Rebooting Tales of a Failed Filmmaker

A couple years ago I started blogging about my experiences in the film industry.  It's a story my mom's practically begged me to tell because I witnessed so many odd things.  I've also wanted to share them as some of the events are behind the scenes looks at things people know about.

However, it's always been last priority as these events are not things that effect me today, and it's not like this is a book I'm planning to publish any time soon, regardless of what my mom wants me to do.  So as a result, it's been constantly pushed in the background.

But now I've given myself enough time to sit down and do what I need to do.  Plus I'm going to post some of them on this blog as well as an extra incentive to get me to do it.  (I've been making a point of posting every week on this one, so adding them to this cue will force me to make them.)

I'll be starting these posts next week over at http://talesofafailedfilmmaker.blogspot.com/

Looking on to my next nonfiction book

I'm finishing up my book on tales and stories from the Vietnam War, and I'm looking ahead to my next nonfiction book.  One of the reasons why it took me so long to write this latest one is because I had such high expectations of Two Gun Hart and The Great Heist.  I expected at least one of them to become a best seller, and to get made into a movie.

When neither of those things happened, I became very discouraged and sort of wondered why I was bothering to try.  To be perfectly honest, I still feel a lot of that discouragement, but I owe it to the subjects of this Vietnam book to complete it and release it.

And I owe it to myself to keep going.  I love writing and I love telling stories.  I've focused a lot more on my fiction work, particularly Relic Worlds.  But I have several nonfiction stories that I'd like to do.  So I'm going to write up a chapter and summary on each, and send them out to agents and publishers again and see what happens.

I read one writer say that he has his nonfiction published traditionally and his fiction published independently.  I thought that was an odd way to do it and to me it should have been done the opposite way.  But now I see the guy's point.  Publishers bring better promotion opportunities, especially for nonfiction.  Fiction work can be series, and it's easier to promote a series on your own as you can just keep talking about it.  I'm finally learning how to do it with Relic Worlds.  But nonfiction is a one-shot deal, so you need that support.

With that in mind, here are the ideas I'll be developing:

The story of one of the Roman emperors

The making of Lord of the Rings

Tales of people's lives during the Iranian revolution

The Cornhuskers championship season of 1994

We'll see what happens next.

The Value of College is Going Down While the Cost is Going Up

We all take for granted the value of a college education.  Unfortunately, the universities themselves have recognized that belief and have raised tuition costs beyond reasonable amounts.  They are taking advantage of the situation, and, frankly, are nothing more than extortionists.

Now understand, I do believe a good education is important, especially in a society such as ours.  However, to take that logic and say it's therefore okay to charge someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for that is downright immoral.  When the head of a pharmaceutical company sees that someone needs a certain medicine and charges huge amounts for it, we shout that person down.  Why is it any different for universities to take advantage of the need for an education in the same way?

What's particularly ridiculous about all this is the fact that the need for universities for their knowledge has dropped ever since the invention of the internet.  Most majors have all their information listed somewhere online.  What people really need is someone to organize it all, and then someone to test the students on the information afterward.

And if we really need a professor to provide information, then why limit the amount of students to only those who can fit in the classroom?  Why not have a camera stream it to thousands of people in the world?  Sure, they couldn't ask questions on the spot, but they still get to hear the lecture, and the cost would be spread out, and could therefore cost less per student; at least enough to hire some TAs to answer questions placed in the comments.  The whole excuse for higher costs comes from the idea that a few students are bearing the burden of everything.  (Of course those costs are exaggerated, but that's another subject.)  With thousands of students carrying the cost, there's no longer an excuse for the cost being so high.

This also rids universities of the elitist practice of rejecting most students that apply.  There would be a select few who get accepted and pay more to be in the classroom at the time of the lecture, but with a streaming service, everyone gets to attend college.

So if all this information can be achieved at a low cost, why is the old system still being used?  The answer is simply because those in charge of hiring still believe in it.  As long as the heads of HR departments and presidents of companies still believe in the archaic, elitist system of universities rather than a strictly merit based system, this will continue.  It is time for this to change.

And some universities have.  Lydia.com is an example.  Certain universities, too, are beginning to make a stronger online presence, and teaching locations are increasing on Youtube.  And as it expands, more people will see its value.  The real change will happen when people who have grown up with that system begin to run companies.

And then those systems will be to places like Harvard what Netflix is to Blockbuster.

Is Miniatures Gaming Dying?

My first exposure to miniatures gaming was at Hobby Town in Lincoln, Nebraska where I saw the boxed set for Johnny Reb.  I was drawn to the idea of having huge dioramas with miniature figures moving around it.  Miniature train sets were big at the time, so I had seen a lot of their fancy setups.  The idea of adding a game to that seemed like a load of fun.

I couldn't wait to play, so I cut out a bunch of cardboard squares and began playing with those while I collected and painted miniatures.  I played other people's historical games as well, and even eventually invented my own called Command Combat: Civil War.

However, something's happened over the past 20 years that's bad news for people who loved this hobby.  With the rise of video games that can accurately show battles and the ease of which it is to play on a computer versus learning tabletop rules, more and more of the young audience have turned away from miniature war gaming, or never trying it to begin with.

This has been aided by the refusal of the old guard of mini wargaming players to adapt.  Most of the time you hear complaints from them about how young people are just impatient and stupid rather than trying to understand what they like and reaching out to them.  Instead of streamlining the rules or making the games more friendly to new players, they often nitpick on details and turn a cold shoulder to anyone who's not already in the no.  Rather than showing off their incredible dioramas online as much as they can, they complain about how the internet is ruining everything.  Everything is everyone else's fault, and their hobby is a victim to attention deficit disorder.

