disney doesn't have input," I said "interference" not "input." As I parenthetically mentioned earlier, the same applies to Marvel and Pixar.Look, I understand if a reporter covers 200 subjects per day and doesn't know the day-to-day operations of a company, but if someone's entire channel, blog, website, or podcast is dedicated to covering the inner workings of Coca Cola, you would be fair to expect the individual covering it would not utilize the Pepsi Co playbook for running Taco Bell in America to determine how Coca Cola markets Fanta in Germany. Yet people think it's fine if a whole passion project analyzes its foundation based on how someone feels it might work? When a few minutes on Google (you should check it out, it's an amazing search tool) would illuminate more accurate information. Why not just, I don't know... make an effort? It would assist analysis a great deal and make the article seem smart and accurate. Or is that the point, to not make an effort so it seems anyone can do it so modern reporting can speed up the death of journalism?I haven't even touched on things some clearly don't understand on any level, such as studio marketing decisions, but comment on them as if they had post-graduate degrees and/or professional experience in the field. "Why haven't Disney and Lucasfilm put out a teaser for 'The Last Jedi' yet," some shouted from the rooftops of their entertainment sites, 9-months before the movie's release. "Where is the WONDER WOMAN overhype?! IT MAKES NO SENSE!" some just recently screamed, as if Warner Brothers marketing is sitting there going "look, sure we spent hundreds of millions on this but we're just going to let it tank because we have an anti-feminism agenda." So you truly think the WB marketing department is out to get DC for being too progressive? Have you considered they have a plan that is better than yours? Did people lose their minds when JOHN WICK didn't put out a trailer until weeks before it was released? Few even knew about the movie. And it over performed. Or how many of these know-it-alls came up with the DEADPOOL marketing strategy that ended up delivering one of the biggest comic-book hits ever?

Simple answer is, none of them. Because most don't know anything. Not because they can't know anything, but because they're too lazy to research, collect, absorb, and analyze actual information pertaining to the business they cover and claim to understand. Hell, the fact I even mention their laziness will elevate their self-preservation instinct and make them resist the entire notion of MAKING AN EFFORT until eventually the entire collective of ignorance will convince itself not knowing anything is a good thing.

There are fantastic entertainment reporters, bloggers, and fans running passion-sites who make the effort and deliver solid material on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, it seems they are becoming unicorns in a sea of content roaches... scrambling to deliver anything to feed the swarm.

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| | | Beautiful; brilliant; dark; LOA is back! |

I'm a music lover who thinks lyrics matter least. I'm first and foremost about the vocal melody, then the vocals, then the music, and last the lyrics. That is, except for two bands: TOOL and Life of Agony. And with no new TOOL anywhere on the immediate horizon, I'm tackling the brand spankin' new Life of Agony... a band that was #3 on my top 20 metal albums list (for A River Runs Red) oh so many years ago.

The new album is "A Place Where There's No More Pain" and time has come for me to listen and rank it.

So how do I rank albums? I listen to each song TEN TIMES before writing my reaction, then move to the next track. Then, after listening to the whole album and writing the review for each individual song, I go back and listen to the album as a whole to get a feel for how it all fits. I judge each song on a scale of 0 to 100. Then total up the song scores to determine an overall score.

So, here we go!

1. Meet My Maker: Kicks right off with groovy guitars and vocals that is a mix of Alice in Chains and... well, there's something Sepultura about it. The vocal melody is catchy and the chorus works. As an introduction to this album, I'm happy! 85 out of 100

2. Right This Wrong: Another inspired-by Alice in Chains feel, with a killer groove and a short chorus. It's haunting and reminds me a bit of the cooler stuff James Hetfield was doing with vocals on Metallica's Load/Reload. Even the lead feels very much from that era. 83 out of 100

3. A Place Where There's No More Pain: It's got a hardcore pop feel (if that's a thing, if not, I think Life of Agony invented it). Catchy as hell. Under 3 minutes. A classic (post River Runs Red) Life of Agony song. I want to make hot dirty sexy rip-away-at-skin love with/to this song. 98 out of 100

4. Dead Speak Kindly: Haunting; creepy; grungy; with a sudden chorus that pulls you out of a happy drowning. It's the type of song you can have on all day and will take you from low to high like the best of Alice in Chains (yep, I've said it again). About halfway it changes up and the vocal melody turns even catchier and the guitars... happier? This song is not happy but it makes me happy. 92 out of 100

5. A New Low: Goes from a haunting vocal melody over a pounding bass to fast paced guitars, drums, and chorus before slowing down again. Of the first five songs, this one feels the most like their early 90s stuff. I can already hear a lot of old-school LOA fans saying this is the best on the album. 90 out of 100

6. World Gone Mad: Starts fast-heavy; shifts to an energizing chorus; back to more hardcore phrasing; then delivers a short little chorus-lead. Life of Agony knows how to make the most out of very little and gets in and out in just about 3 minutes. Nearly perfect. 95 out of 100

7. Bag of Bones: changes from slow to fast to mid-tempo throughout with very good vocal melodies. It's not my favorite & suffers slighty, grading wise, for sounding a lot like a song from Broken Valley. I won't mention which song so as not to inject that thought in your mind and ruin it for you! See? I'm cool like that. 85 out of 100

8. Walking Catastrophe: I love what they do with the vocals here. The way this song starts it could be a nice homage to 90s grunge but suddenly Caputo shifts the vocals to a near-80s rock anthem. "I didn't think it through, I wanted more for you... walking catastrophe." It's an infectious 3 minutes 30 seconds. 96 out of 100

9. Song for the Abused: Begins like something Depeche Mode could have written in the 80s. It doesn't stay there, though. Kicks in for a fast paced hardrock anthem before slowing down again... and slowly builds up again, then drives toward a passionate cry. "YOU BRING OUT! THE WORST IN ME!" No, LOA, you bring out the best in me. First time I listened I enjoyed it a lot. By the 10th time, I was out of my mind jumping around my room, broken ribs and all. I don't care. Bones heal. Music steals your soul! If you don't like this kind of song, oh well... then I consider myself lucky to have been randomly generated with these ears, not yours. 97 out of 100

10. Little Spots of You: The album ends on a piano. It's beautiful. Quiet. Sad. Crushing. When I went back and listened to the whole album in one shot, this song hit even harder. What a way to go. "Little spots of you, dripping down the tub..." 95 out of 100

TOTAL SCORE: 91.6 out of 100

"A Place Where There's No More Pain" is full of everything I shamelessly adore about Life of Agony: Caputo's beautifully pained vocals; gorgeous melodies; grungy to groovy to hardcore riffings; melodic and heavy songs; and lyrics about the suffering of the abused. It's all there, except the band somehow feels more energized now, in their mid 40s, than they did in their 20s and 30s, if that's possible considering they've always given everything to every performance (you need to see them live to appreciate Caputo's twisting and writhing on stage as if every ounce of her is in the music).

Is this album a classic? No clue. Talk to me in 10 years... but I dig EVERY SINGLE TRACK. I haven't been this happy with a release by a band from my younger alcohol-hazy days since Anthrax's Worship Music... and that ended up as my #1 of 2011. This is at least likely going to be near the top of the 2017 list.

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Jess & Magnus discuss GAME OF THRONES episode 6.05 "The Door" and the first half of season 6 as well as how it all relates to the books and whether the show runners are doing a good job translating genius for the masses. Potentially awful audio.

RIGHT CLICK HERE & SAVE to download the MP3 for the AUDIO ONLY version and/or SUBSCRIBE VIA iTUNES!

You can also click below to play the audio podcast from this page.

You can also "watch" the video version that is on YouTube below.

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Two episodes of KOR that I never posted on the blog. First is with Jess where we talked about tons of stuff. Second is with Babydoll. Enjoy!

Knights of Outer Ren 3 - Game of Avatar Thrones

Jess and Magnus talk about AVATAR, GAME OF THRONES, STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE teaser, the editing process, and more. Times kind of noted below?

RIGHT CLICK HERE & SAVE to download the MP3.

