The Last Jedi — Forcing Change
Lessons from the Screenplay examines the character arcs of Finn and Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
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Science Fiction
The Toys That Made Us – Star Trek
- Title: The Toys That Made Us – Star Trek
- IMDb: link
While the other episodes of the documentary series look at the phenomenally successful toy lines that defined a generation (or several generations), the Star Trek episode is an interesting departure that focuses far more on the franchise’s mistakes, false starts, stumbles, and decades of poor marketing that led to frustration from their target audience. While there are some interesting items here and there, and the quality did improve in later years, the stand-outs here are the toys that either failed (such as the constantly beeping walkie-talkie tricorder) or the bizarre (what exactly is that flashing helmet for?). Of the three episodes I’ve watched from the show’s Second Season, it’s the most interesting allowing collectors and toy makers to celebrate and bemoan the byzantine ups and downs of Star Trek merchandise.
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Anon
- Title: Anon
- IMDb: link
There’s an interesting idea inside of writer/director Andrew Niccol‘s (Gattaca, In Time) Anon but the film, released straight to Netflix without a theatrical release, flounders. A sci-fi whodunit, Anon takes place in the future where every person has a camera inside their eyes which records every waking moment of their life. When a crime happens, police are able to view the events from the victim’s perspective. However, a hacker has learned how to hack the cameras not only giving them access to an incredible amount of sensitive data but also allowing them to kill without leaving a trace.
Clive Owen stars as Police Detective Sal Frieland who searches for a hacker (Amanda Seyfried) who can alter a person’s recorded history for a price. Going undercover, Sal hopes to find the hacker and murderer who the department believes is the same person (although Sal’s bosses are far more interested in plugging the leak into how the hacker is breaking into the network than solving the murder). Part post-noir mystery and part attempted indictment on social media and sharing your life online, Anon fails on both counts.
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Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Title: Solo: A Star Wars Story
- IMDb: link
In many ways Solo: A Star Wars Story is the antithesis of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. Solo plays things ultra-conservative, continually dumbs down the plot for the audience, and relies heavily on nostalgia. The result is a fun, if flawed and unambitious, film that offers fans the Cliff’s Notes version of Han Solo‘s (Alden Ehrenreich) past.
Star Wars fans will know the planet Corellia. Aside from being the homeworld of Han Solo, the planet played a major role in various storylines of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Solo: A Star Wars Story is the first Star Wars film to give fans a glimpse of the world… and it’s about and underwhelming as possible. It doesn’t help that the only scenes we get involve a young Han, saddled with a Dickensian backstory which turns him into Oliver Twist, working along with other local younglings as a thief.
If the film has a major flaw its the first 30-45 minutes which struggles mightily to set-up the story and at times is borderline bad. Thankfully, once Han makes some new friends and the heist plot is introduced, things begin to pick up.
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Poe Dameron #27
- Title: Poe Dameron #27
- Comic Vine: link
- Writer: Charles Soule
- Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Set after the events of The Last Jedi, the latest arc of Poe Dameron picks up with the remnants of the Resistance aboard the Millennium Falcon sharing stories to help fill in gaps here and there during the events of The Force Awakens.
While the last issue focused on explaining how Poe Dameron made it off of Jakku, Poe Dameron #27 offers the return of a familiar Falcon co-pilot, Rey and Poe getting to know each other a little more, and another tale from the events of the first film involving the pilot Temmin Wexley and Black Squadron‘s reconnaissance of Starkiller Base prior to the Resistance’s attack.
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