Tag Archives: Star Wars

The Last Jedi

Leave a reply

I really liked it. One of my favorite Star Wars movies. I can see why people hate it–it is different and. . . certain things happen that I can imagine people are angry about. But I disagree. I’ll start just by saying that it is visually stunning. There are a lot of amazing shots that I would not be opposed to having as a desktop image on my computer or as a poster on my wall. But the shots are just part of it, there isn’t time spent lingering on it and it doesn’t go out of its way to set them up. Basically, aesthetically I think this movie is a work of art.

Now, story-wise, still loved it. It had some surprise twists that totally worked. I really like what they did with Kylo Ren and even Luke. I do still have a lot of questions (where were the Knights of Ren and what the heck is Snoke?) but this is the second in a trilogy and you are supposed to leave it with more questions than answers. The answer we did get that I am very pleased with is Rey’s parents. Out of all of the theories I saw, the one I liked most was correct. I can’t say much without giving it away, but I think it makes Rey’s character better and the story better and fresh. Any other answer would have been. . . unimaginative and unprogressive (not talking anything political, just this moved it past the previous movies). So, yeah, the story was really good and more my speed than many of the others. Closer to something I would write than, say, A New Hope. There are only a couple of points I dislike. One might be cleared up in the next movie and the other just felt stupid at first, but I can see why they did it.

The characters were great too. I have come around on Kylo in The Force awakens and appreciate his character in that movie. That said, I like him so much more in this one as a character. But it builds on the first one for all the characters. They develop well, but are still obviously the same characters. I was worried that I wouldn’t like what they did with Luke, but I actually do. I think it fits the new storyline well. I like the “Legends” version, but I also like this one. Now, I do have to complain about Phasma. I had high hopes for her in TFA and was seriously let down, so I was hoping they would fix it with this second chance. She had one moment where she seemed badass and awesome. Then it was gone and I am still disappointed. I think they should have used her more and given her some actually badass-ness rather than an imposing look but a terrible character. Missed opportunity.

Lastly: porgs. Porg’s Chewbacca scream. Porg everything. The porgs are the best. And the other creatures are awesome too.

I am excited for the next movie, hopefully to get some answers to my questions. I really hope they stick on this route rather than listening to the backlash and going back to what they were doing before. This felt less Disney and more gritty and real and I love it. It was less all in on good vs evil than the new canon has been I feel like, which was good. I think they should have gone farther in that direction, but I’ll take what I can get. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and if you go into it with an open mind, I think you will too. In terms of Rotten Tomatoes, I am on the side of the critics. Forget the backlash and go see it for yourself. 

I look forward to seeing what Rian Johnson does with his trilogy. I hope it is new, not trying to bring previous stories or characters to the new canon as many people are hoping for. He did a great job of making something new and breaking away from the past (though still paying homage to it) in this movie and they should definitely let him do that with his new trilogy.

The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn

Leave a reply

One of the better Star Wars EU stories out there. I’d been told for years I needed to read it, going back to when I was first obsessed, somewhere around Episode 3 coming out I believe. It mostly lived up to the hype. I like the way Zahn writes, it is very much my style. A few things he does kind of bug me, but they were small and merely a matter of taste. I did catch a couple of mistakes that were missed in editing, but those are easily forgivable.

The story itself was pretty good. It had a nice pace that kept me reading. There were possibly too many coincidences and characters showing up at the same places at the same time. Pretty convenient. But maybe that’s just the Force at work.

The characters introduced were mostly good and the ones from the movies felt true. I did have a problem with Pallaeon though. He seemed to be there strictly for the purpose of making Thrawn seem like a genius. He does nothing but marvel at Thrawn’s insight and carry out Thrawn’s orders. I understand the need to show us how smart Thrawn is, but I feel like they could have made the character showing us that brilliance a little more necessary to the plot. If we took out his parts, the story would play out exactly the same. And Thrawn himself, while pretty cool, was maybe too smart. There were a couple of times where I thought it was just too much. At least Zahn did give him a couple of failures.

Overall, a pretty good series and a must read for Star Wars fans. I prefer it to much of the new canon, even if there were inconsistencies from it coming out before the prequels were fully planned.

