Star Trek: Picard, Episode 5: "Stardust City Rag"

* Episode 5 is the mid-point of a series in which less has happened so far than in a TNG two-parter.

* Ok episode 5 opens with the scene RLM tweeted about with Yichem? Icheb? Igor? Ichabod? getting his eye ripped out. 

* Apparently this was a recurring character on Voyager but I'm up to the beginning of season 6 and he hasn't appeared yet.

* I'm mostly desensitized to violence and gore in entertainment media but imagine somebody who deliberately passed on all those terrible torture porn movies in the 2000s sitting down to watch the new Star Trek series that's allegedly about an elderly man finding meaning in the twilight of his life and you get some guy awake and screaming as his eye is pulled out of his skull on screen and someone is standing there examining it while it's still connected by the optic nerve and then they snip through the tubes and toss this human eyeball into a little dish and there's a closeup of this dude's bloody gaping eye socket while he's still screaming the whole time and there's not even any dramatic or narrative point to it, you just get rickrolled with almost comically gruesome gore and brutality and then the episode proceeds without a hitch.

* i love star trek!!!

* Seven of Nine bursts into the room and shoots the people experimenting on Ichor but he's like "Seven it hurts too much, please kill me!" and she sadly shoots him in the heart with her phaser.

* We don't see anything wrong with him besides his missing eye but maybe he has some fatal internal injury or something.

* But Seven just got there so she should know as much as we do about what's wrong with him.

* Also this is Star Trek where they have miracle technology that can heal like literally any injury.

* So shooting him in the heart without even running a tricorder over him to see what was wrong with him seems a little extreme. 

* Maybe all he needed was an eyepatch and he would have been fine.

* Anyway she recounts all this to Picard and his crew and reveals that Ishmael was the victim of a lady crime boss named Bejazzle, who captures ex-Borg's and cuts out their Borg technology without any anesthetic, because she is Evil.

* It's not explained what exactly she does with the Borg technology, and it seems like not sedating your victims before cutting them up would just make it harder for you, but this is a show for dummies.

* It turns out that Seven and Picard have a common enemy because Bejazzle has also captured Bruce Maddox and is trying to sell him to the Jacques-Vash.

* Bruce Maddox if you remember was the antagonist in Measure of a Man who wanted to use Data's brain to create an army of android slaves, and in this show he is responsible for the creation of the organic android twins Soji and Dahj Asha (these fucking shit names).

* They come up with a plan to have Picard pose as an evil French pirate and sell Seven of Nine to Bejazzle. 

* Patrick Stewart dons an eyepatch and a ridiculous French accent while Rios dresses like a pimp.

* Agnes Gerardi stays aboard the ship to man the transporter and starts having a panic attack because she's never operated one before, despite being the galaxy's foremost expert on androids.

* I guess the two aren't necessarily related.

* While this nonsense is going on, Raffi goes off to find her son, who is elsewhere on the planet with his pregnant Vulcan (Romulan?) wife and doesn't look more than a decade younger than his "mother."

* Until their relationship was established several minutes into this interminable scene, I assumed they were supposed to be lovers.

* Raffi explains that she's "clean" now, but it's never mentioned what kind of drug she was formerly addicted to, or how chemical addiction is even still possible in Star Trek.

* I'm pretty sure Dr. Crusher could just give you a hypospray and cure that shit in five seconds.

* "Do you know how much it sucked having you as a mom?" Son asks.

* This is very Star Trek dialogue.

* Not at all jarring to hear people from 500 years in the future saying things "suck" and calling one another "dude."

* Son reveals that in addition to being an addict Raffi was also apparently an obsessive conspiracy nut who watched Alex Jones and believed that the android attack on Mars was an inside job.

* She quit space heroin and traveled all this way just to reconnect with her son but she can't keep a lid on her crazy for five minutes and starts ranting about how jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

* Son kicks her out and that's the end of this subplot.

* ...Hopefully.

* Picard delivers Seven to Bejazzle who taunts her about Itchy's death because she is Evil and Seven busts out of her trick handcuffs and grabs Bejazzle by the throat and Picard realizes "Oh no, you never cared about helping us find Bruce Maddox, you were just in this for revenge!"

* He gives her the lamest Picard speech ever about how killing is wrong but Seven relents and they get Bruce Maddox and have Agnes beam them back to the ship.

* An earlier scene revealed that Maddox and Agnes are lovers, as conveyed by having Agnes longingly watch a holo-recording of the two of them baking cookies together.

* Maddox is suffering from exposure and being worked over by Bejazzle's thugs so they have Agnes go with him to sickbay to get patched up.

* Picard is like thanks for your help, Seven, is there anything we can do for you? and Seven says let me borrow these two comically oversized phaser rifles, they might come in handy some day, so Picard gives her the guns and she leaves.

* But she just beams herself right back into Bejazzle's stronghold! Twist!

* "That senile old fool Picard thinks there's still a place for mercy in this galaxy," she says, "but really everything is hate and violent murder. Thanks, Trump."

* She shoots Bejazzle and all her guards and walks out like a Strong Female Character.

* Back in sickbay, Maddox and Agnes reunite. Despite being weak from his injuries, Maddox is excited to tell her about Soji and Douche and how their hard work at android science has finally paid off.

* But Agnes reveals herself to be a secret asshole, tearfully apologizing to Maddox but claiming she has no choice as she turns off the sickbay medical equipment.

