This blog tracks the epic of kick-starting a whole writing career, with spies and thrillers, now saints and vampires. I cover the creative process, stuff that blows up, history, philosophy, and theology. If you like any or all of the above, you'll like this one. We talk about comic books, movies, music, and writing. Usually, all at the same time.
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The best of the best tell their secrets of successful writing careers. Panelists: Jim Butcher, Kevin J. Anderson, Michael Stackpole, Robert J. Sawyer, Brandon Sanderson. Moderator: Nancy Knight
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E3 is out again. And they have new trailers, and stuff.
And they start with .... Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
I'm sorry, call me cynical, call me borderline depressed, but is it just me, or does this feel like "Hey! Let's steal concepts from the past ten years of gaming to make a game that could have felt fresh about five years ago?"
No, seriously, they're stealing from Rogue One (Forrest Whittaker), the wall-walking of Titanfall, the platforming of the current Tomb Raider franchise, all to have another "this Jedi didn't die."
And I see Microsoft's name all over it. Yup. This isn't a winner by my lights.
But it looks shiny.... is this supposed to be a system seller?
The answer is no -- it's also available on PS4.
And it's also brought to you by EA. Expect this to be 4 hours of gameplay, and 12 hours of DLC and endless hours of multiplayer.
So you don't feel deprived, here, have some gameplay footage. It'll probably be all the entertainment value you're going to get from this. There you'l get to see that they stole finishers from the Shadow of Mordor series, too.
Rating: Buy it used from somewhere other than Gamestop.
One last note: "A jedi, this is what I've trained for"? The Jedi are supposed to be dead. Why would you train for this?
Here, have something less depressing than the last echos of a dead franchise.
So, I saw Endgame the other day. My review pretty much matches that of John C. Wright. The strength was the acting. There was one massive plothole that comes with time travel, but it's the plothole I have with Terminator 2, and who doesn't like that movie?
All in all, that was a very nice little wrap up to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
What's that you say? There are still Marvel movies to come? Including another Spider-Man film?
No. This wrapped things up nicely. We can all go home now. If they insist on making more films, I've got no problem getting them used, if I even feel the need to see them.
Take a look for a moment around "phase 4" of the MCU. See if you notice anything.
Spider Man: Far From Home
Black Widow
Black Panther 2
Doctor Strange 2
Eternals
Shang-Chi
Guardians 3
And before you ask, no, it's not about Captain Marvel. Even the directors of Endgame hated her so much, they had Thanos punch her right out of the movie. I'm told she was on screen for 15 minutes. I think most of that time she was not speaking, or she was so covered in CGI, she looked like Tinkerbell. There is no way you can jam her into more than two of these seven films, and that's assuming anyone allows her in.
Despite all of Kevin Feige's woke spinning, every time he spins politics, he never delivers it, which is a point in his favor. So I'm not going to guess which films he wants to jam in "body positive" or L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.A.A.P.M.O.U.S.E. "role models" in. (If you see a "hero" called "America" expect heads to roll after the movie bombs like Hiroshima.)
I'm only concerned with those bullet points.
If you don't see it, don't worry, I have you covered.
Spider Man: Far From Home. If you remember, Homecoming was so full of woke secondary casting it was painful. Really painful. They were so unnecessary to the plot that we really only needed three actors -- Michael Keaton, Roberty Downey Jr, and Tom Holland. Almost everyone else could be replaced by a cardboard cutout. In the case of "Zendaya," I'm relatively certain she is a cardboard cutout. I suspect Far From Home will only need Tom Holland, Sam Jackson, Jake what's-his-name, and CGI monsters. Which means that I can wait for it to be remaindered in Edward R. Hamilton, or used on Amazon.
Black Widow -- if you've seen Endgame, you know why this is a problem. If you haven't seen it yet (oh come on, even I've seen it by now) let's say that one of their selling points is WE HAVE A FEMALE DIRECTOR. Um, that's nice. What's this FEMALE DIRECTOR done? Um ... well, that sucks. Pity that when they finally get around to making the Black Widow movie fans wanted since Avengers (if not Iron Man 2) is made by someone with fewer credentials than the creature who made the Wrinkle in Time movie.
Black Panther 2 -- I hold out no hope for this one. I suspect that one day people will realize that BP was a disjointed, tone-deaf mess that couldn't figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. Did it want to be Game of Thrones in Africa (As in the first 30 minutes)? Did it want to be James Bond (as it was in that bit in Korea)? Did it want to focus on Wakanda versus black urban America? They should have stuck with one tone and ran with it. (And for a movie with the two "Tolkien White guys," did anyone else realize that while everyone was having a civil war, Martin Freeman was saving the world?) And while everyone else squee-ed over battle rhinos ... yikes, that CGI was bad.
Doctor Strange 2 -- Cumberbatch might make this worth renting or buying used. The CGI might tempt me to watch it on a big screen, but they're going to have to have a trailer that blows my socks off and turns my hair white to tempt me that much. And I don't think they have the chops do to that.
Guardians 3 -- James Gunn, the director, thinks pedo jokes are funny. They're not. Check please.
Eternals
Shang-Chi
At which point, I get to break out a GIF.
Don't worry, you're not the only one. I had to look them up, too.
Brian Niemeier is a fan of saying "Don't give money to people who hate you." I concur. I had no problem going to Endgame because the House of Mouse is going to burn itself down, courtesy of Dickhead in Chief, Bob Iger, who is so beset by scandals and criminal investigations, and downright mishandling of properties that I actually think that Endgame's success will only fuel their certitude of their own invulnerability, and thus fuel their own demise.
They killed Star Wars with The Last Jedi. And yet they're going to burn nearly... what? Half a billion dollars per movie over the next few years? (I'm guesstimating based on previous, conflicting numbers). While they got burned with Solo -- an okay film caught in the backlash from The Last Jedi -- Disney didn't learn their lesson. They're going to spend about three billion dollars on six Star Wars films over the next few years, hoping to make at least six billion dollars. However, the people behind these films (at last report) are Rian Johnson of Last Jedi and the people who dropped the ball on Game of Thrones. Say goodbye to three billion dollars, Disney.
