The Last Jedi Is Too Terrible to be Good and Too Well Done to Be Awful

The latest installment of Star Wars juggles many themes, such as sacrifice, trust, legacy, inner turmoil, letting go of the past, and hope for the future, but I think the grander lesson can be summed up as this: screwing up someone's plan will have short term consequences, but everything will turn out alright in the end. This is reflected both in the characters' actions, and by Writer/Director Rian Johnson's decision to apparently throw out whatever plan, if any, was in place from The Force Awakens.

Many of the film's defenders describe it as bold and/or ballsy for digging into the characters' consistent failures and for scrapping any respect for their expectations. And they're right. It is bold for telling the audiences that what they were expecting to see doesn't matter to him, but those defenders don't get to take umbrage when some interpret that as a giant middle finger. The films succeeds in doing the unexpected in a familiar way, but I hesitate to give it credit for choices that weaken the narrative. For simplicity's sake, I'm saving my nitpicky Star Wars Fan criticisms for another post.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Thor: Ragnarok 'n' Roll

One of the many pleasures of being part of a film industry group is the ability to go to screenings of current movies, and about half the time, they're ahead of the release date. Such was the case of how I got to see the highly anticipated Thor: Ragnarok this week. I can truly say it was worth the wait.

LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE TRAILERS OR NEWS

Star Trek Ascendancy w/ Expansions

My friends and I recently played a game of Star Trek Ascendancy, a game of galactic expansion and civilization development in the Trek-verse. I had just bought the new Ferengi and Cardassian expansions and we were all eager to try them. We were hoping for a 4-5 player game to get most or all of the factions in play. Alas, difficult availabilities pared our players down to the minimum 3.

It became quickly clear that everyone wanted to play the Ferengi. With the aggressive capitalism in the game, they rely on literally buying their way to victory ('Merica!)

We were on a bit of a time crunch, so I just passed out the starting turn order cards and we selected factions in that order. One of my friends got the #1 and took Ferengi. The other friend got the #2 and decided to try his hand at the Cardassians. That left me with the Federation, Klingons, Romulans. I'd played the Federation twice and already seen how the Klingons operate so I decided to go with the Romulans.

Concerning Lightsabers, Part 1: Kyberlight

About a month ago, I went with my sensei and a couple other students from my dojo to a lightsaber fight in Washington Square Park. I borrowed someone's saber and we did some lightsaber kendo for everyone. It was a good time, and despite my rather rough technique, I managed to win a bout.

Anyway, afterwards I decided to take the plunge and purchase my own dueling lightsaber. I'd been thinking about it for a while and thought, 'why not?'

What Doctor Who Fans are Waiting for from Big Finish

The Adventures of Martha and Micky

We last saw Mickey "The Idiot" Smith and his former U.N.I.T. bride, Martha Jones, in The End of Time, Part 2 where they were shown fighting a Sontaran. Martha made a reference to them recently "going freelance" which we can only infer as the couple defending the Earth on their own terms. Like most former companions, we've heard nothing from them since, but unlike most other companions, the story potential is endless. What are their lives like? Do they have day jobs? Who do they work for as freelancers? Are they Earth's new A Team? If the actors would be willing to sign on, Big Finish would have no problem pumping out a few action packed stories about this alien fighting duo.

An Open Letter to Chris Chibnall Concerning Doctor Who

Dear Mr. Chibnall,
I'm not going to mince words here, you have an uphill battle ahead of you. You've been given command of a sinking ship and asked to keep it going. This particular ship sprung a leak a while ago, but no one seems to have noticed or done anything about it, and now you're already halfway underwater.

But I want to help you. Doctor Who has weathered worse problems than this and a new Doctor is always an opportunity to win a new audience. Here's what I think you can do to get the show back to the basics that the fans know and love.