Is It the Greatest Star Wars Ever?

 I will try to be good and keep this all spoiler free, but I make no promises. If you are big on keeping spoiler free, best not to read on.

This season of The Mandalorian has been really good. The story has developed well, with a lot of connections being made with other Star Wars storylines such as the two animated series Clone Wars and Rebels as well as getting to see the first live action versions of characters from those series. They did deal with the Mandalorian Helmet issue I talked about a few posts back and I was very close to being correct about how it all works. They just keep doing it right to make the show a solid part of the Star Wars universe and in this last episode, they did what needed to be done for forty years.

While it was really awesome, it was no surprise that Boba Fett was going to be back and be used in a significant way. When you start off the season with an episode all about his armor and giving him a brief cameo at the end of that episode, there was no way he was not going to have a bigger role before the season was over. In Chapter 14: The Tragedy Boba Fett returns and make it clear he will be a strong character in the series going forward.

I saw this episode called 'The Best Star Wars Since [The] Empire [Strikes Back]', 'Better Star Wars than any of the last five films', and so on. I don't necessarily agree with them, especially that jab at the Disney Star Wars movies, as I very much have enjoyed all those films, but I will say it was a great episode in so many ways.

As I said before, it did a great job with the story and moving the plot of the series itself along. This episode made it clear that they were not just going to run in circles. Enough happened here to make it clear they can't go back to how it was. There really is no easy way to reset things at this point and that is good sign of things to come.

Now we will get to the big impact of the episode, what everyone is actually excited about, what was 40 years in the making. The character of Boba Fett was clearly an early one Lucas created, as production aspects of him can be found from early on. We first get to see him in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978. There he was in a two part cartoon adventure, which is the main reason to watch the special, as the rest of it really feels like some kind of odd social experiment gone wrong. Then we got him in live action in The Empire Strikes Back and he appears to die in one of the worst conceived deaths scenes in film history in Return of the Jedi, and then we back track and get to see a young Boba in Attack of the Clones and the Clone Wars series. While he was brought back in the old expanded universe stories that are now the 'Legends' continuity, none of that is canon now. This is the first time we get an active Boba Fett as an adult, live action even, as part of the new continuity. But that is not all. In the past we got to hear about the reputation of Boba Fett, and it was made to be something significant. Yet we had never seen him come close to living up to that reputation. His deaths seemed to actually go against the legend.

Chapter 14: The Tragedy, gave us a live action Boba Fett who fully shows himself to be an undeniable badass, not to be messed with or taken lightly. This is what we have been waiting 40 years for. We are shown that even without his armor he is to be feared. This is what has all the fans cheering. Then on top of that we get the answers to the big questions concerning him and his father.

This is one time they did so much right in filling in gaps and repairing mistakes of the past. What we saw before clearly was Fett having a bad day. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, as I am sure this is far from the last time we see them expanding on ideas that were not fully realized before now. That is one thing a show like The Mandalorian can do.

I am looking forward to seeing just where it all goes from here. While I don't expect every connection to past Star Wars storylines to be done this well, I believe they will do a good job going forward with more such moments.

Captain America of the 50s, Cold War Propaganda

 In honor of Marvel comics hitting the 80 year mark, Marvel released many publications to celebrate the historic milestone. One thing they did was set of graphic novels to celebrate each decade by highlighting whatever it was they felt best displayed that era. 

For the 50s they picked Captain America. I ended  up with a copy of that graphic novel and have been reading it lately. It has been a very interesting read.

So first off you have to understand that at one point every story in this collection became non-canon as a decade later the Avengers would reveal that Cap was actually frozen during this time period, so none of these stories could have happened. This was then later ret-conned to make it a different man having taken on the role of Captain America because the government wanted to keep the legend alive.

Even with all that knowledge, this post will be about the stories on their own, completely independent from any continuity issues.

The first item of notice, as with any golden age comics, is that the stories are simple. Motivations and characters are all more or less black and white. Bad guys are bad because they are bad and they will do bad things. Good guys are good and do good things because they are good. There is no more depth of character than that. Also, in just about all the stories, the bad guys are communists. Some times we get a nation for them, but most of the time they are just communists, nothing more. And that is why they are bad guys.

Captain America is called the great 'spy-fighter' many times, because he is fighting against the evil enemy spies that wish to bring the whole world over to communism. One interesting blurb in there is 'One side fights with spies and traitors, the other with friendship and peace'. Especially now, with all we know of what took place during the cold war, from both sides, that line is pure propaganda. It is very telling about where we were during that era. This is not me taking sides here, just making a point about how both sides were playing a nasty game that had lot of questionable actions to them that at no point leaves our side looking heroic. Now days the Marvel comics do not sugar coat that time frame, and we have learned so much about all that really took place back then.

Another aspect that really caught my attention and bothered me greatly was the undeniable racism in some of the stories and art. Even the 'good' Chinese characters are racial stereotypes. They have really yellow skin and their eyes are just slits and they all have small mouths and large teeth, looking very inhuman.

Of course all the bad guys are just stupid and will fall for any trick the super smart Captain America comes up with on the fly, as he often leaves Bucky without knowledge of the plan. It really does get old at how gullible the would be villains are, falling for some really obviously tricks. And so many of the stories rely on those obvious tricks. Interestingly enough, there is no writing credit for these stories given, just 'Written by unknown' for the credits.

For me the main reason to read these stories is to see just how far we have progressed since then, socially, culturally and in our story telling. These kinds of stories would not be tolerated today if published as new. We expect much more. It does give you a great sense of our growth in 70 years.

