aggienaut | Entries tagged with star wars

   When ads for the Mandalorian first started appearing, I took notice because I'm into Star Wars, but also it was even more than usual plastered with the Disney name which seemed a bit suspicious. As soon as it began to air, however, the groundswell of people saying it was really good was very notable. And apparently there was a baby yoda, I'm not calling that a spoiler because it quickly became a pervasive meme. So I quickly felt that this was a thing I should watch. And then I saw Disneyplus was advertising a week of free access! Score!

   The Mandalorian is... great. Fantastic. Everything Star Wars ever should have been. I saw a meme somewhere baout how its funny directors aren't having to blame things on "toxic fans" when they actually for once get things right. I think the real secret is that they remembered that Star Wars was originally, at it's heart, a kind of space western. The original story wasn't about complicated space trade embargoes and space bureaucracy, nor was it about changing scenes every 7 seconds, maximum explosions, and unnecessary stupid characters inserted just for marketing purposes. The Mandalorian I'm glad to say doesn't have the frenetic pace of the most recent Star Wars movie nor the coterie of hateable characters, nor does it have any resemblence to the prequels. It's like finally being home again in the original trilogy.

   I didn't hate the most recent Star Wars movie, I felt like it was "pretty good," but it left me wondering, is it me? Can no future Star Wars movie measure up not because the original trilogy was amazing but rather because I've made the original trilogy holy in my mind and am too crochety for anything new to "measure up?" But I feel Mandalorian has answered that question ... no, when it actually seems true to the originals, it can still be epic.

( Commentary with spoilers )

In conclusion, I loved it, for once I think something Star Wars has _fully_ lived up to the quality of the original series, and will totally re-subscribe to Disneyplus for the duration of next Mandalorian season ;)

So last night I finally saw the Han Solo movie, on netflix. Altogether I found it really disappointing. The following review will contain lots of spoilers.

( Spoiler alert! )

Bonus: Rogue 1!
In looking the other things in my Star Wars tag I was shocked just now to realize apparently I never wrote a review of Rogue One?? From this distant vantage point it's hard for me to remember much of value of specifics so much as to say I recall I really liked it, I think to me it captured the feel of the original trilogy the best of all the movies that have come out since. It was just kind of bittersweet watching it knowing that all the characters had to die to explain why they don't show up in any subsequent movie. Though I think knowing they were going to die the writers didn't write them with the kind of wankery assumption that we'll love them as new upcoming trilogy stars as they did with all those irritating characters around Rey in the new movies. I really liked the Rogue One sarcastic robot in particular. (sarcastic robot in Han Solo seemed kind of a sad immitation of him, and why does a robot have to so clearly correspond to a human ethnic cliche??)

Non Spoilery Bit

   So I saw Star Wars Episode VIII yesterday. It's number eight right? I feel like it's becoming very confusing trying to accurately refer to the movies. In discussion after the movie with my friends we kept saying "but now the last one, well not the last one, the prequel to this, but not the prequels, just the one that comes right before this.. in the time line!"
   And being as Disney probably intends to keep milking this franchise with a movie a year or so, and in the immediate future looks to be continuing to jump around the timeline (from what I hear the next one will kind of concurrant to Rogue One?), I think this is going to get VERY confusing!!
   At least there's no "alternative timelines" like in Star Trek!! (though a whole slew of books have been uncanonized by subsequent movies ... bring back Admiral Thrawn!!)

   But anyway, how shocking was it when they revealed Jar Jar Binks is Grand Master Snopes??? I mean uh, I better put up the spoiler break!

( Spoilers Ahead! )

And Here's an Entirely Unrelated Picture of the Day

This picture is partly here so that if someone wants to comment on the non-spoiler part and not be spoilerized there's a bit of a buffer between the comment box and the spoilerized dicta.

But also I can't believe I apparently haven't yet posted this cute picture of these Kyrgyz kids and their donkeys?? This was up in the mountains, there was a nearby yurt in which they appeared to live.

   So I've been anticipating this new Star Wars movie as much as anyone, I'm a classic example of one of those people who was a "star wars nerd" "before it was cool," (like 5th/6th grade) thought the three prequels were utter crap, all that. But to my horror I realized I was flying to Australia immediately prior to the movie release!!! OH NOES!!
   So yesterday I saw the movie by myself, like a loser ): But it doubled as a good thing to do while on my own in Melbourne since it got me out of the cold (it was 105 the other day and I-wish-I-brought-my-jacket weather the next, they weren't kidding about "four seasons in a day in Melbourne!"), especially since I've been fighting a cold ):

   Anyway before we get the the spoiler break I've just got to say I heard a song I really liked in the commercials that played preceding the movie:

I really like both the sound of it and it's theme of a seemingly good person with that symbolic "red right hand." And this somewhat dark song was playing in the background of a tourism promotional thing for some region of Australia, showing people frolicking through hayfields! And I think I liked the way tehy synthesized it for that commercial even better, I wish I could find the commercial itself! lol.

Anyway, on to our feature presentation, ladies and gentlemen, the spoiler-curtain please

( Spoiler Curtain )

Current Location: Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Current Music: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand

   So awarding the Snailie Award for best icon (second runner up) to eagon had required extensive investigation. This quest somehow brought me into the starwarsicons community. And among the extensive blogging-bilge there I found some icons that gave me a devious idea.
   I lifted these three icons from the community:

   And voila...

   That's myself, my older brother nibot, and my younger brother frickeec. See also:

   Also today I was compelled to create a third photobucket account because the previous two are full, and I've already reached 75% of my upload capacity for my flickr account for this month (and not all images are flickr material anyway, such as these).

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: A Pleasantly Innocuous Evening - Went to a different Diedrichs with Brianna LeMay. I have since lost contact with Bree, as has Aaron. We'd like to get in touch with her if anyone has any leads.
   Also Two Years Ago Today: Memes with screwie html - and apparently I met kris.
   Year Ago Today: Pictures of People at Diedrichs - Yeah check it out

Current Music: Rancid - Tropical London

So I finally saw Episode III of Star Wars. I found it to be a thoroughly pleasant experience. I suppose I'll put my reactions to it under an lj-cut since if by some freak chance I'm not the VERY last person to see it, my ramblings might cause some spoilation. But first I'd like to reiterate two things I've said before:

R2D2 = The Cheat

Chancellor Palpatine = The New Pope

As to the last point, I know tehre was a picture demonstrating the similarities side by side floating around awhile ago but I couldn't find it this evening.

( On Episode III )

   After seeing the movie, Kristy and I went to eat at Fuzios. The service was unusually bad, with our food arriving before our appetizer, and generally long delays. The guy next to us had to wait like half an hour for his check and looked like he wanted to like die or go on a Sith rampage _(tm) or something. I found myself thinking it would be pleasant to have some kind of timer-clock one could place on the table which would visually demonstrate for yourself and hopefully any waiters who happened to glance at it as the tip gradually decreases the longer one is left waiting for the bill.
   And we had terrible service at Thai Bistro on Friday and at Hunans last week, whats wrong with service around here these days?!

In Other News: You should all check out two articles authored by citizene that didn't make it into the Aggie spoof edition, on account apparently of personal grudges.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: Hanging Out with Ben & Garian
   Year Ago Today: Hanging Out with Ben & Garian - As you can see, its a yearly tradition. I was two days off this year though )= Also this entry includes the year in review of Junior year.