* 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."
* 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.
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.
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: 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.
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).
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.
Veesh, Nira, and The New Guy are a commando squad of three Umbarans,
pale-skinned bald humanoids, protecting a space train on the planet
Umbara. Veesh is trying to scare The New Guy with stories about times
he’s almost been killed on the job. Nira chimes in with a story about
the time her entire team was killed one by one by an alpha slybex.
Nira hid inside the space train’s cargo hold for three days until a
rescue team found her, discovering that the entire train was covered by
claw marks. That was five years ago and Nira says she’s had to sleep
with a nightlight ever since. “We all have scars,” she adds, but not all of them are physical!
Suddenly they hear a thud on the roof of the space train as you the
player jump aboard with Theron Shan and Lana Beniko to begin the mission
Flashpoint: Crisis on Umbara. “Your lucky day, kid,” Nira says to The
New Guy. “You’re about to earn your first scar.” I don’t know what
happens next but I hope you the player kill them all.
This isn’t bad, just kind of pointless, as is typical for these web
shorts. Given their nature as blog entries written to promote some
aspect of the game, I guess that’s how they’re intended to be. 2/5 Death
Stars.
Theron Shan meets with a female spy named Pova, who supplies him with
the location of the planet Copero, a world governed by the Chiss
Ascendancy. The Chiss are a blue-skinned, red-eyed race of near-humans
created by Expanded Universe godfather Timothy Zahn as the species of
Grand Admiral Thrawn, perhaps the most famous character from the EU.
Like the Mon Calamari and the Dathomir Witches, the Chiss have an
awkward history in EU continuity; supposedly a secretive, isolationist
race largely unknown to the broader galaxy, they proved so popular that Star Wars
authors would frequently use them in situations and time periods where
it made little sense to find them. At this point on the timeline, the
Chiss are the only galactic power to formally ally with the Sith Empire
following their return 50 years earlier.
Theron asks if the Mitth family, into which Grand Admiral Thrawn will
be born in a few thousand years, controls Copero, but Pova informs him
that they’ve lost power and some other Chiss family is running the
planet now. Nothing else happens in this story except we find out that
the contact who has fed Pova this information is a Chiss woman with whom
Pova is romantically involved. Oh my god, these are the first
unambiguously gay characters we’ve met in a Star Wars prose story.
Too bad they’re in an otherwise worthless short story in the daily
news blogs section of the website for a dead MMO. 1.5/5 Death Stars.
And just like that, as quickly as we began, we’ve reached the end of The Old Republic
and its assorted tie-ins. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Since the MMO
is still being updated, if any more story content is added to this last
living era of the EU timeline I’ll come back and cover it. For now,
though, this is where we leave Theron Shan and his estranged parents,
Satele and Jace Malcom, the “light Sith” Lana Beniko, Vitiate/Valkorion
the undying Sith Emperor who might actually be dead this time, and the
fractured remnants of the Eternal Empire, Galactic Republic, and True
Sith. The state of the whole galaxy is an unresolved mess but don’t
worry, all the pieces will be back in the box by the time the next Sith
Empire comes to power.
The longest, most recent, and best of The Old Republic‘s cinematic trailers is Betrayed, a lead-in to the game’s Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion. Continuing the story begun with Emperor Valkorion’s twin sons, Arcann and Thexan, in Knights of the Fallen Empire,
we’re introduced to their mother, Zakuul Knight Senya Tirall, and
previously unseen sister, a little girl named Vaylin. While Arcann and
Thexan spend their childhood undergoing brutal training regimens for
their father’s pleasure, Vaylin remains in their mother’s care. Like her
parents and siblings, Vaylin demonstrates a latent aptitude for the
Force, seen when she uses it to carve a toy bear from a piece of wood,
but Senya forbids her to use her talents for fear of drawing Valkorion’s
attention to her power.
Nevertheless, Vaylin longs to be a warrior like her brothers. She
practices her Force abilities in secret, and eventually Senya allows her
to spar with the Knights of Zakuul. A small girl, she is repeatedly
knocked to the ground by these full-grown elite warriors, until finally
she can bear no more humiliation and calls on the Force to shatter her
opponent’s weapon and crush half a dozen Knights to death inside their
suits of golden armor. Senya calls on her to stop, but it’s too late;
Valkorion has witnessed his daughter’s power and takes the frightened
girl away from her mother to use for his own purposes.