SUBSCRIBE VIA iTUNES!

Show Notes:
AMC backs off texting in theaters * 4 AVATAR Sequels announced * Rogue One teaser is... okay? * Shows we've been watching? * The importance of editors * 54 minutes in*, GAME OF THRONES discussion with potential MAJOR season 6 spoilers * Brief outtake at end

Knights of Outer Ren 4 - GAME OF THRONES Season 6 Predictions with Babydoll

Babydoll (Liz) and GeekFurious (Magnus) give their season 6 predictions for GAME OF THRONES and discuss the series as a whole. There are DEFINITELY SPOILERS.

RIGHT CLICK HERE & SAVE to download the MP3 for the AUDIO ONLY version and/or SUBSCRIBE VIA iTUNES!

You can also watch the video version that is on YouTube below.

NOTICE

THERE ARE OUTTAKES AT THE END!

You can also click below to play the audio podcast from this page.

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I never posted these two podcasts on this blog... and though I know no one reads this blog anymore, but I wanted to have it here... as a historical record of my time on the planet. ;)

KNIGHTS OF OUTER REN - EPISODE 1: Before THE FORCE AWAKENS

In this episode, @GeekFurious, @JoaquinSlowly, @johnny_grasso14, @supervillainist, @thisginger_kt, @Thrawnkill, @Trooper_5, and @Meselyn talk about a world before THE FORCE AWAKENS and how everyone was introduced to Star Wars; their favorite character; their ranking of the movies; expectations of THE FORCE AWAKENS; and we predict the first day and first weekend box office for the new movie in this epic saga.

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0:00:00 Start
0:00:30 Podcast intro
0:01:52 Crew intro
0:03:34 Describe your introduction to Star Wars
0:17:01 Favorite Star Wars character
0:24:35 List favorite to least favorite of the six movies
0:35:19 Anticipation of THE FORCE AWAKENS before seeing it
0:49:21 TFA box office predictions: first day and opening weekend
0:57:12 End of regular podcast
0:57:21 Outtakes begin
1:08:13 SILENCE!

KNIGHTS OF OUTER REN - EPISODE 2: After THE FORCE AWAKENS

In this episode, @GeekFurious, @JoaquinSlowly, @johnny_grasso14, @supervillainist, @thisginger_kt, @Thrawnkill, @Trooper_5, @IndianaJedi and @Meselyn talk about seeing THE FORCE AWAKENS, their reactions to seeing the movie and other exciting things. Then the group discusses their TOP 3 moments in the movie. There are also some interesting discussions and outtakes at the end worth checking out.

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0:00:00 Podcast Starts
0:00:32 Intro
0:09:26 Talking THE FORCE AWAKENS
0:43:35 Top 3 List Intro
0:44:35 Top 3 Characters
1:17:41 Top 3 Scenes
1:55:47 Top 3 Quotes
2:04:19 Top 3 Musical Moments
2:12:08 Top 3 Ships
2:16:14 Goodbyes
2:16:30 OUTTAKES
2:40:13 It all ends here

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In this episode, Magnus, Jared, JOHNNY GRASSO & Katie analyze THE FORCE AWAKENS trailer.

Times & discussions noted below.

Press play below to listen now. Or RICK CLICK AND SAVE the MP3 file to your computer. Or, better yet, SUBSCRIBE TO THE ITUNES FEED and have it automatically downloaded to all your precious devices!

But first, you can WRITE IN to our email & ask us questions and comments and we will read them on the next episode!

0:00:00 INTRO SONG

0:01:08 EVERYONE GIVES A GENERAL REACTION TO THE TRAILER

0:22:17 SCENE BY SCENE ANALYSIS

1:40:50 JOHNNY GRASSO BLOWS OUR MINDS

1:46:05 RATING THE TRAILER

1:49:58 OUTTAKES BEGIN

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In this episode, Magnus, Jared, and JOHNNY GRASSO are joined by Katie to talk about THE FORCE AWAKENS trailer rumors and New York City Comic Con, and other things. Times & discussions noted below.

Press play below to listen now. Or RICK CLICK AND SAVE the MP3 file to your computer. Or, better yet, SUBSCRIBE TO THE ITUNES FEED and have it automatically downloaded to all your precious devices!

You can WRITE IN to our email & ask us questions and comments and we will read them on the next episode!

0:00:00 INTRO SONG

0:00:35 OPENING

0:03:26 TFA TRAILER TALK

0:13:42 JJ HAS FINAL CUT

0:15:13 STAR WARS LEGENDS AND CANON

0:20:41 OVERHYPING THE FORCE AWAKENS

0:21:33 JJ'S TREK

0:25:36 PODCASTS WE'VE BEEN LISTENING TO

0:32:46 JOHNNY GRASSO GOES TO NEW YORK CITY COMIC CON

0:36:45 "we need you to Kamino the shit out of this podcast"

0:40:24 JOHNNY MEETS AHSOKA & FILONI

0:46:48 LISTENER E-MAILS

1:05:16 END OF PODCAST

1:05:22 OUTTAKES

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In this episode, Magnus & Jared are joined by Johnamarie Macias & JOHNNY GRASSO to discuss a million things. Also, Katie appears in the outtakes... times & discussions noted below.

Press play below to listen now. Or RICK CLICK AND SAVE the MP3 file to your computer. Or, better yet, SUBSCRIBE TO THE ITUNES FEED and have it automatically downloaded to all your precious devices!

0:00:00 PODCAST STARTS
0:00:13 INTRO
0:03:32 OUR FAVORITE PODCASTS
0:04:36 JOHNA FORGETS SHE HAS A PODCAST or 12
0:06:51 JOHNNY GRASSO TALKS ABOUT ALL PODCASTS
0:07:39 JARED TALKS PODCASTS
0:08:40 MAGNUS TALKS PODCASTS & ATTACKS THE JEDI COUNCIL
0:13:42 DISMISSIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD "YOUNG ADULT" MATERIAL
0:16:12 "LOST STARS" & "AFTERMATH"
0:18:44 JOHNNY TALKS AHSOKA ROMANCE
0:22:06 JOHNNY BRINGS UP KENOBI ROMANCE
0:23:24 JOHNNY INTERRUPTS A GREAT DISCUSSION WITH FOOD
0:24:30 JOHNNY POSITS A ROMANCE THEORY ABOUT YODA
0:25:34 JARED WINS ANALOGY OF THE DECADE
0:27:45 QUI-GON'S DICK MOVE
0:33:34 TALKING STAR WARS "ANTHOLOGY"
0:37:11 CONSPIRACY!!!
0:42:11 DOES GEORGE LUCAS GET TOO MUCH CREDIT?
0:44:05 JARED GOES FULL NERD
0:44:52 JOHNA TALKS NY FILM FESTIVAL
0:46:11 GEORGE CUT THE BEST SCENES FROM AOTC
0:48:19 JOHNNY TOUCHES PADME AND ANAKIN
0:50:43 WHERE YOU SLEEPING, ANAKIN?
0:51:34 ORIGINAL OT CUT ON BLU-RAY?
0:52:40 PROWSE ALMOST KILLED A MAN
0:55:39 JOHNNY GRASSO LOVES AHMED BEST
1:01:42 WORRIES AND ANTICIPATIONS FOR FUTURE MOVIES
1:10:09 MAGNUS THROWS SHADE ON HAN
1:16:08 JOHNNY TAKES DOWN MAGNUS
1:19:57 EXCLUSIVE FULL TFA TRAILER ANNOUNCEMENT!
1:21:36 STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT
1:23:22 GOODBYES
1:28:09 OUTTAKES!

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@GeekFurious (Magnus) and Jared aka @JoaquinSlowly discuss Clone Wars, Rebels, and Star Wars in general plus other members of the fandom etc.

This recording was nearly 3 hours long. The final cut is a lot less than that. Unfortunately, tons of good discussions died on the editing-room floor. Also, GeekFurious is a loudmouth! But the mic was low and Jared is louder. Enjoy the music in the background... it prevents me from uploading this to YouTube.

