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FROM THE DRAFTS: Lessons from the field [Management Consulting]

This is an old post that I just came across in drafts, and I figured I’d share it because I find it entertaining and a little cringe. I have no idea when I drafted it. Sometime between 2013 and 2016.

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There is a difference between "synthesis" and a lack of detail. 

"Synthesis" is the golden goose of management consulting and general management. In all the millions of little details about how to run a business, what is the essence of the decision you have to make? How can you eloquently, succinctly, and accurately state the situation without getting bogged down in detail? 

How can you sound really smart doing it?

The problem with synthesis is the difference between good synthesis and bad synthesis. Bad synthesis assumes that simplification is good and that details are mostly unnecessary. Good synthesis understands that details matter. 

Bad MBAs do bad synthesis. Good MBAs do good synthesis. This is particularly prevalent in investing in e.g. Silicon Valley, where people find trends that sound great, try to understand them at a high level, and then make investments based on a fairly limited understanding of the important details.

Here's a parable.

A bunch of workers at the front-line want breakfast. They keep asking for all sorts of things -- they’re hungry, and maybe they want a toaster, maybe eggs, packaged snacks, canned espressos, even candy... but what their bosses hear the most is: they want eggs. 

So, the management team, hearing all this information, decides to get them eggs. Hey, eggs sound great! Better, surely, than some sleeve of crackers. The management team then decides -- the easiest and quickest way to get eggs to the team is to scramble them in bulk and scoop them out.

The team hates this. We didn't want this! They scream. The management team says, what do you mean? All we keep hearing is, you want eggs!

Actually, turns out the front-line wanted a particular kind of snack - and if eggs, they wanted hard-boiled eggs. Why? They need a snack, but it needs to be portable, and it needs to keep over a number of hours. 

Giving them scrambled eggs is a disaster. By the time they eat them, the eggs are cold; the eggs are not very portable; and they taste bad when bulk-prepared. 

Good synthesis: They want a portable snack such as hard-boiled eggs. 

Bad synthesis: They want eggs. 

You need to have some precision even when you synthesize, otherwise your management solutions will not solve the actual problem. 

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After a long hiatus, a pep talk for startup founders

I'm part of a well-respected startup accelerator, and someone asked a really hard question. The following is the question and my best attempt at an answer. I hope other founders will find this useful.

QUESTION

"For reference, I'm in the early trenches of fundraising and talking to VCs has been making it easier to feel like an imposter as an entrepreneur.

Anyone have strategies for fighting that imposter syndrome kind of feeling?"

ANSWER

This is a challenging question with likely a rich, nuanced discussion required, but it's also great, and I'll do my best to give something of an answer from my POV.

The [Venture Capitalist]'s job is to look and sound smart - first to the [Limited Partners] that invest in them, then to other VC's, and (cynically) lastly to entrepreneurs. This roughly follows the power gradient of the money. VC's are ultimately risk-allocating middlemen, albeit smart, well-connected, and (often) socially smooth ones. One strategy is to realize that, and to realize that many investors spend most of their day very worried that they will not be able to keep up appearances, and what if they aren't actually successful at all, and what if it's all going to come crashing down. Everyone is faking it 'til they make it, even (sometimes) at the big funds.

Following that, another strategy is to realize that VCs are nothing without good companies to invest in, and that you are the expert and the person in the trenches that many of them kind of wish they could be, but can't or won't take the risk. You do have the power even if you don't have the money. This is the main message during [accelerator] -- play powerful, play hard to get, play like you're the hot person at the dance, and you're not a jerk, but everyone does want to date you.

Next, you know more about your business than anyone. Pitching is sales. It's your job to get someone to buy into your vision, but it's also a sales process the other way. You're looking for someone who has conviction in you and will jump all in. It's a dating game and it also matters whether you like the person across the table. If you know you're also evaluating them, it helps take some of the power back.

And, sometimes an investor will ask a really dumb question that makes you realize these folks are often just very good at (things that are not actually your space/business/market) and may not actually know all that much about what they're investing in. Extremely smart people make extremely dumb investments every day.

The last strategy that I have for you is that it's all a bit of a crapshoot. The valley has a lot of trends, echoes, and randomness. You might be the right team, the right idea, and the wrong time. You might be the wrong team, the wrong idea, and the right time. You might be a hot deal and you might be cold as ice for reasons totally outside your control. If you believe in your vision, your company, and your team, then that's what you know to be true. Go out there and let the process happen - whatever happens happens, and the things you do control are the things you *should* have confidence in. This can put you in a more calm, settled, and powerful mindset, where you can then turn up the dial on charm/sales/etc.