Not sure why they picked Captain America to represent that time frame, as super hero comics were out of fashion at that point and this attempt at bringing them back failed. My guess is they were hoping to play on the recent serge in Cap popularity thanks to the movies, but this Cap is nothing close to the great character Chris Evans has given us.

I cannot recommend this collection, as it is not that good. The only reason to read it is for the historic understanding, nothing more. I doubt this was a popular graphic novel and I somewhat understand how I ended up getting it for free.

The Issue With the Mandalorian Helmet

 We are just a few days from the premier of season two of The Mandalorian. It should be an interesting ride to see where the story goes.

Now one big thing from the first season was that the Mandalorian did not remove his helmet in front of others, as was the way for all Mandalorians we saw in the series. This was clearly a very big rule for them, as it was mentioned many times throughout the series.

Now if one is into Star Wars and watches everything like we do in this house, you will find that in both cartoon series,  'Clone Wars' and Rebels', we see a lot of Mandalorians going around without their helmets for long periods of times, very openly in public, for all to see.

As all three of these are technically Star Wars canon, there pops up some obvious issues over this area of Mandalorian customs.

I've seen a few articles talking about the helmet mandate being part of the aftermath of the Empire decimating Mandalore in an attempt to wipe of the Mandalorians. There are a lot of references to this event in the series and some serious significance given to to it with the revelation that Moff Gideon has the Darksaber (A significant Mandalorian artifact from both of the previously mentioned cartoon series). The basic idea is that as they fled the need to embrace the identity of being a Mandalorian became a more significant and so it did not matter who you were under the armor, just that you were a Mandalorian. This also follows up with an established Expanded Universe concept about Mandalorians and how they adopt children of any species or culture into their ranks, which was also shown in the series. Their beliefs are it is not your birth that makes you a Mandalorian, but your loyalty and commitment to their ways and culture that matters.

I understand the reasoning given and see the logic there, but I believe it to be more complicated than that and can relate it to what we have seen in our own world.

As we all know, there is not one religion or culture that dominates our world and so by logic, even though we have seen too many sci-fi franchises not follow this reasoning, any other world out there would have a noticeable diversity to the beliefs of the major species that run things.

My thoughts are that for the longest time the group that was ruling Mandalore did not hold to old religious ideas about always wearing the helmet as they wanted to be a bigger part of intergalactic politics and to do so effectively, their faces needed to be seen and known. And while they were the ones in power, there were still groups of Mandalorians who found that to be blasphemous, embracing the old ways, even if they were a minority.

In the fall of Mandalore however, a minority group could easily find itself in a position to be listened to, especially if they had a more aggressive stance on going after their enemies and holding on to traditions. Just look at the middle east to see this exact manner of cultural swing having taken place. A society that has been greatly abused by other powers does seem to go backwards and allow strict religious ideas, that had almost fully been ignored for generations, to retake hold and dominate.

Basically with the fall of Mandalore, a small but strong religious sect of Mandalorians took control and reintroduced old beliefs as being 'The Way' for all to follow if they were true Mandalorians. This is a rational way to explain the discrepancies without any need to retcon or ignore established canon.

I cannot see the series going much farther without at least some manner of addressing this and if rumors are true about Boba Fett appearing in the new season, that would be a perfect chance to explore Mandalorian culture, as there is debate if Boba and Jango are really Mandalorians or just bounty hunters wearing Mandalorian armor. And of course if they explain how Gideon got the Darksaber, it would make sense to show how the ruling house of Mandalore fell, which would be another great time to explore these issues.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the Worst Indiana Jones Movie

So to repeat what I titled this post, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the worst Indiana Jones movie, that honor undeniably goes to Temple of Doom.

So the first real issue is Indiana's love interests. Out of the three he is given in the four films, Willie is by far the worst. She is fully  useless through out the whole film, mostly used for comedy relief as she is just annoying, spoiled and whiney, nothing else. I don't believe for one moment Indiana would be attracted to her, as she lacks common sense and is just unlikable on ever level. There really is no doubt he ditched her as soon as possible and most likely forgot about her, hoping to never see her again.

Then we have the plot.  The story for Temple of Doom is not compelling, you just don't care. Which is a big problem, since it has Indy doing his most noble of missions, yet there is something lacking. I can't explain it, but of all his quests, this one I really didn't care if he completed it or not. Helping the village and freeing their children should matter, should have some depth and passion to it, yet that didn't seem important to Indy and so it wasn't important to us. We just were never given an sense that he was as interested in finding the Sankara stone as he has been in finding every other artifact we see him go after. He also treats the whole thing as something to do just because he has some free time.

Then we get into the adventure itself. There are no clues to follow, no big journey to take and really no adversary of note for him to be up against. Most of the action takes place in the last third of the film, with little before that. And while it is great to get a sense of the culture, it just slows everything down, killing off any possible sense of urgency. And the main adversary not showing up until half way through as well. The head priest is the only Indiana Jones adversary who is not in a battle of wills with Indy, he just has a lot of armed men and some brainwashing potion. Character wise this was a simple villain with simple motivation. Even when Indy was under his power, it never really felt like he had done anything to out smart or earn his victory over Indy. He just had enough armed men.

And I will never understand the big finally chase, as it is just stupid. They knock over a reservoir of drinking water, than somehow magically is a dam breaking in a river and flooding a deep cavern system. Sorry, there is no way the amount of water that the reservoir could hold at its fullest, could possibly do anything more than just make a lot of stuff wet right in the area it was knocked over in, let alone create a violent river that ignores physics, flying over the deep mineshafts and ripping apart the side of a mountain. I didn't notice it as a kid, but now it is just idiotic.