They want to try an Avatar franchise, which will take forever to make and mountains of cash to finish. But they have so doubled down on it, they've put in an Avatar section to their theme park .... no, seriously, Disney, Avatar came out a decade ago. The prime audience for Disneyland wasn't even born at the time, and are currently spoiled with better graphics in casual video games, which are largely better written (unless they're Assassin's Creed).
Next up, the Aliens franchise! (Guys, just stick with Aliens. The series is dead already)
The Disney model used to be reinvest profits into the company, expand, and make more money. They're still doing that, but they're doing it in such a way that is just going to screw them over. Investing in Star Wars land (yes, I know) after The Last Jedi? Investing in Avatar at the parks before there's really a market for it?
Next up: the "MCU" will get the same treatment. But the MCU is over, fellas. They got a decent sendoff. It was a miracle that it got this far anyway -- normally, conflicting personalities would destroy a franchise like this in three movies, if not sooner. It was probably a minor miracle. Robert Downey Jr. is a good guy who stood up for Mel Gibson. Most of the main actors had never been big names before they were cast. Sure, there were some attempts. Before the MCU started, I think the biggest names they had were Scarlett Johanssen and Sam Jackson.
Endgame wrapped up the MCU.
Everyone got a happily ever after.
All of the main characters without a sequel series are done with the franchise.
All of the good secondary characters are going to yet ANOTHER streaming service... and we saw how well that worked with NetFlix (Three good seasons of television out of eleven).
So, the movies are done. But Marvel will pour in the money. Disney bought Marvel Comics, and allowed the comics to go to woke crap while the movies made money. Now that Disney is going to streaming, expect the films to go to woke crap while they focus on streaming -- and like with Star Trek Discovery, Disney won't care if it's all crap, since the membership fees will be money up front.
There is a Graham Greene story called A Hint of an Explanation, where a man tells the story of how his atheist next door neighbor wanted to run tests on a consecrated host. The narrator, who had been an altar boy, palmed the host, and nearly handed over the host for desecration, when the neighbor pushed just a little too hard, was a little too eager, and let slip his darker nature. The point of the story is that evil overreaches and screws itself over.
Now that Disney is secure in the sensation that it can do no wrong, and they have money to burn, get ready to spend the next ten years watching the money go up in flames.
Disney is overreaching.
If you want a superhero that will never go woke, I suggest
Technically, this has been open since October, 2017. In part because nominations are first published between 7/1/2017 and 6/30/2018. You can click above.
This, of course, will be a problem with having Silver Empire rerelease Love at First Bite: Good to the Last Drop will not be available for purchase for the majority of the voting process. So, sure, I'll throw my hat in the ring, but I'd put this as less likely to even get the nomination this year than in previous years ... and I was 50/50 on whether or not that would happen.
If you want my thoughts on the Dragons, they're not many. My reading speed this year has been severely compromised by nonstop work.
Best Science Fiction Novel
Karl Gallagher: Torchship Captain. Yes, really. I haven't enjoyed a book series so much since David Weber's earliest Honor Harrington. I'll hopefully get a review up before Hell freezes over.
Nope... that's it. That's all I have. Most of the others that I mentioned for the Planetary award aren't available for the Dragons -- they were too early in the year.
Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)
Since Larry doesn't want it for Monster Hunter International, I don't have anything offhand. Good to the Last Drop if you want it for fantasy instead of horror?
I want to say David Weber. But I suspect that this might sooner go to Timothy Zahn for the Honorverse prequel novels. Just a guess.
Best Alternate History Novel
.... Someone tell Lou Antonelli to hurry up and finish his sequel to Another Girl Another Planet already. Other than that...
Okay, I may have a good one for this soon, as soon as I hurry up and read Hans Schantz' Hidden Truth series-- more specifically, book 2, A Rambling Wreck.
Best Media Tie-In Novel
Well, this is new. The category probably opened up as a good way to avoid having a flood of Star Wars or Star Trek books flood a category. I know that Timothy Zahn will be coming out with a new Thrawn book next year, so let's hope that it comes out a little earlier, so Zahn can get nominated here.
.... And after a quick check on Amazon, the answer is no. Thrawn: Alliances is coming out on June 26th, which is hardly enough time for people to get it, read it, and vote. Hell, a lot of people are going to have already voted by then.
But now that we have a Media Tie-in category, can we have a best comic book movie now? That way it's not a Marvel Vs DC knock down drag out every year?
Best Horror Novel
As usual, I have nothing. The only horror I go near is what I write. So, there's Good to the Last Drop. Again. Yes, sorry about that.
Best Comic Book & Best Graphic Novel
I am so far behind on both of these categories, don't even ask.
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, TV or Internet
The Orville. No, nothing else, just The Orville.Lucifer has gotten better, but it wasn't as good as Orville at its best... At its worst? It's just mediocre.
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Justice League? No
Ragnarok ... maybe
Spider-Man: Homecoming ... not out of the line of possibility.
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
This is a problem when you have so many games doing loot boxes.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War? Depends on who you ask. X-Com 2: War of the Chosen -- ditto Cuphead Super Mario Oddessy.
There are, of course, Persona and Yakuza games that came out this year.... just don't ask me when.
So, if you liked any of these, look up on the release date and make certain I didn't just suggest something that came out too early.
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Middle Earth: Shadow of War: Yes, I liked the mobile. Move along.
Best Board Game & Best Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
The reviews on The Last Jedi range from "IT'S THE BEST THING EVA!!!" To "IT"S WORSE THAN THE PREQUELS!!"
Yeah... no.
My first real problem with The Last Jedi was when I heard that The Force Awakens had to have its ending redone and cut short (Didn't you wonder why Mark Hamill had no lines?) because it conflicted with the opening of The Last Jedi.
Yes, you read that right, the endings conflicted. Because one follows hot on the heels of The Force Awakens. No time passes. At all. Did anyone even read the script for the first movie before making the next?
I think the answer is... no. Major threads that came up in the midst of The Force Awakens are cut abruptly, characters that have been built up with backstory (and even a whole novel in one case) are obliterated.
I blame writer and director Rian Johnson, the director of Looper, which is a different piece of crap movie.
