Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 5
JJ Abrams.
More pluses and minuses
Plus: JJ Abrams.
JJ Abrams has been known to do the occasional decent film and is most importantly a fan of Star Wars. He has said for a long time he loves this franchise and I truly hope he will put a lot of effort into not screwing up.
Minus: JJ Abrams.
Personally I think he did an absolutely cretinous job with Star Trek (both of them) and has the habit of reforming things in his own image. Also there is a reason fan fiction is hardly ever used by shows and movies and I don’t know if a fan boy is the best guy for the job. 
If I had written the script for the last Star Trek movie it would have certainly not had all the canon destruction and bad casting for Kirk but the temptation to take Kirk and Spock on a fantasy joyride where they destroy the entire Romulan Empire might have been hard to resist. (Romulan symbol is one of the very cool novelty t shirts from the fantasy logo collection) I think fans can make decent directors but a true fan might end up making his favorite character into some kind of super god. Sometimes a little restraint is not a bad thing.
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Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 6
The greatest star ship ever.
Still more pluses and minuses.
Plus: the Millennium Falcon.
If I could choose a vehicle to be buried in it would be the Falcon. It is so freaking cool and true classic Sci Fi nostalgia not to mention the true symbol of Star Wars. In a real sense I was glad it wasn’t ruined by appearing in Episodes I-III and am glad to see it reappear here. I look forward to seeing it again. (Image from the Star Wars t-shirts collection)
Minus: all the other techno crap in the trailer.
This film is falling into the same trap that sucked the prequels into and that is EVERY SINGLE THING YOU SEE HAS TO REFERENCE SOMETHING FROM THE ORIGINAL 3! The problem is like the Uncanny Valley for non humans: the stuff looks almost right but is just off enough to make you not like it. Is that an X-Wing fighter? Yeah, sort of but not really. Oh, look! Stormtroopers. Wait they changed the helmets. Let’s feature a jet bike! But what would make it cooler is if we glued one of the giant steamer trunks from Joe vs the Volcano to the front of it. I’m not saying I dislike change (although really, I do) but sometimes it’s OK to come up with something original. If the war is still going on 20 years later (Rebel symbol and Stormtroopers kind of implies it) the technological advancement should have been tremendous. We don’t need to be constantly reminded of where this story came from. It says so in the title with the words Star Wars.
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Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 7
The cast, the Force, and the title.
Plus: they pulled the original cast for the film.
I do get a nostalgic feeling at the idea of seeing Princess Leia (or perhaps Queen Leia) and Luke again. (Image courtesy of the Star Wars t-shirts)
Minus: they pulled the original cast for the film.
When I went to my 20 year high school reunion I spent the entire night asking “What happened to all the hot chicks I went to high school with and who are all these middle aged housewives?” I don’t know if I’m ready to see Carrie Fisher 30 years later. I’d like to keep some of the fantasy of her in the metal bikini alive.
Plus: looks like they are bringing back the Force.
The opening line “There has been an awakening. Have you felt it” implies that we are finally done with midiclorians and can can repress that memory like the time my mothers suitcase fell open and a large sex toy rolled out. It will always be “that bad idea” that only survived one movie and was buried under the burning bile of 22,000,000 Star Wars fans.
Minus: the title of the film.
“The Force Awakens” is exactly the kind of ambiguous garbage “the Phantom Menace” was. The good films all had pretty clear titles. The Empire Strikes Back was about the Empire striking back. What do they mean the Force Awakens? Was it asleep? I thought Darth Vader returned balance or something? Is the Force now sentient? The title absolutely reeks of design by committee and as such implies so is the movie. Potentially very bland.
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Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 8
Lightsabers…
Uh oh. I think I’m out of pluses but still have a minus.
Minus: the three pronged lightsaber.
I honestly believe that overuse of lightsabers was one of the downfalls of the prequels. In the original movies the lightsaber was an exotic weapon. It was hardly ever used but when it was you knew it was serious. Darth Vader did not use his lightsaber to deflect Han Solo’s blaster bolts in the dinning room in Cloud City. The Emperor even derided the weapon. He seemed to think it was more like a toy and that the pure Force was the true weapon. On Dagobah Yoda didn’t even teach Luke anything about the lightsaber. It was all about inner control and the flow of the Force. 
In the prequels they used the lightsaber to at the drop of a hat, or the possibility of someone dropping a hat, or the presence of someone wearing a hat, or someone who has a head that could potentially wear a hat (Jayne beenie, the best hat in the ‘verse, I found among our collection of Firefly tshirts). It got tired and way overdone and now it looks like they are going to lightsaber the crap out of this film. Also remember what I said about trying too hard? The three pronged lightsaber is where that came from. In the Phantom Menace we had the awkward to use double ended lightsaber for Darth Maul. “No way we are going to not do better than that! You know what is better than a lightsaber with two blades? A lightsaber with THREE blades! Ha ha ha hahahah!”