I won't go into the moronically inaccuracy of the big dinner scene and how it could be viewed as culturally offensive as it was just a huge comedy scene that was supposed to gross you out, with none of it being accurate for that culture.

It also felt like there was not real resolution of closure for the film. Yeah, Indy got the stone back to the village and freed he children, the big bad head priest was killed, but it all felt meaningless. From a logically point of view, the cult would still be around and there would be nothing stopping them from doing it all again with a new head priest as soon as Indy was gone. That village feels like it will find itself in the same situation before too long, as they have a super magic stone that they don't hide and no way to protect it on their own. They kind of are inviting people to steal it from them.

So while I do have my problems with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as it is far from being a perfect movie, with a great deal of unjustifiable flaws in it, I find it to be a better movie in general than the Temple of Doom.

Of course we now have the fifth Indiana Jones movie in the works, which if all goes as planned should be out in 2022. No Lucas or Spielberg this time around, which I'm not sure is bad thing.

So there is my opinion and my defense of it. I am watching the film as I write this, so I clearly do not hate the film, I just have my issues with it.

Why Kylo Ren Has The Best Character Development in the Whole Star Wars Universe

 Now each Star Wars Trilogy had one featured hero who has the dominating story arc. Classic trilogy it is Luke, prequel trilogy we're following Anakin, and sequel trilogy we're with Rey. Luke's story is a fairly straight forward hero's journey. Anakin is a forced story of the rise and fall of a hero. Rey is more or less back to the basic hero's journey.

Other characters get their stories told, but most of them are not that well played out, with some characters really getting the screwed over.

However, there is one character storyline that to me stands out as the best and that is the story of Ben Sols/Kylo Ren.

The only child born to Leia and Han Solo, legendary heroes of the rebellion, nephew to Luke Skywalker and grandchild of Darth Vader. So before he was even born, the whole weight of the universe was on his shoulders. The insane amount of stress of being a child in the that family, with that legacy being forced on you, would be unbelievably unfair. There was no way he was not going to be viewed as the hope for the future.,

So we jump to his Jedi training years where we know Ben was caught up in the struggle between the light and dark sides of the Force. His Uncle trying to train him and most likely filling him with the idea of taking over and become a Jedi Master himself, and Snoke filling him with the promise of power and control, something he most likely was desiring in his life more than anything. He would have been very much caught between two worlds. Then Luke sensed the growing darkness in Ben, and most likely feared the idea he might be creating a new Vader, Luke made a huge error in judgment that made those fears come true.

Unlike Anakin's fall to the dark side, which felt forced in every way, I very much believe Ben's fall.

But then he is still very much caught between the two words still, having some real, believable inner struggles that we see played out through all three of the sequels as he tries to figure out who he is. And like any person he doe so back and forth in his struggle for self. His anger works and while he does have the family trait of being whiny, this is the first time it feels justified. With both Luke and Anakin, they were annoying when they got whiny, but Kylo was doing it as he was dealing with his inner conflict. most likely more angry with himself than the universe.

In The Last Jedi, one of the most well done, brilliant scenes was when Kylo took out Snoke, showing he was more powerful than his master and had control over that power. He had succeeded where Vader had failed and was now the master.

His anger towards Luke at the end of the film felt very much justified and real. Luke had failed him and now he had proven himself, claiming the control in life he never had before, that he could easily and rationally blame Luke for denying him.

Then we jump to Rise of Skywalker and we find that Kylo Ren is not fully satisfied with his new found power and control. It's not what he was hoping for. He is haunted by the actions that brought him that power, as seen in the brilliantly done scene of him speaking with a vision in his head of his father, who he had killed. His inner struggle never went away, even after achieved what he thought were his goals.

The guilt and revelation of what he had become pushed him to his redemption as he sacrifices himself to prevent the Sith from rising again.

Nothing of his story felt forced to me. It was a fully told story that was well acted with believable motivations and reactions. The story arc just works on so many levels.

It is sad that so any characters got cheated out of a story arc of their own, but out of the few we got, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren's was I personally feel the best of them.

I Want to See More of This

 Mattel has put out a new series of Masters of the Universe toys called the Origin collection. They are taking the classics figure, adding more articulation and some slight cosmetic changes, but making sure they have the basic aesthetics of the original figures. 

It is a great collections.

Leave it up to a fan to go and really makes something awesome with the collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fHmubBPJnA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBDYMRueM4k

Those are unofficial commercials for the new line done in the style of toys commercials from the 80s. That is just awesome.

With modern technology fans really can do so much in the way of being creative.

With all the toxicness I see on youtube from so many, it is really pleasant to see something like this. It is celebrating and having fun with a fandom in away that should be enjoyable to everyone. No attacking going there. I want more of that. 

Some Observations on an Auction

Last night I misbehaved and allowed myself to participate in an auction the Gnarly Toybox (You should check out this shop as the guy who owns is really cool) was doing via Facebook. In his first set of items he had a vintage Darth Vader costume from Ben Cooper Inc.

I had been wanting to add one of these to my collection for some time, as I remember from my youth as well as it being Star Wars and decided to spoil myself. I won the auction and got a good deal in the end. The picture above are not the one I won, the box is in a lot better shape.

After I won I kept watching to see what else they had and how much everything was going for.

The vintage Star Wars figures did real well and went for about the prices you'd expect. They were obviously still in demand. Most of them I already have, so I was not too interested, even the ones I didn't have are not that hard to find. There was nothing hard to come by for vintage figures.

