Current Projects

I have a tendency to overwhelm myself with projects.  The problem is that I have too many things that I want to create before I die.  In fact, I have currently have more ideas in me than I likely have life left.  So I try to get as many of them out as possible.  I’m like a sinking ship with passengers who I’m trying to put onto lifeboats before I sink into the waters of mortality.

Here is a list of the projects I have coming up later this year:

RPG Storytime podcast

Finish RPG Storytime Star Wars

Re-release Pro Bono

Release a companion piece for Pro Bono

Relic Worlds Adventures board game

Relic Worlds RPG

Relic Worlds short stories

Relic Worlds podcast

Command Combat 2^nd edition

Book about Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant

Book about my childhood with Ryan

Star Wars fan fiction

 

We’ll see at the end of the year how much I get done.

RPG Storytime - Star Wars

One of my favorite projects to work on is RPG Storytime.  It's where I take stories generated out of role playing games and turn them into narrated videos with music, sound effects, illustrations, and miniatures.

The latest campaign is an epic sized Star Wars one where we follow all the characters within a pair of sectors.  We use all the Star Wars games made by FFG that involve miniatures.

The webisodes that came out at the end of last year are from my favorite part of this story.  In it, a woman named Ellor Sundown is hunting the man who experimented on her, an unnatural Force wielder named Rixar Traln.

The beginning of the story is below:

 

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.  (I figured Halloween is a good day to do that.)  It will be running until the end of the year.  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_

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.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 6

            So begins the longest slow speed chase since OJ Simpson in the Bronco.  Somehow the resistance ships are able to pull just a little ahead of the First Order ships, but they're not able to gain any more space than that.  I'm not sure how that works, but that's what they claim is happening.

            They're also steadily running out of fuel.  Now, a lot of people have pointed out that this is the first time fuel is mentioned in the Star Wars universe.  That's not true.  You see ships being fueled up in several movies, and you can pretty much assume in any film that ships need fuel.  That's not the problem.

            The problem is, why would they not have taken more fuel with them?  Even if they were escaping in a hurry, you'd imagine that, these being republic ships, they're going to be pretty well fueled.

            But the really baffling part comes when Rose sees Fin.  First, I'm not sure why Rose would be a fan of his because he didn't do anything on the Star Killer Base that would have warranted attention.  But that's beside the point.  What's truly baffling is what she's doing there; keeping people from escaping.  But... that's the whole point of what they're trying to do.  Leia even says later in the film that if at least one person escapes, they can be the spark that reignites the rebellion and restores freedom to the galaxy.  Well then, why not jam the escape pods full of people, launch them, and send them all in different directions.  For that matter, why not have the capitol ships all fly in different directions.  They also apparently have a transport ship that has enough fuel for several jumps as Fin and Rose leave and return on it.  I can't imagine that would be the only one of those transports on board, so use another one.  They could also call Rey back and fill the Falcon with people and have that fly in yet another direction.

            You might be countering this with two things.  First, that the escape pods don't have jump drive ability, which I would be with you on, but if that's the case, why did four people and Fin try to use them to escape in deep space?  Clearly they have hyperspace capabilities.  Second, there are enough First Order ships to follow each of them.  But they make it very clear that only one of them can track them.  So if the resistance just split up, the First Order could only follow one of them.

            But then comes one of the most face palming elements of the entire movie, and it baffles me that I haven't heard anyone else talk about this problem.  So apparently they can only get through the First Order shields with a code breaker, and in the entire galaxy, only two people can do it, Maz, and this person she knows.  Maz tells them she can't do it because she's involved in a labor dispute.  She says this while she's exchanging gunfire with someone.

            So... Let me get this straight.  Maz is... shooting at her employees, and they're shooting back at her.  Seriously.  This is one of the good guys, the owner of a bar who is literally shooting at her employees because of a labor dispute... Huh.  I'm afraid to ask what she does to an employee if they arrive five minutes late.  Also, supposedly she could break this code, but she's too busy to do that because of this labor dispute.  Nice to know that an employee strike at a bar takes precedence over saving the entire galactic republic.  Used to be a time when the rebellion versus the Empire meant something.  But now, it's all about who wants a day off or a raise.

            So Rose and Finn are off to the casino planet where they wax poetic about slavery and cruelty to animals.  Now, I relate to their plight for animals.  My girlfriend and I foster cats and are big into animal rescues.  It's an important issue to us.  But if Nazis were about to take over the world, I think I'd be a little more concerned with stopping them than whether or not someone was whipping a horse.

