Defending Star Wars and Cinematic Universes

I did not grow up with the original Star Wars trilogy. I grew up with the much-maligned Prequels. And you know something… I maligned them, too. Hell… I maligned them not very long ago, twice, on this very blog. But I went back and watched them recently and… you know what? They aren’t actually as bad as I remember them. Hayden Christensen is still whiny, Jar Jar Binks is still annoying (he would have been such a better character if he had turned out to be a Sith Lord), Count Dooku came out of nowhere (likely to make up for the fact that Jar Jar was no longer a Sith Lord), and some of the CGI was bad even for the time it came out…

But Jake Lloyd actually did a pretty decent job with young Anakin, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi were awesome, Yoda was amazing, the turn of Palpatine into Sidious was incredible, Darth Maul was phenomenal, Queen Amidala was actually a good character and Natalie Portman played her really well, Mace Windu was just plain cool, and the story was really, really good over all.

Yes, I’ve seen the original trilogy, of course, but I simply don’t have the connection to Luke Skywalker that so many have. However, I am a Star Wars fan. Not a big enough fan to have read and collected the lore or seen the maligned Christmas special and that stuff, but a big enough fan to have watched (and enjoyed) both the Clone Wars and Rebels animated TV shows, and a big enough fan to have been excited by Force Awakens, Rogue One, Last Jedi, and Solo. And as I sit here today, people are still fighting over whether or not Last Jedi and Solo were good films.

You want to know what I think?

Both Last Jedi and Solo (and Rogue One and Force Awakens) were amazing films.

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Batman v Superman Spoiler-Filled “Review” (Four YouTube Videos)

I posted a spoiler-free review of this trash a long while back. I promised a spoiler-filled “extended edition” review, but never delivered.

The reason?

I just don’t want to. The film still pisses me off (and that’s why this isn’t a Self Care post). I still get angry and want to go on cuss-filled rants thinking about it and thinking about what could, and should, have been.

The only reason I don’t want a reboot is because I want to see what Gal Gadot does with Wonder Woman. And that’s it. If anyone else was Wonder Woman, and wasn’t a huge fan of the character before playing her (as Gal has basically proven she was), then I’d maybe not feel so bad about a reboot. But she was just about the only bright spot in BvS, and I am genuinely looking forward to the Wonder Woman film (and getting as close as an atheist can to praying that WB leaves it alone and lets Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot bring their vision to the big screen).

And yeah, the first footage of Justice League released actually looks a tad promising, though that may be because my expectations for it are basically negative, so it would actually take almost too much to not reach them.

Oh… and I obviously don’t blame the actors for the problems with BvS, as I do think they all did the best they could with the drivel they were given. Given better stuff to work with (better scripts, better stories, better directors, etc), I think they could all actually do phenomenal jobs with their characters.

But… I did promise a spoiler-filled review. And I guess I have to deliver.

But because I really don’t want to write this, I’m taking a short cut. I’m just going to post four videos below that really explain my thoughts on this film a whole lot better than I ever could.

So…

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Suicide Squad

(Warning… some spoilers ahead… also, I discuss the abusive relationship between Joker and Harley in the Batman animated series and the comics. Not in much detail, but still…)

The Suicide Squad cast, minus Amanda Waller and the Joker, posing in front of Belle Reve.

So let me be honest up front… I don’t read a lot of comics, but I do prefer DC to Marvel. That said, that’s only for two reasons: Batman and Wonder Woman. I’ve always been a fan of both, and through them I prefer Justice League to the Avengers.

When Marvel and Disney started on their Avengers cinematic universe, I was hoping for DC to do a Justice League cinematic universe. And I wasn’t the only one. Many had hoped that Nolan’s Batman movies would be the start, but he refused to go that route, and honestly, his movies would not have fit in a Justice League universe with fantasy and sci-fi all around, especially as Nolan’s trilogy was more of an exercise in “what would Batman be like in the real world” (even if TDKRises sort of ultimately failed that question).

Then, Man of Steel came out. I was… not impressed. Although I’ve never been the world’s biggest Superman fan, following Justice League through Batman and Wonder Woman makes the other heroes, including Superman, very hard to avoid (though no, I wasn’t trying to, as I like the Justice League in general, as well). Superman is not an easy hero to pull off. Being the first, his over-powered, nearly god-like status made sense back when he was created. But DC has never been able to successfully update him, and when he has been amazing (All Star Superman, for example), they never really understood why he was so amazing, and so would kill it. And, of course, DC and WB gave Zack Snyder (of Sucker Punch infamy… gods that movie was terrible) the reigns over Man of Steel… which means that what we got was a Superman based quite a bit on Dr. Manhattan (which really shouldn’t be that surprising in hindsight). That just didn’t work. It’s not too surprising that critics weren’t fans.

Then we got Batman V Superman. I’ve been promising a spoiler-heavy review of the ultimate cut, but have so far failed to deliver, and I apologize for that. Hopefully I’ll get one up eventually, but suffice it to say, I really did not like the movie… I think largely because what I wanted was something more akin to World’s Finest. But I’ll get to that in my spoiler-heavy review… if I ever get to it.

But now, we have Suicide Squad.

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