Tarkin by James Luceno

Leave a reply

​I enjoyed this one largely because it gave more information about the Star Wars universe and characters.  At times, I felt the characters didn’t quite match their movie conterparts, but, for the most part, I think it was well done.  The story wasn’t anything special, but it was enjoyable, which basically describes most of Star Wars, aside from the obvious shockers.  The world is what is more enjoyable to me, the overall story and the detailed races and planets, not the individual, isolated stories.  I don’t have a lot to say on the writing; it was good.  Mostly easy to understand, but with some flourish with the language, sometimes maybe unnecessarily so.  Not exactly how I would write it, but that is not a critique, it is a fact for everything I didn’t write.  Mostly the writing just disappeared into the story, which is a sign that it is good.  Overall, I think the book was done well and is an essential book for people wanting to understand the new canon.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Leave a reply

Very much enjoyed this one.  Like Lost Stars, it wasn’t horribly action-exciting, but didn’t once lose my attention.  Despite there not being a lot of action, it didn’t feel slow at all.  It was very interesting seeing the politics of the New Republic, which we got none of in the movie.  I enjoyed the characters as well, both the new ones and the known ones.  The characters brought in from the movies felt true and I liked seeing them in another time and position.

The writing was very much the same as Lost Stars.  Some of the style I still don’t prefer, but it worked.  It’s well done, just not how I like.  But it didn’t detract from my enjoyment at all.  I don’t really have much else to say, as I was too invested in reading it to put much effort into analyzing it.  That in itself is a good sign that it is a good read.

Lost Stars by Claudia Gray

Leave a reply

I definitely enjoyed this one.  Early on I had some issues with how it was written, but that disappeared as I kept reading.  I felt that the writing was geared more toward a young audience (despite the story feeling geared toward a slightly older audience), that it was dumbed down.  It stated the obvious.  It used italics and such in the way I did when I first started out writing, but have come to dislike.  But as I kept reading, I didn’t really notice it as much.  It could be that there as an actual change in the writing as the characters aged, or I could have gotten so invested in the story that I stopped noticing.  The latter is certainly believable.

The story was not overly exciting for most of it, but it definitely kept me enthralled.  I very much enjoy reading Star Wars stories and seeing the events of the movies from different angles.  It was nice to see different perspectives and the events between and beyond what we see in the movies.  I am still disappointed with the discarding of the EU, but I am also excited to keep up with these new stories.  The characters and plot were fairly predictable (partially because it ran parallel to the movies until the end), but not so much that it wasn’t interesting. 

Between that interest and my excess of downtime, this was about the fastest I have read a book in a long time.  Definitely recommended for all Star Wars fans.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Leave a reply

Fantastic.  I have some minor issues with it, but overall, I loved it.  So many tiny details that touches on all of the other films.  I am 100% certain I didn’t catch all of them, but the ones I did were great.  A couple of shots were taken practically straight from the previous films, and it was wonderful.  But they did not go overboard.  If I wasn’t such a geek, it would have been easy to never notice, so it wasn’t distracting.

Story wise, it was pretty good.  Not wonderful, but pretty good.  I was pretty invested in it the whole time.  It did, however, suffer a bit from a problem that a lot of movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read recently suffer from: it was too easy.  This one isn’t as bad as some others, but I didn’t really feel like they were at risk of failing for most of the big action scenes.  The first half was better, but the second half really just felt like they couldn’t lose.

As far as characters go, I love most most of them.  Kylo Ren was a little disappointing though.  He wasn’t a bad character of villian per se, but he wasn’t as cool as I had hoped.  Relating to my above point about the story, he wasn’t that dangerous.  He was better than Ultron in that department, but not great. 

As a movie, it was really well done.  J.J. Abrams did a wonderful job of crafting a great movie.  The camera work was wonderful and the whole movie was beautiful.  The big lightsaber fight is one of the best of all the movies.  While not as impressive as a lot of the prequel fights, it was visually amazing.  The acting was a little cheesy, but given that it is a Star Wars movie, that was 150% expected.  At least there was no whiney Skywalker kid this time, so that is a bonus over all the others.  Daisy Ridley and Harrison Ford stole the show.  The latter was no surprise, he stole the show during the original trilogy as well.  The former was a pleasant surprise and I look forward to seeing her act in future films, especially the next Star Wars.

My biggest problem with this movie is the same as many Star Wars geeks: it trashed the Expanded Universe.  While I am very disappointed by this, this film was an okay substitute.  Some parts felt pretty familiar and were clearly pulled from the EU.  I will always love the EU first, but I do like this story, so I am just going to keep loving both of them separately. 

Overall I was very excited for this movie, as it is the first Star Wars to come out since I have been old enough to appreciate it, and I wasn’t disappointed.  Maybe not the absolute best movie ever, but it was wonderful and I definitely recommend it to old fans and new comers alike.