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This dystopian moment, Jan 6, 2021

After four years of Trump insanity, and after so long not commenting here, what can I say?

After Charlottesville, after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many other names, after tens of mind-boggling occurrences per day and a completely polarized country, after COVID-19, and impeachment, and the election and the interminable run-up to the election, and everything. This one set of images somehow encapsulates it all very well. This is our dystopian moment. Angry Trump supporters storming the Capitol building, ransacking offices, fighting with Capitol police. That alone is dystopian and historical. But doing all that one-handed, with your phone out? That’s straight up Black Mirror.

Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

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Still one of the most evocative, beautiful, moving 3 minutes of movie music I think has ever been written and performed. Jonny Greenwood of the band Radiohead. 

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Why Game of Thrones ultimately fizzled

So many hilarious memes, hot takes, and poorly written buzzfeed/GenericEntertainmentWebsite articles, but three pieces of “content” (still hate that sterile word) stand out: 

1. The very best one as a quick but thought-provoking and sticky read, and an explanation for what happened: Game of Thrones was a sociological tale, and when the Hollywood schmucks took over, they turned it into a thoroughly unsatisfying and cliche psychological tale. This piece resonates very strongly with me. 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

2. More for the Lulz than for the brain thoughts is this hilarious “pitch meeting” take. https://youtu.be/jAhKOV3nImQ

3. And lastly, a very simple image which will stick with me for a long time. 

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First photos of black holes ever

Reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/science/black-hole-picture.html

Learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_GVbuddri8

Feeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ky0avfevdY

“I'm the king of my own land Facing tempests of dust, I'll fight until the end Creatures of my dreams, raise up and dance with me Now and forever I'm your king”

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For posterity and reference. Super helpful insight into the mindset of procrastination and other escapist behavior. 

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We now return to our regularly scheduled programming [environmental collapse]

OK team - I just devoted a lot of time to Star Wars over the past 3 months as an effective form of escapism (don’t worry AK, it was really only like 2 hours a week). But, a time right now in a galaxy immediately surrounding us, our global human superorganism is expanding inevitably toward the systemic limits of the environment that supports us. 

Life will live on - it’s just a bunch of species and many humans who will suffer from potential ecosystem destabilization. 

It’ll look innocuous - a large herd of ruminates dropping dead in Siberia, say -  but those small losses will pile up, and the dynamic system in which we exist will start to change in its behavior. The equilibrium will destabilize, maybe only regionally, but maybe globally, and a new equilibrium will be found. Or, in tangible terms, Shit will start changing significantly in terms of what species eat others and which species are available to eat, and those changes will certainly affect humans (my prediction: the ocean, and specific high-demand regions like Southeast Asia / South China Sea will be where we start to see the biggest issues). 

I’ve called on a discussion before regarding the need to address environmental morality. EPA head Scott Pruitt just bastardized the Church’s environmental morality by claiming “God gave us the earth to utilize its resources as caretaker” - but conveniently ignores Pope Francis’s Laudato Si. If Catholics in Europe aren’t your style, here’s a contrasting view from an American Christian. 

This is a discussion I think we need to have RIGHT NOW and expect we’ll be having for a while, until such time as the chaotic disequilibrium is so destabilizing to our fragile society that all we can do is think about how to survive the next 5-10 years. Let’s hope I (and all the scientists) am wrong and we’re farther from destabilization than we think. But in the meantime - let’s try to agree on how we should think about our place in the world. 

And let’s do it in terms we can all understand, not the gobbledygook I just wrote above. Here’s a shot: 

Humans are amazing. There are 7 billion of us and growing on the planet. We’re great at building and feeding ourselves. But we’re arrogant. We think we know everything about everything, and we don’t. We’re using a lot of chemicals and oil and gas and water, and we’re eating a lot of animals and plants, so that we can be healthy and stay warm and clean and have fun. It has been awesome, and more people today are healthy and happy than ever before. But the world we depend upon - the world we control right now - is changing quickly because of how quickly we are growing. It’s creeping up on us, like bad debt. We might not have enough fish to eat, or chemicals to grow our crops, and we’re seeing some scary signs that we’ve been eating too much and using too much. 

We need to decide how we’re going to try to be smarter and more careful, or else we might cause some serious problems. This doesn’t mean sacrificing our way of life - it just means being smarter, more careful, more efficient about what we eat and what we use. It’s just common sense, with a healthy dose of respect for God’s nature. 

Do you have a better way to talk about this stuff? 