He also put out some of the 90's Power of the Force figures. Last I knew these figures had been so over produced that no one was interested in them. They were going for next to nothing just a few years ago, so I was expecting little interest in them. I was wrong. Even figures in beat up packaging were going for decent prices. It would seem that there has been a swing in the market for the 90s figures. I do wonder if this is true across other corners of collecting, as the 90s were an era of over production on collectibles that messed up the market. It would be nice to know that collecting is recovering from it all. I had all of those figures, very often in better condition packaging.

What I do know is the one piece I won, the Vader Costume, was the rarest Star Wars piece he put in the auction. And while there was a little bit of bidding on it, it did not get the attention or the bidding wars that some of the other, more common pieces got. 

Once more we can see that rarity in and of itself is not what determines value or demand. The Kenner figures of old are still desirable and now the 90s figures seem to have a demand. The reason for this is fairly obvious, as those are the most known Star Wars collectibles and so are the pieces people think of when they think of collecting Star Wars. Too often with collecting it is the more popular pieces that get the attention and the demand, not the rarer ones.

I've talked before about how I like having unique pieces in my collections, ones that have some interesting story behind them or are oddball pieces that most people would not have in their collections. These often means I do not have the most valuable, in demand pieces. As I do not collect for value, this is not a big deal for me.

I got a piece I wanted for my collection and I am guessing the other auction winners got pieces they wanted and that is what it really is all about in the end. Whatever the reason for people collecting, I just hope they are happy with how their collection grows.

Letter To Disney: The Recent Rumors Have Me Worried

The following is an actual e-mail I sent to Disney Corporate (TWDC.Corp.Communications@Disney.com) and while I do not know if anyone will actually take it seriously, I felt with all the toxic fans being vocal and calming Disney is listening to them, someone needed to try to convey an alternate voice to all the toxic nonsense. I do encourage people to go out and let their voices be heard to counter the loud voices of the other side.

 This is a general letter to the heads of Disney, although I have no idea if this will get to the hands of anyone who can really make a difference and ensure some level of common sense remains with-in Disney as a whole.

There are several youtubers who are right now making some rather frightening claims that I truly hope are just rumors based on their own childish biases.

 

The idea that someone is actually considering redoing the Star Wars sequel trilogy is just insane. Throwing out what was done and replacing it with a new one based off of Lucas’ idea scares me greatly. Those were good movies and have been enjoyed by the vast majority of the fans. On behalf of those fans, I beg you to stop listening to the toxic fans who are being loud as they preach their entitled attitudes. If those fans win, all the rest of us lose, as the franchise will self destruct. These toxic fans were already hating the new movies before they were even made.  Once the announcement came out that Lucas was selling it all to Disney, those toxic fans were already screaming that the franchise was dead without a single film having been made. They never gave it a chance. They created a campaign to ruin the Solo movie by not giving it a chance and creating so much negative press about it without ever seeing it. It has been the toxic fans, such as Overlord DVD, who have launched an anti-Disney campaign from the get go that has been hurting the franchise as a whole. They want to see it burn all because they believe that by becoming part of Disney it all went bad. They are trying to destroy the whole franchise just because they did not get what they wanted.

 

Please, please, please do not give into them.

 

Knowing the history of the Disney and how it has grown out of the known racial issues and sexism that has haunted the company from early on, and has shown itself to be a company devoted to progressive ideas that stay in tune to the ever developing and maturing ideas of our culture. I very much ask that you do not back down from this path. The toxic fans want to call this being ‘woke’ but in reality it is being responsible and promoting socially beneficial ideas. Continue to use LGBTQ+ characters and express inclusiveness at every turn. Be part of the growth in our society. Don’t let those who get upset and offended over having to see reality reflected in our art win. They will always be mad whenever there is change. The only way to make them happy is to get rid of individualism and true creativity, which is the death of entertainment.

 

We are living in unstable times and there are going to be periods of less than desirable profits that have much more to do with trends and uncontrollable aspects of society, as Covid has hurt the entertainment industry as a whole. It would be foolish to reorganize and ignore all the real success without looking at the true aspects that are in play. All giving into loud, toxic fans is going to achieve is to insult the real fan base, the ones who are the key aspect of making any franchise a success.

 

I have spoken my mind now.

 

While I doubt this will get into the hands that need to hear what I have to say, I feel better knowing that in an age where the toxic fans are being loud and destructive, I at least attempted to get a civil, rational voice heard. Star Wars has been a huge part of my life since I can remember and I have remained a fan even when I did like the direction it had gone. Right now I am pleased with what I am seeing, as are the majority of the fans. I hope that those with the real power in your company will do the right thing.

 

A True Fan

Ian Brazee-Cannon

Where's The Harm in Being a Toxic Fan?

 A few posts back I was going off on Doomcock (That name still is so stupid and idiotic. How can he even take himself seriously?) and his his poorly thought out, toxic ideas. If you watch his videos, it becomes clear he is a true toxic fan. He dislikes everything that does not fit with what is clearly a narrow view of the world. It is clear if he were alive at the time of the original Star Trek, he would have hated it because it was too political and was forcing a 'woke' (Yes I know the term did was not in use at the time) narrative down everyone's throat. If he had his present attitude and went to see Star Wars for the first time in 1977, he would have found Leia to be forcing a feminist agenda on us as she talked down to Han Solo who was only trying to rescue her. And the famous cantina scene was clearly just an unneeded political statement about accepting diversity. If you listen to his statements, this is very much the kind of logic he uses to say the modern releases of the franchises are bad, but somehow is unable to see the hypocrisy he is promoting as well as the actual history of those franchise he is ignoring. So many modern fans pretend the political ideas have not been there all along.