            In fact, when Rose sets one of the animals free and it runs into a field, I couldn't help but think of how it would look in an episode of The Simpsons.  It disappears into the tall grass, then we see a ship come down from above and scoop the animal up.  You see, setting the animals free in that moment wouldn't do anything.  All they accomplished was to inconvenience the slavers for a little bit.  The way to stop them would be to restore the republic and have that republic make these activities illegal.  You know, that republic that Rose and Fin are supposed to be saving, but might not because they're temporarily setting a few horses free?

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 5

 While Luke and Rey are on the island, Snoke chastises Kylo.  What's odd about this interaction is that everything Snoke criticizes is stuff that was set up in episode 7; the fact that he's mimicking Darth Vader, the fact that he was beaten by an untrained girl, etc.  It was here I started thinking that this movie was an argument between Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams.  I really felt like I should leave and come back when they've finished the argument and written a pair of scripts that supported one another rather than tugged in two different directions.  I mean, when Snoke says, "Take that ridiculous thing off," he's literally calling something JJ Abrams came up with a "ridiculous thing."  This is not something that should be coming up partway through the second movie of a trilogy; it should have been in the writer's room of the first one.

            Had this been a conversation they had before episode 7 was made, I'd be more on Johnson's side.  It is better to be original with these films, and Kylo Ren's character arc is the most interesting one.  We want to see his face through most of it, so the mask needs to be gone for that.  But once something has been established, right or wrong, you need to go with it.  You can alter course, but as any improv actor will tell you, you don't just say the last person's idea was stupid; you try to run with it and make it better.

            But instead, Johnson wanted Kylo to be completely different from Vader.  That's why he had him jump in a ship just like Vader's and fly into battle, leading tie fighters just like Vader did, destroying apparently the only hangar in the fleet.

            When he turns on the bridge, it's an interesting moment.  He can't bring himself to fire on his mother, and there seems to be a moment where they sense one another.  This sort of interaction with Leia would be interesting.  Perhaps they can do something with it where they connect through the force and...

            Nope, a minion blew up the bridge.  And here is one of the biggest fuck you moments in the movie.  Johnson had several well known figures from the earlier movies on that bridge, including Admiral Akbar and Nin Num.  Okay, think about how old those guys would be.  To be an admiral you have to be pretty old already, and Akbar was admiral 30 years earlier.  Nin Num was also supposed to be high ranking.  For them to be still in their positions would be like having admirals from World War I in charge during World War II.

            What I'm getting at here is that there was no reason to even have them there.  They should be retired somewhere and it should be new people working the bridge.  But Rian Johnson placed them in the bridge with the sole purpose of killing them.  It was the equivalent of someone taking out your favorite toys from when you were a kid and pissing all over them; it's entirely unnecessary and just a dick move.  What was the point if not to just troll the audience?

            Then of course there's Leia being sucked into space, then flying back in.  Now, I've been looking forward to Leia using the force ever since Return of the Jedi.  I've always felt they ripped her off of being as strong a character as she could be.  I had hoped that they'd rectify it in these new movies, but instead, all they've given her is the ability to sense her husband's death and the ability to be Mary Poppins.  Now with Carrie Fisher's death, the idea will never be realized.

            What's even sadder about this being Fisher's final performance is the fact that she spends most of it in a coma.  I genuinely hope this haunts Rian Johnson at night.  He had Carrie Fisher for her final performance, and he wasted it having her lie on her back with her eyes closed for most of it.  And what did he put in place of her?

            Purple hair woman.  Now, don't get me wrong, I think Laura Dern is a fine actress; and I resent a lot of the cruel names people have called her.  However, to replace what they had with this character is insulting.  Consider this.

            When they made Return of the Jedi they hired teams of craftsmen and women to work tirelessly to bring alien beings to life.  Using the best that existed in make-up and effects, they created faces that expressed emotions and felt real.  Now...

I've got some purple hair spray!

            I felt insulted the moment that woman walked on screen.  My movie ticket cost more than they put into her character.  This is supposed to be a galaxy of different species, made by a studio with more money than entire countries, and the best they can do is a human with purple fucking hair???