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Verdict: Star wars, a rediscovery

I did it. I watched all 9 Star Wars movies and I ranked each and every set piece or significant scene on a scale of 1 to 10. To recap: 

1 - It’s a struggle to not turn off the movie. Why am I doing this.  2 - I am physically angry. 3 - disgust. 4 - This is bad. 5 - mehhhhhhh. 6 - meh. This is fine.  7 - This is good, like it just fine. 8 - Pretty darn good!  9 - Great stuff!!! 10 - ZOMG!!!?!!!!11111

I guess a critique of this approach is it is inherently deconstructive. It’s hard to assess plot continuity and other deeper cinematic concepts, either for good or bad, in a scene-by-scene reaction rehash. But so be it - I do feel like this approach has given me some unique insight into the series, and confirmed some sneaking suspicions with data.

Here’s a histogram of the entire series, by each movie. Y-axis is number of scenes/set pieces, x-axis is scores. 

Average scene score over the entire series: 6.69 (nice). 

Now that’s pretty and cool- looking, but more interesting is to think about this series in its’ three chapters: The Original Trilogy, The Prequels, and the Disney Era. Here’s that histogram:

We can learn a lot from this histogram that confirms what my reviews have hinted at. 

First, the Original trilogy was far and away the best - no surprise. Their average scene score is 7.96. Over half the 8s and 9s are from those movies, and all but two of the 10s. But also of note is that this trilogy had very few bad scene scores - Ep6 had an *added* CGI band by George Lucas which is the only 1, and Ep4 has only one minor 3 scene. For the most part, those movies were high-quality, well dialogued and scripted and acted and executed. 

Then you have the Prequels. As one might expect, they did the worst at an average scene score of 5.84, but the preponderance of low scores 1-5 really hurt the high points (of which there are not many - very few 9′s and 10′s). What we’re seeing is a George Lucas, overconfident and unfettered, without the team and controls that helped him hone his imagination and vision in the first three. This got better as the story got closer to the originals in Ep3.

And lastly, the Disney Era. These movies have some real peaks - we’ve got the Rogue One Darth Vader Massacre and the Kylo and Rey throne room “rule the galaxy offer” as the only non-original trilogy 10s in the whole series - but we still hit an average score of 6.50, mostly because of the preponderance of 1, 3, 4, and 5 scores throughout. Lots of mediocrity through rewriting, tropes, and poor plot structures are what dominate these films even though they have great pinnacles.

And let’s talk about these Tropes. This exercise highlighted the overwhelming repetitiveness of the Star Wars franchise. It’s sad, but it’s true. I put together a chart of the top “tropes” as they appear across the chronological release of the movies: 

One could forgive the “Jedi feats of strength,” but everything else is pretty obnoxiously tropetastic. My favorite tropes - favorite in that they are not completely obvious at first but will haunt you upon re-watch (and I guarantee we’ll see a few in Ep9) - are as follows: 

Sneaking around an enemy base Single ship destroys Mega ship Hanging off a ledge!!! Mega-space battle with corresponding 1:1 battle (Space weapon of mass destruction goes without saying) Ragtag rebels disobey orders, go on crazy mission New young hero found in unlikely poor place M. Falcon chased by Tie Fighters thru obstacles

And are you surprised to see that Episode 7 is the tropey-est of all the films? Thanks, JJ. The least tropey is Ep5. Episode 6 is very tropey at 16, but is also the origin of 5 of those tropes so I kind of give it a pass. 

In fact, the series is *so* tropey that it’s almost easier to just list what’s unique (in a good way) about the movies subsequent to Ep4 and Ep5, which I credit with a lot of uniqueness. 

Ep6: Emperor’s mind-games; forest speeders Ep1: Epic Sith battle (Darth Maul); A Jedi dies fighting Ep2: The Jedi are on the side of the clones Ep3: A bunch of Jedi die; Obi-Wan and Anakin/Darth fight Rogue1: Every central hero dies; we actually see Death Star destruction up close and personal; we actually see Darth go HAM Ep7: Crashed star destroyers on Jakku Ep8: Ragtag bunch doesn’t work; sneaking doesn’t work; Kamikaze hyperspace jump; Sad Luke; mind bridge

Beyond those key difference points, it’s only a cool and unique visual here or there that sets the movies apart as they bounce from trope to trope... particularly from Prequels and Disney era. 

I’m not the first to say this, but the Disney era, although it has its strong scenes, just feels very commercial. It’s an expansive universe but how we explore them is quite limited and predictable. The execution leaves me quite disappointed (that links to my favorite Ep8 review). And lastly, even the coolest effects and most unique plot points of the latest don’t actually make much sense if you ask a question or two.