But that's not how it has to be.  A few companies ARE listening to younger people, and even some older people who never got into the hobby because of complicated rules and expensive minis.  They're making games with easier to learn rules based on properties that everyone's familiar with, and they're showing them off in every medium that are being looked at today.  Rather than complain about people who are different from them, they're studying what they like and embracing what they learn.

Probably the best example of this is Fantasy Flight Games.  Upon releasing miniatures games, they always have enough minis to play with right out of the box.  Expansions are sold at reasonable prices, and in logical groupings.  For instance, rather than just selling a bag full of overpriced random minis, as was done a lot in the past, or selling seven pieces when eight are needed, as Games Workshop did, Fantasy Flight sells a full unit in a box.  So if you need a unit of eight soldiers, the box comes with eight soldiers... already placed on their bases so you don't have to go out and buy balsa wood bases!

The result has been a huge and loyal following, and a renewed interest in miniatures war gaming.  Yet strangely, you still see a lot of grumbling from the very people who claim they want to keep their hobby alive.  Rather than celebrating the heightened interest, you hear them in their little echo chambers complaining that the young people only want to play their simple games and won't try any "real" games.

Well, they can have their "real" games and miniature war gaming will rebuild with this new audience.

The Real Reason Style Over Substance is King Now

Many online critics have noted how movies today seem to care a lot more about being flashy than about being substantial.  It's not that there aren't good movies anymore; there are several great ones that couldn't even be made in decades past.

However, there is a noticeable drop in how many movies that are released in theaters have much substance to them.  Most of them, even many of the good ones, place an emphasis on the style way above the substance.  And people have been asking why.

I've personally seen the progress of this, and why it happened; though I didn't recognize what was happening because I thought it was just my own bitterness at failing to become a filmmaker myself.  In retrospect, however, I realize that the change was taking place right before my eyes.

It all comes from the film festivals.  You see, in order to get a film made, you can't go directly to any studio or production company.  They will all tell you that they take no unsolicited materials, which means you have to go through a major agency.  You go to the agencies and they all say the same thing, that you have to go through a manager.  Most managers will say the same thing, and the buck stops there.  It's a catch 22; an incestuous relationship among Hollywood insiders of which no one can break in.

The only way to slip through is in a film festival.  If you can get a film accepted into one of those, the agencies will go to them and will contact you to represent you.  You can then submit your projects to the studios through your agent, and those are the films that get made.  Even the "independent" companies that claim to be outside the Hollywood system work this way.  (It's called hypocrisy.)

So the real gatekeepers are those deciding what films show at the film festivals.  These festivals were originally created to build up creative talent and independent voices outside the studio system.  Many of the early films were rough around the edges but had a spirit to them that sparked viewers' interests.  As a great example of this, check out Peter Jackson's first film that got accepted to the Cannes Film Festival.

Films like this would never get accepted into festivals today because they're not sleek enough, or because they don't have a famous name in them; and thus, one of the greatest directors of all time would be overlooked.  How many other Peter Jacksons are being overlooked today because of this reason?  We'll never know.

Instead, most of the films that get accepted have high production value, and little attention is paid to story or character.  Sometimes films have style and some of the other elements, but only style makes a difference in whether or not a movie gets accepted.  Thus you wind up with filmmakers that are all about flash going to these festivals and getting through the gates to be able to pitch to studios.

The only way to break this cycle is for production companies and studios, or at least agents, to open up their ears to other voices that didn't have to go through such a narrow-minded corridor.  It's the reason why Youtube has such fresh voices that we're not seeing in the movie theater, and why staying home and watching something for free is often more appealing to people than paying money to go see movies that are full of style and lacking on substance.

Relic Worlds is giving away a $20 Amazon gift card & a free book away for Cyber Monday!

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How Weird Al Yankovic was a Huge Influence on Me

Earlier this year, Jamie and I hurried down to Hollywood to see Weird Al get his star on the Walk of Fame. I'd never done that before, and there are few for whom I'd take that sort of time. 

The reason for this was evident when we accidentally went the week before and saw Jennifer Garner get her star right next to where his would be. (I had gotten the date wrong.) As we drove away, the person speaking at the event said, "Jennifer Garner is better than all of us." No joke, those were the woman's exact words.

What I have always loved about Weird Al is that he's outside all that Hollywood bullshit. Beyond being just a satirist, he's always provided an alternative to what we're told is supposed to be important, while not playing into the childish "conform to nonconformity" either. He's shown that it's okay to be different, to be smart, to be "weird." While much of that may seem obvious, it wasn't obvious to many as I was growing up.

In the '80s,just knowing how to run a computer got you labeled as a nerd and unworthy of popularity. God forbid you should be creative and interested in intellectual pursuits. Even being into Weird Al's music was considered lowbrow. It's a much different, and much better world today; one where differences are more celebrated and intelligence is a bit more appreciated.

But Al got me through a lot of lonely times, despite being seemingly nothing more than a comedian copying other people's music. It was simply the image of "being weird and oddball and different is okay" that was so important to me. So for that I can't think of anyone better to have gotten this star. I'll be sure to step all over it in the coming years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAYgZ_zzyTE

#weirdal #walkoffame #music #comedy #thomaslenon

The Process of Translating my Own Book into a Screenplay

I have held for years that my nonfiction book The Great Heist would make a great movie.  I originally tried to do so when I first learned of the story, but unfortunately I couldn't get it made.  Thus the reason it became a book.

I became re-inspired to try when someone came to me and optioned it for a year for the purpose of making a movie or limited series.  When he couldn't get it made, I decided to give it another try.  So I wrote my own version of a limited series pilot along with a series Bible.  There were some interesting things to note about the translation from written work to screenplay.

