From a spoiler here, a spoiler there, an opinion here, an opinion there, I’m getting an impressionistic look at the new Space Shooters film. And it sounds unappealing, uninteresting, not worth the ticket. Hell, not worth the bother to pirate. I didn’t watch Revengers: The Last One either. Disney brought me right up to the grand finales of their big cash cows and lost me there. Why?

Revengers had a big ensemble cast but always felt like at core it’s the Tony! Toni! Toné! show, and it doesn’t feel good. Robard Downy Jerk was fun in his first movie, because of the focus on wacky inventor stuff and because he rejected the military industrial complex. By the second one – by his own admission – he was “bored of the liberal agenda” and was just back to being an asshole. Some people insist they love characters who are assholes, but that ain’t me. The more I heard about The Last One, the more I realized it was a big exercise in fellating Downy with a good dose of fatphobia to wash it down. Nuh.

Space Shooters: The Franchise Awakens had these cute actors playing cute characters with heart, big bombastic visuals that spoke to my dreams, and a villain who was a great reflection of the kind of flailing infantile fuckboyism that’s taken over our world. The sequel kicked up the space wizard stuff all the notches, making Da Force feel like some Dragon Ball Z shit. It made the main characters of the first one feel less important, less like they have agency in any important way. It included people giving waaay too much latitude to a egotistical ass who got a lot of people killed. But it shook out all right, in my opinion.

It also introduced a character who was a sweaty nerd and an excellent audience stand-in – Rose Tico. Think of this: She was cute but not sexy or conventionally attractive. She was deglammed in dumpy overalls, sweating and trying hard. She cared more about furthering the story than our diffident man of action Finn. Come on, sexy main actor people!, she said. You have to be the heroes we’ve held you up to be! You have to engage in this star war!

But it sounds like the new movie was designed by committee (how many writers?) to avoid offending any given partisan audience member – which meant capitulating to the sexist racist misogynists who couldn’t see past their dicks to notice Rose Tico was for them, leaving the second most important character from the first movie in time-killing mode, walking back anything interesting they’d done in the second movie, and generally wasting the potential of a damn fine set-up.

That’s the impression I’m getting. I still haven’t seen Revengers: The Last One and Space Shooters has become even less interesting than that. In honor of Rose Tico, I’m not paying Disney for this bullshit anymore.
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