* The evil Starfleet Commodore Karen O revealed to her a horrible secret, presumably in such a convincing and inarguable way that Agnes has to murder the man she loves.

* I'm sure.

* The EMH appears and is like "What's going on here! This man is dying!" but Agnes says "Deactivate EMH" and he disappears.

* We've seen previously that he's able to move about the ship at will so this might be a good time for him to materialize on the bridge and warn someone that there's a murder taking place but I guess saying "deactivate EMH" just overrides all his programming.

* Although Maddox's main ailment was apparently just having been beaten up by thugs, for some reason turning off the sickbay equipment makes every vein in his face bulge out and turn black and the capillaries in his eyes burst and he starts seizing and gasping out his last breath for several agonizing minutes while Agnes watches through tears.

* Jesus lady just put a pillow over his face or something.

* You can tell she really loved him because she murdered him on the word of a stranger in the most drawn out and painful way possible.

* The episode began with the gruesome death of a minor character from classic Trek and ended the same way.

* It's like poetry, it rhymes, every stanza sort of rhymes with the last one.

* Hopefully it'll work.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 4: "Absolute Candor"

* I noticed that I was exactly halfway through Picard episode 4 and said wait but nothing happened yet.

* Picard and his companions deviate from the main campaign to recruit a fifth party member on the planet Vashti, where Picard and Raffi relocated many Romulan refugees with the help of the Moat-Kulat, "Romulan warrior-nuns, the fiercest enemies of the Tal'Shiar."  

* There's a five minute scene where Dr. Gerardi asks questions so the other characters can deliver exposition for the audience's benefit but no one asks exactly what the warrior-nuns' place is in the Romulan Star Empire.

* Since they fight the Tal'Shiar I guess they're expatriates?

* Idk. But Picard says they're the best hand-to-hand combat masters in the galaxy and I guess he knows there are going to be a lot of fight scenes ahead so they go to recruit an asari Justicar.

* Picard tracks down a young Romulan boy he knew when resettling the refugees.

* He has grown into Romulan Legolas now and completed the training of the Moat-Kulat but because he is a man he can never join them. 

* The Moat-Kulat leader asks Picard to take him along so he has something to do but Legolas is angry with Picard for abandoning him and everyone else on Vashti, which in the years since the Romulan supernova and the android attack on Mars has fallen into squalor and is besieged by warlords and marauders.

* "You couldn't save everyone so you decided to save no one."

* Picard heads back to the ship but on the way he stops to pick a fight at a local tavern for no discernible reason.

* He rips down the sign that says "Romulans Only" and defiantly stomps over it to demand service from the wait staff.

* A Romulan tries to swordfight him but Picard refuses, then Legolas appears and decapitates the Romulan, announcing that he has pledged his sword to Picard.

* Picard is angered however and declares that that man didn't deserve to die. 

* I assumed that Picard had picked a fight to intentionally endanger himself and force Legolas to save him, so I'm not sure what the fuck he thought was going to happen. 

* Meanwhile Bedhead British Romulan takes Sochi to a deserted part of the Borg cube, promising to show her an ancient Borg ritual.

* He tells her to take off her shoes and follow his example, then slides across the floor in his socks. This scene goes on for about 45 minutes. Later his sister shows up in his bedroom and they incest-bait.

* Picard and his companions are leaving Vashti when they are attacked by the local warlord in his "antique Bird of Prey."

* They are in a tight spot until a mysterious ship appears and helps them fight off the bad guy.

* The ship is damaged in the battle however and they beam the pilot aboard. Picard tells Legolas to be ready to decapitate him if he turns out to be a villain, but then the unknown pilot materializes on the transporter pad... and it's Seven of Nine!

* The music swells dramatically and then goes silent as the camera cuts to Picard and he says "Who the hell are you?"

* No I'm just kidding, that actually would have been funny.

* He actually says "Seven of Nine!" and she says "You owe me a ship, Picard" and then it ends.       

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 3: "The End Is the Beginning"

 * Ok I'm watching Picard episode 3.  

* I think I hate this show.

* Episode opens with another flashback to the android attack on Mars.

* Every character calls them "synths" but in Star Trek they've always been called androids so that's what I'm going to call them. 

* Picard and Lady go to Starfleet HQ to discuss how the plans to rescue Romulus will change now that the rescue fleet being built on Mars has been destroyed.

* Lady's name is Raffi, like the children's singer. 

* Starfleet tells Picard they're canceling the rescue mission bc they wanted the Romulans to die anyway, even though in continuity the Romulans just helped them win the Dominion War and helped stop Picard's evil clone from destroying Earth.

* Picard says they can accept either the revised rescue plans or his resignation, and they choose the latter.

* With Picard out of Starfleet, Raffi is immediately fired. I guess his status was protecting her somehow? Even though he didn't have enough clout to get them to listen to him...

* Apparently it makes sense to Raffi though because she blames Picard for the loss of her career and spends the next 14 years being mad at him.

* Patrick Stewart appears digitally de-aged for the flashback but Raffi looks exactly the same when Picard shows up at her place in the present day looking for a ship and pilot.

* Raffi's name for Picard is "JL." She says it about a dozen times throughout the episode and I want to scream every time.

* Raffi lives in a trailer where she grows space marijuana and smokes an e-cig. She tells Picard that she saw his interview on Space Fox News. 

* She #OccupyWallStreets his bougie vineyard and complains about how she's been on skid row since Starfleet canned her. 

* Picard is the 1%!