TIMES OF DISCUSSIONS NOTED BELOW! YOU ARE WELCOME!

Press play below to listen or RIGHT CLICK HERE & SAVE AS to download!

00:00 INTRO
00:22 Peeps start talking about stuff
12:40 Feminism & racism discussion
14:48 Clone Wars discussion starts
17:58 Rebel Grrrl
20:54 Big awkward cut to some discussion about war
22:06 Geek's biggest problem with the Clone Wars
23:50 GeekFurious says the most shocking thing of all time
26:05 An outrageously shocking statement made about the prequels
27:22 Where dis conflict at yo?
30:28 Jared wants to kill GeekFurious
34:03 THE INTERNET LOSES ITS SHIT
35:44 Death of the prequels
36:03 GeekFurious hates Jar-Jar for the hits
36:12 GeekFurious loves Jar-Jar for the hits
37:12 1978 talk
39:09 Jared accidentally discovers the prequels suck (for the hits)
42:35 We finally remember to say something about Ahsoka
43:46 Qui-Gon RULES!
46:59 Simon Pegg talk
47:34 awkward edit into discussion about being a successful loser
48:32 Why there will be no post-credit teaser for ROGUE ONE after TFA
52:26 "JJ don't want no 'Rogue One' teaser!"
52:50 Jared figures it all out
56:36 METAL!

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Jessica and Magnus discuss season 5 of GAME OF THRONES and how it compares to other seasons... and some book discussions related to that.

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HORRIBLE AUDIO WARNING - we should have tested this recording... it's not worth listening to but if you ignore this warning then... Jess & Magnus return for the first time in three years to discuss GAME OF THRONES... episode 5.04... Sons of the Harpy... and, at the end, talk possible, theoretical, major spoilers (but you will be warned).

Click below to play or RIGHT CLICK HERE to save as an mp3.

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VladyGG & GeekFurious talk about the brand new Star Wars teaser... first part is non-spoilery & the second half (around 23:33) is a spoiler discussion related to each scene.

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH the video version.

RIGHT CLICK & SAVE BELOW to download the mp3 audio.

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH the awesome teaser trailer.

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TVLine: "There was a feeling in [the S5 finale] that the characters are growing up and reaching their natural end point with Annie contemplating marriage and Auggie leaving the CIA. Would you be happy if this was the ending?"

Chris Ord: "No, we wouldn't be happy. We want the show to continue." (Via TVLine)

Well, Covert Crew, we are now living our Darkest Timeline. And sadly, it's the only timeline we're gonna get.

As an expensive (for USA) & aging show with declining ratings, I don’t think anyone was expecting Covert Affairs to go more than another season. Two would be an absolute miracle. But given that White Collar, a show NOT produced by UCP, was granted a short final season by USA, I think we all expected at least that much for Covert Affairs as well - if not a bit more, given that unlike WC, CA is owned in-house.

Given the situation, I was prepared to be bummed by the shitty season 6 renewal scenario we were about to get. I think most of us were. But what I was absolutely NOT prepared for was to find out that we would get nothing. Literally nothing at all. I was really really really not prepared to find out that the cliffhanger we saw last month would be IT. Forever and ever. Eternity. Never will we find out any of the following:
* Will Annie go back to the CIA? * Will Annie marry McQuaid? * Will Auggie get bored and annoyed with Tash after a few months and come begging Joan for his old job back? * What in the name of The Holy Puma will Annie do about her heart condition? Is it fixable through surgery or does she have to live with it forever? How life-threatening is it? * Will Sydney live? * Will McQuaid’s dead wife eventually rise like a zombie from the grave? Is Annie destined to live her life in a nightmarish Groundhog Day sitch of boyfriend after boyfriend's respective dead exes rising from the dead repeatedly on a continuous loop? * Will Annie & Auggie ever find their way back to each other romantically? * Does Danielle still exist or did she trip and fall off the Golden Gate bridge shortly after arriving in San Francisco in early season 3? * What college will Baby Mack attend? * Did Barber stick with his kale diet? * WHAT IN THE HOLY GODDAMN HELL HAPPENED IN THE BALKANS!?

Here is the answer to ALL of those questions folks:

Yup. And the thing is, I really blame no one for my current pain and suffering more than Magnus a.k.a. Head Geek Furious himself. That's right. It’s his fault I ever considered watching this damn show to begin with.

When Covert Affairs first premiered, I was angry at it. Like literally as angry as I am about the existence of Katherine Heigl’s stupid shitty spy show right now. To me it looked like nothing more than a generic Alias rip-off starring that ditzy blonde from Coyote Ugly. Piper Puh-RAB-o?? Who the hell does she think she is?? And just to add insult to injury, this show gave its lead character the name WALKER!? Really?? Do the people at USA not even watch their big sister network’s shows at all?? AGENT SARAH WALKER IS THE ONLY FEMALE AGENT WALKER I WILL EVER CARE ABOUT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

But then Magnus had to go and write this gat-damn review of “Sound and Vision” in season 3. Chuck had recently finished airing by that point. It was summertime and I was getting bored with most shows being on hiatus. So I thought, fine, maybe this dumb Covert show has improved since it first aired. Let me try it out. So I caught a replay of 3.02 on USA. And it was ... pretty aiight! Nothing mind-blowing, but decent enough. It didn't hook me in immediately, but it was entertaining enough for me to consider it the next time I was feeling extra bored on a summer night (Note: Obviously I realized later that 3.02 is indeed a great ep once you actually know who the characters are.)

Then a few weeks went by. I kinda forgot about it. I caught like 20 minutes of ep 3.06 while on vacay in a hotel room as I was about to go to bed. Then immediately upon returning from that vacay, I learned that my 33 year-old friend Jaspreet had cancer. Like, BAD cancer. Weird, random, aggressive cancer. We were work buddies but we were close and had just finished a very stressful project together. We were kinda like foxhole buddies after that. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple months because we had both just gotten new jobs in other departments within the company. I went to her house to visit her. She looked more ill than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life and she was in horrible pain 24/7. She was already in liver failure. Her mom and sister had flown in from India. My other friend Crystal and I chased after her 2 year-old son who had no idea what was going on and was undergoing (quite understandably) not-quite-100% supervision while the family raced against the clock to try to save his mother’s life.

Before Crystal & I left the house, Jaspreet’s mom begged us desperately to pray for her with everything we had. She pleaded tearfully that she could not bear to lose her 33 year-old daughter in the prime of her life. I’m no medical expert, but I could see that my friend’s situation was extremely grim, so to say that this moment was heartbreaking-slash-gutwrenching would be the understatement of my life. I drove home and sat on my couch for hours and stared at the wall in complete shock, feeling traumatized in a different way than I had on any of the rather oddly frequent other occasions that I’ve lost family and close friends to tragedy. Possibly because it was the first time one of these situations truly gave me the “this could JUST as easily be me" feeling of how cruel life can be, just picking people off at complete and utter random.

That was Friday, August 31st. September 4th was the following Tuesday (thanks to my email inbox and Wikipedia for these dates), and I was at home after work surfing the web and catching up on emails. I grabbed the TV remote and flipped through the channels at maybe like 5 minutes after 10pm, and saw that Covert Affairs was on. So I flipped it on there to provide some background noise while I was on my computer. But I found that as the hour progressed, my attention was drawn more and more to Covert and less to my computer. As Auggie pinned the mic on Annie’s blouse in the surveillance van and refused her request for an H2H, I thought, “Huh. This feels foreboding.” As Annie and Simon were chased by security through the mall, I was drawn in further. As Auggie pressed Annie for what the hell had happened when she purposely smashed that mic, and about whether she was in love with Simon, I was drawn in further still. And by the time “Blowers Daughter” began to play, I was absolutely fucking glued to my TV screen. As Lena walked into the kitchen, I thought, “Oh shit she’s gonna arrest them for trying to make a run for it; Annie’s gonna be in big trouble now.”