Vaylin is taken to Nathema, where the Sith Emperor enacted the ritual
that made him immortal and left the world dead to the Force. There, a
group of hooded priests enacts some long, tortuous dark-side rite on
her. Sensing Vaylin’s distress through the Force, Senya decides to
rescue her daughter in defiance of the Immortal Emperor’s will. She
finds Vaylin and carries her to safety, fighting through a cadre of the
emperor’s elite Nathema Zealots, but she’s already too late. Vaylin
rejects her mother, choosing to remain behind with Valkorion, and Senya
is forced to flee.
Years pass. We find Senya at the site of some great battle, examining
the massacred corpses of the Knights of Zakuul to figure out what
happened. She finds the toy bear her daughter carved as a child lying
discarded in the mud, and suddenly Vaylin appears, now a grown woman,
her eyes burning with the dark side. She sets the battlefield aflame
with a blast of Force lightning, then lunges at her mother. Senya’s
lightsaber blade meets Vaylin’s as she gapes with dawning horror at what
her daughter has become.
And they lived happily ever after. The end!
This is so awesome. If only they’d made the game itself this good,
people might actually play it. Like Satele Shan stopping a lightsaber
blade with her bare hands, the way the Force is used in these trailers
is so much more cinematic than running fast. At this point the only future Star Wars film I’m interested in seeing is something based on KotOR or TOR, but I just know they’d screw it up somehow. I liked the first three Star Wars movies, but now everything sucks.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, this trailer. 5/5 Death Stars, fuck it, this shit is awesome.
“A Mother’s Hope” picks up where Betrayed left off. We find
out that the planet Senya Tirall has come to is Ord Mantell, where
3,000-some years later Han Solo will run into about two dozen bounty
hunters on the same number of occasions. Also apparently Arcann, her son
with the half-robotic face, is in a coma in the back of her ship. The
reason she’s come to Ord Mantell in the first place is to find someone
to heal the injuries her son sustained at the hands of you, the player.
Once Senya lands on the planet, the story proceeds much as it did in the
trailer we just watched, with her discovering that the people she came
to meet are all dead and Vaylin attacking her.
Unlike in the trailer, however, Senya and Vaylin have a conversation
while they fight each other. “SCORPIO is not the Empress!” Vaylin
exposits. “She commands the GEMINI fleet, but they all answer to me. I
am the one who sits on the Eternal Throne!” Despite this riveting
dialogue, I don’t know who SCORPIO is and I don’t care.
Senya says that she doesn’t believe ruling the Eternal Empire is what
Vaylin really wants. Vaylin replies, “You know what I want mother—to
kill you!” At this point I started scrolling down to see how much longer
this was.
“Mommmmm, you don’t understand meeeeeeeeee!”
Their battle causes a crashed shuttle to explode, which should kill
Senya, but Vaylin protects them both with a Force bubble and then flees.
Puzzling over her daughter’s motive for saving her, Senya returns to
her ship and takes off, determined to find another way to save her son.
There’s nothing to this. 1/5 Death Stars. Recommended only if you
enjoy long, drawn-out descriptions of people fighting each other.
“Theron Shan sat shackled to a jukebox in one of the backrooms of the Dealer’s Den.” Oh boy, here we go.
Jonas Balkar, the Republic intelligence operative from a previous one
of these shorts, has invited Theron Shan to go out drinking at a bar
called the Dealer’s Den. While Jonas is passed out on the table, Theron
is accused of cheating at cards by a Twi’lek woman named Lylos Tannon
and hauled into the back room by the bouncer, a Houk named Bolgm. They tell him that they’re going to cut his cybernetic
implants out of his face and sell them on the black market. The buyer, a
man named Doctor Zeke (Zeke is a doctor, but doctor is spelled out in
full every time he’s called Doctor Zeke, so I assume Doctor is his first
name as well as his profession), comes in to inspect the merchandise,
but Lylos reveals that she works for Coruscant Security and was working
with Jonas to bring down this operation. Dr. Doctor Zeke is taken into
custody, and Theron, Jonas, and Lylos go out drinking.
This reads a bit more like an actual story than most of these shorts,
which have mostly just been slice-of-life vignettes. This one has an
actual plot and structure. A pointless plot, sure, but less pointless
than so much of the other crap we’ve read.
The most interesting thing about this story was this unremarked-on
throwaway line: “Things were moving fast since Revan’s defeat on Yavin
4.” For a minute I was like “wait, what?” then I remembered that these
stories have no meaning to anyone who hasn’t played the MMO and its
expansions and there was a whole story arc where Revan
escaped from the Sith Emperor’s Brain Jail and turned evil again but
really he was physically split into like a good Revan and a bad Revan,
then he died, and Jesus Christ, KotOR, I’m so sorry for what they’ve done to you. Two of the most popular and beloved Star Wars
games of all time, and all the spinoffs and tie-ins go to an MMO no one
wanted that undoes everything from those games and prevents them from
ever getting a true sequel. Well I guess the sale of Lucasfilm and
discontinuation of the Expanded Universe would have done that anyway.