First, I had to let go of the inner historian; at least a large part of him.  It's not that I was willing to give up all historical accuracy, but I had to put the emotion of the story first.  In fact,t hat leads to the second, and most important task in translating a book to a screenplay.

The emotion of what happened and why it's relevant to the audience has to come first.  It's important to note that this does not run counter to historical accuracy.  In fact, it should run in tandem with it.  A common misconception is that entertainment value and historical accuracy are at odds with one another.  Some will say you need to drop historical accuracy for entertainment, others say you have to sacrifice entertainment in favor of accuracy, while others will say you need to balance the two.

All three of those are the wrong point of view to take.  If a filmmaker likes a true story well enough that they want to make it into a film, there must be something that drew them to the story in the first place.  Why make a movie about something for which there is no attraction?  What needs to happen is to translate it from written word to screen in the same way one translates from one language to another.  The words don't translate exactly, so you have to take the meaning of the sentence in one language and reword it in a sentence of the other language.  In no way would a good translator throw out the meaning of the original sentence.

With that in mind, one needs to look at the structure of a historical book, and the structure of a screenplay.  A historical book tells about the background of the characters involved, what brought them to the present, and dwells on individual moments to give details about each one.  A book can also jump around in time to give information about a person or a place.  A film is much more linear, and the story needs to keep moving with no time to stop and dwell on anything.  Yet we still want to know more about the characters so we care about them.  So it's important to find ways to slip in information about them as it's going along through organic actions we see on screen.

As an example of how I did this in The Great Heist, when I introduced Max Towle I combined several times he was in a courtroom performing his wild antics.  These incidents had taken place over many years, some of which happened after the incidents in the story.  But we're not going to jump through all those time periods and the audience needs to know in a couple minutes what this guy is all about.  So, those elements get combined.

As I wrote the script, I kept the book open, writing what was happening, but then translating it to the language of film; combining events or altering them to give the emotional impression of what happened rather than trying to portray the exact thing.

I recently saw this in a movie called The Death of Stalin.  The events of the story are very accurate, but many of the specifics are exaggerated to emphasize the absurdity of what occurred.  A story about decades of tragedy is thus transformed into an absurdist comedy while the historical accuracy of it all is kept intact.

RPG Storytime is at Last Coming Out

I started my series RPG Storytime on Youtube with the intention on doing one season of four different shows every year.  Each show would have six episodes per season.  Star Trek would be in the spring, D&D would be in the summer, Outbreak Undead would be in the fall, and Star Wars would be in the winter.

Somewhere deep down in me I knew this was unrealistic, but I hoped I would rein myself in enough to make such a schedule possible.

I didn't.  So it's taking longer to make the videos.  But something bigger has interrupted the schedule.

At a certain point I found myself writing one series while planning a game for another series while playing yet another and recording stuff for the other.  Added to that was another future series I'm planning on doing, and some other games I simply like to play.  It was getting confusing!

I also discovered that the Star Wars game, which I admittedly overdid a bit, has grown into many storylines, all of which need to be clear to the audience.  In fact, they all have multiple storylines, but the Star Wars one is the most complex.  I started realizing that if I told that in 6 episode chunks, no one would understand it.  I didn't even know what 6 episodes to play with one another.  Added to this was the fact that I wanted to get Outbreak Undead out of the way to make room for Deadlands.

So the decision was made to run entire series together, rather than 6 episode chunks over several seasons.  Outbreak Undead is first.  Its first episode back is today and will run until Halloween.  There will be a break while I finish the rest of those episodes, which will come out in December.  I'll have a couple other games, then I'll be running my Star Trek series until it reaches the end.

The one exception I'll have to this is Dungeons & Dragons.  I want to have some episodes come out when Game of Thrones plays, so I'll have a few episodes of it in the spring.  Then, once I've put out some other game videos I've meant to edit for a really long time, I'll begin releasing the huge epic of Star Wars, which will run until the end of the year, coinciding with episode 9 in theaters.

I'm planning on doing a separate channel that is only RPG Storytime which will play all the videos in order without interruption.  I'm not sure when I'll do that, but I won't start shows on that until the last ones are finished.

If you'd like to see Outbreak Undead from the beginning, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpaiVtbtoQQ&list=PLJ55yyr7uUQCa9GdXrvG7dhrEsh30kDV_

Why Watching Online Movie Critics Makes Me Feel Better

Some of the most popular channels on Youtube are movie critics.  Their rise has come because of how much a producer could get with the smaller investment.  A content creator can tape him or herself in a room, or even just record their voice, and let the clips of the movies provide the higher production value.  Since these movies have their own marketing departments, audiences already know what they are.  And since Youtube worked out a fair use clause to utilize movie footage, they could air their reviews and even monetize them.

In some ways I feel guilty for watching so many of these shows rather than searching harder for more original content by people who are willing to take the risk and not ride on the coattails of premade products.  However, I've found that there's something very cathartic about watching the critics slam on bad movies.  There were obvious reasons for this, but as I got to thinking about it, there were more reasons for me that go beyond the usual viewer.

When my own scripts and projects got rejected, I was willing to accept that there could be something better.  Whatever they did choose would probably be a better film, something that I would aspire to with my own writing.  Whenever a film got accepted into a festival mine didn't get into, I thought the same thing.  Then I would watch them...

My discouragement came from the fact that there was nothing to look up to; nothing to aspire to.  What I had presented may not have been perfect, but it was certainly better than what they were choosing.  Added to my frustration was the fact that I was then told that no, I was wrong.  The production companies, studios, and film festivals were right in their choices.  After all, they were the ones in power.  They made more money than me.  Their careers were going great.  They're right and I'm wrong.