* Isn't this supposed to be a post-scarcity, post-wealth future, what the fuck is even happening

* Also apparently people still say "protip" in the 25th century. 

* Through tears and abysmal acting, Raffi tells Picard to leave, but as he walks away she relents and tells him to contact a pilot named Rios.

* Meanwhile, Scientist Lady Who Studies Androids is visited by the Vulcan chief of Starfleet security who is secretly in league with the Romulans.

* Her name is Karen O and she's wearing sunglasses that look straight out of the 20th century.

* Either the costumer bought them at a gas station on the way to work or the actress was wearing them on set and forgot to take them off and nobody noticed.

* Karen O is like "Tell me everything you talked about with Picard in the first episode!"

* Picard beams aboard Rios's ship where he is greeted by Rios's EMH, who I'm almost positive is played by the same actor who plays Rios except with an Irish accent.

* Bizarrely, no one comments on this.

* Rios has a grudge against Starfleet but Picard can tell from how neat he keeps his ship that Rios too was a former member.

* Picard goes back to his vineyard to pack his bags but the Romulan biker gang attacks!

* Picard's Romulan servants kill them all. In the fight Picard is thrown through the air over the back of a couch. He should have about half a dozen fractured bones but he's fine.

* It seems that the danger has passed and everyone starts to relax but then one last assassin bursts into the room! He's immediately shot from behind, however, and Lady Scientist steps into the room, holding a Romulan disruptor rifle.

* This confused me to no end. At first I thought she had gone there with the Romulans, like Karen O had them take her to Chateau Picard to eliminate them all at the same time, but she says that she was just coming to warn Picard that Karen O was looking into him.

* So I guess it was just a coincidence that she arrived at the exact same time as the assassins?

* But where did she get the rifle then? All the dead Romulans were already in the room that she entered after she already had the rifle.

* Maybe there was a split-second shot of one of them throwing his gun into the hallway for no reason.

* Anyway one of the dead Romulans is actually alive so they tie him to a chair then revive him by misting him with water from a plastic spray bottle, as you would a cat.

* Picard asks why the Jacques Vash killed Douche, and where her twin sister is.

* "You'll never find her before we do," says the Romulan. "She's not what you think she is. She is the Destroyer!"

* Then, even though Picard's Romulans are apparently experts on the Tal'Shiar and even though Picard was there when Douche was killed by a Romulan assassin cracking open an acid capsule in his tooth, apparently no one thought to check this guy's molars because he deploys his own acid pill, which instantly dissolves his entire body somehow.

* Scientist Lady, whose name I just remembered is Agnes Gerardi, tells Picard that she wants to join his party. The two of them join Rios aboard his ship, where they're immediately joined by Raffi.

* "I found Bruce Maddox," she says, whom you may remember from Measure of a Man (I didn't). "He's on Free Cloud," which I guess is a planet.

* She swore she would never work with Picard again after how he wasn't really at all responsible for her getting fired, but she has personal business on Free Cloud anyway so she too is joining the party.

* If you think I'm RPG-memeing too hard I swear to God that in the preview for the next episode an Elf Vulcan pledges to Picard "You'll have my sword."

* The opening notes from the TNG theme play and Picard says "Engage." Agnes starts grinning like an idiot because I guess she gets the reference, and Raffi dramatically rolls her eyes.

* They're like the avatars of the two types of Star Trek fans watching this show. 

* So at the very end of the third episode of this Star Trek series, someone finally takes a starship into space!

* Also I completely neglected the Douche's sister subplot. I'm pretty sure that her name is Soji this time, and she's trying to rehabilitate former Borg who were unassimilated from the collective and went crazy.

* "Ex-B's are the most hated people in all the galaxy," some guy says. 

* y tho

* So for some reason all the crazy Borgs are Romulans. Soji starts talking to this one Romulan lady who is playing with Tarot cards. "I remember you from tomorrow," the crazy lady says. "Are you the sister who lives or the sister who dies? You are the Destroyer!"

* She pulls a gun from a guard and tries to kill herself but Soji uses Force speed to take the gun from her hand.

* She calls her fake mom on her iPhone but I guess this somehow triggers something in her that makes her pass out.

* She wakes up sometime later and Sexy Romulan Bro comes in and says "I have to tell you a secret: I think I'm falling in love with you."

* Also one of the crazy Romulan "ex-B's" had a Space Rubiks Cube.

* "Traditional Romulan houses have a false front door, you have to enter through the back."

* Millennials can't conceive of a future without wealth inequality or corrupt political establishments. They've been conditioned to think that such a suggestion is so unbelievable as to be laughable.               

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 2: "Maps and Legends"

* I'm 10 minutes into episode 2 and I've said "What?" out loud about three times.

* Episode opens with a flashback to the destruction of Mars, "14 years ago."

* Which unless they changed the date is two years before the Romulan supernova so the Romulans had years to evacuate their population onto any of the other worlds of their huge empire but they didn't for some reason.

* The androids who destroy the Utopia Planitia shipyards are creepy bald albino dudes with serial numbers tattooed on the backs of their heads.

* Another character says the word "dude." 

* Also heard in this episode: "shit," "fuckers," "fucking."

* Finally I can take Star Trek seriously! 

* Picard and his Romulan slave beam into Douche's apartment, which is something I didn't know anyone could just do from anywhere.

* They use the banned Romulan technology of "forensic molecular reconstruction" which is where your holographic iPhone shines a laser around the room and somehow that shows you a hologram of what happened in the room the day before????????