RIP, KotOR (2003–2004).
Jace Malcom and Theron Shan have an awkward father-son dinner together.
For some reason this is like the third part in the “Theron Shan Trilogy,” following The Lost Suns and Annihilation. Jace and Theron talk about when Satele Shan briefed Theron on the Ascendant Spear
and he confesses that he’s still not over being abandoned by his
mother, because he’s a “feels over reals” type of guy and Satele is like
“fuck your feelings.” Jace tells him that Satele cares about him and
Theron’s like “If you say so,” then it ends.
This is the beginning of the Knights of the Fallen Empire sub-section of The Old Republic,
when the 44-year conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire is
brushed aside by the emergence of a new threat, the Eternal Empire of
Zakuul. A common complaint I’ve seen among TOR players is that this is the point where the game jumped the proverbial shark, dumping all that sweet, sweet Jedi-vs.-Sith Star Wars
action that had characterized the previous four years of the MMO. Not
having played these expansions, I can’t vouch for their execution, and
it is a little silly to suddenly have another all-powerful empire emerge
from the Unknown Regions and take the galaxy by storm following
centuries of building its forces in secret after the Sith Empire started
this era doing the same thing, but goddamn at least it’s notthefuckingSithagain. I applaud BioWare for doing something different.
Thexan and Arcann are the twin sons of Emperor Valkorion, ruler of
the Eternal Empire. Tasked by their father with conquering both the Sith
Empire and the Republic, the princes are engaged with the forces of
Darth Atroxa on Korriban, homeworld of the Sith and most evil planet in
the galaxy. Thexan narrates the story, relating how an injury suffered
by his brother cost him an arm and half of his face, replaced with
cybernetic prostheses: “In an instant, it was the face of a stranger.
And we were no longer twins.”
Thexan retires to his tent and receives a holographic transmission
from the “Immortal Emperor Valkorion, Slayer of Izax.” Thexan reports on
his brother’s injuries but Valkorion makes it clear that he’s
uninterested and cares only about the mission, which Arcann went on only
in defiance of their father’s command. Thexan reflects on how his
brother’s impatience with their father grows with every interaction and
the knowledge that Valkorion is only pushing them to become stronger
does nothing to quell his anger, an anger that Thexan doesn’t share.
Valkorion terminates the call and Thexan goes to visit his brother.
“A man can have anything, if he’s willing to sacrifice,” Arcann says,
ironically imitating their father’s favorite lesson. Thexan remembers
how he and his twin once practically shared a single mind, able to
communicate and strategize without speaking, but Arcann’s hatred of
their father has poisoned him and Thexan feels his brother slipping
away. Thexan pledges to fight for his twin, telling him “Your dreams are
mine.” They clasp hands, and for a moment Thexan hopes that maybe they
haven’t yet lost each other after all.
Really short, a bit simplistic, but compared to the disposable tie-in
crap we’ve been reading, this is a revelation. I really like that line
at the beginning, “we were no longer twins.” A weirdly understated and
nuanced turn of phrase for this type of writing; Arcann’s face has been
spoiled by war, so he’s no longer his brother’s twin in physical
appearance, but it’s also reflective of a deeper change inside him, a
change in attitude that is the real source of the crack in Thexan’s
mirror. I like that. 3.5/5 Death Stars.
[Continuity Note: Btw Valkorion is actually the reincarnated spirit of Vitiate, aka Tenebrae, aka the Sith Emperor. Surprise!]
I HAVE SO MANY NAMES
Sacrifice
Medium: Cinematic trailer
Publication Date: June 15, 2015
Timeline Placement: 3,636 BBY
“A man can have anything,” Valkorion piously intones, as Prince
Arcann, yellow lightsaber ignited, flies toward his back, “if he’s
willing to sacrifice.” We flash back to the birth of Arcann and Thexan.
Valkorion turns away from them in the cradle, setting the tone for their
lives of rejection and hardship as their father mercilessly pushes them
to achieve their true potential. No matter their victories and
accomplishments, nothing they do is good enough for him; the only love
they know comes from one another.
We see their campaign against Darth Atroxa, a red-skinned Twi’lek
woman with Darth Maul tattoos, on Korriban, homeworld of the Sith and
most evil planet in the galaxy. She finally falls to Arcann’s blade,
more than half his face now a robotic mask covering the wound he
received in the previous story. The twin princes board a ship to return
to their father, leaving the Valley of the Dark Lords to crumble into
ruins behind them.