Channels like Nostalgia Critic, Lindsay Ellis, Red Letter Media, and Your Movie Sucks beg to differ.  In fact, they've specifically taken on some of the movies that I got rejected in favor of.  Being outside of the industry, they feel no need to conform, or kiss the ass of anyone "important."  They actually scoff at Hollywood's self-importance.

THAT is cathartic.  It may not give me a career or change Hollywood, but it definitely makes me feel better to see movies that are objectively bad and producers who believe they're right about everything get called out on their bullshit.

The Screenplay Formula and Why Movies are so Homogenized

You might hear a lot of people question why so many movies have such a similar tone; as if they're all of the same genre, or made by a few filmmakers with exactly the same tastes.  You may have noticed this yourself and added your voice to the plethora of bloggers, vloggers, and other fans who have expressed their frustrations at how all movies seem alike now.

This might seem a bit like the old man going, "it' ain't like the good ol' days," but there's a strong truth to it, and a reason for it.  As an example, when Star Wars and Star Trek movies came out in the late '70s and early '80s, there was a strong distinction between them.  You went to Star Wars and got an action packed adventure.  You went to Star Trek and got an intriguing mystery.  Even the action scenes were completely different.  In Star Wars you got fast cuts with small ships or individuals shooting rapid fire shots at one another.  In Star Trek you had longer wide shots of large ships laboriously turning on one another while their crews discussed the best way to win.

Neither style was better.  It was like going to a restaurant.  No one wants the same food every day.  If you want Mexican food, you go to a Mexican restaurant.  If you want Italian food, you go to an Italian restaurant.  You switch it up to have a variety.  Hell, even films made by the same director had very different feels.  Take for instance Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark versus Jaws.  Their tone and style was so different that they seem like they're made by completely different filmmakers.

But now you could replace the title of one film with another and hardly anyone would notice.  In computer gaming terms, it's like changing the skins.  So what caused this?  Well, there are numerous theories, and I'm sure many of them have truth as any subject of this magnitude will naturally have a lot of answers.  But I've come to believe there's one overall reason.

Screenplay formulas.

For decades, filmmakers and theorists have been trying to narrow down what makes a film "work."  Understanding this will cause filmmaking to be less risky, and solve psychological mysteries of taste.  So people set about writing books on screenwriting, observing what has been respected and loved in movies, and trying to capture the reason for the magic in them.  The result of all this research was a multitude of formulas.  Books from Adventures in the Screen Trade to The Foundations of Screenwriting to Story to the Writer's Journey all try to identify the genie in the bottle.

These books do provide a basis for good practices in screenwriting.  For instance, they remind a writer to not linger too long in their introduction of the characters and the situation.  They provide guidance on moving the plot forward, and ideas for creating dynamic story beats.  These are positive guidelines to follow.

However, somewhere along the way people started taking these books as rules rather than guidelines.  Rather than suggesting that the screenwriter shift into the second act before the audience gets bored, the screenwriter is now required to move onto the inciting incident by page 15, no exceptions!  Rather than the third act being a point at which the characters focus on their goals, it MUST follow the lowest point of their lives, where they were worse off than when they began the story, and the antagonists must now move in on them.  NO EXCEPTIONS!

Let's put 2001, A Space Odyssey to this test.  The opening of this movie, which is widely considered a classic, even by those who swear by the formulas, follows a group of apes, none of whom are main characters in the rest of the movie.  We get an entire story about them, and how they discover the monolith, which takes us into the main part of the story.  This story does involve the character getting into a worse and worse situation until things are really bad for him.  But he's still reaching his goal, and no conscious villain is closing in on him.  Ultimately, he doesn't have a dramatic ending where his heroic action saves or destroys the day.  He experiences something that speaks to the existence of humanity.

This movie fails the formula test in every way possible.  Hell, even Star Wars would fail as it doesn't introduce its main character until nearly 20 minutes into the film; a major taboo in screenwriting formulas.

But somewhere along the way, I believe in the mid to late '80s, the industry became populated by people who saw these formulas as indispensable.  This belief has permeated every nook and cranny of the industry.  Not only do producers believe in the formula, but so do their assistants, (who must if they want to keep a job,) and executives and agents and people who run film festivals, and people who decide what gets accepted into festivals.  In short, the gatekeepers to the industry all worship the formula, and anyone who does not conform is kept out.

And thus, films have become very homogenized because filmmakers are not allowed to do anything different if they want careers.

The Hypocrisy of the Academy Award Popular Film Category

This year the Academy Awards tried to add the popular film category; an attempt to appease viewers that ultimately got mocked and failed.  This category is widely seen to have been added because of two things: the popularity of Black Panther, a bandwagon upon which the Academy wanted to jump without actually considering it for best picture, and lower ratings of the show in general.

I'm actually not going to talk about whether or not Black Panther deserves to win, or even a nomination.  It was a very good movie, and it also had some glaring flaws.  Most of all, though, the whole subject of its merit brings out the absurdity of what a "best picture" is.  Can we really declare a single movie to be the best when there are so many genres and styles?  Isn't it like comparing apples and oranges to a degree?

But what I find particularly ludicrous is the hypocrisy that created this apparent need for a popular category.  The idea that something popular needs a separate category from best implies that if something makes a lot of money, it is inherently inferior to something that doesn't make a lot of money.  While certainly the motivation for wealth can be separate from the motivation for art, the idea that something that is popular can't be great is the very wrongful thinking that caused Hitchcock to never win a regular award, and why one eluded Spielberg for so long.