If you watch the series from the beginning, you can see that Covert Affairs’ dark turn began with the one-two punch of Jai’s car blowing up + Annie jumping into that shower with Simon, who was nothing more than a very dangerous mission at the time. But the darkness didn’t officially throw its own glorious coming out party until Lena Smith walked into that kitchen, black boots first and gun blazing. The idea that this (as far as I knew at the time) fluffy little spy show would suddenly murder its spunky blonde lead and her boyfriend violently in her own kitchen at the hands of her boss was both shocking and quite impressive in just how much it had thrown me for a loop.

It’s natural to immerse yourself in fiction when real life feels too shitty. Many people go straight for the happy feel-good stuff to brighten their mood. I have a friend who had a very rough childhood (and adulthood even) who is physically incapable of watching any movies other than Disney cartoons and very light heartwarming fare. I, on the other hand, tend to do the exact opposite. I enjoy darker grittier fare even when I’m in a great mood, but when I’m in a bad mood, I sometimes tend to turn to it even more so. I mean look, obviously Covert never had any intention of becoming gritty anywhere near a SOA or GoT level. But what intrigued me was the fact that its showrunners had taken the conscious risk to change their show up very significantly, smack dab in the middle of its run. THAT is a rare thing in television. And yes, it also made me oddly giddy to see that this plucky lil’ novice spy gal was about to be corrupted permanently and taken on a much rockier path. Life experience makes you a more interesting person, right? "Glass Spider" made me realize that this show was letting Annie progress from milquetoast into someone I’d actually like to watch on my TV screen.

Jaspreet died on October 4th at age 33 after only having first gotten sick on like, Memorial Day weekend. Barely more than 4 months total. Her funeral was on Oct 6th. I felt really, really shitty about it all, to put it mildly. Once again Covert Affairs came back to provide a welcome life-escape for me with its fall season a week or so later with “Rock ‘n Roll Suicide”. Prior to that, in the middle of the real-life shitstorm (mid-Sept), “Let’s Dance” had aired, and it was the crack hit that fully cemented my addiction. It also may still be my favorite ep of this series.

The show took risks in season 4 to try to up the ante, and we know it stumbled through a lot of that. Unfortunately I think those stumbles lost it the modest amount of critical good will that it had finally started to gain in season 3. And once you lose it, especially when you didn’t have it to begin with (i.e. in seasons 1 & 2), it’s virtually impossible to get it back. And critical attention is a huge factor in gaining attention from general audiences.

And then of course we have the fact that Covert Affairs was an entirely different TV show in seasons 4 & 5 than it was in seasons 1 & 2. How do you convince the world of that? This is another nearly impossible feat, and the only way to achieve it would be through great promotion and marketing. Covert Affairs, sadly, got none of that. USA Network continued to promote it the same lame idiotic way in season 5 as they did in season 1 – “Spunky blond spy in skimpy outfits and heels!!” Just ... uggh. No. WRONG, USA. FAIL.

So here we are. And what I’m left with now is that the absolute only thought process that can make me feel better about this is to assume the show would’ve sucked in season 6 anyway, hence we’re not really missing much. Of course you'd hope that wouldn't be the case, but it’s entirely possible that USA would have forced these guys to slash their budget, stop doing the foreign shoots, maybe even make creative changes, who the hell knows. Chuck fans watched that show lose its ENTIRE original writing staff (other than the showrunners) between seasons 3 and 4 as NBC dragged its feet on renewing it. We watched as budget cuts forced characters to be cut and major story elements (like the Buy More scenes) to be reduced. We saw the impacts the unpredictable episode orders (13 eps! Oh wait here’s a back 6! Here’s a couple extra!) took on its quality (coupled with its turnover in writing staff). Community fans watched as that show’s showrunner was fired in a misguided attempt to make the show more mainstream, and it resulted in the show becoming a creepy bizarro shell of its former self. It was an utter miracle that NBC/Sony realized the error of their ways and re-hired Dan Harmon for S5, only to finally cancel it at season’s end (still to return on Yahoo! but with half its actors gone).

My point is, many times you have to ask yourself, what kind of zombie version of my favorite TV show am I willing to live with? Would I want to see it continue in a weird hollow half-ass form? It’s quite possible that these are the questions Matt Corman and Chris Ord have had to ask themselves in these past couple months for Covert Affairs. Maybe they made the decision that they didn’t want to continue the show unless they could do it right, and in that hypothetical scenario, I agree with their decision wholeheartedly, even if it means we have to live with eternal cliffhangers.

And as for those cliffhangers, I will add: I have never once, throughout this entire process, felt annoyed with the showrunners for their decision to take the risk and end season 5 this way. And that is because ending the series on a cliffhanger is still FAR preferable to me than doing some rush job to try to close an entire series out with only 6 or 8 eps’ notice. While I’m still extremely pissed at USA for cutting us off mid-funk, I actually respect the writers for keeping the story at the pace it needed to be at to remain believable, no matter what.

But I’m immensely fuckin' bummed it had to come to premature cancellation at all. I’m constantly disappointed that female-driven shows, particularly when they are action-oriented shows, seem to have to fight such an uphill battle to get noticed and respected by wide audiences. I’m pissed that a lady action show’s audience potential seems to always be cut drastically from a male-driven action show’s audience, because so many dudes write it off as “chick stuff”. The only way this type of show seems to be able to transcend this barrier is when it gets HUGE critical acclaim, a la Homeland, pre-suckage. I can’t tell if I just have a complex when I theorize that IMDB and Amazon user/buyer ratings almost cannot physically ascend past a certain level when the movie or TV show is female-driven. Am I insane? Because I constantly notice it and am endlessly annoyed by it. At least I can keep myself warm with the knowledge that Catching Fire was the highest-grossing movie (domestic) of 2013. Progress?

Uggh. Maybe in the end it’s somewhat fitting that Covert Affairs, a show that gave us such constant storyline blueballs (what was the pill addiction about, what happened in The Balkans, where did Annie’s PTSD go?), has now ended its entire series run by leaving its audience with – what else? – a MASSIVE case of a blueballs.

C’est la vie. Au revoir Covert Affairs. I will miss you hardcore, Annie Walker & team. And USA Network, go fuck yourselves. I didn’t watch you before Covert Affairs and I won’t watch you afterward. I don’t care if Playing House made me laugh that one time I caught it by accident. I’m sure as hell not gonna invest myself in another one of your shows now that I know how this story ends - prematurely. No thanks.

p.s. If the question of “Whatever happened to that steamer trunk key??” still keeps you up at night, I have great news - I caught it on an episode of Portlandia during last year’s winter hiatus. I’m so glad it found a good home. Or some kind of home, at least.

p.p.s. To Piper PER-abo: I now know how to pronounce your name and I now love you. Fuck the haters who still make jokes about the Golden Globe thing (I used to be one of them). You are awesome and I hope you get that one key role you need to get the damn respect you deserve in Hollywood. (Note: I love Chris too but I was already a bit more familiar with him when I started watching Covert, so it didn’t require any sort of “revelation” for me to realize his charms).

I'll end this with a virtual toast, Covert Crew. To Jaspreet, whose death set my brain on a strange and unexpected path that may only now be ending ... to us, to what we each loved about Covert Affairs, to heart explosions, to Barber's tattoos, to Joan's pills, to Seth's swampy flash drive, to Henry's goatee, to Eyal's smoldering hotness, and of course, to blueballs. Adios Neshamas and I’ll see y'alls on Twitter. Oh and please, by all means, feel free to vent in the comments here, sans-140-character limit.