They kneel before Valkorion and each presents him with two
lightsabers wrapped in the sigil of either the Galactic Republic or the
Sith Empire. I realize this is visual shorthand to convey in one and a
half seconds the idea that they’ve defeated both groups, but I’m curious
what the significance is in-universe. Whose lightsabers are those, and
is there any special meaning to those particular emblems or did Arcann
and Thexan realize at the last minute that they didn’t have any wrapping
paper?
Valkorion is probably wondering the same thing, because once again he
turns his back on them without saying a word. This failure to
acknowledge their greatest accomplishment pushes Arcann over the edge,
and he lunges at Valkorion’s back with his lightsaber. Even-tempered and
loyal, Thexan pulls him back with the Force, but Arcann is still lost
to his rage, and he turns on his brother and cuts him down. Instantly
his mind clears but it’s too late. He rushes to catch his brother as he
falls and takes his hand for the last time.
He looks up to find Valkorion standing over him, his father finally proud of him.
This four-and-a-half-minute trailer for a video game is a better told and more emotionally resonant story than Star Wars:The Last Jedi. 4.5/5 Death Stars.
It’s been 40+ years in-universe since we were introduced to Nico
Okarr, the Han Solo ripoff who helped a teenage Satele Shan escape from
Darth Malgus when the Sith retook Korriban. He hasn’t shown up since
then . . . until now!
Nico Okarr is lounging in the back of some dive called the Sarlacc
and Loaded when a rich nobleman named Seamus Kaldo approaches and offers
to hire him to apprehend that no-good infamous smuggler Nico Okarr.
Nico reveals his identity and asks for his payment. Seamus protests that
Nico is too young to be a guy who should be in his seventies, because
apparently he looks exactly the same as he did in the trailer that
introduced him. I checked Wookieepedia and apparently it’s never
explained why he doesn’t age, a line of dialogue in the MMO just gives
some offhand reference to a Sith artifact he found. I guess they just
really loved this character and wanted to put him into the game without
being hampered by little details like “temporal consistency.”
Seamus and his manservant, Vhonu, fly into a rage and demand
recompense for the engine schematics Nico stole from the Kaldo family.
They try to capture him but Nico drops them both, then rifles through
Seamus’s pockets and takes the money he was promised. “Sorry for the
mess,” he tells the bartender, flipping him a coin, because they’re not
even bothering to pretend he’s not Han Solo. Nico Okarr goes outside and
says to no one, “Guess vacation’s over.”
Nice-Girl Sith Lana Beniko makes a report on Darth Arkous, some guy
who I don’t know who that is. There were Republic spies on their ship
who were plotting to blow it up but Lana discovered their subterfuge but
one escaped in an escape pod but Darth Arkous flew out through space
and stabbed her with his lightsaber but Lana thought that was pretty
cool but then Darth Arkous told her he was going to Onderon but really
he went to Manaan so now she doesn’t know what to believe.
Varko is a Selkath customs agent on the planet Manaan. He has a pleasant conversation with
a man named Tev Fith, who has come to the planet to do research for a
biotech firm. Varko thinks he met Tev’s boss a few days ago, but it
turns out to be a case of mistaken identity and Varko was thinking of
someone else. Apparently “Tev Fith” is really Theron Shan in disguise
but I had to look that up. Later Lana Beniko shows up and mind-tricks
Varko into giving her information on Darth Arkous’s travel arrangements.
The story ends with Varko going swimming. “Such a boring and
forgettable day.”
The bounty hunter droid BH-7X meets with another bounty hunter named
Kern to discuss a contract on the Wookiee smuggler Jakarro and his
partner, C2-D4, a disembodied droid head. Kern had previously tried to
hire BH-7X but been unwilling to meet the droid’s price, so now the
droid has returned to inform him that the half-priced mooks he hired
instead have all been killed. Kern throws a bottle of booze at him, and
BH-7X stuns Kern to collect a bounty on him, and then freezes him in carbonite or something. Because of course he does.
Of course he does.
HEY HAVE YOU EVER SEEN STAR WARS 1.5/5 Death Stars
A human smuggler named Kaya is pursued through the jungles of Rakata
Prime, the primeval homeworld of our old friends, the Rakata. Despite
ruling the galaxy back when we started this venture with Dawn of the Jedi,
the Rakata have since devolved into tribal primitives, making war on
each other and anyone unfortunate enough to visit their planet. Known
only as “the Unknown World” when it first appeared in 2003’s Knights of the Old Republic, that planet was given the name Rakata Prime in The New Essential Chronology, a Star Wars reference book published in 2005. A year later, however, Drew Karpyshyn featured the world in his novel Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, in which it was called Lehon. The following month, The New Essential Guide to Alien Species identified it simply as Rakata.