* But they're only able to see Douche and her boyfriend sitting on the couch; the hologram cuts out right before the Romulan attack because the room has been "scrubbed" with "anti-leptons."

* Picard's Romulans tell him there's only one group who could be responsible for this. He's heard of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police? Well the Tal Shiar have their own even secreter police: the JACQUES VASH. 

* The Jacques Vash have existed for thousands of years and are dedicated to one goal: destroying synthetic life!

* This is why the Romulans have never developed androids or AI. 

* Meanwhile Douche's twin sister whose name I still don't know is fucking sexy British Romulan bedhead-and-stubble guy.

* The Borg cube they're on has suffered a "matrix failure" and whenever that happens the Borg cut all the Borg on that cube off from the collective.

* As we know from several episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, whenever a Borg is cut off from the collective they slowly regain their individuality but all the drones on the cube seem to just be comatose.

* Twin Sister is working with surgeons removing the drones' implants for some reason.

* "You're free!" she tells them.

* Meanwhile Picard and the Romulans trace Douche's phone records to find her sister. "Wherever this call originated from, it wasn't on Earth," the Romulan says dramatically as the music rises to signify the end of the scene and Picard looks fucking shocked.

* DID THEY FORGET WHAT SHOW THEY'RE ON OR

* Picard contacts a physician he served with on the Stargazer and asks for a physical so his Starfleet commission can be reactivated. The doctor says that Picard is in perfect health except for a minor abnormality in his parietal lobe, which makes it sound like nbd, but then the doctor is like "IF YOU'RE LUCKY THIS MISSION WILL KILL YOU FIRST" so idk what to think.

* Picard goes to Starfleet headquarters and asks to be reinstated so he can have a ship and try to find Data's other daughter who seemingly has no actual connection to Data besides possibly being imbued with his "essence."

* Picard says that he's been mourning Data for two decades. TNG Picard would have been over it by the end of the episode.

* Bitchy Starfleet Admiral yells at Picard for shitting on Starfleet during his Fox News interview in the last episode.

* She exposits that 14 species threatened to leave the Federation unless they let the Romulans die. Picard says the Federation doesn't have the right to decide if an entire species is killed. "We absolutely do!" says Bitchy Starfleet Admiral.

* She throws out Picard then calls Vulcan commodore and is like "Picard was just in here raving about androids and Romulan assassins, isn't that crazy?" and Vulcan commodore is like "haha yeah so craaazy" but actually she is secretly aligned with the Jacques Vash!!!

* Her assistant is a Jacques Vash agent surgically altered to appear human, and also the older sister of the Romulan fucking Douche's sister.

* Her actual name is like Dodge or Dash or something but it's so unmemorable and she's dead so it doesn't matter.

* Episode ends with Jacques Vash agent hologramming to sexy Romulan and asking if he's gotten the information from the android yet.

* "I'm on top of it" he says. She looks over at his unmade bed where he screwed whatshername and responds "I can see that!"

* Good joke, everybody laugh.

* Roll on snare drum.

* Curtain.

* Also I forgot but there was a scene where lady scientist from the last episode was reading Isaac Asimov and Picard said "I never really cared for science fiction. I guess I just didn't get it."

* That should be the tagline for Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 1: "Remembrance"

* Star Trek: Picardo is here!!!! 

* I haven't watched it yet so I'm trying to avoid reviews but I accidentally saw one headline call it "bafflingly bad" so we're off to the races.

* Ok it opens with Picard and Data playing poker on the Enterprise D and they both look depressingly old but it's a passably heartwarming opening.

* But it's all a dream and Picard wakes up at his vineyard with his unneutered dog and his Romulan servants who he took in after Romulus was destroyed in the JJ Abrams movies.

* Picard gives a TV interview for the anniversary of the Romulan supernova where it's established through exposition that the Federation wanted to let all the Romulans die in the supernova, but Picard convinced them to form a rescue armada to save them, but that mission was aborted when rogue androids attacked the planetary shipyards on Mars and set the whole planet on fire. 

* Starfleet left the Romulans out to dry and Picard resigned in protest.

* Elsewhere we're introduced to the girl from the trailer, she's in her college apartment with her alien boyfriend when dudes in biker helmets transport into the room and attack!

* The bikers kill the boyfriend and give the order to knock out the girl but instead of stunning her with a phaser they just stand around and let her murder them with kung fu moves.

* She goes to see Picard even though she doesn't know who he is and introduces herself as Douche, explaining that she suddenly has these superpowers she doesn't understand like instant kung fu and being able to overhear conversations from a block away.

* Picard finds an old painting of Douche that Data made 30 years ago, the painting is called "Daughter."

* Picard is overjoyed to meet Data's daughter and promises that he will never leave her but then more bikers show up and Douche jumps 300 feet in the air and kicks them all.

* One biker gets his helmet knocked off revealing that he is a Romulan, but he spits acid on Douche and it melts a phaser rifle, causing it to explode and kill Douche in a massive fireball.

* Actually maybe it's a disruptor, I don't remember what Romulans use.

* Anyway Picard is thrown 20 feet by the explosion which in real life would have turned his bones to powder because he looks like he has the fortitude of papier mache.

* Picard regains consciousness back at the vineyard, where his Romulan servants tell him that the space police dropped him off instead of taking him to the hospital or questioning him about the destruction.

* Also the Golden Gate Bridge is just a giant field of solar panels now, which seems... weird.