Another interview with Daisy Ridley had her express surprise that JJ Abrams was coming back to direct Episode 9, even though he only wanted to restart the franchise. So, as of a few months ago, Abrams saw that this one had large sections of being fucked up.
Now, for the record, I went into the movie with everything spoiled. And I mean everything. I don't think I really missed all that much.
So, about five minutes after Rey finds Luke, the First Order is apparently taking over the entire galaxy. I don't see how that happens, since the galaxy is a big freaking place, and the First Order leadership is hot on the heels of the Resistance. We get a nice looking space battle (as dumb as most of the Star Wars battles, but looks good) as well as an interesting comedy routine that is very standard fighter pilot. The fleet is tracked through hyperspace, and a slow motion, sublight space chase happens... this would work in almost any other military SF, but not in Star Wars, sorry. This is not the time to apply logistics and physics.
Luckily for everyone Finn wakes up. Yes, remember the former storm trooper left in a coma at the end of the last film? He woke up a few minutes into this one. There was no real reason to have him in a coma in the first place. Seriously, did Johnson look at the last movie? Script notes? Story arc notes? Or did he just film his own movie and flip everyone else the bird?
Anyway, after an attack on the bridge that wipes out the entire Resistance leadership and puts Leia into a coma (yes, a coma. This would have been a great time to kill Leia and be done with it, but NOOOO, someone couldn't have done some editing and a month of reshoots to work around it), the fleet is handed off to Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern.
Now, one of the big things about the marketing around this movie is that Laura Dern was going to play.. gasp!... a Lesbian!!! If that's seriously and honestly how Dern played Holdover, then she must be homophobic, because Admiral Holdover was one of the creepier characters in films that I've seen outside of Silence of the Lambs. She reminds me more of Harry Potter's Dolores Umbrage than any Star Wars character.
Every time star fighter Poe asks Admiral Holdover what her plan is... she's passive-aggressive dismissive, like a deranged Mary Poppins. This forces Poe to come up with a plan of his own--originally suggested by Finn!--to get on board the lead First Order ship, disable the lightspeed tracking device, and enable the fleet to escape before it runs out of fuel (Funny, I don't recall fuel ever being a problem in all of Star Wars before). This leads to a space casino, pseudo-social commentary (it makes no sense by even SJW standards), and a Benicio del Toro cameo.
This entire subplot/s (could be one or two subplots, depending on how you slice them) is idiot, stupid, a waste of time, and could have been cut from the film without any problem. More on this later.
This subplot also includes a new character named Rose. The actress' career is toast. She is unlikable, annoying, and adds nothing to the story.
This is where I will disagree with Brian Niemeier in that this is a feminist telling of Star Wars, designed to make men look stupid. Why? Because Laura Dern looks like a total moron, got people killed, and needed to be throttled. If Brian was right, they should look super-competent. They don't. Sorry, Brian, this isn't about a feminist agenda. You know why? Because if they were doing that, perhaps more than ONE WOMAN IN THIS ENTIRE FILM WOULD BE COMPETENT. Leia? Out cold. Phasma? Idiot. General Purple hair? Idiot. Rose? Annoying. They don't even disguise it other than anything but ineptitude. Holdover is such a creepy little s**t that if they had a scene of her molesting Finn or Leia while in a coma, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Then again, Brian is basing his conclusions off of someone else's review.
Meanwhile, in another end of the galaxy...
This is where the story actually gets good. Yes, really. Luke Skywalker has become a crankier Obi-Wan. He is every idealistic young man who encountered reality, reality kicked his ass, and decided to hide. He's looked at the history of the Jedi and noticed that the Jedi aren't very effective in large groups. That part I have no problem with. It happens. Hell, it happens to me, frequently.
However, Luke also states that he had decided to slink off into isolation and die... Blink. I'm sorry, then what was the point of leaving people a map to find your sorry ass, Luke? (Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for not paying attention to The Force Awakens)
Anyway, the story goes on with a Rey-Luke-Kylo Ren story where we see massive improvements in both acting and storytelling. The film is almost entirely carried by their acting. I'm fairly shocked. We see what happened to Luke, and to the Jedi Academy he tried to establish. Rey actually gets some training-- and they point out that yes, she trains with melee combat. I wish they spelled that out some more, but oy.
The usual complaint here is "OMG! They're burning down my mythology"... Ahem. Guys, most of the mythology was rewritten and delivered by a British Catholic because Alec Guiness couldn't choke down the crap dialogue Lucas had given him. It's a lot of Eastern spiritualism thrown into a blender. All of the actual nihilism is espoused by ... the bad guys. So is most of the moral equivalency (after all, everything Obi-Wan said was true, from a certain point of view). Kylo Ren wants to burn everything down. Del Toro's con artist monologues on how everyone sucks... a speech I usually find given to bad guys.
The Rey arc ends with an epic battle that doesn't go exactly how you think it will. You'll find some elements copy and pasted from Return of the Jedi, though not not many.
Luke's arc ends in an epic little showdown that's Luke versus an army. Then Luke dueling Kylo Ren. It was awesome.
If I were to rate The Last Jedi, it's a problem. The Luke-Rey-Kylo stuff was fun. Even Snoke (whose CGI and makeup have improved massively) addresses some complaints of the last film, like referring to General Hux as a rabid dog, but he has his uses.
My major problem with The Force Awakens was that both Finn and Rey were not really mature. Considering that Rey grew up on her own, responsible for herself since the beginning, you'd think she'd be a little less school girl -- see the scene after they got away from Tatootine lite. when Finn and Rose are gushing. I'm sorry, Luke was supposed to be 16 or 18, and he was more mature. And it's not the actress, because I saw her in Murder on the Orient Express. The Last Jedi actually has Finn and Rey act like adults. How nice.
But when this movie is stupid, this movie is stupid. The slow motion space chase was unnecessary, so was Admiral Holdover, "Rose," or any of the stupidity with Leia.
The Last Jedi is two and a half hours long. Two hours of it is actually not too bad. When it's bad, it's terrible. When it's good, it's terrific.