This vignette sticks with Rakata Prime, but YMMV.
Anyway, Kaya was hired by the Exchange, the major galactic crime
syndicate of this era, as part of a crew sent to retrieve various
artifacts and antiques from the planet’s ruins. The half-dozen other
members of her team have all been killed by the natives, who are now
chasing Kaya back toward her ship, throwing spears and indecipherable
threats at her, while she yells into her comlink for her droid, Dominic,
to fire up the engines.
She comes into the clearing where she’s parked and throws herself
onto the ground as the droid turns the ship’s guns on the jungle and
blasts away. “It felt like there wasn’t enough air on the entire planet
for her to catch her breath.” That line is pretty banal but hey at least
they put some kind of literary language into one of these things.
Kaya is safely aboard her ship but the action isn’t over yet! Once
she and Dom (short for D0-M9) make orbit, they’re attacked by a Republic
corvette and a Sith destroyer that strangely appear to be working
together. The reason for this isn’t explained in the story, I guess you
have to play the Shadow of Revan game expansion (available now
for only $19.99 USD!) to find out. They get caught in a tractor beam but
manage to break free when Kaya dumps the junk they stole from the
Rakata into space.
Knowing that the Exchange will be pissed at them for losing their
cargo, Kaya and Dominic Toretto decide to lie low for a while in
Raider’s Cove, a trade port on the planet Rishi, where you, the player,
can meet and interact with them in the Shadow of Revan game expansion (available now for only $19.99 USD!).
A little bit more substantial than most of these web vignettes have
been, plus going back to the Unknown World and seeing the Rakata again
warmed the cockles of my heart. 2/5 Death Stars.
Mandalorian warrior Galron is out camping with his twin daughters,
Tayn and Mari. As they turn in for the night beside the campfire, they
ask their father to tell them a bedtime story. Galron tells them about
Shae Vizla, the pretty redheaded lady who helped Darth Malgus blow up
the Jedi Temple. Apparently she used to fight side by side with her
brother until he was killed by a Jedi, which prompted her to volunteer
for the temple attack. Fighting and killing Jedi is all fun and games
until they start killing you back, then you have a reason to kill them, I
guess. Galron says that after the Treaty of Coruscant, Shae and her
whole clan disappeared, but he believes that she will return once she’s
found a great enough challenge. Mari asks if she can sleep with her
father’s helmet on, and he stays up all night carving his daughters
practice swords out of wood.
Fun fact: Shae Vizla has no relation to the various prequel-era Mandalorians surnamed Vizsla.
Whew, I’m gonna need a rag over here.
This story is kind of sweet but also kind of sickening. There’s one
point where Tayn make-believes shooting a flamethrower and Galron
mentally adds it to her armor’s construction list. Now I’m really
endeared to this culture. 1.5/5 Death Stars.
Rishi: Places of Interest
This is another one of these online TOR vignettes that can only
debatably be called a story. It’s a series of emails sent by a
prospector named Rondo to his wife, Marani. There are several shorts
published on the TOR website that are just emails or in-universe
advertisements or transcripts of fictional interviews, none of which I
am including in this series, but this one has the vaguest suggestion of a
plot in that it relates a series of connected events in a narrative
fashion, so it arbitrarily made the cut.
Rondo has come to the planet Rishi to strike it rich mining exonium,
after his previous business venture on Mustafar led to permanent damage
to his lungs. At first he’s optimistic, but he’s quickly made a slave of
the pirate band who control the planet’s exonium trade. Rondo escapes
by jumping out the emergency exit of their ship and ends up floating on a
door in the ocean for two days until he’s rescued by native Rishii
tribesmen. The Rishii introduce him to a local prospector who tells him
where to find all the exonium he wants. Rondo follows the prospector’s
map to a spooky cave but wisely decides not to enter upon hearing
monster noises from within. Unfortunately, as leaves the cave he
stumbles upon some kind of mysterious operation that he doesn’t
understand but knows he wasn’t supposed to see. His final, unsent email
to his wife cuts off mid-sentence, and we’re informed that his datapad
was found by the Rishii villagers but “what happened to Rondo as he
wrote those last words remains a mystery to this day.”
Oh but according to Wookieepedia I guess he was just killed by the
Revanites, a splinter cult within the Sith Empire that worships Revan.
Boooooorrring. 1.5/5 Death Stars.