The Plopper

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[INSERT AWESOME BANNER HERE... ehh screw it]Last year I wrote an extensive list of my favorite, and least favorite, of 2013… and then never posted it. Why? Because.Anyway, these are my favorite things of 2014… they may not be yours. That’s cool. I don’t like things so you’ll think I’m awesome. I like them because no one else is going to enjoy my life more than me.
TELEVISIONHalf-Hour ShowsBLUESTONE 42 – This is MASH in Afghanistan but with Brits and they’re not doctors but a bomb disposal unit. This show doesn’t wimp out on content, context, humor, or crudeness. It is as adult oriented as anything on HBO. It also tackles subjects American comedies would shit their pants thinking about. Thanks go to an Australian for suggesting I watch it.BROOKLYN NINE-NINE – I loved this one last year and this year is no different. If anything, it’s getting better. As with all the shows on my list, the casting director did a brilliant job hiring the best actors for the job. I am glad to see this one doing well enough in its new slot that it will likely get another season (and once you get a third, a fourth is pretty much in the bag).COMMUNITY – After the horrible 4th season… holy hell that was terrible… Dan Harmon returned to make an EPIC SEASON! Thank the gods.THE GOLDBERGS – I am not a nostalgic person but I grew up in the 80s and remember that decade very well. So when I heard a show about the 80s was happening, I had mild interest, but enough of it to check it out. Glad I did. It’s to me what “The Wonder Years” (a show about the 60s) must have been to people my age back in the late 80s. The cast is brilliant. The writing is fun and touching. It’s a perfect reminder of why people are still stuck on the 80s today. It was one of the most influential decades in modern times… and is still shaping films, shows, comics, and books we enjoy today.LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JON OLIVER – Comedy Central is probably kicking and screaming knowing they missed out on this cat as the replacement for Stephen Colbert. Sure, the show still, at times, feels like it’s trying to figure itself out, but most of the time it is dropping nukes all over the dipshit nature of scumbags who use and abuse the system. Sure, it’s a comedy show, but it’s more relevant as a news source than most of the cable “news” services out there.INSIDE AMY SCHUMER – This human is my kind of feminist.KEY & PEELE – I feel like these guys are only getting better. Bring on season 4!RICK AND MORTY – Dan Harmon can do no wrong! Well, unless you’re a studio/network executive.VEEP – It’s probably going to be on here every year until they quit making it.YOU’RE THE WORST – A friend kept telling me about this show and I dismissed its potential because of the promos. I only checked it out because I heard Janet Varney was in it, and she’s my jam. Turns out it’s a killer show with instant chemistry between pretty much all the actors. The writing is sharp and funny. Also, the story telling is (for the most part) believable. This is how people with these personality issues behave. I’ve known a few of them… and this show nails it. Not to mention it deals with a soldier suffering from PTSD in hilarious ways… without mocking the problem.Hour-Long ShowsCOSMOS: A SPACETIME ODDYSEY – My greatest love is space; time; physics; science in general. If only I was smarter, or had more of a drive to work my ass off, I’d be a physicist of some kind. This show is the foundation of my very being! And I’ve watched each and every episode more than a dozen times. Having also watched the original many times, I can confidently state that Neil deGrasse Tyson paid the greatest respect to his hero, Carl Sagan. It is also my favorite single season series of the century.GAME OF THRONES – Even though I felt season 4 had some missteps in story telling (something I didn’t feel watching the first three), it also had some of the most powerful and heartbreaking moments of the television season. Hell, just the battles in episode 9 alone were worth the price of HBO for a year! And then there are the one-on-one fights in episodes 8 and 10 respectively. Dear Lord of Light! Probably the two best fights in the history of history!THE LEFTOVERS – It took several episodes before this one got things going but once it did… I was looking forward to each and every episode. It’s also one of the few shows I’m really looking forward to seeing next season.TRUE DETECTIVE – Just when you thought HBO couldn’t create another epic show, they did. The story telling was nearly perfect, with hints to the solution of the mystery early on (you can look for them online if you like). I won’t say too much since there are several twists along the way, but what I loved most is that the ending wasn’t about those twists… just about the end of a journey. And I still maintain that’s what endings should be about… not answering questions. If you didn’t answer questions before the final ten minutes of your series (and since each season is going to be independent of the other, then I consider this a series finale for these characters), then you’re likely going to tell a shitty ending if you try to fit those answers into the final scenes.FARGO – While I do think this received overpraise, it also received earned praise. I want to see more shows like this and TRUE DETECTIVE, where there is a self-contained story every season. That was the original intent for HEROES but they got scared and couldn’t see a way to abandoned beloved characters… and in doing so, ruined the show.ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK – I liked this season a lot more than I liked last season… and I did like last season a good deal (well, half the episodes). This season was more consistently good than season 1, and also used less cheesy cheats to tell the story (though that ending is ridiculously convenient).OUTLANDER – This show makes my list because I enjoyed the style of storytelling and I think there are some terrific performances. Plus, I am a softy for Ronald D. Moore projects.
BEST ACTING – TVI don’t split categories by male and female performances. That’s stupid. You don’t see “best male director” or “best female writer” categories. Why do we still split actors up when handing out awards? Anyway… I will, however, split them by half-hour and hour-long.Half-Hour ShowsStephanie Beatriz – BROOKLYN NINE-NINEAndre Braugher – BROOKLYN NINE-NINEWendi McLendon-Covey – THE GOLDBERGSHayley Orrantia – THE GOLDBERGSJulia Louis-Dreyfus – VEEPAnna Chlumsky - VEEPHour-Long ShowsRupert Friend – HOMELANDAllison Tolman – FARGO (also THE MINDY PROJECT)Samuel Anderson – DOCTOR WHOPedro Pascal – GAME OF THRONESMaisie Williams – GAME OF THRONESTatiana Maslany – ORPHAN BLACKLorraine Toussaint – ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
FILMI haven’t seen all the movies released in 2014 so there are going to be some that I see in 2015 that would have made this list (perhaps BIRDMAN is one of those). These are the movies I loved most in 2014… when I saw them. Your favorite movie may not be on this list because I haven’t seen it.FAVORITESBOYHOODCAMP X-RAYCLOUDS OF SILS MARIADAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APESGONE GIRLGUARDIANS OF THE GALAXYTHE LEGO MOVIENIGHTCRAWLERBEST ACTING – FILMI also don’t separate “starring” or “supporting” role. They’re ALL roles supporting the story. Payman Maadi – CAMP X-RAYJuliette Binoche – CLOUDS OF SILS MARIAKristen Stewart – CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA & CAMP X-RAY (I’m on Team KS 2014 it seems)Andy Serkis – DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APESToby Kebbell – DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APESRosamund Pike – GONE GIRLTyler Perry – GONE GIRL (what did I just say?! Yeah, he’s awesome in it)Dave Bautista – GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (I had no idea who he was, but he blew me away)Chris Pratt – GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY & THE LEGO MOVIEKaren Gillan – GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXYJake Gyllenhaal – NIGHTCRAWLERAND THE WINNERS OF THE 2014 THINGS IN VISUAL MEDIA AWARDTV SHOW OF THE YEARHalf-HourBLUESTONE 42 – This was such a surprise and so much fun to watch that I can’t call anything else my favorite of the year.Hour-LongCOSMOS: A SPACETIME ODDYSEY – I can’t fully express the joy I felt watching this… and still feel revisiting it.
PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR - TELEVISIONHalf-HourWendi McLendon-Covey – THE GOLDBERGSHour-LongTatiana Maslany – ORPHAN BLACK
MOVIE OF THE YEARGUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – Not since the early 90s has a movie made me feel like a kid again… over and over and over. Those who have listened to my podcasts over the years know I was already a big James Gunn fan, but he even blew me away with this movie. And though no one will nominate him as best director… I will. And writer… what the hell. You know what? I’m gonna make a category just for him.CREATOR OF THE YEARJames Gunn
PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR - FILM
Juliette Binoche – CLOUDS OF SILS MARIAAnd that's it. What are your favorite things in the visual media from 2014?

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Christ. If I could write my season finale review solely in emojis tonight, I would. It's the only way I can properly express how I'm feeling right now. It's all over the goddamn place.