But what of you, Academy Awards?  Isn't the major reason why you're doing this so you keep your audience?  We all hear you every time you complain that the audience numbers are shrinking.  If the Academy Awards really believed that art and commerce are so separate, why are they so concerned with their own ratings?  It seems to me that if you're going to frown upon popular films that make money and smugly hold films that don't on a pedestal, then you shouldn't be so concerned about your own wealth.

But if ratings are so important, maybe stop looking down on those producers who are literally doing the exact same thing as you.

Relic Worlds 3, Part 3 Has Now Released

The final serialized part of Relic Worlds book 3 has finally released and is available on Amazon.

Over the past year I've been releasing parts of the latest Relic Worlds book as a serialized trilogy.  Part 1 was in April, part 2 was in July, and now is part 3.  It's also going to be released on other mediums over the next couple days, such as Drivethru, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and others through Smashwords.

As part of this whole push, I'm also going to be releasing the other books on these sites.  Many of them have been exclusively on Amazon, but I haven't noticed much better sales there, so I'm sending them out to everywhere else.

I'll be combining all three parts for a full release in January as an ebook and a paperback.

You can find everything at our website: www.relicworlds.com

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 10

            At last we come to the final act.  All the stories have come together and landed on Hoth... I mean, a completely different planet because Rian Johnson made it clear we are supposed to let go of the past.
            To be fair, it is a very clever world.  I once filmed my own movie in a ghost town just off the Salton Sea.  The sea had overflowed into the town, then dried up, leaving only the salt behind.  Just beneath the surface was a soggy, blood red clay.  It gave off an ominous, semi-horrifying appearance.  This could really make for an interesting environment.  Rian Johnson and his cinematographer make the best of this location, creating some of the most beautiful images ever put into a Star Wars movie.

            Unfortunately, the story doesn't live up to it.  First, it continues to copy Empire by having literally the same AT-AT's walk slowly toward the rebel base while a line of infantry fire useless shots at them and a bunch of air speeders fly out to defend it.  Again, I'm less offended by this series of choices than I am by the fact that Rian smugly told us to let go of the past while he clearly clings to it like a safety blanket.

            When Fin lined up to sacrifice himself for the cause, I felt a little bad because I wanted to see John Boyega do more than they had let him do in this movie.  But it would be a truly heroic death scene.  When Rose ran into him, I at first was a little relieved.  He'll be able to do something more.  But when I found out it was on purpose... and her reason...

            Basically they turned her into a little girl talking about war.  Her views are naive and immature.  This belief that you fight for what you love, not kill what you hate is admirable, the type of thing we all go "awww" when a five year old says it.  But adults understand that unfortunately, when evil people are set on killing us, we have no choice but to try to kill them before they can continue to kill us.

            I'm sure all those people who stormed Normandy Beach would rather be saving those they love back home rather than trying to kill the ones they hate.  But they understood that this was the only way to stop the killing, and they sacrificed themselves for the greater good.  Rose's naive line is a slap in the face to anyone who made that sacrifice.

            And what makes this line so particularly crazy is the fact that she says it literally as the big gun shoots the front entrance, thus dooming the ones they love to death.  It's almost like Rian Johnson realized his own hypocrisy at this moment and pointed it out, but he didn't do anything more about it but add a kiss.

            At last, with all hope lost, Luke Skywalker enters to save the day.  This gave me hope that it would all wrap up with something amazingly memorable.  It was incredibly touching to see Luke and Leia together at last.  This literally brought a tear to my eye; not just because of the Luke and Leia reunion, but because Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were such good friends.  Seeing them connect one last time was absolutely special.  For a moment I was glad they didn't kill Leia off on the ship.  Story-wise, it would have made a lot more sense, but that was such a beautiful scene between the two that I no longer gave a damn.

            Then the music starts marching triumphantly to the beat of Luke's feet walking out to face Kylo Ren.  It is on, and the boy in me is getting pumped up.  The shots of him striding out on the field to meet those AT-ATs are spectacular.  We have waited decades to see what the Jedi are capable of.  The originals had mere shadows of the Jedi.  The prequels showed us the Jedi, but now Luke is supposed to be the chosen one, the height of what the Jedi could achieve.  Vader had said in the original that the power of the Death Star was insignificant next to the power of the force.  That's saying a lot, that a literal planet killer is nothing compared to a force wielder.

            Now we're going to see why.

            Then the AT-ATs fire.  I'm not going to lie, it looked cool because of all that red thrown up from beneath the salt.  And as the dust settles and Luke comes out dusting off his shoulder, again, I have to be honest, I laughed.  I laughed because I was excited.  This is the power of the Jedi, something more powerful than a planet killer.  Kylo's going to have to go down and face him.  This is going to be awesome.
            Now, to be honest, I did see an idea later that would have worked better.  How it Should Have Ended did this scene with Luke freezing all the laser bolts in the air, then he deflects them back at the AT-ATs, destroying them.  This not only would have been an awesome show of power, but it would also have brought something around full circle from Force Awakens.  The first power we see Kylo use is to freeze a laser bolt in the air.  This would have harkened back to that, shown that Luke can do it with a lot more laser bolts, thus showing his dominance over Kylo, and it would have revealed that Kylo learned this skill from Luke, the man who was about to kick his ass.

            But oh well, now we get to see this duel between two titans, great sword play and force powers to be used against one another.  This is going to be great.  Inside the Resistance base, not much made any sense.  They had to figure out that they needed to get out, even though Luke could have told them he was stalling the bad guys.  And for some reason they can't find the back exit, even though they're the ones who freakin' built the damn...

