Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 30

I’ve seen The Last Jedi twice now. I’m still not sure how I’d rank it, but the performances are way better than most of the prequel trilogy, and the story is the first theatrical Star Wars to break new ground in ages.

I’ll admit there’s a lot of stuff that happened that I didn’t like, but it made sense within the story context, and it was done in an interesting way. And there was a lot of cool stuff too…including a ton of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details that I missed the first time through.

What do you mean, “Like?”

I learned years ago that “stuff happened that I didn’t like” and “it was badly made” are two separate comments on a movie, TV show, book, or other work of art.

Do I like the reason Luke left? No, but it makes sense. (A lot more sense than him joining the Dark Side with a resurrected clone of Darth Sidious, TBH.) When you think about it, it’s probably the best explanation they could have come up with for why Luke would decide that he’s part of the problem and remove himself from the galactic stage. It would have to be something majorly traumatic that he would blame himself for.

Do I like that the Resistance command don’t trust each other enough to share plans? No, but again it makes sense under the circumstances, and it feeds into the themes.

Structure and Hope

The Last Jedi feels different from the other Star Wars films. It’s a lot of separate threads that seem mostly unconnected but come together toward the end into a clear picture. Rey’s journey is critical, as is Kylo Ren’s, as is the link between their journeys. Luke’s reasons for being on the island, and his triumphant return, are tied deeply into the plight of the Resistance as it battles the loss of hope, which we see in the slow attrition of the fleet chase, the breakdown of trust within command, and finally the point where they’re reduced to one small band making what could well be a last stand.

And the trip to Canto Bight? For all the whining about it, I think it’s thematically more important than the chase. It shows people taking advantage of both sides of the conflict, and it shows ordinary civilians being oppressed…and that epilogue.

The First Order does everything they can to snuff out that spark of hope, and almost succeeds…but it flares again. We see it with Luke, and with Rey, but their actions only preserve what’s left. It still feels like a hollow victory until we see the epilogue and realize that the spark has taken hold, and is growing again – and that’s inspired as much by one kid’s encounter with Finn and Rose as the legend of Luke Skywalker.

Take out Canto Bight and you take out the epilogue. Take out the epilogue and you’re left with an unremittingly bleak story. Bleaker than Revenge of the Sith…but only* because we already knew where RoTS had to go.

Uncharted Regions

This is the first time since 1983 that there’s been real uncertainty about the future in a Star Wars movie. We didn’t know where The Empire Strikes Back was going, or Return of the Jedi. The prequel trilogy had a lot of surprises along the way, but we knew it would end with Anakin turning to the dark side and helping wipe out the Jedi, Palpatine becoming the Emperor, and the Republic becoming the Empire. I loved Rogue One, but again, we knew what it was building up to. And The Force Awakens was too focused on bringing fans back into the fold with familiarity to break new ground.

The Expanded Universe quickly set up a new status quo and told episodic stories within that setting. Some changes would stick over time, but you knew at the end of the day Leia was rebuilding the Republic, Luke was rebuilding the Jedi, and so on. Eventually they broke out of it and started making big changes with New Jedi Order, and subsequent stories that moved toward the more distant future of Legacy, but it was only a secondary canon, blessed but less official than the movies.

Now? We have no idea what might happen next. We can hope that the First Order will be defeated, because that’s the kind of story Star Wars is, but we have no idea what the cost will be, or who will make it through to the end, who might redeem themselves or turn to darkness.

And I have to wonder if that’s part of the backlash: Star Wars has been a familiar place for decades, and now that certainty is gone.

Cool stuff

So, some of those great details that I didn’t notice the first time through:

• When Leia floats through the ruined bridge, she passes through the hologram of Snokes’ flagship, disrupting it just like Holdo’s hyperspace maneuver does later in the movie.
• After Luke’s projection is finished, he sees two suns and the Force theme swells. The first time through I was so caught up in worry about Leia (tied up with Carrie Fisher’s death) that I didn’t quite notice. The second time through, I knew what was happening with her, but I just lost it at this moment.
• The kid with the Resistance ring at the end doesn’t grab his broom and lift it - the broom moves to his hand.