It is not worse than the prequels-- there was no Jar Jar, the graphics were solid, and the acting from the main characters was actually good. Laura Dern and the actress playing Rose can't act, but if they were cut from the film, it might rate a 7/10.
It is not the best Star Wars film, since there are more plot holes than usual for a Star Wars film.
If a 5/10 was an average film, give this a high 6/10, bordering on 7, but doesn't quite make it. Better than anything in the prequel trilogy, better than The Force Awakens. Probably better than Ant-Man.
Spoiler Section
The following are mostly reasons why this film sucked, and you'll note that they are overwhelmingly a matter of problems with the annoying subplot mentioned above.
Remember when I talked about threads that were taken and dropped by Rian Johnson? These include
Rey's parents are ... no one interesting. Sorry. Yeah, that great big build up in the first one? Total let down. Was anyone paying attention to that dangling thread? At all?
Phasma .... you know, Phasma was so overhyped, it was painful. "Oh, a female storm trooper commander!!!!!!!" Because someone had to, I guess. ' She had a very nice chrome storm trooper armor. She had a book dedicated to her back story and origins. They sold her helmet. There is such buildup.... for nothing. She wasn't interesting or stand out in the first film, and she was killed off after a few minutes of screen time in this film. She didn't even take her helmet off in either. It boils down to a great big: what's the point? Apparently, they even had a good actress for her. But no, she's dead. That's why I know that this wasn't written by a committee-- a committee would have been driven by the profit margins of having more Phasma material.
The Force Awakens ended with Snoke wanting to train Ben Solo further. What happened to Kylo's further training? Doesn't happen.
When the bridge crew is attacked, and the Resistance leadership is blown out into space... Leia goes flying in space. Even Rey can't lift rocks without training, but Leia pulls herself back in with the force? Are you stupid, Rian Johnson? Brain damaged?
What was the point of Finn being in a coma if he's just going to wake up again?
If I understand this correctly, Rey won the lightsaber fight because .... Kylo Ren was conflicted. Really? That's how they want to play that? How about "Kylo had a hole in his guts and was bleeding to death"? Isn't that a good reason?
Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo told no one her plan to ensure everyone's survival, so everyone came up with a plan without her. When Holdover blows off Poe's plan to get them through, she blows him off. He then mutinies. And you know what? No one gives a flying F*** about a FULL-SCALE MUTINY. Literally, no one cared that Poe had Holdover held at gunpoint. Apparently, she alienated everyone else. This is why you tell people what the hell goes on. God this subplot was stupid.
As I said above, the entire Rose-Finn-Poe subplot was a waste of time. You know what was accomplished? Nothing. Rian Johnson clearly thought that there would have been a great big lull in the middle of the movie if they had just stuck with the drama and tension of Rey-Luke-Kylo, so he decided to have movement happen with Finn's visit to the casino planet. But it is a hamster going full speed on his wheel. Finn and Rose fail to disable the light speed tracking, they get captured, and what was the point again? This enables Finn to have a hand in killing Phasma, but that's it. It was a 30 minute subplot for 2 minutes of something interesting happening.
Finn could have stayed in a coma without the plot being effected
Rose and Holdo could have never existed, and they plot wouldn't have been effected.
Oh, yeah, and they killed Admiral Akbar. For no reason.
One of the main conflict's of Luke's arc is that he has the sacred Jedi texts from "a thousand generations ago." The main complaint is that he wants to destroy them because too much of the Jedi were stuck in the past ... Um, Guys? The Catholic church has a council every few hundred years or so, and the Jedi are running on texts from TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND YEARS AGO? And they're still in existence, despite being the Shakers, who bred themselves out of existence by... not breeding? Yeah. No. Heck, people, the Expanded Universe moved the Jedi forward by having Luke marry Mara Jade. So, what's the complaint?
As for my list of things they needed to do (in a seriously low threshold to make me happy)
The First Order and the Resistance is still not explained within this film. We didn't need any for the Empire, but we were shown in the films that the Empire was done, defeated, kaput. WTF? And no, I'm not reading 10 Star Wars books to fill in the new cannon. I'm only reading Timothy Zahn. Period.
Will someone explain who Snoke is or where he came from? Anyone?
They at least TRIED to explain why Rey is a competent fighter.
Why didn't anyone at least try to highlight how Rey became force aware? They did it in the lousy novelization.
If you prefer a satire review, try the one below... but please realize that there is foul language.
For the record, the following scenes with Luke tossing his lighsaber and Leia flying? Perfectly accurate. Yes, really.
However, they insist that Holdover was trying to teach Finn a lesson -- something several reviews have said. That would have made sense, but no, that didn't happen. Try again.
I'm not one of the legion of people who hated The Force Awakens.
I didn't cry "Mary Sue!" at Rey (Mary Sues are supposed to be super-competent, she comes off as super-lucky at best).
I didn't whine that I wanted Heir to the Empire on film (though would it have killed them to have Zahn write the screenplay? Really?).
Though, Good God, they needed about a truckload of exposition to make things make sense. I never thought I'd insist that a movie stop to just explain things.
Seriously, simple lines would have helped. ONE LINE would have helped in 90% of the cases. And I'll show you how in a minute.
But right now, I'll give you one fix, one major fix that would solve a lot of problems. Ready? Here we go....
TELL THE CAST AND CREW TO KEEP THEIR FLIPPING MOUTHS SHUT.
No, really, tell these people to shut up. I don't think I would have even noticed race in The Force Awakens if some idiot didn't boast about "We've got a Spaniard and a black guy, and womyn! ALL THE WOMYN. And this character is even a Lesbian!!!!!"
....No, really, just shut up people. The more you talk, the more I want to smother you with a pillow.
Yes, for the record, there's supposed to be lesbian character in The Last Jedi... though I have a side bet with myself that if we weren't explicitly told, we wouldn't notice, and possibly not even notice anyway.
But, yes, much of The Last Jedi's job will be double duty. It has to insert backstory, as well as a lot of exposition that should have been in The Force Awakens.
But as I said, luckily, it will require very little actual effort on their part.
Complaint: "First Order? The Resistance? WTF?"