            Okay, back to the battle between the two force wielders.  It looks great.  The cinematography is awesome.  They could be using their powers a bit more, but whatever.  The lines are a bit cheesy, but it's the two best actors in the movie, so whatever.  Then Luke looks like he's going to sacrifice himself as Obi-wan did.  Well, I wish I'd had more saber battle, but whatev...

            Luke turns out to be projecting himself.  Okay, that made this fight a bit more lame because the personal stakes were gone.  But it means Luke will be coming back in the next movie.  That's the one positive element to him not actually being there.

            Then he dies anyway.  What... the... fuck.

            Look, if you're going to kill someone off, you might as well do it as dramatically as you can.  Think of when Obi-wan died right in front of Luke.  He screamed in horror and chaos broke loose.  Think of when Han died and Chewy screamed in agonized sadness.  Imagine that same sort of thing but Leia is watching; all of the Resistance is watching.  That could be so dramatic.

            But no, he instead just fades away on some rock.  It literally reminded me of a joke my girlfriend and I had been telling where we'd see a movie, and then during the credits we'd say, "And then he died of a staph infection."  Here is one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, and they literally have him, as General MacArthur said of old soldiers, just fade away.

            Ugh.

            And with him fading away, so too did my interest in Star Wars.  I was left depressed, realizing that the guy who created this would be doing the new trilogy, and the guy who set up all the problems in it would be completing this trilogy.  The Last Jedi made more than two billion dollars and was the most well reviewed Star Wars film of all time, so why should they care what I thought?  It was like the commercials for Abrams' Star Trek atrocity, "This isn't your father's Star Wars."  It certainly isn't.  I held a torch for this series for decades, hoping it would one day live up to the potential it always had that I feel was never realized.  And now I won't ever see it.

            Oh well.  I'll just have to tell my own version through RPG games and fan fiction.  Plus, the first two original films and Rogue One can always inspire me to make great stories of my own.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 9

            The idea of arms dealers selling to both sides was actually a very good idea.  It's a statement of the real world without being too direct, and it builds out the Star Wars universe in a dynamic way.  What's more, this could have led us to the explanation of how the First Order formed.  We could have followed the money to find out that the First Order is really just made up of investors wanting to build up a conflict to make money.

            To be fair, the movie might be implying that.  But I say might because there's no firm evidence that this is what they're saying.  We see that they sell weapons to the First Order and the Resistance, (apparently not to the Republic, adding to the confusion of that whole situation,) but this implies that there's already a conflict that the arms dealers are exploiting, not creating.  So it's yet another missed opportunity for the filmmakers to explain to us what the whole conflict is about.

            But on to the dreadnaught, and the return of Phasma.

            I think everyone was excited by the prospect of a special stormtrooper who stands out from the rest.  Phasma had the potential of giving us an insight into the common soldiers of the Empire... I mean First Order, while also standing out in a unique way.  It looked like she might be the Boba Fett of this season.

            Then she turned out to be too much of the Boba Fett of this season.  See, while Boba Fett looked awesome and started off with outthinking the heroes, he was killed off unceremoniously in his second film.  Now we have a character who appears once, says some threatening things, then turns out to be useless.  She then returns, says some threatening things, and turns out to be useless.

            First, after capturing Fin and Rose... well, not capturing, but coming in and ordering everyone around once they've captured them, she then decides to have them executed in the slowest way possible.  She claims that it will be slower and more painful, but when you look at the way they're going to do it, beheading, it will be much faster than a blaster to the chest.  If they were going to slowly slice their heads off, okay, that's painful.  But the stormtroopers lift the axes over their heads, and...

            And why is Phasma even here, anyway!  She lowered the shields of the Star Killer Base!  If she somehow got out of the member berries trash compactor, and somehow got off the planet, she's not going to retain her rank!

            Sorry, I had to get that out of my system.  So anyway, the fleet gets sliced up by the Resistance ship going to light speed...

            Quick note about that.  I actually don't have a problem with a ship going to light speed destroying another ship.  It's well established that ships in hyperspace can be affected by things in our universe, ("fly to close to a star, or bounce off of a supernova...") and there's no arguing the shots look amazing.  But it was one ship.  When you look at the Imperial fleet, all of the ships are destroyed by this.  Unless they're lined up one in front of the other, I don't see how that's possible.

            Anyway, back to Phasma.  Wait, she's already been killed again?  Damn, she was hardly there.  But not before the heroes try to shoot her, but their shots bounce off her armor...

            Wait!  If the shots bounce off her armor, why was she concerned about Han shooting her during Force Awakens.  She literally lets in the Resistance to destroy her planet because he had a pistol to her head which was apparently useless.  Man, she must feel awful about that.

            So that's all I'm going to say about Phasma.  If they don't care enough about her to give her an actual story, then why should I?

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 8

            Let me take a step back and point out something that was both a great direction for Star Wars to go, and the biggest insult to the fan base.  Some of the best scenes involved Kylo and Rey talking to each other while she's on the island.  Neither one seems completely in control, and they're both trying to work out their places in the galactic events happening around them.  It's unique, it's emotional, and it all makes sense.

            And when Kylo says to Rey, "Let the past die, kill it if you have to," it's such a curious thing.  First we have to acknowledge that he's not really saying it to her.  It's not really particularly appropriate under the circumstances.  They're talking about her family history, and while it's completely appropriate for him to say she needs to let that go, to say she should "let it die" and she should "kill it" is such overkill... No pun intended.  The appropriate response to that would be, "overdramatize much there, Kylo?"  So no, he's not really talking to Rey there.

            He's talking to the audience.  He's telling us to let the past die, to "kill it if we have to."  Or is he telling that to JJ.  Again, this was a conversation they should have had before JJ began writing The Force Awakens.