"Trust your heart." -Auggie
"Get it? She literally cannot trust her heart. I see what you did there, writers. You think you're so clever." -Katie (cousin of The Plopper)

I'm going to have to review this ep quickly, because I need to get to my season 5 review, and I have a LOT to say. So I'll cover 5.16 quickly: First off, WTFFFF ANNIE!? What did you talk about with McQuaid the entire rest of that stroll on the bridge?? Was it, "Oh cool let's just talk about the weather and the Mets now and for the entire 12 hour flight home" ?? (Disclaimer: I do not actually know how long it takes to get from Buenos Aires to D.C. But I bet there is at least one connector.) "K bye hon I'm not gonna marry you, instead I'm gonna just go back to my depressing apartment and make a cup of tea on my hot plate!!" Great call, Annie.

Annie, also, why would you even consider going back to the CIA!? You have it SO cushy at McQuaid Security right now. Granted, there is that whole bankruptcy issue I guess, but I'm sure they'll get that sorted. I can't even properly convey to you how right McQuaid was when he said "You can do this job and die, and you can not do this job and die." Did you know I took a 4-day Business Analysis class 7 years ago and ALMOST GOT TUBERCULOSIS from it?? That's right, a guy in there had TB the whole time and he was ON MY TEAM!! WE TOUCHED THE SAME MARKERS. I had to spend the next 3 months leading into my wedding getting tested repeatedly, and for what!? Because I was taking such a risk that could have gotten me TB? A business. fucking. analysis. class. ON the CAMPUS of my company. I didn't even drive the fucking hour north to San Francisco for this. I didn't even trip over a coughing bum in the Tenderloin to contract this shit. Nope. My life was so dull that I may as well have already been lying in a goddamn coma that week and I STILL almost got TB. Annie, DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE girl, don't do it. It gets you nothing at all but 3 months of worrying about getting drug-resistant TB right before your wedding!! I could have been on a hospital gurney at the altar all alone, while all my guests avoided my plague-infested wedding like, well, the plague!! :deep breath:

Let's take a step back for a sec. The biggest feeling I'm having right now is that they didn't totally fuck it (the season) all up right at the end. They didn't drop The Myocarditis storyline like I was afraid they would, they didn't drop the Belenko illness connection, and they managed to tie up a majority of the loose ends, even if it all felt a bit rushed in the process (these things usually do unless it's Game of Thrones). Auggie's Week From Hell also ended in a way that made sense given what he had gone through. Joan's Balkans secret, though, like ALL of Joan's mysteries, will remain just that. So if you're a Joan fan, you may be rightfully pissed as hell right now. (Counterpoint: Her delivery of "Ah he was being a dick," might be enough to save the entire world).

The problem I have with this ep is that the last 10 minutes were waaaayyyy too confusing. And I don't think it was just me. I think a couple of those scenes were poorly written or poorly edited. In Annie's last convo with Belenko, what in god's name was she talking about - who was getting revenge on the Russians, exactly?? Who is the enemy of what enemy? Is this Belenko's revenge, Annie's revenge, or both?? I can't figure out why Annie would be so nice to Belenko after he had just tried to kill Auggie. Did Belenko tip her off on purpose with that phone, or on accident?? Was she just blowing smoke up his ass to prep him for his little "talk" with Joan? It was overly confusing.

But I dunno. Despite all this, the episode certainly did its job in leaving me hanging on every second of the ending ... biting my nails and having a myocarditis attack, and then flipping my shit at the cliffhanger. With this plus the decent job of following up on loose ends, the ep mostly accomplished its goal. So I'm not gonna complain too much.

Now I gotta get to season 5 as a whole. This review is gonna be long ... so get ready. I'm gonna keep it simple by splitting this out into the good stuff and bad stuff. Here goes.

Season 5. The Good Stuff.
Annie didn’t go home after Hong Kong. Some of you know that the ending they filmed for S4 was very different than what actually aired. The original ending involved Annie coming straight back home, quitting the CIA, and having a beer with Auggie. Scrapping this ending at the very last minute was one of the best decisions the Covert showrunners have ever made as far as I’m concerned. They avoided painting themselves into a corner that could’ve been nearly as obnoxious as Henry’s stupid folder at the end of S3. O.k. not that obnoxious, but still. When I watched Annie sail away on that boat, all I could think was that the saddest, most boring route they could possibly take her would be straight back home to the shitty lameness that awaited her there. Praise Teo Campbell that they had mercy on our girl and let her fly the coop for a while for the sake of her own sanity and self-respect.

And then the icing on the cake – Her return home from her time away in the season 5 premiere was deliciously mysterious. After spending far too much of season 4 running around trying to solve everyone else’s problems for them, the writers finally let Annie be interesting in her own right again (after, to be fair, starting to get back on track with her in the fall of season 4). Welcome back, Annie.

Covert Affairs regains its logic and sanity. Season 4 was SO illogical at nearly every major turn that it bordered on SOA-levels of absurdity. We were consistently expected to believe that these characters would behave in these ridiculous ways, without coming even within the ballpark of explaining WHY they would be doing any of it (read my S4 review for reference). This show is never perfect when it comes to logic, but thank the Holy Ghost of Puma they took a deep breath and got back to the realm of sanity in season 5. Other than the premiere, I can't think of one ep this season that had me screaming at my TV for significant logic problems.

Annie and Auggie use their words. Sort of. In short, angry bursts. Other than Helesa herself, nothing was more infuriating to me in S4 than Annie & Auggie’s sedated noodle-slurping and refusal to discuss ANY of the horrible shit they had done to each other in the second half of the season. But in season 5, the angels sang down from the heavens and the simmering anger fiiiinnally started to boil over. Annie stealing Tash’s flash drive and using it with Ivan was one of the best sequences I’ve ever seen on this show. I hadn’t cheered so loudly at my TV screen since, well, one of the crazy twists on GoT S4 I’m sure. And Auggie’s bottle-smashing anger along with the resulting fight was just as fun. Better yet, the outbursts between them continued as the season went on. They were short every time, but I’ll take whatever the hell I can get from these two at this point. Ya ain’t never gonna work out any of your shit if you keep pretending it ain’t there, sweeties.

Annie’s challenge. Despite the weird usage of myocarditis as Annie’s heart condition instead of other heart conditions that can realistically be caused by bullet wounds (per research done by fans who are not me haha), I was actually extremely pleasantly shocked to see that the writers included this storyline, primarily because it meant Annie was finally facing some kind of consequence for all that happened to her in season 3. One doesn’t generally get shot twice in the heart parts and even live to tell the tale, let alone walk away without requiring any physical therapy, with PTSD that magically resolves itself within one television episode, and with zero scar from open-heart surgery. Even Annie’s devastation over Simon’s death cleared right up the second the next cutie showed her one iota of attention. The magical Peen of St. Augustine healed all, and the writers washed their hands of it so they could focus on more important things, i.e. ex-dead wives from hell (great choice). So for Annie to finally have to face a real consequence for all this was a long time coming.

And I found this storyline to be very effective, particularly through ep 5.08. It forced Annie completely off the tracks and out of her element, and it's in these types of scenarios that a character really becomes interesting. She had to do some serious self-examination on her obsession with her job and the consequences that can arise from it. We all know of The Annie Problem, a.k.a. Anndroid, that existed for about a full season starting in fall season 3. You can read my season 4 review for that issue too. But season 5 did something I had nearly given up on when I wrote that review - it made Annie human again. She was once again a fallible, mortal creature just like the rest of us. We could relate to her again. She was no longer Teflon. I am really, really reeaaaally glad they didn't let this storyline drop like I was afraid they would. Reeeheaheaaaally glad.

McQuaid. Sorry, Auggie fans. Read my season 4 reviews and you’ll see that I was just as pissed as you were when the writers took a big fat diarrhea dump all over Walkerson last season. But what’s done is done, and it was done so severely in S4 that we can't just snap our fingers and fix it. It'll never be what it was again. Given that, some upheaval was needed as a next step.