Fix for The Last Jedi: Explain. Everything. Rey's been on not-Tatooine for her life, hearing bits and pieces of the story. Somebody can explain everything, and it should technically work. Assuming no one screwed THAT up. The best I can put together from online reseach, the line is simple..
Luke: The First Order is what's left of the Empire. The Resistance is the New Republic's mercenary army, hired and assembled specifically to wipe out the First Order.
There is a ton of this sort of crap scattered throughout The Force Awakens. Heck, there are problems here that we didn't even know at the time. Heck, the star destroyer we see in the desert after a TIE fighter crashes? That was apparently part of a major battle that happened afterThe Return of the Jedi. Would have been nice to know that, yes? Seriously, can we have any idea what happened between point A and point B? Is that too much to ask? I'm not going to read Chuck Wendig. Ever.
Though, honestly, most of these could be fixed with a simple line here and there.
Complaint: "MARY SUE! REY FIXES THE FALCON BETTER THAN HAN SOLO CAN."
Fix for The Last Jedi.
Rey: "Of course I can fix parts on the Falcon. I've spent my life in the guts of an Imperial Star Destroyer, taking apart far better tech."
... Also, does anyone remember Empire Strikes Back? Half the movie is showing Han try to fix the Falcon, badly, and failing.
Complaint: "MARY SUE! REY FLIES THE FALCON BETTER THAN HAN SOLO CAN."
Fix for The Last Jedi.
Rey: "Saying I flew the Falcon ... is generous. More like falling with the engines on."
Seriously, people saw that she was flying awesomely. I saw that she was pulling at whatever controls would work.
Complaint: "MARY SUE! SHE BEAT A FULLY TRAINED SITH."
Fix for The Last Jedi.
Luke: "You've seen Chewie's bowcaster. It's basically artillery. He shot Kylo Ren with it. If Kylo weren't busy bleeding out all over the place, or if you hadn't spent so much time running, you would have been bantha fodder. You've got some nice basic moves for a stick fighter, but you need more if you ever fight him when he's healthy."
Seriously, if you look at the behind the scenes portions, the stunt team trained Daisy Ridley (Rey) working on the presumption of simple stick fighting.
They actually put real thought into this ... they just didn't EXPLAIN anything.
Complaint: "MARY SUE! SHE FIGHTS BETTER THAN A STORMTROOPER!!!"
Fix for The Last Jedi.... None needed.
No. Really. We've all see how bad Stormtroopers are. They can't even hit anything. The joke is that a Stormtrooper fires at a red shirt, misses, the red shirt dies anyway.
I'm surprised "The First Order" has any competent people.
Complaint: "A Stormtrooper on sanitation? Really?"
Fix for The Last Jedi: I'm not sure any is needed. Vet friends of mine tell me that people who make that complaint have simply never worked in the military.
Complaint: "MARY SUE! REY HAS NO TRAINING IN THE FORCE AND DID ALL THIS!!!"
Fix for The Last Jedi.
Apparently, in the novel, they actually spell out that Kylo Ren mind-reading Rey unlocked her force abilities. Which is nice, but EXPLAIN IN THE MOVIE, PLEASE.
I don't actually have a problem with that, actually. Why? Because I saw Doctor Who do this with "The Girl in the Fireplace," and the girl there didn't have any force abilities. As the BBC show said, "An open door goes both ways," or something like that.
And in A New Hope, we're supposed to infer that Luke was already a good shot because of the Force, he just didn't know it yet. And this translates into him blowing up a Death Star, in a fighter he's never flown before.
Frankly, I thought the scene with the Storm trooper and "leave the gun" was just funny as heck. Then again, not like the trooper's have the best minds in the Empire.
Just a reminder that Declan is on vacation for the next couple of weeks and guest bloggers will be filling in. Today, I'd like to welcome Moira Greyland Peat (author of the Hugo nominated "Story of Moira Greyland") to the Pius Geek blog with her post on Social Justice Story lines.
Yes, I know. We are all supposed to be diverse, and treat every new fad as though it is as “valid” as the traditions and cultural norms spanning thousands of years. But deep down, we know that even though the more sensitive (read: adolescent) members of our culture really want us to validate their folly, it remains folly, and diversity doesn’t work in movies if it eclipses our most basic human needs and drives.
We can see the failure of the social justice storylines all around us. The most famous, of course, can be found in the more recent iterations of the Star Wars saga. No amount of money, CGI or big-name actors has ever equaled the thrill of Luke and Leia swinging over the chasm, or the cliffhanger interchange between Han and Leia where she said “I love you” and he said “I know.”
What passes for “romance” in the first three prequel Star Wars movies was an implausible mess between a preadolescent child and an older teen girl. Creepy enough on its face, it was difficult to believe that Padme Amidala could possibly have seen anything attractive in him. One day, he came to her whimpering and crying about having committed genocide. Genocide! Padme Amidala, the ruler of so many people, was completely unconcerned about Anakin’s distinctly un-manly show of emotion, or the gut-wrenching atrocity he had just committed.
Instead of running like hell, Padme Amidala MARRIED the psychopath, and unsurprisingly, his insanity continued unabated. But oooh! We are meant to be more impressed by the CGI!! Starships and pretty lightsaber duels and Really Cool Abilities!! Padme’s death was reminiscent of that one might find in an operatic heroine like Lucia di Lammermoor: she died of a broken heart. This is coherent for a princess: less so for a career politician. Where in psychological terms, a princess can represent pure nobility and pure emotion, a politician is something else entirely.
I am trying to imagine Hillary Clinton dying of a broken heart over ANYTHING that her erstwhile husband did, from bimbo eruptions to military missteps. Seriously, if Anakin’s genocide does not provoke any emotion in Padme, how could his brutal rejection cause her death?
So now we have “The Force Awakens,” where Rey can magically do anything at all, better than anyone else, despite her low economic status. She can beat a much better trained Sith lord with a sword, despite his obvious reach and height. In a swordfight, this is ludicrous. She can fly starships… could it be that in her culture, flight training is a normal part of slave life? And Finn, who really ought to be a romantic figure, doesn’t get to do a whole lot, because she is The Powerful Leading Woman. The guys stand around, or help Rey Be Impressive. They don’t get to think, or be heroic. Not very inspiring to the guys out there, except for the very few guys who hope that Finn will become a gay love interest. Is this the future of romance in movies? The women save the world and the men turn to each other??