            At any rate, this is a very curious thing to say.  I admire it, because I think there is too much clinging to the past.  We live in an era when people would rather recite or remake movies from the past rather than create something new.  There's constant rehashing of the '80s while they miss the very thing that made the '80s great; the fact that movies were original.  While there were some remakes and adaptations, most of the most classic movies that we admire today were original screenplays.  But now we either have mostly retreads, reboots, long-ago sequels, or movies that constantly refer to the past and pander to an older audience.

            So yeah, we could all use a dose of letting go of the past.  But there are two very important things to consider.

            First, if Rian Johnson really feels that way, why is he doing a sequel to a 40 year old movie franchise?  Why isn't he taking as big a risk as Lucas and creating something entirely fresh and new?  It's a little hard to take a speech about killing the past from someone who's keeping the past alive.

            Second, if we all wanted to kill the past, we wouldn't be in the theater watching this sequel to a 40 year old movie.  The very fact that we came means we're interested in continuing something from the past.  It can certainly go in new directions, and we hope it will.  But to kill it off entirely... well then you don't have a movie!

            It would have been very nice if Johnson and Abrams had discussed all of this before writing their movies because they come from such extreme ends of the spectrum that they probably would have compromised in the middle, right where it should be; utilizing elements of the past, while having a new vision of the future.  Too bad they didn't because now we have this constant tug of war rather than two great movies.

            So anyway, at last Kylo Ren and Rey face Snoke.  Along the way the movie sets up an expectation that this will be like Return of the Jedi. though you get the idea that something's going to go wrong with it.  Like Rose, Rey is basically a fan girl of Luke Skywalker, and she wants to reenact his dramatic turning of the ultimate evil person to good right in front of the Emperor... Or whatever the hell Snoke is supposed to be, but Kylo knows about this, too, and is going to have his guard up.

             It's not entirely a bad idea, but this is where Rian Johnson was clearly wrestling with himself.  He wanted to do something original and different, but he kept relying on the original series to set up scenes.  It's a bit hypocritical.

            That being said, I have to give it up to Snoke.  He's truly terrifying.  Not only is Andy Serkis's performance gripping, but his powers just come across as even more terrifying than the Emperor.  He lifts people in the air and tosses them around with only his mind.  He strikes lightning at... well, lightning speed.  And it has a powerful impact, throwing anyone near it across the room.  It truly feels like he can do some terrible damage to people.

            I'm really looking forward to learning more about this guy, and I'm figuring now will be the time that we learn who he is, and what the First Order is all about.  I don't need a whole complete back story.  I definitely don't need an entire movie about him.  I just want to know who the hell the bad guys are so I can understand what I'm supposed to be fearing and why.

            But then he's cut in half before we find out any of that.

            I've seen excuses for this claiming that it's okay because he's not the real villain, Kylo is.  Snoke, and some of the others, were just tools for them along the way.  And that's where their lack of vision is so disappointing.

            You see, one of the best quotes of all time in storytelling is that there are no small parts, only small actors.  This should be remembered by everyone who writes a story.  No character should be nothing but a tool.  That might be their eventual purpose, they might be there for the primary reason of boosting another character's story, but they should ALWAYS be a complete character.

            For example, in Infinity War, there's a magical sidekick to Thanos whose primary purpose is to build up his boss's plan.  But the writers STILL gave him his own motivations, his own reason for being involved in this overall story.  The writers for that film didn't use the excuse that he's just a tool to build up another character.  So when he's blown out the side of a ship, it has an emotional impact.

            And that's really what it comes down to; emotional impact.  It's okay that Snoke dies before the end, and it's okay that Kylo goes on to be the main bad guy.  But I need to give a shit.

            Think about how you felt when you saw King Joffrey killed in Game of Thrones.  Was it joy?  Surprise?  Horror?  All of the above?  Whatever you felt, you felt SOMETHING.  But if you claim to have felt something for Snoke's death, I'm calling bullshit, because there is nothing to feel.

            Everything Snoke did in both films was in regard to someone else.  Everything he said was about someone else.  He belittle Kylo and told him to do better.  He sent orders to Hux.  He referred to Han Solo, pronouncing each syllable like it was the most important letter in the alphabet.  He spoke of Rey, and wanted to find Luke.  But he never revealed anything about himself, or how and why he's built up this First Order we're supposed to fear.

            To be fair, the Emperor didn't explain how he created the Empire, but there are two things to consider here.  First, the basic concept of the original Star Wars didn't need the explanation.  It was first, and they just said the galaxy was run by a dictatorship.  And if these movies were all alone, the same would be true here.  But they have listed on them episodes 7 and 8, meaning they're part of a series, so they must answer to what came before.  And what was established before was that the Empire was taken down.  Therefore you must explain how it grew up again to understand it, and its leader.

            The moment that lightsaber ripped through him, all those answers were forever destroyed.  We would never learn who the hell these guys were and why we should fear them.  So much for Hitchcock's advice that your movie is only as good as your villain.

            The fight scene that comes next has one thing I have to say in its favor.  It's well shot from a camera point of view.  It matches the great cinematography and effects that play throughout this film.  However, when you watch the fight coordination closely, you'll notice the stunt people purposely having to miss Rey because she doesn't get out of the way in time, and Kylo once inexplicably stabs the floor between two enemies and nothing happens except they politely allow him to pull his lightsaber back up.  Rey, of course, masterfully wields her lightsaber despite still having never been trained in it.  Again, she's good with a staff, but as I said earlier, that doesn't really translate effectively.

            To be honest, though, that didn't bother me so much.  The next part really killed things; what's truly the litany of insults toward the fans.