            Now I get that they're trying to push forward feminism, and I'm completely on board with that.  I believe feminism is by far one of the most important issues in the world, (they make up more than 50% of the population for god's sake,) and women need good representation in movies.  Leia herself is a feminist icon, (which again leaves me baffled why they wouldn't leave her conscious throughout this movie.)  But women can be of all different species.  One of the concepts they always subtly pressed in Star Wars was the idea that the Empire was a racist organization, employing only humans while other species joined the rebellion.  They could have hit both of these points by making Holdo a female alien.  But no, purple hair.

            Also, she doesn't appear at all until the others on the bridge are killed.  If she's the highest ranking officer left, why have we seen others in command positions and she's only now showing up?  The way they portray her it's like they just brought her up from the kitchen.

            Then, of course, there's the problem that everyone has noticed, (even those who love this movie but refuse to admit this problem exists,) she doesn't tell anyone her plan, essentially forcing everyone with any initiative to mutiny.  But that's coming up.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 4

            So then we get to the island and we at last get to see what Luke and Rey do after staring at each other for an eternity.  This is where Rian and JJ's visions become clearly not in sync.  The two of them are not standing the same distance from one another and there's a different tone.  And then, of course, Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder.  And, I'll just say it...

            I don't hate this... at least not entirely.

            The problem with it, of course, is that Luke is so flippant about it.  For one thing, this saber has a history to it that Luke would at least have a reverence for, even if he's lost his own spirit.  And at the very least, he's going to be confused as to how it was recovered.  This was the saber that was lost along with his hand in Bespin.  JJ Abrams passed the buck on how it was recovered, and now it's being passed on once again.  It's lazy writing by people who just don't care.

            The biggest problem with this is that it's once again a humorous moment that diffuses later drama.  They purchased a cheap laugh at the price of important character development; and one must ask him or herself, what's more important for this character arc?

            So why do I not hate this moment as much as so many rabid Star Wars fans?  It's because I get the basic idea of what Rian Johnson was going for with Luke, and with all due respect to Mark Hamill and many others, I think it's a good idea... in theory.

            Remember that JJ Abrams set up a very difficult scenario.  He made it that Luke had secluded himself on an island, then he did what he always does and passed it on to someone else to figure out why.  Johnson had to make a reason, and having it such that he's lost all hope is a good one.  His character literally represents hope, so the theme that runs through his story arc should be all about hope.  In this case, it's the loss of hope, and it's up to the new lead character to help him get it back.

            I can't think of any better way to personify that than to have him disregard the lightsaber.  It's a good way to introduce that dramatic arc.  BUT... there are better ways to do it than to have him flippantly toss it over his shoulder.  He could ask her where she got it, hand it back to her, even shout at her for not leaving him alone.  And if they wanted him to throw it away, have him turn and chuck it in anger.  Make it clear this isn't a joke to him, but that he's truly turned away from this life.

            Aside from this misstep, my favorite scenes of the movie are on the island.  Hamill's performance is incredible, and the character development is most interesting during this time.  The best character interactions are either between Luke and Rey, or Rey and Kylo.  I even like the pogs and Chewbacca's interaction with them is adorable.  And of course the scene with Luke and R2 is enough to bring a nostalgic tear to the eye.
            I even like where he drinks milk from the beast.  I know, that's heresy to say, but here's why I like that.  Again, going with the idea that Luke has lost hope, nothing shows more vividly how far he's fallen than seeing him drink from the tit of a beast.  Is it the Luke we used to love?  No!  That's the point.  He's lost his hope and his dignity and is wishing to die alone.  That creates the obstacle Rey has to overcome; to bring back the spirit of the most optimistic man in the galaxy.

            And at last Rey's character arc is able to do something.  Abrams weakened the drama with her by making her too powerful, but Johnson grabbed onto the story about her not knowing her heritage or understanding why the force is so strong with her.  She explores this through her conversations with Luke, her interaction with Kylo, and in that wonderful mirror sequence in the cave.  It's obscure and we don't yet know what it means, but it was a very creative way to slowly reveal the mystery of her only character arc thus far.

            It's also an example of what is done right on the island.  There have been a lot of complaints that Luke doesn't train Rey on the island, and this is valid in that Rey should not yet have full control over her powers as she's not received any real, formal teaching.  But you also don't want this movie to just be a copy of Empire, so it shouldn't be just a rehash of him teaching her what Yoda taught him.