I've have stated many times that if Roddenberry were still alive, he would openly call himself a Social Justice Warrior and hold that title as a badge of honor. And then Doomcock (Every time I type that name I want to scream out about how moronic it is) would do a whole video insulting the man and saying he had no idea what Trek is really about and lacks all respect for it.

So why is it that I am doing a post like this.  After all what is the harm if a couple of fans dislike where the franchises are going and want to express their views?

Toxic fans, like Doomcock (Does anyone actually take that name seriously?) are far more harmful than they will admit.

For while everyone is allowed to have their opinions, and the freedom to express them in whatever manner they desire, putting out videos like those Doomcock (Such a sad name) and others put on youtube hurts the franchises more than anything else. They are being childish and encouraging people to not give those franchises a chance. They are telling people not to watch various shows all because they dislike them, not at all considering others might enjoy them. And if others do enjoy them, the toxic fans are putting them down for not sharing their ‘superior’ opinions. The toxic fans are bullying all the fans (Who very often outnumber the toxic fans) who disagree. This does create a group of possible fans, who will not give anything in a franchise a chance, so they will miss out on something they might actually enjoy if they tried. Scaring people away from any franchise as a whole only serves to hurt the actual fans all the more. The toxic fans are not doing anything positive for any of these franchises they continuously attack all because they dislike the directions the franchises have taken. The toxic fans need to wake up and realize they are not the end-all, be-all of fandom and that the whole of the fandoms would be better served if they were to focus on being constructive with their criticism instead of making the childish attacks they seem so fond of.

They Are Men, Not Gods

With all the rumors flowing around about Star Wars right now, the batch of toxic fans who basically are the ones responsible for any troubles the franchise is going through right now, as there is some logic to say they helped make Solo perform so badly in theaters. (All the other Disney Star Wars movies have made blockbuster level returns.) It was the failing of Solo that has caused Disney to look at the franchise and think about doing some drastic, unneeded changes.

With Star Wars, the ultimate toxic fan, Doomcock (Emperor of the dumbest name a misogynistic a-hole could come up with) is spreading rumors about Lucas' return as the head of Lucasfilm as the divine savior of the franchise. Outside of the fact that Lucas gave up his company for a reason and I've seen nothing to suggest he has changed his mind, there are so any flaws to embracing this belief. Those like Doomcock (How can anyone take an seriously someone who choose to be called by such a lame-ass name?) are able to overlook all the great many unforgivable flaws Lucas made with the prequel trilogy and ignore so many facts about what Lucas had been planning in his storyline for the third trilogy (https://www.polygon.com/2019/12/10/21005059/george-lucas-star-wars-sequel-trilogy-plot-characters), like focusing on the midichlorians, one of the greatest mistakes of the prequels. The simple fact is that Lucas has shown he no longer is the storyteller that had created Star Wars and that it is for the best that he has moved on.

But to some like Doomcock (His name just screams 'I am a jackass to be made fun of') Lucas is a god and can do no wrong. Lucas is elevated to the position of deity and can do no wrong in their eyes.

No matter that flaws in such ideology, it seems to be a big part of human nature. So many people are elevated so, many are creators who might deserve accolades for what they created at one time, but had made mistakes and showed that they had lost their skills.

Gene Roddenberry did something amazing when he created Star Trek, but when Star Trek: The Next Generation came about, he was actually holding the show back from its full potential with his controlling nature and unyielding vision. STTNG did not take off as a series until Roddenberry was forced to step back, allowing real growth in the series and better writing and story-lines to get explored. At no point am I trying to take away the significance of what Roddenberry had done. We know the impact of Star Trek. And it is accurate to say the newer Trek is not fully aligned to Roddenberry's vision, but it was shown that his vision was ready to kill off the franchise.

As everyone who keeps up with this blog knows, I am a huge Spider-Man fan. I respect greatly what Stan Lee had created with the help of Steve Ditko, as I am one of those who considers Ditko to have had a great amount of influence in creating the character and shaping his stories. If you compare the stories of Spider-Man with the stories of The Fantastic Four from the same time period, it does feel as if they were written by two different people. Just like how the X-Men were not popular until after Lee left the book and a whole new creative team took over and did some major changes to the book. Looking at Stan Lee's career and that many of his later projects really were not that well written, it seems clear he was a much better concept creator than actual writer. Once more though, this should not be viewed as denying his accomplishments. It was his ideas that created the foundation for the Marvel Superhero universe as well as creating the lasting popularity of superheroes that we still have today. He should be viewed as the father of modern superhero comic, but no one should think that everything he touched turned to gold.

I have yet to find any creator in any format who I think is flawless, even Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith have some projects that I did not enjoy. That does not mean I am not longer a fan of their work or that I do not look forward to new projects by them. I just do not hold them as being divine.

No matter how much respect I have for George Lucas, I do not for one moment believe he is the one needed to 'repair' the franchise, which really is not broken. I have no problem with him being there with ideas and advice, even maybe letting him co-write (We know he sucks big time at dialogue, so only let him co-write) a story or two for the Disney+ shows, but let others be in charge now. Star Wars is far from being dead after all and Lucas is not a god.

Now This is a Puzzling Marketing Gimmick

So at Wal-Mart right now the most expensive Transformer figure on sale is:

A sixty dollar figure, but you don't get to see it or even know who it is, all because it is a spoiler for some reason.

Now of course this is the day and age of the internet, so this secret lasted all of five seconds. And the big reveal was the figure is none other than, yet another Ultra Magnus.

Not only is this a character that has been around for some time with dozens of figure made of it, this is just a repaint of one they released last year with a special mini figure that is also a repaint.

So the big question is 'how is this a spoiler?'

