Thursday, May 25, 2017

40 Years Ago Today





While I may have only been 2 at the time 40 years ago when the first film hit theaters, the impact of the event on my life is unmistakable. I do not remember a time before Star Wars, it has always been there as far as I am concerned.

Out of all my collecting, none has measure up the my Star Wars collection. It has been where my passion has been the most focused. While I kept a handful of pieces from my childhood, I have been actively working on my Star Wars collection since I was 16 and that is where the bulk of my collection has come from.

Both  my boys have grown up surrounded by Star Wars and openly embracing it. My oldest's first words were 'R2' and 'Bacca'. They both were swinging lightsabers as soon as they could hold one.


Me as a Jedi at the first Star Wars Celebration
Next to the X-Wing fighter at the first Star Wars Celebration


I have countless Star Wars related memories from various events and conventions.

Waiting in line to see George Lucas at Star Wars Celebration 3




Meeting Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) for the first time
Tonight I do plan to watch Episode 4 with my family.
Most likely we'll have a few lightsaber fights this afternoon.
I have no doubt we will be able to figure out various was to celebrate.

Interestingly today is also Towel Day, in honor of another unique sci-fi franchise (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). So got find your Star Wars towels to carry around in celebration of both events.

Sunday, May 7, 2017

The Trailer Made Me Less Interested In The Movie

Last night we got out and saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Really enjoyable, well worth seeing, great sequel.  Very much did what a sequel should do in advancing the over all story line that had been started in the first film.

This post is not about Guardians of the Galaxy though.

One enjoyable aspect of seeing films in the theater for me is the trailers. Had some good ones and some not so good ones.

I was already looking forwards to Spider-Man homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Star Wars episode 8. I'm still unsure about Wonder Woman. Have no desire to see The Mummy, mostly becasue of Tom Cruise(Any more his name is something that keeps me away from a film). Saw my first glimpse at the new Kingsmen movie, and it has promise. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looks good.

Then we got Transformers:The Last Knight.

The Transformers movie series was not that good to start with after you get over the flash of it all and what you thought was a coolness of seeing the Transformers in a live action movie finally.

These movie got worse and worse as they went on with what can only be described as a clueless journey of repetitive, mindless action with next to no story connected to it and no effort at all put into character.

Needless to say the idea of fifth movie in the franchise held no appeal at all to me. Their one teaser trailer just seemed pointless and had no effect on me.

Then last night I got to see their big full length trailer...  Yeah, I did not think it would be possible to make me have any less desire to see what is clearly going to be a huge piece of crap movie. Understand, I am a huge Transformers fan.

The trailer for the most part was what you would have expected. Very little story given. Lots of action for the sake of action. Nothing in the way of character.

Then they cross a line. In one line of dialogue they show they have no clue at all about the character of Optimus Prime, giving us all we need to know this is going to be a truly worthless film.

Basically the one line suggests that Prime is ready to destroy Earth in order to save Cybertron. This is 100% against everything Prime is about. That storyline has been done in other Transformers universes, but Prime has never once tried to justify it or encourage it. He has always fought against it, always made it clear you do not sacrifice innocents under any circumstances.

Even if they tried to do a brainwashing kind of thing here, it just does not work. It is too out of character. It is also a storyline we've seen before, and Prime has fought it and his true self came through before he did anything that went against his character.

While this is supposed to be Michael Bay's last time as director of the franchise, he has already damaged it so horrible that unless they step back and do a full on reboot with someone who actually gets Transformers, I see no hope for the movies. They have sunk too low at this point to be able to fix by it in the same universe.

How much did they have to pay Anthony Hopkins to be part of this? They must have some big bucks to throw around to get the acting talent they do to for these every worsening films.