* Picard goes to the AI research center where he asks a lady scientist if it's possible to create a fully organic sentient android, because apparently Douche was fully organic instead of artificial like Data? And Picard knew that somehow? How did he know th

* The scientist explains that that won't be possible for 1,000 years, but after the Mars attack the Federation outlawed synthetic life and put a stop to their research.

* Scientist opens a drawer that contains the dismembered body of B4, who if you remember was the [mentally exceptional] Soongh android Data found in Star Trek Nemesis.

* She explains that Data tried to upload his brain into B4 (which happened in the movie) but he was so [mentally exceptional] that it didn't work and he died I guess.

* Without Data's neural net no one is able to construct another sentient android, but Data's neurons died with him so the android Picard claims he met can't exist.

* The androids who attacked Mars were built in this very laboratory but they weren't sentient, I guess? Idk it's not explained.

* It's also not explained why they couldn't just use Lore's neural net since they should still have him in a drawer somewhere too but he's never even mentioned so maybe they just forgot. 

* But Picard shows scientist lady Douche's necklace, which looks like two slightly overlapping circles.

* Scientist says this is the symbol for fractal cloning, the idea that if they had just one neuron from a neural net it could regenerate the whole net including memories. 

* Picard says so Data's "essence" could still live on and scientist lady says yes and fractal clones are always created in twin pairs, even though I thought it was just hypothetical and had never been done so "always" seems like a strange

* "So there's another one out there" realizes Picard. 

* We then cut to Douche's twin named Loji or something and she is like a psychiatrist on the Romulan Reclamation Station.

* A sexy Romulan approaches her and says he just arrived on the station, he used to have a brother he was very close with but he's dead now, and other ominously veiled things.

* Logjam is like why don't you tell me about your psychological trauma and then we'll fuck?

* Then the camera pulls back to reveal DUN DUN DUN they're in a Borg cube!!! ROLL CREDITS

* tldr it stinks

* The things that annoyed me the most were the dumb action/crazy camera cuts.

* The music, which would not go away.

* Like on TNG they'd have nice quiet conversations, here the sappy music was constantly playing "you saved us picard, you're a great man, be the captain they remember."

* So emotionally overwrought.

* And the set and tech designs, which followed Discovery's lead and were super slick and shiny with lots of holographic displays and interfaces.

* Really wanted to see an extension of the 90s Trek design aesthetic.

* But of course they couldn't do that, it would be way too cheesy.

* People might get confused.

* Also the use of contemporary language when the girl and her boyfriend are in the apartment. She says "dude" and he describes her replicator selection as "tragic," it was really jarring and silly.

I really dislike everything about how Luke Skywalker was written in The Last Jedi.

 

First of all, Luke dies, so if you were dissatisfied by how The Last Jedi handled his character you were out of luck because the only role he could play in the next film was a voice from beyond the grave. This is particularly galling because the story would have played out exactly the same even if Luke hadn't died of a lonely heart at the end, especially since Rian Johnson easily could have kept Luke alive by simply cutting the shot before his body faded into the Force. If Luke had lived, people would still be upset at his portrayal, but the backlash would have been much more subdued because he still would have had a whole additional movie left to redeem himself.

 

Then there is the degree to which Luke is out of character. In Return of the Jedi, he risks everything to save the most evil man in the galaxy, then chronologically the next time we see him he's contemplating murdering his sleeping nephew based on a mutable vision of an uncertain future ("Always in motion is the future"—has Rian Johnson seen Star Wars?). The real Luke would have taken this as a warning from the Force that he needed to move quickly to save his nephew’s soul and avert this outcome, not that he needed to kill him in his sleep.

TLJ fans like to say "it was just a moment of weakness, Luke has always been impulsive, he didn't actually attack Ben he just thought about it!" but sneaking into a young family member's bedroom at night and standing over them with a drawn weapon seems like a pretty fucking big moment of weakness. Plus, Luke already faced the temptation to give in to his emotions and kill an unarmed foe in ROTJ and he overcame it. To see him face the same temptation again defeats the point of that moment in Luke's character growth.

People will defend this scene by saying “Oh so once you overcome a certain temptation you can never be tempted by it again?” To which I reply sure you can, in real life. We’re talking about fiction. How is the story of Star Wars improved by hitting the reset button on Luke’s character development so the screenwriter has an excuse to write him as a curmudgeonly sadsack?

I think that a lot of people could live with that one out-of-character moment, however, if it wasn't followed up with an even bigger out-of-character moment, by which I mean out-of-character several years. Maybe some people wanted Luke to be a flawless hero, but I think most would be accepting of him making mistakes if he dealt with those mistakes in a way that followed logically from the character he was in the original trilogy. For instance, Luke only knew Vader as a monster but still believed he could be redeemed and Vader ultimately justified that faith, so it destroys believability that Luke would immediately give up on Ben, the only child of his sister and best friend, a kid he'd known since birth, without even trying to save him.

The basic plot and backstory of TLJ could have stayed the same, but if, following the destruction of his Jedi academy, Luke had gone after Ben and tried to redeem him, or tried to stop Snoke and end his influence over Ben, or gone to Ach-Choo to consult the Sacred Jedi Texts on a way to accomplish either of those things (or even something totally off the wall, like looking for a Force technique to travel back in time and change the past or channel the spirits of all the Jedi to kill the bad guy)—really just done something, anything, other than instantly giving up and running away and abandoning everyone who cared about him—and if he had failed to correct his mistake and only then given in to despair and gone into self-imposed exile, the whole story would be a lot easier to stomach, because then Luke Skywalker, the guy who always tries to do the right thing, at least would have fucking tried to do the right thing.