I’m not big on audiobooks, but I picked up a DC Comics-related Humble Bundle a few weeks ago and I “read” The Flash: Stop Motion by Mark Schultz. It’s kind of odd listening to a “Graphic Audio” adaptation (A movie in your mind!) of a prose novel based on a character who usually appears in visual media, but the full cast, sound effects, and music help to make up for the lack of actual visuals that I’ve found tends to hamper prose stories about superheroes.

I read the book when it came out in 2004, and I’d forgotten enough for it to be more-or-less “new.” It’s set during the Wally West/Keystone City era when the Flash’s identity was still public knowledge and he worked with Detectives Chyre and Morillo. A super-speed killer has been attacking people in the Keystone/Central area. Not only is it faster than the Flash, but every time it strikes, bits of other universes bleed into our own. Wally has to discover the nature of this “superluminoid,” its surprising connection to the West/Allen family, and unlock a potential beyond the speed force in order to stop it.

The familiar characters are handled well, and the concepts behind the superluminoid, quantum warriors and the Seventh Singularity are intriguing. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis as they take on super-speed, the metagene, the speed force and quantum physics. The ideas still hold up, and I think it would be fascinating to explore them further, though in the long run they would unbalance the Flash’s already over-powered abilities.

There are a few continuity issues that bugged me at the time I first read it. A lot of the story hinges on Iris and Wally being blood relatives, for instance, which they weren’t pre-Flashpoint. Those don’t bother me anymore, partly because continuity has been remixed so many times and partly because I’ve mellowed on that sort of thing. Though I still have trouble with the opening scene where the Flash is treading air to “fly” with the JLA. (And then there are oddities like the fact that the entire Justice League is in several scenes, but only Wonder Woman gets a detailed description. Hmmm…)

The audio adaptation works well. It’s got a full voice cast and sound effects in addition to the narration. Some of the voices work better than others, and some just don’t fit my head-voice for the characters. (Chyre, for instance, sounds more gravelly and world-weary in my mind than this version.) They really make use of effects and music in the battle sequences, though some of them might work better with headphones than listening in a car. I found it hard to pick out the words in the action scenes because there was so much going on. And some of the conversations that work in print go on way too long in audio.

The novel is worth reading, and the audio is worth listening to. Now I’m curious to hear how Graphic Audio adapted Infinite Crisis, 52 and Final Crisis.

I think I’ll skip Countdown, though.

Update 2020: None of the DC Comics adaptations are available on Graphic Audio’s site anymore. I’m guessing the license expired or something.

The sequel to Lock In is a fast read with an interesting mystery, fun characters, and intriguing concepts. More than the first book, it fully explores the societal impact of both large scale lock-in and the technology used to deal with it.

It continues with the POV of locked-in FBI agent Chris Shane, this time investigating the death of a locked-in athlete.

In this near-future, 10% of the world’s population have been locked into their brains by a pandemic. Virtual reality and remote robot piloting enable them to interact with the world, and there are even specially designed “threeps” (named after a well-known droid) for different tasks. Among them: the battle threeps used for a sport more violent than could be played with real human bodies.

Hadens spend most of their lives interacting through simulations or mechanical avatars, which changes a lot about identity presentation, travel, location, disability and prejudice. It’s the kind of thing that might be nodded to in another book that wanted to focus on the technology, but all these implications are woven throughout the story and key to a lot of it.

I read this when it was new, and thought it had some interesting ideas and was a fun trip down memory lane. But over time I kept seeing people point out problems, and I’d think back, and realize, yeah, there’s not a whole lot of substance there, and it’s got some serious issues.

Didn’t bother with the movie.

Back then, the nostalgia and scavenger hunt were enough for me. Now, not so much.

Solo isn’t high art, and it’s got some rough edges, but it’s a fun ride. Star Wars movies from The Phantom Menace onward have been trying to be serious with a side of adventure and comic relief, not trying to be adventures that also have something to say.

That said, I liked The Last Jedi more than The Force Awakens, so YMMV.