            First, Kylo tells Rey that she comes from nothing.  This isn't really so bad at first glance.  In fact, I'm glad she's not a Skywalker.  I found the fan theories unendingly annoying.  She's a Kenobi.  She's a Skywalker.  She's a Palpatine.  How about something more original?  It's a fucking galaxy!  Not everyone has to be related!

            However, saying her family was nobodies who died on Jaku causes even bigger problems.  For one thing, we saw glimpses of her watching her parents fly away in a ship.  How did that happen if they were nobodies who stayed on Jaku?  Most importantly, though, why make such a big thing of it in the first film if it's going to turn out to be irrelevant?  It'd be like me saying, "Guess who I'm writing about next!  Guess who!  You'll never guess!  Oh, take a guess."  Then I said, "No one!"  You'd feel like I wasted your time, and I did.

            This goes back once again to JJ Abrams, who set up this whole concept, then left the mess for someone else to clean up and take the blame.  Rian Johnson's part was simply not coming up with something better to excuse Abrams' incompetence.

            But then they could have done something that might have made up for most of the problems; that could have truly been unpredictable and taken the story in a whole new direction, as Rian Johnson claimed he wanted.  Kylo tells Rey to go with him.  How cool would that have been?  How interesting would it be to have a third faction rather than just good versus evil?

            But nope.  By having Rey choose to go back with the rebels, Rian fell back into the very formula he pretended to be shrugging off.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 7

            Let's go back to the island again.  I said that it was my favorite part of the film, but there are problems.  One of them is that Luke's excuse for not going back is that he has no confidence in his ability to train others.  This is understandable and a good story arc.  But it doesn't explain why HE won't go back.  His own abilities are not under doubt, not even by him.  It would have worked better if Luke recognized an evil growing within himself that he's not sure he can control.  That would give him the fear that he might turn on the resistance rather than the enemy.

            But the real problem was, of course, when Luke turned stupid.

            Most people say it's when he turned evil, but that's not really the true problem here.  Luke sees darkness in Kylo and considers killing him to stop those terrible things from happening.  Had it been only a thought it could be written off as temptation that Luke overcame.  In fact, I think this was a good climax to this arc.  The only thing that would truly cause Luke to lose heart would be something that he himself had done.  Only that huge amount of guilt would keep the most optimistic person in the galaxy grounded like that.  So yes, it should absolutely be about Luke beginning to turn to the dark side and feeling guilty for it.

            But it doesn't mean he had to turn to the stupid side.  Here's what I mean.  Luke has turned on and off his lightsaber plenty of times during his life.  He knows that it's loud.  Yet he turns it on while standing over Kylo.  And what was his plan exactly?  Was he going o turn it on, expect his prey to remain asleep while he sliced through him?  What would he tell Kylo's roommate?  What about the other trainees?  How about his sister and best friend?  "Sorry I sliced your son in two, but he was gonna turn bad."  "You didn't kill Darth Vader, and he was already bad!"  "Yeah, but, you know.  Had to do it."

            They could have accomplished this same goal in a more interesting way.  Instead of Luke lighting his saber, he goes by his home and looks at Kylor... or Ben at the time.  He sees all the horrors he will unleash and all the terrible things he was capable of doing.  Luke is horrified by all this and considers killing him.  But he stops himself, realizing that he can have an influence on the boy, and determines to work on that.  He walks away, believing Kylo is still asleep.  But Kylo is awake, and he entered Luke's mind as well, reading his thoughts on killing him.  He either does not notice or does not care that Luke turned away from the temptation.  He becomes frightened, and that fear becomes anger, which in turn becomes hate, (sound familiar?)  We could then see the Knights of Ren formed in an extended scene as they determine to overthrow their master, and then do it through an ambush.

            How... fucking... cool would that have been.  And it would have worked without Luke holding a lightsaber over his nephew ready to slice him in two.  Just sayin'.

            Speaking of the force, a lot of people made a big deal about Yoda being able to call lightning down even though he's a spirit.  This is a very good point.  But there's something else that I found downright offensive.  After Yoda calls down the lightning, as the tree burns, Yoda begins laughing his ass off.  To this I say to Johnson and anyone who excuses it, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

            Look, I get that this movie is trying to switch directions and get people to move on from preconceived notions.  I admire that.  But this tree has symbolized the Jedi order for over a thousand generations.  Think of that, a religion that has been around for about 20,000 years with a single temple as its center.  Now that temple is being destroyed.  That's a solemn-fucking-occasion.

            Let me put it another way.  Imagine if the Vatican was being demolished, and there's the Pope over to the side laughing his ass off.  That would be pretty goddamn inappropriate, don't you think?  And that religion's only been around for 1/10th the time the Jedi would have been.

            And to be honest, I don't really see what destroying the tree does, anyway.  I get the whole "we have to move on" stuff, but what does destroying it do?  It accomplishes nothing.  But considering that pretty much everyone accomplishes nothing in this movie, I shouldn't be surprised.

            Also, Yoda's look is the strangest here.  It's like they took the worst aspects of both the puppet and CGI and mixed them together.

            I should probably at this point address the elephant in the room.  Throughout this film, and the subsequent talks Rian Johnson gave on it, it was clear that this writer/director wanted to subvert expectations.  He had seen how obsessive fans were with their speculations, and he had seen how predictable Abrams had made the last movie by retreading the old ones.  He sought to change all this by subverting everyone's expectations.  What Johnson didn't seem to understand is that it's not enough.  One has to replace the expectation with something more interesting.  Subverting an expectation is not an end, it's simply the beginning of the process.

            Or to put it another way, my expectation was to get something awesome, and Johnson subverted that by giving me something lame.