Not to mention how the way things play out in The Last Jedi makes a mess of what we were told in The Force Awakens. Han says Luke was looking for the first Jedi temple, but he wasn't really. He didn't care about the temple or the texts, didn’t even read them despite being there for years with nothing else to do—he just wanted a place where he could wait around to die of old age. If he wanted nothing more to do with the Jedi, why did he specifically choose the planet that they originated from? There's no reason for it. And how did Han even know about the temple if Luke wasn't actually looking for it in the first place? Also how does the map from TFA fit in? Getting that thing was the main plot of the whole last movie and they don't even mention it or where it came from or who made it or why Father Merrin had it or how it leads to Luke.

There's also the matter of how TLJ's depiction of Luke tarnishes both the legacy of his character and that of the OT as a whole. Luke throwing away his lightsaber and declaring himself a Jedi marked the literal "Return of the Jedi": Vader had destroyed them, but now Vader's son would correct his father's mistakes and restore the Jedi Knights, "passing on what he had learned" and returning peace and justice to the galaxy. That didn't work out so well though. The Jedi never actually returned and Luke died, so the title of Episode VI is essentially meaningless now.

Luke tells Kylo "I will not be the last Jedi," referring to Rey, but from a storytelling perspective, why is Rey better suited to restore the Jedi than Luke? Luke was the original hero of Star Wars. By refusing to follow Obi-Wan's and Yoda's directives to kill Vader, he rejected the dogma of the old Jedi Order and proved himself greater than his teachers. The implication was that the new Jedi would be trained according to Luke's philosophy of love and forgiveness, in direct opposition to the old Jedi’s tenet of non-attachment, and that implication existed unchallenged for over 30 years (our time).

Luke didn't even teach Rey anything, so whatever Jedi she trains will have no connection to Luke's legacy and the whole point of Return of the Jedi. Instead they'll be taught using the Sacred Jedi Texts, which the audience has no emotional investment in and which were presumably responsible for the prequel Jedi being cloistered, emotionless patsies who were bamboozled by a Sith Lord and tricked into facilitating their own downfall.

The movie directly comments on this when Luke declares that "it's time for the Jedi to end" because their sheer fucking hubris led to the rise of the Empire. It's like Rian Johnson saw the prequels, missed the point entirely, and decided there was some fundamental flaw with the Jedi as a concept that would cause Luke to make the same mistakes the prequel Jedi made, as if Luke hadn't already repudiated their failings in ROTJ. Luke is reduced to functioning as a mouthpiece for a screenwriter who doesn't even understand the subpar movies he's trying to critique.

(As a side note, does anyone else think it's really weird and immersion-breaking that Luke would call the Emperor "Darth Sidious"? How would he even know Palpatine's secret alter ego that he hadn't used since the Clone Wars? Why would he refer to the man he only ever called "the Emperor" and whom the galaxy only knew as Emperor Palpatine by an obscure religious alias in the first place? Why would he think Rey would know what the fuck he was taking about?)

Finally, regarding Luke redeeming himself at the end, that might carry more weight if the movie fixing his character wasn't also the one that broke it in the first place. The shot of him fading away beneath the twin suns is very poignant but it's somewhat deflated by the actual details of his sacrifice. First of all, he doesn't even show up to help in person, despite having the means to do so (don't tell me his X-wing doesn't work, that's never established anywhere in the film and the shot of it underwater is clearly there so the audience will remember it later and think that's how he got to Crait at the end).

Obviously the real reason this happens is for the dramatic twist when Kylo and the audience realize that Luke isn't really there, but within the logic of the story it's not clear why he didn't just come in person, or at least fly his X-wing close enough to allow him to pull the same stunt from a distance that wouldn't kill him. So despite the coolness of what Luke actually does, the scene comes across as contrived because you can see the screenwriter's will coming through and overriding the character's.

Not to mention how Luke's execution of this diversionary tactic makes no sense at all, since he doesn't tell anyone that he's buying them time to escape. Poe has to figure it out by himself, but the logic he uses to do so is faulty. He doesn't know that Luke is a projection so he assumes there must be another way out of the base that Luke used to come in. Luke didn't actually do that, though, so it's a very fortunate coincidence that there did in fact turn out to be another entrance. It's not clear if Luke even knew about that entrance, so the audience starts questioning what Luke's plan to save the Resistance even was. Did he just trust that the Force would reveal an escape route to them, and that they would realize he was creating a diversion, and that they would come to both conclusions by themselves? The only reason he didn't tell them is so the revelation that he was a doppelgänger would be a surprise to the audience; in-universe it just creates questions about what his intentions were.

And this is a minor point but it's also strange how Luke's last stand on Crait apparently grew to become a legend across the galaxy, judging by the epilogue with Broomboy and his friends. Luke's exploits during the OT were a much bigger deal, yet by the time of the sequels they had faded into myth, to the point that Rey didn't believe Luke even existed. Somehow, though, Luke's brief reappearance on Crait is known even to stablehands on the other side of the galaxy immediately after it happens. There are only twelve people left in the Resistance, so who is spreading this story? The stormtroopers? From their perspective, some old guy somehow survived an AT-AT bombardment, fought Kylo Ren for a few seconds, then vanished. It was weird, sure, but is that the kind of story that would spread across the galaxy like wildfire? Where are stormtroopers even gossiping with the regular galactic populace?