It is a character that makes sense to be in the new show. There is nothing new to its transformation.

By labeling it a 'spoiler' figure, I am now speculating that Ultra Magnus will be doing something more significant than I would have thought. If they did not label it as being a spoiler, then it would have been easy to just see a repaint of Ultra Magnus and not think too much about it. Now they have actually made it more likely that whatever happens will have less of an impact than it would have if we didn't know Ultra Magnus was part of a spoiler.

So I am fully puzzled by this on many levels.

First off, who is going to pay $60 for a mystery figure like that? With no idea of what you are going to get, you are not going to be likely to spend the money. Also, the boxes I've seen on the shelves have been damaged by people trying to open them to see what is inside. This says to me there is a better chance of the figures being returned by the stores due to package damage than being sold.

And as I pointed out, they have ruined whatever the spoiler is by labeling the character a spoiler. Everyone watching the new show will likely be more concerned with what Ultra Magnus is doing, because they are waiting for the 'spoiler' to happen and not be as focused on the whole of the story and what is happening with the other characters.

And of course if the 'spoiler' does not pan out to be anything significant or truly interesting, then that is going to be a slap to all the fans. In fact I really doubt whatever they were trying to protect us from, it is not going to play out to the level it would need to in order to justify this packaging.

In the end, I see this becoming a joke among fans after the show premiers. Right now, none of the fans understand what they are doing.

I so wonder how this idea got approved, as there is now way I can see this being good for sales.

Now That is a Truly Stupid Idea

There is an internet personality who calls himself Overlord Dicktor Van Doomcock (DVD), yes that is the name he goes by and I believe he believes it is a clever name. He has a whole Youtube channel dedicated to him being a toxic fan and putting down anything and everything that does not live up to his beliefs of what is worthy entertainment. He shows himself to be a true misogynist. For as he puts down anything that has the slightest essence of female empowerment, he claims he is all for powerful female characters as long as they fit into his little box of female characters.

The basic idea is that he knows better than everyone else how stories should be told and that all he is doing is trying to safeguard our modern myths, painting himself as a heroic force here to save us all.

Understand, this a is guy who is upset with the questionable science of only the newest seasons of Doctor Who, the ones starring Jody Whittaker, the first female Doctor. He is able to ignore all the horribly bad science that has been used for over fifty in every incarnation of Doctor who, but is going to point it all out now that there is a female Doctor. If you watch his video, this is his norm. He rips apart so many aspects when strong females characters are there, that he will straight out ignore or even compliment when connected to male characters.

Needless to say he hates the newest Star Wars trilogy, spending a lot of time talking down about the character Rey, even when a lot of those criticisms could be said about both Luke and Anakin. He is one of the toxic fans that for whatever reason refuses to accept the the prequel trilogy produced the worst movies in the franchise, two of which I and many other find unwatchable, due to how bad they are. But those had a male lead and were made by Lucas, so they get overlooked by Doomcock (Seriously, who would call themselves by such a stupid name as he tries to say we should listen to his opinions?). While the sequel trilogy has its flaws and there are a fair amount of issues I have wit them, they are not bad movies.

Now the great Doomcock (I really have hard time using that name and not picturing a full on joke of a person, yet I truly believe he thinks it is witty) claims he has sources at Disney. He has mentioned these sources many time in his videos. Now he is claiming those sources are telling him Disney is planning on doing one truly stupid, poorly conceived retcon of the sequels, making the actual movies no longer canon. And he is celebrating this idea, ignoring the truth of just how such a thing would be the actual act that would ruin the franchise.

So the whole idea revolves around a concept introduced in the Star Wars cartoon series, Star Wars Rebels. At one point we see a corridor of mirrors that reflect various possible realities. In the retconning, the Emperor would somehow use his own collection of these mirrors to rewrite the future and create a new trilogy.

Oddly enough Doomcock (Seriously, that name is so lame), is one of those who was upset over the return of the Emperor and how he had not died at the end of Return of the Jedi, so I am unclear how having him still survive is acceptable in this case.

So here is small list of my problems with redoing the sequel trilogy.

First off, one thing that worked for the new movies was to see the return of the heroes from the classic trilogy. That is not going to happen again.

Carrie Fisher sadly cannot return. Harrison Ford has made it clear he wants to be done with the character. And I doubt Mark Hamill would return. So the connections to the original trilogy that all the fans would want, would not be there. And honestly, it would be spitting on the legacy of Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew (He played Chewbacca in most of the movies, sequels included).

Next up is the simple fact that there is no guarantee at all that any new movies would be better movies or better received. In fact, with how messed up the basic concept is, there is a good chance such new movies would really suck as they likely would be overly forced and micro-managed. They might even end up being worse movies than the prequel trilogy. Even if you are someone who dislikes the movies, why take the risks. Best to let things be.

Now one aspect that Doomcock (I so hate that name with ever fiber of my being. It is just so stupid) talked about was the merchandising. Now understand, ever single one of the sequel movies was a blockbuster. They made big bucks, and would have made even more if it weren't for the fact that China in general is not into Star Wars and they are the second largest movie going market in the world. So the movies made money, but the merchandising was not up to the level of previous movies, including the prequels. The thing that is being over looked, is that all such merchandising is not up to the standards it was twenty years ago. That has nothing to do with the quality of public opinion of the movies, but that people are not collecting like they have in the past. Making a replacement trilogy will not change that, so the merchandising is still going to fall flat.