            Alas, there are other things they do wrong, which we'll get to later.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 3

            When the trailers for The Last Jedi came out, a friend of mine said he was worried it would be a copy of Empire Strikes back.  I believed it wouldn't.  But when the movie began with the resistance escaping a planet the First Order was trying to blockade, I thought, "well, crap."
            But here comes Poe, my favorite character.  I was hoping there'd be some focus on him.  I was even still on board as he began trolling Hux.  I have to admit, I found it funny in the moment.  Now, a lot of people have claimed that comedy has no place in Star Wars.  That's ridiculous.  First, the original films had plenty of humor in them, and even if they hadn't, it's meant to be a fun series.  Humor has every right to be there.

            However, with every decision you pay a price, particularly when you put comedy somewhere.  In this instance, the comedy took away the power of Hux and the First Order he represented.  Imagine the same joke being used on Sauromon in Lord of the Rings.  You may laugh in the moment, but the price you pay is ever feeling any fear for that villain again.  It's a basic cost-benefit analysis which the writer didn't do.

            I also want to point out one other thing about the dialogue.  The way Hux speaks, he might as well be twirling a curled mustache.  Star Wars has always been about good versus evil, but there's a certain point where the evil has become so cliche it's a parody of itself.  The dialogue here is more a view of what this sort of movie is supposed to be rather than having an identity of its own.  Compare this to the evil ways people speak in Rogue One.  The characters give you chills without sounding like they're coming out of a children's book.  I'm disappointed that this one didn't do the same.

            What followed looked pretty cool.  It was clear that Poe saw an opening as long as he destroyed the towers to make way for some bombers, and it was neat to see just what a droid does to repair a ship; though that turned into the droid essentially plugging holes like it was filling with water.  But whatever, Poe gets rid of the towers, supposedly making way for the bombers.

            Next is something very strange.  General Leia has ordered no attack to happen, and has been chastising Poe for going out there.  But when he clears the last tower, the bombers are already on their way.  There's no moment where someone says, "It's okay to go!" and they launch.  They have that moment in Rogue One where the rebel base has said they're not going to support the team, but then they learn that the team has gone anyway and they're succeeding, so Mon Mothma and the others order the attack to go forward, and you see them launching.  Here... it feels like that's missing.

            Anyway, the rebel bombers launch and the tie fighters go at them and rip them apart.  There's a bit to unpack here, so let me pause a moment.  First, I want to commend Rian Johnson for having A wings and a new type of bomber here.  He recognized there were more ships than just X-wings and tie fighters, and that there should be new ships.  He also understood that Star Wars ship battles are supposed to have a World War II feel to them, so he made the bombers much like Flying Fortresses.

            However, there's one thing he didn't quite understand.  The fighter battles had always felt like a World War II battle, they weren't right on the nose like these bombers.  Granted, the other ships don't fight the way they would in space; to get a better idea of what that would be like see the remake of Battlestar Galactica.  But the Star Wars ships always had a sort of compromise between WWII fighters and space ships.  These bombers, straight up Flying Fortresses; slow, cumbersome, and they have to get directly over the target to drop their bombs.

            And it turns out taking out those gun towers did no good whatsoever.  Look, I understand if the towers would make it harder, but if everything gets destroyed by fighters anyway, what was the point of taking out the towers at all.  It's not like Poe wouldn't know that there were fighters on the capitol ships.

            As far as dropping the payload, I realize there are all sorts of arguments about there being no gravity, maybe it's the artificial gravity that shoots them out, they're magnetized, whatever.  First, I guarantee you Rian Johnson did not think about it that deeply.  By this point it's already clear he's going with the "good ol' fashion" style of storytelling where you're not supposed to ask.  To be fair, that's been in Star Wars for a long time.  There are plenty of aspects of the original series that people have always joked about.  Here, though, it was inadvisable because it was so over the top in its illogic, and it would have been so easy to get around that.  Simply have it be short range missiles that they have to be close to fire, or have someone say drop the magno bombs or something.  Such an easy fix would have avoided a big controversy.
            After the dreadnought is destroyed, there's a scene I really like.  Snoke calls Hux and his big head appears as a hologram above him.  Not only is this image intimidating, but he then slides Hux around the room, revealing just how powerful he is.  Between these effects and Andy Serkis's wonderful performance, they're really setting up Snoke to be a frightening villain.

            In fact, there are a number of performances I'm really liking here, including Carrie Fisher's daughter, who I'd like to see more.  It's all of this great talent that I feel has gone to waste.  It's the biggest missed opportunity since Star Trek 5.