For my part, the first time I saw the movie I didn't realize that the kids were reenacting Crait specifically. I thought they were just playacting The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Galactic Hero, and that it was a sweet tribute to the decades of fun Luke brought to kids both in the Star Wars universe and our own. Then when I realized they only cared about what Luke did on Crait and probably didn't even know about his adventures in the OT I just rolled my eyes.

All that being said, I'm glad that people can find things to like in a movie I think is not very good. My pet peeve, however, is when fans are outright dismissive of the issues people have with how Luke was written instead of acknowledging that they exist but admitting that those issues are just not important to them and their enjoyment of the movie. I've seen people say that they grew up watching Star Wars and Luke Skywalker was their childhood hero and TLJ is now their favorite movie in the saga. More power to you if that's the case, but let me know what kind of deathsticks you're smoking to square that circle.

 

Aborted Star Wars Rewatch: Attack of the Clones

Ann: When I was younger I watched a show called Higher Ground, and heard the star Hayden Christensen was going to star in the Star Wars prequels so I saw the movie in theaters opening weekend

Ann: I never thought I'd have to see it again. I was wrong. 😭

Ann: Yoda needs a good face moisturizer

Ann: I hate their voices and their dialogue.

Ann: That hair is ridiculous, queen

Ann: "I've thought about her every day since we parted..." 10 years ago. Sit yo thirsty ass down, boy. Get your shit together. There are plenty of other jedis in the Galaxy

Ann: It's like a Zelda game

Ann: It's overuaya

Aborted Star Wars Rewatch: The Phantom Menace

Ann: I am being forced to watch the phantom menace. Help.

Ann: I live with a lunatic who thinks you must watch every movie from a series in order every time a new one comes out

Ann: So far I am reminded of standing in front of my 9th grade class giving an effortless performance of a scene from a play we are studying

Ann: Am I supposed to laugh at the jokes?

Ann: Why is there so much shit on my screen?

Ann: What am I supposed to focus on

Ann: Those boys waddling into the water like they too cool to do the super dive. Bitch, look at your hair. You're not fooling anyone.

Ann: Big doo doo? Did my one year old write this script?

Ann: Did Jubba lose weight?

Ann: Gooberfish...😐

Ann: Why are they all speaking English? Did they think their audience would be too stupid to read subtitles? Well...if you enjoy this film...🤷‍♀️ Maybe so.

Ann: Can you imagine being a 55 year old man and writing this dialogue? Chucking to yourself as you type "doo doo" and "gooberfish.

Ann: This queen has the worst and weakest entourage ever

Ann: Shield generators been hit! Mommmm! Help meeee!

Ann: Why he gotta sit down if he's a hologram

Ann: Can someone hand that slimy gray creature a napkin? His slick skin is grossing me out

Ann: Is that great grandpa r2 d2?

Ann: It's so funny when aliens step in Dino shit

Ann: Trailer trash alien flies?

Ann: Love at first sight. Anakin and padme

Ann: He is a PERSON!

Ann: This lunatic is translating the alien dialogue for me and laughing at himself for remembering it by heart

Ann: These are my friends mom. A strange foreign older man, his companions and a queen in disguise...can you make us pb&j?

Ann: 5 year old anakin is gonna fix a ship for a powerful Jedi

Ann: "The queen doesn't need to know." Oh shit. PLOT TWIST coming

Ann: These kids teasing the future Darth Vader. They're gonna be sorry. They will ALL be sorry

Ann: "I'm gonna be the first one to see them all!" So I can rule and enslave the universe!

Ann: I have this strong desire to scroll through Facebook instead of watching the rest of this.

Ann: Why he got a walking stick if he flies? Reminds me of the overweight walle like people capable of walking using scooters at walmart

Ann: My cat is kneading my heart beat bear and that is more interesting than this pile of rubbish

Ann: Why is dodou here?

Ann: You can't have a Star Wars film without a farting anteater camel

Ann: No one wants to see Jubba unless there's a good bikini Leia beside him

Ann: Your engine probably stalled because you're team mystic

Ann: I'm bored. Can I just browse through fb with a shitty movie on in the background like a normal person

Ann: I can see cp320s brain spinning. Is this ok?

Ann: CAn this race end already? This could have been condensed to 10 seconds.

Ann: My name ain't anakin no more, it's ice. Ice.

Ann: Can we fast forward? Even anakins mom is playing on the iPad now

Ann: The crowds are going nuts this dragged irrevelent scene is finally OVER

Ann: "Take my son with you."
"Can I go, mom?"
SHE JUST SAID YOU COULD

Ann: As a mother, I could never justify letting my son travel the universe with a Jedi, alien and disguised queen without me.

Ann: My little baby anakin legs are tired! Wait!

Ann: i need to get some waters from the grocery story. Some mandarin oranges too.

Ann: I've already tuned this shit out. My mind is now showing me a cooking video.

Ann: Holy shit they need some traffic control up there

Ann: YODA. Save this film!

Ann: Ewww how his flappy neck keep that egg head supported

Ann: Coneheads crossover?

Ann: Don't tell frank but imma about to take a nap with my eyes open

Ann: Who told fake padme that makeup looked good? Learn about contouring, girl.