Yes, the Star Wars franchise had a chance for a great romance, and they blew it! After all, what do men and women almost invariably want? Partners, sex, companionship, even (gasp) commitment. Movies which have good love interests pique our interests, and we project ourselves onto the characters. Millions of women wanted to have a love affair like Leia and Han, and couldn’t wait to find out what happened after he was sealed up in the mythical Carbonite! They cared! Does anyone give a fig about Finn and Rey? They couldn’t even manage a kiss.
Wouldn’t it have been more inspiring to show us that even powerful women can still love men and be loved by them? Is the bottom line that an impressive woman must be a single woman? Do powerful women still need men, or can they still choose to have them? Do powerful women regard men as bonbons to be snacked on and forgotten, or is partnership between men and women still necessary in fiction?
For those of us who belong to the human race, the answer is an emphatic YES. We need love and we want romance, and plain old stories of courtship. They give us hope. They inspire us. Will we have a generation of girls dressed like Rey, not bothering with romance because their need for love has been eclipsed by the need to Go Forth and Be Awesome? Does any man want to be like Finn, stuck in the background and un-kissed?
I don’t think so. Romance will always be in style. This is why the original Star Wars will always beat the new ones, until and unless Finn manages to give Rey a really good kiss!
This ... pretty much sums up my feelings on The Force Awakens.
If you've seen the train wreck that is the Star Wars Holiday Special, you will get the in-jokes. And if you've never seen said holiday special ... you've been blessed.
And if you have seen the Star Wars Holiday Special ... I'm so, so sorry.
Also, if you haven't already, check out some of the books below.
This one was interesting, mostly for the people on the panel. And by people, I mostly mean Jim Butcher and Kevin J. Anderson.
Mercedes Lackey was also there, but even she wasn't entirely certain why. She was just recently number one on the bestseller list first time in 30 years. She also tried to cite rapist and child molestor Marion Zimmer Bradley, at which point, I tuned out Lackey for the rest of the panel to the best of my ability.
Kevin J. Anderson noted that he has written 140 books and 55 of them were bestsellers. He was actually denied the number one slot for Star Wars: Dark Apprentice, even though it sold THREE TIMES more books than the next best seller down the list, because, after all, one can't have Star Wars as Number one on the NYTimes Bestseller list, now can we? Schmucks.
Anyway....
When asked about what they hate the most, KJA said, "I had when I order a beer first, but someone else is served .... in writing? I hate when I'm told that I just got lucky. Funny that, the harder I work, the luckier I get."
Jim Butcher said, "I hate when I work six to nine months on a book, then someone comes up to me at the signing for that book and asked me when's the next one. Personally, I hate when I autograph pages the whole day, then I go and lift weights, injuring myself. Hate that. Though, speaking of things people hate, I had one scene in Skin Game where I had a love scene between two characters, and it turned out to be a dream. The only reactions I got from my beta readers were gifs of people flipping tables."
Jim went on to discuss his next book, Peace Talks. "People keep asking when it's going to come out. The publisher insists that it should come out only after it's finished." It's been particularly hard for Butcher considering that he's between houses for the first time in his life, and he has no space to work, and he has no dog. His last dog died, and "he was the brains of the operation." He currently has cats, though. His significant other, Kitty, and he agreed to get one cat, and they now have three. Cats, however, are not really helping his process, since they have no problem sitting on the keyboard and giving him three pages of Ms.
Part of the reason he's between houses has to do with construction on his new house. The contractors are so far behind, that he and Kitty went over to have a talk with them. They had planned out in advance that they would do good cop, bad cop. She would be bad cop, and he would be calm, reassuring, reasonable cop.
Then they got there, and the plan suddenly went to "good cop, insane cop. Which turned out to be just as effective."
While you're waiting for Peace Talks to come out, you might wish to try out my Sad Puppy and Dragon Award Nominated Novel Honor at Stake by clicking this link.
So I covered Xbox's abysmal opening. What about the rest of day 1?
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
You may not recall this from a while back, but it looks good, really.
And then some gameplay
They went into depth. They had details! Not just a CGI trailer! We have plot: SpecOps taking out Bolivia and the drug dealers. And the graphics are almost exactly what the CGI trailer looks like. Yikes.
However, it's not showing off the multiple level approach to each level that was promised in early trailers, but other than that, I'll take it.
My problem? It's a four-player co-op demo. So ... it looks like more Multiplayer. Argh.
And then, time to find some brave new worlds.
Yes, VR Star Trek. With Levar Burton, Karl Urban, and Jeri Ryan. Yikes. Not bad for just a stae reveal.
And then, something from a while ago... For Honor
I saw this last year, I think. It's ... basically a hack and slash. But it looks shiny as heck.
And then there was ... this.
And for the love of God, they should tone down Watchdogs 2. It's coming off as way more pretentious than it has any right to be.
Granted, the world and the graphics look GORGEOUS, but then again, from a AAA game had better be at this point. And if they screw up this time, this is a dead franchise.
They've added parkour, but they're still apparently using a politician as a bad guy. Again? Why? Also, An evil social media network rigging an election? Are we kidding? It feels like this theme is being driven into the ground.
We can hack vehicles this time. Oh yay. [I'm sorry, my eyes rolled so hard, they nearly fell out of my head.] I mean, seriously, "Screw the man! People are drones plugged into THE SYSTEM!!!! SCREW THE MAN!"
Hmm, wait, Anonymous and San Francisco. Really? Are we kidding? I thought San Francisco was the lefty capital of the universe, and they want to have us believe that the anti-Establishment hackers are the good guys? They basically ARE the establishment of San Francisco.
Honestly, I know that Ubisoft is run by the French, but this just takes the pretentiousness to a whole new level. "Oooh, a hip young black guy who comes with his own iPod mix. How trendy ... For the 1990s."
Sigh.
PLAYSTATION
DAYS GONE
Huh. Interesting. On the one hand, more zombies? On the other hand, the tone is different.
Then again, I halfway expected this to be a Walking Dead game. Again.