Of course by doing such a thing, replacing movies in this manner, that sets up a new standard where people are just going to lose faith in films. Why get invested in any franchise if they might just throw it all away if it fails to live up to someone's standards. And of course putting a new set of episode 7, 8 and 9 out would be confusing and cause a lot of non-fans to be burnt out before the movies even hit the theaters. People seem to have enough of an issue understanding the concept of the prequels and how the movies were not made in order. Now you want to them to grasp that the first set of sequel films and not the real sequel now, but the new set are the real sequel, at least until the studio decides to redo them again.

Personally, I truly believe if Disney decides to push this really bad idea, there is a real good chance these new movies would extremely under perform and in the end hurting the whole franchise greatly.

It is a horrible idea that only toxic fans are hoping for. The future of Star Wars would be best served by keeping with the idea of exploring difference areas of the Star Wars universe away from the Skywalker Saga for a little while. This is what Disney should push for if they really want to do the right thing for the Star wars franchise and its future.

Self Discovery, a Micro Story

Self Discovery

By

Ian Brazee-Cannon

How many times have I died now?

After being in pain for so long, you have no choice but to get used to it.
Every moment is pain now.

I remember the rush and panic, everyone pushing to get to the escape pods.
The engines had gone critical.

I was already suited up, ready for work. I ended up in an airlock somehow.
Then in space.

The ship exploded. I was floating directionless.

I watched the stars, thousands of brilliant points of light breaking
through the dark reaches of eternity.

It was glorious.

I accepted my fate, decided to enjoy the sights I was seeing.
I would be the only one to ever see this exact arrangement of the universe.

Then I died.

When I woke up from death, lost in pain, I was cold and hungry,
couldn't breath.

How long have I been out there?

Have I become one of those immortals I have heard about?

Immortality hurts. I would rather have just died.

I’ve gained a great respect for death.

I drift, unable to die, hoping the homing signal of this suit still works.

While I am enjoying the view, I wouldn’t mind a break from dying.

*****

If you enjoyed this micro story, you can find more fiction from this universe in my collection
‘Onward Into Infinity’.

(https://www.amazon.com/Onward-Into-Infinity-Ian-Brazee-Cannon-ebook/dp/B081Y5S6BC)

Gotham Would Be Better Off Without Batman

I have never hidden my dislike for the character Batman here. The more I see of the character the less I like him and the more annoying he becomes. He is one that I feel is mostly popular because of his look, since he really is a poorly conceived character no matter how you look at it.

The big Batman trilogy was really the story of how incompetent the Gotham Police force is, which was the only reason Batman came off as heroic. If at any point the police themselves, acted as a real police force does, there would have been no need at all for Batman. Seriously, none of the movies would have made any sense at all if even half the Gotham police were able to do their job. And as a whole, they were completely useless and idiotic.

So lets take the basic concept of Batman. The city of Gotham is overwhelmed with crime to such a ridiculous level, way beyond anything rational, and it needs one man, who dressed up as a bat to make all the difference.  Yes, we are going with the rational before the whole Bat-family got in there, because it all started with just Batman, who had no concept of creating the Bat-family at that point.

You have Batman going out on his own to fight all the crime in the city, because it is clearly shown the the Gotham police are incapable of keeping order.

Let's jump back now.  we have this ultra wealthy young man, who basically has no one around to tell him how to spend his money, none of which he has earned. He is the picture of a spoiled rich kid and that is why he becomes Batman.

If he really wanted to make a difference and eliminate crime for Gotham, instead of putting millions, if not billions, of dollars into his batcave and all his vehicles and equipment, he instead invested that money into the actual Gotham Police Force. Give the police effective training and equipment on the same level as all of Batman's stuff, that would be a far more effective method of fighting crime and making a difference.

But no, Batman wants to play the vigilante and spend the money of his own toys, so he can be hero and have the spotlight. In just about all the incarnations of Batman, this is what we see. Some versions are far worse than others, such as the DCEU version we see in Batman vs Superman, which is the true worst example of this.

Bruce Wayne shows time and time again that it is more about the show and spectacle of it all, his little thrill ride to get his adrenaline pumping. In some version it seems he is something as a masochist, as he seems to get off on giving and receiving pain. We've seen him prolong fights for no rational reason. we get told all about his genius and skills, yet more often than not he seems to follow the dumb, drawn-out method of dealing with his foes.

While it might be an unpopular opinion, I do not find Batman to be a good example of a hero and will never understand his popularity.

Finally, Someone is Not Trying to Insult Us

A big issue I have with fiction is when a franchise 'kills off' a character, then goes through the whole 'are they really dead, it seems like they are' for a while, and then finally make a big (Oh so shocking) reveal that the character is not really dead. In comics, just about all your big heroes have been there at one time or another. So many shows have done this, some devoting seasons to the mystery, when all along you already know the character is not going to stay dead.

It is one over played, extremely cliche, story type that has stretched way past being enjoyable or shocking.

I knew that Superman, Spider-Man (regular Marvel, as they did keep the Ultimates Universe Peter Parker dead) and Wolverine would all be back from the dead after the big deal that was made about them dying. I had hoped Marvel was going to keep Captain America dead and make his perfectly done death in the after math of their Civil War event mean something. Nope, he was brought back a few years later.

And in all these cases they play out the big 'mystery' of if they are really dead and go through a whole insulting con job of a story trying to make us wonder and doubt what we already know, which is they are not dead. It is a real insult towards the fans to do that, especially with how often it is done.

It also trivializes the idea of death in fiction.

Either commit to a character's death, or don't play games with your audience.

So when the first trailer for Stranger Things season 4 came out a little bit ago, I was very much pleased to see that they were not going to insult us. One of major characters appeared to have died at the end of season 3, and they gave us a bit of a hint that he wasn't really dead at the very end, without out right saying he was alive.