Enter Ryan McQuaid to shake shit up. He’s brash, cocky, badass, rich as hell, and the foil to many people's "OTP". This character was bound to be a complete douchebag, right? In the hands of most actors, he would be. But in the vein of Captain Awesome on Chuck, they went a different route with McQuaid. Ryan McPartlin somehow turned his would-be pretentious jerk - an obnoxiously successful doctor with the face and body of a greek god – into the sweetest and most loveable character on the planet. Nic Bishop, like McPartlin, has somehow been able to turn this should-be prick McQuaid into someone you’d trust with your life if you were thrown into a terrorist hotzone or some other horrible situation. Is the guy too good to be true? Maybe, but on top of his borderline douchey qualities, it’s also been made fairly clear that he’s perfectly willing to throw a good chunk of his morals out the window if it’ll get him closer to catching a bad guy. No wonder he and Annie get along so well (He’s essentially her with a penis, which could certainly get them into trouble in the future, but for now I’m enjoying the hell out of them).

Annie spent almost exactly a full season being celibate post-Auggie, so it was high time the ol’ gal got to have some action again. And in the wake of the season 4 melodrama, there was nothing she needed more in the romance department than a guy she could count on to stick with her even when the going got tough. McQuaid knew what he was getting into with her from almost day 1 (ok well, by episode 2, when he picked her up unconscious on that dock in Venezuela). Let’s be honest, homegirl was a hot mess for the first half of the season, and yet he didn’t flinch. And I'm gonna just set aside tonight's proposal for a sec (which was certainly a fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants thing) so I can say: Other than that, do NOT try to tell me the writers pushed this relationship too fast. These two spent 8 full episodes going through all measures of craziness together before they even so much as kissed. Don’t forget that in season 3, the Simon relationship had run its entire course by the end of ep 8. R.I.P. Simon. The writers clearly cared about the McWalker relationship, because they really put in the time and effort to build the thing brick by brick. And it worked so well that a LOT of us were reacting just like I did above to tonight's finale. A lot of us.

Extra credit: Baby Mack. I’ll admit that before season 5 started, there was absolutely nothing on this earth that I wanted to watch less than Baby Mack being burped and put into his crib for his afternoon naps. But the kid was not only used mercifully sparingly, he was (is) also one of the cutest damn things I’ve ever seen. He charmed me. Kudos to little Jude Matchett, baby actor of the year.

Season 5. The Bad Stuff.
The B plots in the summer season. Season 5 improved on season 4 in nearly every way, except this. I don't recall S4 having this issue. Thankfully S5's B plots all finally came together in the fall, but during those first 8 or 9 eps, they were slightly reminiscent of a “Dana Brody Dates a Delinquent Boy” (or let’s be honest, “Dana Brody Does ANY Stupid Obnoxious Thing”) story. “Dana Brody Avoids Getting Hit By That Truck And You Curse The Driver For His Bad Aim”. O.k. I’m done now. After watching Homeland, it’s hard for any B plot to seem that horrible to me as long as it’s not taking up too much screentime. And these ones didn’t, but if you’re a Calder fan, this was NOT a good season for you. I feel your pain. At least it got better in the fall? He looked cool in this ep ...

Like Calder, Auggie’s summer season was also not super great. It was far better than Calder’s, but it could have been better. He spent most of the summer running around getting himself into trouble with his peen, and it felt pointless and kinda depressing for him. But again, I have trouble getting too worked up about his because not only did it come together for him in the fall, but he became the focus of the entire season-long mission. He had major time in the sun in eps 5.12 & 14; possibly more so (that I can recall?) than in season 3 or any season before that. So ... frustrating for a while, but it came together for our boy Auggie.

Predictability. The show has had this problem for a while now. It was a problem throughout season 4, and it continued in season 5 with the Caitlyn Cook storyline. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a “twist” telegraphed from that far away (probably since “Helesa is alive!!”) haha. From the second she walked on screen, we ALL knew she was gonna be shady. Now, I said in S4 that I FAR prefer a good story to just trying to throw in twists everywhere, and I love that S5 shifted its focus to just telling a good story. But because the Caitlyn thing was posed as a "twist", it didn't work. If you're gonna focus on simply telling the story, then, awesome, but just do that, rather than trying to make it into something it's not.

Residual incoherence problems. Covert Affairs very often has problems translating the story they want to tell into what actually plays out on our screens. In S5, the writers' biggest failure to communicate was in the cause of Annie's heart condition. And what absolutely kills me about this is that it wouldn’t have even required one second of extra screen time to tell the story properly. All the writers would’ve had to do would be to ever-so-slightly adjust the wording of the Eyal/Annie flashback convo in 5.04 and it would have been crystal clear. Instead, half their audience was left wondering if The Myocarditis was just a completely random coincidence. If you don't know what caused it, it takes away a majority of the story's meaning and significance. :headdesk:

Not quite enough home runs. Season 5 was quite consistent with like a solid B to B+ average on episodes. Unlike S4's wild ride, S5 only dipped below an 80/100 on my reviews once (S4 did it 5 times & 3 of those dipped into the 60's). They did knock it out of the park quite well with eps 5.02 & 5.07. 5.14 was a fan favorite so I'll give that a shout-out too. I just wish they'd done a few more eps that jumped into the 90+ grade range.

Season 5. The Summary.
Look, nothing this show has done has matched the greatness of eps 3.01-3.11, and it likely never will. But part of that was the circumstances of the moment - it was coming out of its first 2 decent-but-nothing-super-special seasons, and critics had written it off as nothing more than that. And then suddenly it popped - out of nowhere, when no one expected it. They captured lightning in a bottle and it's hard to get back there as expectations rise. You take risks to keep it up and, well, the way risks work is that they don't always pan out.

Season 4 took a LOT of risks and had some great moments, but stumbled a lot. But the thing it really did right in its last few eps was to start the show back on a path to re-discovering their lead character.

Season 5 succeeded where season 4 had failed in its logic and focus issues. It succeeded where fall of S3 & the summer of S4 had failed in bringing us back to Annie. A huge part of what made 3.01-11 so great was that we were really WITH Annie. We were in her head. We related to her. We understood her motivations and we felt her feels with her. And then suddenly that all went away post-Russia. She closed off and we were shut out of her head. And that sucked. Season 4 did not convince us why she & Auggie broke up or why they did anything they did with each other past ep 4.06. It also didn't even come close to convincing us why she went dark. We spent far too much of that time still shut out and confused and cold and alone. Shiver.

The biggest success of season 5 was in letting us back in. I haven't felt this "with" Annie for this long in, maybe ever. I fully got her every thought and feel and motivation this season. Every major decision she made was exactly what I would've done (I'm ignoring tonight's last 10 minutes for now haha). That's right, especially in moments like the end of ep 5.09 when she let McQuaid go and lied to Auggie. Especially when she was on that mountain in Azerbaijan, tearing her hair out in frustration and hopelessness. Especially in Paris when she stole that flash drive and took care of business. Especially in ALL those types of moments. I, The Plopper, was at one with Annie Walker.

How you prioritize different elements of any TV show has a monumental effect on how much you enjoy each ep and season. If Walkerson is your #1 concern, then you undoubtedly HATED season 5. For Covert, I prioritize a) the telling of stories that actually make reasonable sense, and b) the success of their lead character, given their issues with her in the past. And because of that, I quite enjoyed season 5. I hope USA Network treats this show better than it did White Collar, because I need more of it.

Ep 5.16 GRADE: 88/100
Season 5 GRADE: 88/100

Blow me to bits with a grenade in the comments. That sentence could have gone very differently.

The Plopper

Recent reviews by the writer, below:
12 December 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.15 'Frontwards'
5 December 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.14 'Transport is Arranged'
21 November 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.13 'She Believes'

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Well, that was a squeaker. I spent the first 40 minutes of this one feeling increasingly exasperated thinking that this ep was going to amount to nothing more than Team McWalkerson running around a pretty place (Buenos Aires being their final foreign shoot for season 5), trying to figure out how to rescue a character we only met one episode ago. Like I said, I'm a fan of Kenny Johnson, but that can only carry me so far, given that his character is not at all central to this series.