Also can you seriously look at at that lightsaber and not envision a situation where you could totally give yourself an accidental appendectomy? Also what is up with red lightsabers for Sith and the Rainbow Coalition for Jedi? Does using the Dark Side turn your lightsaber red or does all that evil make you naturally inclined to go with shades of black and red? Maybe the Dark Side midichlorians (JJ Abrams may have forgotten about them but I have not) causes a vitamin deficiency that only red light can fulfill? If you were a Jedi trying to infiltrate some Sith would a shopping trip to Hot Topic and a color changed for your saber be enough to party with them? Is there some kind of color setting dial on the saber? I’d go with hot pink just to screw with the canon.
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Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer Part 9
In conclusion…
Honestly I don’t know. I have listed all the pluses and minuses a couple hours of thought can generate and still can’t make up my mind. It could be awesome. It could suck like a sarlacc. My biggest worry is that is could be just plain mediocre.
There is one thing I am certain of and that is I won’t be sucked in again. You stick your hand in fire a few times and you learn to not get burned (thanks dad. I’ve always appreciated your Darwinian approach to child rearing). I refuse to let my pulse get amped up until I am sitting in the theater and saying “Hey this is pretty cool”. 
I expect the special effects and CGI to be amazing and flawless so the only things this film has to distinguish itself from any given Micheal Bay Tranformers movie is going to be the story and the characters (Decepticon logo courtesy of the Transformers t shirt collection). JJ more or less had a crap story in both of the Star Trek films and his characters were pale parodies of existing characters so I honestly think he needs to truly step it up a lot to impress me. Regardless of these factors I’m sure it will be a commercial success so I guess I am just tilting at windmills again.
However to be fair they’d have to screw up pretty major to do worse than George Lucas did.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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Dumb and Dumber To Review part 1
I’ll give it a B- for effort but an A+ for marketing.
It seems to me a middle ground has to be struck between the producers of a film and the producers of the advertizing trailers as to how much should the trailer give away. Some movies give hardly anything away leaving you with (a) the fact that a movie was made, (b) the title of the movie, and (c) someone who may or may not appear in the film 
(let us not forget how Bryan Cranston was all over every trailer for Godzilla possible only to vanish after about 20 minutes of film leaving us with a cast of characters I couldn’t give less of a damn about. Image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category). Some trailers suck every ounce of nourishment from the movie like a starving vampire and leave the actual film lying on the screen like a dedicated corpse. And of course the optimal trailer hits that sweet spot right in the middle with just enough to peak your interest but not enough to make you feel like you just saw the whole film in 60 seconds.
Dumb and Dumber To unfortunately falls into the second camp. There were three really good jokes in the film but unfortunately I had seen them about 30 times each thanks to trailers and when they came up in the film I could almost speak the lines myself. The rest of the jokes were meh-tastic so I guess someone in marketing knows what he or she is doing.
I think I have come up with a perfect analogy to describe most of the jokes in this film. Imagine you have graduated high school and moved on with your life with nary a look behind you. You attend the 20 year reunion and at that reunion you end up sitting at a table with the party guy of your class who is desperate to recapture a moment of how cool he was back then before a lifetime of working at a local surf shop and he keeps telling stories that all begin with “Remember the time when…”. “Remember the time when Eric puked into Gary’s tuba?” You smile and nod with the vague sense of nostalgia normally reserved for finding a half cup of leftover mac n cheese in the refrigerator. It’s amusing in a “technically funny” way but the timing is grossly out of whack and at no time do you feel the need to burst out into belly busting guffaws of laughter like when you first saw Gary blow into a vomit filled tuba.
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Dumb and Dumber To Review part 2
That’s pretty much the humor of this film in a nutshell. The jokes are there and they are all technically funny but for the most part it’s all pointing to jokes that were done way better back in 1994 with better timing and more pizzazz. Most of the best new humor came from the new straight man Travis (Rob Riggle). There were a few funny moments but for the most part you sit there acknowledging the humor rather than laughing at it.
That’s not to say it wasn’t funny or worthwhile. If you loved the first Dumb and Dumber odds are you will enjoy a lot of the call backs. If fart humor makes you laugh there are a couple moments that are really great (I admit I have a certain penchant to laugh hysterically at a good fart joke. So I’m lowbrow. Sue me. In college my best friend had a maneuver he used to call crop dusting. I’ll just say it was hilarious and high end outdoor restaurants were his favorite target). However I just felt it was a lot of the same Lloyd and Harry bumbling around the screen without being surprising or amazing like last time.
I’ll also say too much of the comic relief. What made the first movie really work was the fact that Lloyd and Harry were so stupid dealing with people of at least normal intelligence. What does not add to that humor is the addition of another character just as stupid but who also happens to be a super hot chick in her underwear. Floyd and Harry were dumb, looked dumb, and had dumb haircuts. 
Rachel Melvin is super hot and in spite of what guys seem to want there is something really off putting about super hot super dumb girls (on the other hand she starred in something called Zombeavers this year so that makes her my favorite new breakout star. Image from one of the zombie t-shirts in my personal collection).