Then, to my great surprise, there was this.
A God of War game that looks interesting, and I don't even like the series. It seems that after Kratos, ghost of Sparta, is done with his vengeance, he tries to settle down and be a person. Good luck, dude.
Horizon Zero Dawnlooks even BETTER than last time.
Detroit Become Human
How very blade runner. I don't know how you become human in Detroit, but I try to inquire too closely.
Batman Arkham VR
Yes, I know this is just an announcement, but it's worth it just to listen to Mark Hamill chews the scenery.
VR Star Wars X-Wing VR missions
Sadly, it'll probably suck, just like the last Battlefront did.
And finally, Farpoint
No, don't worry, I don't know anything more than you do right now.
You have probably already seen this Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer, but in case you missed it, here it is.
This inspired the question among some friends of mine: what the hell is it with these really freaking tiny women adopting the "strong female character" trope?
Now, if you've read my novels, you know that I have no problem with strong, kick ass women. I've defended against that stupidity from feminazis often enough. Look at my defense of women in military science fiction. Or my article on SFCs. Or when I beat up on the idiocy of Tor writer Liz Bourke.
On the other hand, there is a major problem with the Strong Female Character that's being used lately. Because, sorry, when I create a woman character who is ALSO a bad ass, I also make certain that these women are either a) not a size zero, or b) fighting in creative, indirect ways.
Why? A few reasons. To start with, even among well-skilled (and equally skilled) male fighters, the bigger fighter is probably going to win -- the odds are nearly certain. There's a good reason that Loki rarely, if ever, directly engages with Thor -- Thor has got at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. Depending on the comic, the Joker is not squaring off against Batman and exchanging punches most of the time, because Batman is twice Joker's weight.
Hell, if you have two pro-wrestlers, how many of them fight exactly the same? When you get out of different weight classes, the changes are extreme. But you're not going to have a 5'6" wrestler like Rey Mysterio take on the 6'11" Undertaker in a direct fight -- the smaller wrestler will be bouncing around the ring like a ping pong ball, and trying to catch him is a pain in the ass. Small people fight different than bigger people. Simple as that. If you're small, you go in, strike something critical, then get away from them as soon as possible. If you're big, you close with the opponent, and crush them.
So, why are women being treated so much differently than men in this area? Seriously, there are weight differences between men, but somehow, all women are allowed to fight exactly the same way as men in media, even though women are naturally 50-100 pounds lighter.
Granted, in some cases, this works -- when these well-trained kick ass females are going up against untrained hoodlums, there is no contest. That's superior skill versus brute strength. I'd take a dozen marines with handguns versus three dozen MS-13 members armed with SMGs any day of the week.
But, somehow, as I go through my collection of media, which grows larger with each passing day, the kick ass woman are getting smaller, and their opponents (many of whom are supposed to be of equal talent and ability) are getting bigger.
For example, look at Jaimie Alexander, who is basically playing Jason Bourne on Blindspot -- who can kick the ass of almost everyone she comes across. She is possibly better known as the Lady Sif in the Thor films.
Okay, yes, she's very pretty. But I didn't pick this photo for the underwear value. Look at her arms. Now look at her legs. Where's the muscle? She's 5'9", but she's also a toothpick. I am never happier than when she's using weaponry, because her shooting someone feels more believable than her bringing down a 6'3" thug with her bare hands.
Enter the other 5'9" female bad ass who has spent her days swinging a sword.
Yeah, I know Xena is a stereotype, but please look at these two actresses, and riddle me this, Batman, which one looks more believable in terms of being able to hold her own in general?
She's not a toothpick, she's not "a guy with breasts," and she had this bright light in her eyes right before she wiped the floor with everyone in a berserker rage, and she looked like she was having fun. (Yes, I'm ignoring some of the later seasons. I think I ditched the show somewhere around the time she met Lucifer ... or when she was crucified by Julius Cesar, after having only met King David ... yeah, that show hurt my brain after a while).
And even after all you do the compare and contrast in build, why are the "strong women fighters" straight-up brawlers? When you consider that not even all men fight like this, why are all women fighting like this? Are the stunt coordinators that stupid? (Unlikely). Or are the directors and writers? (That's where my money is).
Hell, the closest we have to a Lucy Lawless type these days is Adrianne Palicki. She, sadly, was wasted on a Wonder Woman pilot from David E. Kelly (seriously, who allowed the lawyer show guy to make Wonder Woman?), and is currently being wasted on Agents of SHIELD. People who have better things to do with their lives might recognize her as Perkins from John Wick.
Note, from this photo, three things.
1) Her body type is not "Toothpick."
2) She is 5'11" in body armor.
3) She is holding an improvised weapon, because people who fight have weaponry.
Thank you. Was that so hard?
Frankly, I think I would have preferred her to being Wonder Woman in the films than Gal Gadot. Why? Because Wonder Woman was many things, but never a toothpick. Heck, I would have even taken Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), who is 5'7", and not a size zero.
Does anyone remember Antje Traue from Man of Steel? I mean, look at this woman.
Oh wow, look! Muscles!
Height? 5'6"
Can we have her in some of these films? I know everyone in Star Wars is British, but still, can we make an effort here, people?
Seriously, Hollywood, what are you doing to get these toothpicks as actresses? It's very offputting. There's "thin" and then there's "good God, please eat a hamburger, I'm expecting you to break."
This is why, at the end of the day, the most believable kick ass woman in current media is, well, Scarlet Johansson's Black Widow. Why? Because despite her being 5'3" (yes, she's that tiny), she's 1) not a toothpick and 2) she fights in so many varied and sundry methods and styles, she never takes someone on directly and / or bare handed. She's jumping on people and breaking necks, or dropping them with a gadget, or just shooting them.
Hell, remember Black Widow in Avengers, where she just stood square against Hawkeye and exchanged blows with him? Of course you don't, because it never happened. She jumped all over the place like a freaking rubber ball, and catch her if you can.
Don't get me wrong, there are places and points where not only should these smaller women be used, the can, and have, been used WELL. Black Widow is brilliantly and intelligently executed. Remember Rey in The Force Awakens? She was tiny, short, and the managed to be victorious in her light saber duel because she fought smart -- she spent most of the fight strategically maneuvering to better positions, using her environment, and was fighting a partially trained Sith who had already been shot with the SciFi equivalent of a howitzer.