And then there was The Annie Problem. One that, as Shelby pointed out to me after she watched the ep earlier, tends to sometimes occur when Annie is on a mission with Dudes. Dudes not named Eyal, that is. It's a problem I also noticed in that other thing I tend to fangirl each November - Mockingjay - another situation where there is a lead female, and two dudes who would both love to win her heart. [FYI the next paragraph will NOT be spoilery IMO, but if you want to be 100% safe from any info on this movie then you can skip over to the following paragraph.]

Mockingjay Part 1 has taken a lot of flak from a good number of critics for being half a movie. And they're right, it IS half a movie. A very GOOD half, I think, but it's not whole. However, while watching it, I discovered what I think might be a major part of why it frustrated people - There is a climactic scene that comes far too close to the end of the movie that involves Katniss's Two Dudes participating in and being the center of all the action, while Katniss quite literally stands on the sidelines watching the action from a television screen. If you've read the books (or frankly if you have any common sense), you know she's gonna get back into the action immediately in the next movie, so it lessens the frustration. BUT, given that she is the main character, it does leave the viewer feeling somewhat limp during that scene that the hero of the movie is not the center of the climactic action sequence.

This is exactly how I felt for the first 40 minutes of "Frontwards." Annie Everdeen tends to her poor injured Auggie Mellark as he works on the plans to rescue Deckard, while McGale heroically saves the day by stepping directly into the center of danger at every possible opportunity. Hahaha holy shit I never realized how perfectly these three fit into the Katniess/Peeta/Gale roles. It's uncanny. But I digress. The Covert writers have done immensely better with Annie from ep 4.11 onwards than they had for far too long prior to that, so I don't have a ton of room to complain. But like Mockingjay Part 1, the reason it feels frustrating is that it's happening right towards the end - in the penultimate episode of the entire season.

BUT FEAR NOT!! Miss Walker finally got a chance to do what she does best in the last 20 minutes of the ep. And it's also simply where the ep finally hooked me in in general, with the story. Because like I said, even regardless of The Annie Problem, the ep felt like nothing more than a bunch of running around and discussing logistics in a pretty setting, until two things happened: 1) McQuaid and Deckard began their jailbreak, and 2) Annie caught sight of Belenko and immediately you saw the gears start to turn in her head. YES. Theeeerrrre's our Annie. Theerre's the girl who's sure as hell not gonna let an opportunity to catch a baddie pass, no matter WHAT she has to - wait WTF?? Did she just ... she just let that opportunity pass!! And Deckard even called her a chicken-shit for it. What in the Puma's name is this Auggie-instruction-following, stay-on-the-map Annie bullshit I just witnessed?? Not any kinda Annie I want to know, that's for damn sure.

Ohhh k thank god. Turns out she was just being shrewd about the best way to attack the problem - i.e. minus Deckard to get in their way. Speaking of which, poor Auggie. Awesome Joan!! But poor Auggie. Let's start with Mr. Anderson first. As much as we love to give Auggie crap for his wandering peen ... Times like this remind us that it's not easy being Auggie Anderson. When it comes to fieldwork, he's forced to be constantly on the sidelines for the rest of his life due to his blindness, and for a guy that came from a CIA Field Op and Special Forces background ... that has got to suck HARD. I don't even know that this can be blamed for him getting yanked back home in this particular case, as I think most of it was a result of Joan wanting to keep him safe after all the shit he just went through, but still it was yet another example of Auggie getting forced onto the bench. And watching him give that "company man" line to Deckard was rough. I dunno about you, but as I get older, I have more and more of a problem with feeling like a "company (wo)man." It feels less an less comfortable for me every day. So that moment and line definitely struck a chord with me.

And JOAN wtf, damn girl, you go ... err ... you tell 'em ... err ... why can't I think of the right way to say this?? Just do your thang girl, that's all I'm saying. Shelby was frustrated by this entire ep, but the one thing she said she loved was Joan. And now I see why. Joan was doin' WORK, she was cracking skulls and gettin' shit handled. Like a BOSS, son. Literally. She was even bossing around her boss. Right? Calder is her boss right? It's so hard to keep track of all the promotions and demotions anymore. She fixed the Russia problem after Calder screwed it all to hell, she realized that the Russians had ulterior motives with Belenko, and she put the smack down on her favorite Tech Op when she wanted to keep him safe. She was Joan at her very Joan-est here, in the best way possible.

And Calder. Calder Calder Calder. With the (real life) CIA torture reports being released this week, I couldn't help but be reminded of this as Calder beat Mashkov's face in (just like Annie with poor ol' Omar and his leg-crotch last week). Not that creepy Mashkov didn't deserve it, he certainly did, but beating the man to a bloody pulp is also crossing a line that the Russians were obviously not happy with. I certainly understand his motives though, with Sydney being on death's door. I'm curious what they'll do with her next week, and also curious what will come of Calder's retaliation plan on the dog walker.

Aannnnd obviously I can't end this review without touching on the "I love you." Or, the "I love you"ssss, plural, considering that if McQuaid had not responded properly to Annie there, heads were going to effing ROLL. Luckily for everyone involved, I did not have to do any head-chopping. Clearly Annie's declaration was motivated by McQuaid's heroic prison break + his immediate "all-in" response to getting Belenko, but I don't think it was just that. Auggie's verbal approval of McQuaid to Annie just prior to this was a huge part of it. I think it's just human nature to feel validated when you get that confirmation and approval from someone you greatly respect and/or love. But it certainly could not have been easy for Auggie to give the approval to begin with. So. "Poor Auggie" was a definite theme in the latter half of the ep.

Random thoughts:
Things that are magically no longer a problem for our characters: Joan's Balkans secret, Belenko's deadly ALS-type disease, Annie's heart condition. If these aren't followed up on in SOME way in the finale, I'm going to be angry. I'm going to be very angry. Spoiler: They won't be followed up on. At least I'm certainly not holding my breath for it. * With all the cop-vs.-citizen situations that have been in the news here lately, I couldn't help but think of this when McQuaid intentionally provoked the cop to get himself arrested. That certainly wasn't difficult, was it? Nope. * The "lice-check in the church" scene (a.k.a. another excuse for Auggie to take his shirt off) was just as awkward and uncomfortable for me in this ep as it was in the preview from last week. But I was extremely glad they didn't play up a jealousy thing when McQuaid walked in on it. It would just be too groan-worthy. That's not to say they won't try to go for the love triangle thing next week in the finale, because that's absolutely the type of thing TV writers love to do in finales, but we'll have to wait and see. * If I have to hear one more GODDAMN thing about Chrisley Knows Best*, I'm gonna cut a bitch. NO, USA, I am NOT watching A Very Chrisley Christmas!!!! You can take that Chrisley Christmas and SHOVE IT UP YOUR ... chimney. Or something.

What grade to give this ep? I grade the final eps of the season a lot more stringently than I do the others, because they have a much more difficult job to do - tie everything together. Like I mentioned last week, Covert has a history of NOT properly tying a lot of important things together at the end of each season, and I spent the first 40 minutes of this ep in the process of throwing in the towel for season 5 as well. But in that last 20, it felt like I started to get a bit more of a feel for where they might be taking this. Do I think they're gonna bring it all together in a way that leaves me fully satisfied next week? Absolutely not. But I'm also a pessimist and I'm going based on the show's past performance. Regardless, we won't be able to make that call till we get there. I'd say 5.15 worked about as well for me, maybe slightly better than, S4's penultimate ep, so based on that, I'm gonna give it a:
GRADE: 86/100

The last third of the ep saved it. On second viewing, I actually quite enjoyed it, knowing what was coming. If it had never kicked in, this grade would be much different. Next week's ep is going to make a HUGE difference as to how I view this season as a whole; probably much more so than was the case in season 4. So ... we shall see.

What'd y'alls think? Throw a Santa suit on me and shove my fat ass up a chimney in the comments.

The Plopper

Recent reviews by the writer, below:
5 December 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.14 'Transport is Arranged'
21 November 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.13 'She Believes'
14 November 2014
The Plopper Reviews COVERT AFFAIRS 5.12 'Starlings of the Slipstream'