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Dumb and Dumber To Review part 3
The story. It’s now 20 years after the last film and Lloyd (Jim Carrey) has been in a comatose state for the entire time. Harry (Jeff Daniels) has been visiting him and helping change his diaper but then finds out that it has all been a long practical joke (no spoiler there. That is one of the three really good jokes that were played in the trailers). Harry needs a kidney and when they find out he has an illegitimate daughter they go seeking her. Some roundabout circumstances lead them to her adopted parents who send them on a cross country trip in an amusing vehicle to deliver a mysterious sealed object to a girl. If that script sounds a lot like the story of the first Dumb and Dumber then I acknowledge your pattern recognition ability.
Other stuff happens too. Rob Riggle goes along with them for some reason and they end up at a science conference but really just rewind the first Dumb and Dumber on the movie screen in your mind and you have seen this film.
2 of 5 Meh.
So worth seeing? Well, normally no but thanks to the giant wrecking ball known as Mockingjay there is literally zilcho coming out lately so sure. Any port in a storm I guess. If you were a fan of the the first one you will probably enjoy it but if not the 109 minutes will drag on with glacier slowness. The good news is this film does not really require a lot of higher brain function so if you are looking for a film to get really stoned and/or drunk before seeing you have found your muse. Personally I think Nightcrawler is both better and in a weird way funnier. Date movie? Not unless she likes excrement jokes. Bathroom break? Nothing really stands out as “must see” for this film. Maybe the scene where Harry and Lloyd are trying to get into the science con but don’t dawdle as the scene with Stephen Hawking is one of the funnier ones. 2 out of 5 phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
PS I just heard that they hired to do the new Wonder Woman move Michelle MacLaren. She did a bunch of work on Breaking Bad and Walking Dead so that’s pretty cool news. I don’t know why I just put that in here. I guess it’s kind of exciting plus a chance to show off this great Wonder Woman t shirt.
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 10 the Corbomite Maneuver
This was a great episode in that it was the first one to feature DeForrest Kelly as Dr. McCoy. Also it was great in that it had one of my favorite aliens in it, the Balok (or Commander Balok). I was really disappointed when it turned out to be a little person and the cool alien face just a dummy.
I actually disapprove of turning the big bad alien into a cute little guy. One of the best Sci Fi movies of the last 20 years, District 9, featured aliens that looked like 8 foot tall bipedal potato bugs yet somehow managed to make them sympathetic. When they did Avatar they caved in and made the Na’vi look like super sexy cat people. I see that as the easy route. People like to say don’t judge a book by it’s cover but they do it all the time. 
I guess I’m just bothered by that sort of thing as I look like a bouncer, tow truck driver, or Bond villains henchman but am in truth a sensitive and caring creative artistic soul (I’m not kidding, although you would have to know me for years to really see it. Image of a misunderstood villain from our Hulk t shirt collection). I just think this episode would have been cooler if they met the Balok and it turns out that his race is super scary but all have amazing singing voices or something.
the Infamous Dave Inman
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Review part 1
It could have been worse in so many ways.
Back in 2008 Hollywood conducted a mad science experiment and created the first film based on a crappy teenie bopper pseudo science or fantasy fiction book. Twilight stumbled around the local countryside wreaking up the place, terrorizing the local population, and infesting the world with sizzle chested man/boys, bland emotionless manikins masquerading as lead actresses, dialog that could be considered a crime against the spoken language, and glow-in-the-light vampires. Most thinking humans recoiled in horror at the abomination the film industry had created, but unfortunately a lot of really young, inexperienced, lonely, and/or just plain dumb girls with loads of disposable income fell in love with the creature and gave it money to make continuing the experiment worthwhile.
So the experiments continued in hopes of creating another perfectly horrible/lovable lab creature. Most failed miserably (cough cough the Host, Mortal Instruments cough cough) and ended up as a random slurry of bio-hazardous waste at the bottom of a noxious oubliette. A few proved relatively viable (Divergent) and stumbled around bumping into things and vomiting like the first cloned sheep after six hours in the Tilt-a-Whirl. It was inevitable that eventually Hollywood would come up with a creature stable, easy on the eyes, and capable of not only functioning in society but actually entertaining people who aren’t still wearing braces and that creature is the Hunger Games.
I can’t honestly say I am a fan of the Hunger Games. I appreciate what it is and where it fits in the landscape of the film experience and find the characters engaging and interesting, thus resulting in me caring about the action. Acting is good and the story doesn’t make me want to punch the writer. Production values very high and camera and editing spot on. However if Hollywood were suddenly sucked into a giant sarlacc (fingers crossed) and Part 2 were never made I don’t think I would lose a lot of sleep over it. Based on the fan base and their probably expectations I can use my magnificent brain to figure out how this series is likely to end even without having read the book. No one ever takes a chance in main stream film these days so unless I wake up in Bizarro world tomorrow I fully expect President Snow to have a date with the business end of one of Katniss’s arrows soon.
(As a side note, I know I’m not a teenage girl or even a little into men (all man here baby) but can anyone look at that Twilight poster from the movie t shirt collection and honestly say they don’t want to put their fist into that dudes face? Heck I almost want to punch out the girl just for showing up on the same poster. I think Mother Theresa would (and probably could) happily kick Edwards ass.)
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