Well the trailer was all about making it clear the character was not dead. I applaud them for being straight with us about this. It gives me hope that there are going to do this right. We can still get the drama of all the other characters believing him dead, while not being insulted as the story plays out. They don't need to waste time with the over done concept of trying to solve the mystery of if he is dead or not, and can instead focus on a bigger story.

And this works great, because we never saw a body, never got any kind of confirmation that he was dead, it was just his body was not there after an explosion took place. It appeared he died and it makes sense that everyone would assume he was dead, but they never tried to push this idea.

I've seen a few complain that the trailer was a spoiler, by showing he was alive.  I see it as them making it clear from the get go that they are not going to play that sad game. They are not going to insult us.

I love it and am looking all the more forward to season 4 now.

I hope other writers look at this as an example of the correct way to do a 'not really the death' of a character.

Who Would Win?

A standard challenge for the geek communities is to pit two characters from different franchises against each other and then debate who would win in such a battle. The Magazine 'Wizard' did this fairly regularly and there is a series of youtube videos called 'Death Battle' that do this. There is also a card game based off this concept, called 'Superfight'. These debates can get really intense and detailed, as we geeks have way too much knowledge of our characters at times. I have seen some people get way too passionate about, overwhelmed with certain biases that make it hard to have real debates with them.

Sometimes these can get really crazy.

At Denver Comic Con a few years ago Larry Hama was there. He is famous in the comic book world for basically creating G.I.JOE as we know it today, having written most of the original run of the Marvel Comic Book. He also wrote Wolverine for a time.  On his table he had a sign going over commonly asked questions, one was 'Who would win between Snake-Eyes and Wolverine'. His answer was 'The one with the metal claws and skeleton and healing factor'. It was fairly obvious he had been presented with the question many times and I would bet anything there were those who would defend Snake-Eyes being the victor in such a battle.

At another Denver Comic Con, my oldest son actually asked Weird Al Yankovic to settle a dispute between him and his friend over who would win, Captain America or Lara Croft. Al asked a few simple clarification questions and went with Cap. And somehow that settled it. We now know that Weird Al is the final say in all such disputes.

I have many times had to defend the idea that the Millennium Falcon could take out the majority of the various versions of the Enterprise. And having done my research, I know way more the working of those vehicles than one would think possible.

While these debates can be fun and all, one aspect that too often is ignored is the story. While the power levels and abilities are something to look at, as a writer it is much more important to make sure there is a story for such battles. Give me the two characters who are to fight and then tell me who is to win, and I will write a story that will make that happen.

Marvel comics has the series 'The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'. In it Squirrel Girl is able to beat the biggest, baddest Marvel super villains. Dr. Doom, Thanos, and even Galactus have fallen to her. Yet the whole concept of her character is really silly. She is a human with squirrel like abilities as well as being able to talk to squirrels. She was created as a joke, but somehow has become a character with an odd cult following. I remember her first appearance, which was nothing special, just silly. It is a comic that should be in the dollar bins, but due to her being in it has become sought after. The writers have to figure out how she can beat villains who are undeniably more powerful than her and should be able to destroy her in a heartbeat. All the logic and reasoning used in the basic challenges are thrown out in order to make the story work for what it needs to be.

And that is what it all comes down to. The early mentioned Snake-Eyes vs Wolverine fight has already been shown in the comics to not be clean cut. Wolverine has lost several times to the Punisher, who has less fighting skills than Snake-Eyes. If the story requires Punisher to win, then he will find a way to win. The burden falls on the writer to figure out how to make that happen in a believable way.

If need be, I might be able to work out some really outrageous plot where Han Solo makes a mistake and somehow Captain Kirk is able to make the Enterprise function in a way we've never seen before that would allow it to win the fight. I think I am a good enough writer to put together a story for that.

There Are No Words to Describe that Level of Bad

Just watched the first two-part adventure of the new Thundercats Roar... I seriously am unable to describe just how awful it is. From horrible dialogue, complete lack of plot, insanely stupid fight scenes and nothing in the way of  actual characters. It is pure crap with no real entertainment value to it.

I think it is supposed to be humorous, but there is not a single joke that is funny in it. The writers clearly believe they are being witty and clever with some of the self aware jokes, but it all falls flat with every scene.

When I saw a clip for it some time ago, I predicted it was going to be bad, but I was truly not ready for the awful, unamusing mess they put out there. It really lacked any spark of quality. I do not see this attracting anyone to the shows.

Old fans like me are going to check it out and find it lacking. Potential new fans are going to see it and be puzzled by how it ever got made. There might be those out there who will enjoy it (I've seen a lot of bad shows and movies get a following), but my money is on that not being a large crowd.

I am not a purist and can accept new takes on things I am a fan of.  The 2011 Thundercats show was brilliantly done and was a fully new take on the franchise, with a lot of changes that didn't upset me. Here we have them trying to go back and follow the original story, but in the dumbest way possible, that ends up being insulting.

We know that reboots of these old shows can be done well and done right. We've seen it.

I understand that they have two new Masters of the Universe shows in development for Netflix. The first is supposed to be continuing the original cartoon, being produced by Kevin Smith.  This is not a reboot from what I understand, but a continuation. I an interested in seeing what they are putting together and have faith it might be watching.  The second is going to be reboot, which I hope is a good as the Voltron reboot was.

The fact that Thundercats Roar is as bad as it is says a lot about what some companies are willing to put out just because there is a established fanbase out there. Something this poorly made would never attract the needed audience to make it.

It really sticks out that something I had already had low expectations of it going in, is actually noticeably worse than I was expecting. That is the best summery of my feeling for Thundercats Roar.