Frankly, the best points where getting these tiny, tiny women to perform great feats of strength is, really, science fiction or fantasy. Whether it's the Bionic Woman or Summer Glau as a Terminator, or Buffy the Vampire slayer, it's impressive because they're so small. Supergirl is fine, because, well, she's a freaking alien. But this isn't how normal people operate. Hell, Buffy was supposed to be stronger than your average bear, and she still jumped around all over the place.
Why is Buffy the Vampire Slayer better executed than some of these more "serious" thrillers, like Blindspot?
(Hell, I'm actually surprised that Jaime Alexander isn't better built, considering she has to carry what looks like at least twenty pounds of plastic armor in the Thor films. I didn't expect her to be that tiny.)
For a moment, let's look at my books ... with normal characters, because I'm not counting the vampire as "normal." That's covered under my "science fiction and fantasy" exception.
(Though I should note, Amanda Colt is not the toothpick Jaimie Alexander. I think I would rather have Scarlet Johansson, if she were a little taller. Anyway...)
If you haven't read / don't recall The Pius Trilogy, I have three women who have gotten into fights.
Exhibit A) Wilhelmina Goldberg: Five-feet tall (really 4'11") Goldberg is a computer nerd. She used to work for the NSA, but went over to the Secret Service to audit security, since she's not tall enough to jump in front of Presidents. Her fights included: punching someone in the balls, and dropping low and cutting their Achilles tendons.
Exhibit B) Maureen McGrail: somewhere around 5'9 (because I don't recall), imagine Jaimie Alexander with about thirty pounds of muscle on her, and a broader frame. She's ridiculously over skilled. Even though she has more black belt levels than Chuck Norris, her fighting style boiled down to: attack joints, attack eyes, and deflecting, rather than blocking attacks.
Exhibit C) Manana Shushurin: 5'7" or so. Also insanely well-trained. Her primary form of fighting?Shooting people in the head. Yes, really. She may have gotten into three actual physical altercations in the entire trilogy, but most of the time, she just shot her enemies. Because bullets are your friend.
Seriously, at the end of the day, can we have a collection of characters and actresses who look, well, healthy? I'm tired of the cliche. It's getting problematic, and the execution is getting more and more lazy as things go on. At least in the Thor films, Alexander's Lady Sif is covered in body armor to bulk her up. But in general, the actresses seem to be getting smaller and shorter, and becoming more like empty-handed, bare-knuckle brawlers. And it really needs to stop.
Host Declan Finn once against tackles a broadcast all by himself by completely ignoring the Superbowl, but does stop to make fun of Liz Bourke of Tor, Marvel's tv shows, and deliver some news about Deadpool, the Hugos, and maybe even do a reading from his work. Again.
As mentioned previously, my book, Honor At Stake is going through a serious price drop. The usual $22 paperback is now under $8 as of this writing, so buy now while supplies last. Yes, really, there are 7 left at Amazon.
Tor, will you people stop being morons for five seconds? Please? That way I don't feel compelled to school your ass?
First, I saw the article on how "Supergirl is a metaphor for Being a Modern Woman," but you know what? I decided to not fisk it from orbit because it was just so stupid.
There's spin, and then there's using the stupid as an alternate energy source.
Especially when I got to the part of "In almost every scene, the Supergirl pilot is about a woman falling short of expectations, usually set by men." ... Except that the most belitting she gets is from her female boss. Sorry, you have failed this review, this article, and, well, life. Thanks.
But hey, Supergirl is fighting men. And nothing can be good because men exist. And ... tell me how Tor isn't misandrist?
Second, I saw an article literally entitled "Is Marvel Shying Away From A Black Widow Movie Because They Know They’ll Never Get It Right?" Which is funny because I just saw that Marvel announced a Black Widow movie within the last three months. So congratulations, Tor, you done f**ked it up. A lot. Again, yet still, already.
Uh huh ... yeah, the entire thing boiled down to the Black Widow "controversy" a few months ago. In short: They're just fretting that Black Widow won't be a feminist movie, because they think their own narratives are the only ones that should be told.
And then, I read through their article asking if Star Wars fans should forgive The Phantom Menace, and if we should.
You know what? That's the point where I realized that Tor is a worthless piece of crap.
Follow this logic, if you can. The article on Phantom Menace states that at least an hour should be cut from the movie. An hour. After cutting that, you get a tv episode. Maybe less.
And, after going through everything wrong with The Phantom Menace, the article cites a few things that were good about the movie .... and that's it. The article then uses those few breadcrumbs as proof that Star Wars fans should get over ourselves, and seems a little offended that we haven't all ready.
In fact, there is as least one section of the article that states that, well, The Phantom Menace is canon now, and if you don't like it, you can't really be a fan of Star Wars, now can you?
Beware, this is going to have a lot of stupid. LOTS of stupid.
And plenty of blood.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to take a whack at #GamerGate's easiest target, Anita Sarkeesian -- the smirking brunette you see in the video below. Why "easiest"? Because this pseudo-academic makes so many statements that proves she doesn't play video games, it would embarrass anyone who had even an inkling of shame.
Luckily, Sarkeesian doesn't have any, which is why she's part of the anti-GamerGate crowd.
And, yes, I know that, when you look at the attached video, there's a statement of Anita's at the one-minute mark that has her stating out loud that she is "not a fan of video games," while at the same time portraying herself as an "honest critic who is also a fan."
Seriously, Anita, turn it off, no one is buying it anymore. The internet is forever.
As I said, this is going to be a writing blog. Will it also take a few swipes at the anti-GG crowd? Mostly insofar as I'm pointing out standard, basic writing devices that have been used all over the place, and yet have been presented here as something only done to women.
And some of these claims? Some of these are not only stupid, but slanderous.
You do not *have* to watch the following video, but if you do, be warned, there will be CGI blood and violence.
![Thrawn: Alliances (Star Wars) by [Zahn, Timothy]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51eVJfQfFrL.jpg)