Ann: Your buttchin gives you away. I already know you're the evil king with your hood up

Ann: Baby Darth Vader is annoying af

Ann: This movie is severely lacking Han Solo. I'm bored out of my goddamn mind. Can we just watch the originals and the sequels?

Ann: Why isn't r2d2 taking a bow?

Ann: Oooh that's a fancy wand #darthmaul

Ann: My son is pointing at jarjar binks and babbling something that sounds positive about this character. Lord help me.

Ann: Expelliarums!!

Ann: It sucked

The Force Awokens

 

The Last Jedi is clear fascist allegory with Rey as the Nazi Ubermensch whose innate biological superiority comes from God (the Force). Latinx homosexual Poe questions White Authority and is forced at gunpoint to accept his place in the social order.

Queer-coded Snoke, who rebels against the state to create an egalitarian society of women in leadership roles, represents how non-traditionally beautiful people are otherized as monsters. His murder by the conventionally attractive protagonists is celebrated in graphic detail.

DJ, a disabled person of color, is dehumanized as a "snake" and depicted as shifty and untrustworthy. The heroes go to a planet of "aliens" and immediately start enforcing their own cultural norms and flaunting the local laws and customs because they believe themselves superior.

The white leadership of the Resistance hide behind a "wall" to stave off the social change of the First Order while sending brown bodies to die for the preservation of a social hierarchy that doesn't value their autonomy. Finn is denied even the dignity of choosing his own death.

With the far right on the rise, we should ask ourselves what it means to celebrate a strong and beautiful white person like Rey "making the Jedi great again" while looking down on the rebels (Poe), the outcasts (Snoke) and the powerless (DJ).

 

Washington Post, consider this a job application.

Toy Story 4 is the worst Disney sequel ever made

Forky, the most popular new character in Toy Story 4, is also the character most representative of the film itself: a piece of garbage.

Remember when Andy stopped playing with Woody in both the original Toy Story and Toy Story 3, and Woody's response in neither film was to abandon his owner and run off to become a carny?

"Now, Woody, he’s been my pal for as long as I can remember. He’s brave, like a  cowboy should be. And kind. And smart. But the thing that makes Woody special is he’ll never give up on you. Ever. He’ll be there for you, no matter what. You think you can take care of him for me?"

Oh but then I guess Bonnie doesn't ever notice or care when Woody goes missing at the end of Toy Story 4, even though she loved him enough to write her name on him, which is apparently an incantation powerful enough to bring a plastic spork to life.

(Other choice quotes from Toy Story 3:

Woody: "We always said this job isn’t about getting played with. It’s about being there for Andy."

Woody: "And someday, if we’re lucky, Andy may have kids of his own."
Rex: "And he’ll play with us then, right?"
Woody: "We’ll always be there for him."

Buzz: "Come on, guys. Let’s get our parts together, get ready, and go out on a high note."

My god, it's like they knew.)

Buzz has had the same pre-programmed voice samples for 25 years but all of a sudden they become the basis for his character arc in this film. Except it's not an arc because he doesn't change or learn anything, it's  just a gimmick to distract you from the fact that Buzz Lightyear, the co-protagonist of the original film, has nothing to do in this movie.

None of the returning characters except Woody have anything to do. Mr. Potatohead, one of the most memorable characters from the first three films, barely has any dialogue. Don Rickles is dead but they recast Slinky Dog for Toy Story 3 after Jim Varney died. I had to check if Estelle Harris was also dead because I don't think Mrs. Potatohead said a single word in the entire film.

Bo Peep, a character so minor they didn't even bother putting her in the third movie, suddenly has the second biggest role in Toy Story 4. She was just Woody's girlfriend in the innocent playtime society of Andy's Room. Children's toys don't need complicated romantic lives.

But Woody abandons his kid and all his friends just to pound that porcelain pussy. She doesn't even get an interesting back story to explain the change in her character. She just brushes off Woody's questions in a single line; her broken arm is set up then never mentioned again.

Also, Bo Peep calls Buzz "my old moving buddy" in reference to her line in Toy Story 1 "I've found my moving buddy," which she jokingly says after Buzz flies around Andy's room, but after Buzz gets lost Rex says everyone already has a buddy. Woody and Buzz make the trip together in Andy's car so Bo Peep's line in Toy Story 4 makes no sense except as a callback for people who remember her line from the first movie but nothing that happened after that.

Talky Tina forces Woody to give up his voicebox to save Forky, then we're supposed to feel bad for her when the little girl doesn't want her. Why not have her let Forky go and have Woody give her his voicebox voluntarily since he thinks Bonnie doesn't need him anymore?

Even worse, after Woody loses his voicebox it never comes up again. There's never the scene where someone pulls his string and for the first time in 25 years he doesn't say "There's a snake in my boot!" He doesn't seem to suffer from its loss at all.

When they first announced Toy Story 4 everyone was like "why?" Apparently it was to sell merchandise of something your child could literally make out of trash. Other than that, this movie has no reason to exist. The first two films are perfect, and the third said everything there was left to say about these characters and this world. Toy Story 4 is just "And then this also happened. DEFINITIVELY THE END, again!"

"Does the ending of Toy Story 4 mean this is the last Toy Story movie???" Sure, just like the ending of Toy Story 3 meant that was the last Toy Story movie. They can just keep extending and definitively ending the series forever, with a more depressing ending each time!

Seriously, I think the Triceratops from Toy Story 3 had more dialogue than Slinky Dog, Hamm, Rex, and the Potatoheads put together.

Thanks, I hate it.