So what do I even like about the Star Wars movie universe? Well, for starters, there’s the “10″ scenes, each of which I’d support as a defining scene in the series and even pop space action movies in general.  

Rogue 1: Darth goes HAM. This was a truly terrifying and enthralling action sequence where we realize why Darth is so scary. It’s the only time in the whole series we see the might and power of the Dark Side in a context we can understand. 

Episode 4: Opening Scroll. This was just perfection. Read it again. It’s such a tight story and it gives you only and exactly what you need to know to transport you in to the galaxy far, far away. 

Episode 4: Cantina Scene. The first time (and the best time) where the audience comes to know the wild-west nature of this galaxy: diverse, entertaining, fun, and a little unsettling.

Episode 5: Yoda reveals himself. Our own biases and expectations about Jedi masters are subverted, and this silly looking puppet becomes a legend. 

Episode 5: Jedi training on Dagobah. We learn about the force; we learn a major life lesson that I myself cite on a weekly basis: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

Episode 5: Luke vs. Vader part 2 - the reveal. Still one of the greatest cinematic twists of all time, wrapped in a highly intense and dramatic fight scene. 

Episode 6: All the scenes with Luke and the Emperor. The Emperor’s mind games are so, so evil, and effective, and all hope really does seem lost. In most movies, you sort of expect that the good guys will win, but this is so well setup that you truly have no idea how good will overcome evil. 

(Combined with) Episode 6: It’s a Trap! Another seminal moment in movies. Such a horrific realization.

Episode 8: Kylo Ren offers Rey to be his partner and rule the galaxy. Kylo and Rey’s connection and chemistry have been so amazing in otherwise mediocre movies, and this climax delivered for me. “You’re nothing. But not to me. Join me. Please.” It shows Kylo’s own vulnerability and nuance as an “evil” powerful nemesis, it highlights the unique relationship they have forged over two movies. It’s great stuff. I just wish they hadn’t ruined it with the rest of the movies. 

For fun, let’s revisit those moments that ruined the good stuff - the worst scenes in all the films. The 1s:

(Nothing from R1, 4, or 5)

Episode 1: Jar Jar and the Gungans. So many scenes here. Just as bad as you remember, maybe worse, in every scene they occupy.  

Episode 2: Padme and Anakin action sequence in the steel mill / droid assembly factory. This just sucked so, so bad. Bad CGI, unnecessary bullshit action drama, totally worthless. 

Episode 2: Gladiator fight. Another completely unnecessary set piece with atrocious dialogue and CGI that hasn’t held up. 

Episode 6: Jabba’s band. Lucas added this CGI in for the re-releases - some may argue that shouldn’t count against the movie, but he’s the Director and he made the choice. And it’s embarrassingly bad. 

Episode 7: Starkiller base. Really JJ? You’re just going to go ahead and re-make the Death Star and leave it to the nerds in the Extended Universe to pretzel themselves into explanations as to why this makes any sense at all? Everything about this was wrong. 

...

That’s all I’ve got for you. This has been a more than useful distraction from our more important issues of the day in the wide world. I feel like I never need to watch another Star Wars again (maybe not even Ep9...) until if/when I have kids and they want to see a classic. 

Happy Sunday, and May the Force be with you.  

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

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Star Wars Episode 8: a rediscovery

The latest Star Wars installation is all of 3 months old, so it’s hard to call it “a rediscovery,” but here we are. I watched Episode 8 again, and again I was disappointed, maybe even moreso the second time around. 

This movie has lots of good, even great, in it - although for everything it does well, it completely botches at least one other thing. To use the “cooking” analogy that went so well in my Ep1 review: it’s like there are half amazing ingredients, half just straight Crisco, and the instructions, steps, and timing are all off. Instead of a cake (or an Ep1 Jar Jar Shit Cake), you end up with a nasty soup with delicious chunks of gourmet chocolate swimming around in there. 

It’s sloppy, is what I’m trying to say. Not inspiring. It felt like a fairly hollow installation. The magic was gone.

One reason? Cut scenes. Every scene felt *too* fast-paced. Cut, cut, cut. I could barely keep up with my note-taking, and had to pause many times. I reviewed 68 scenes or set pieces in Ep8, far more than the rest: 

R1: 25 Ep4: 29 Ep5: 31 Ep1: 39 Ep2: 42 Ep3: 41 Ep6: 41 Ep7: 46 Ep8: 68

(Yes, there was an upward trend - maybe I just took more discrete notes as I went on - but still, Ep8 is a clear outlier).

This cut-scening gives a frantic pace and no time to emotionally settle into the storyline. It’s almost too much to process. The movie finally settles in when Rey is trying to learn from Luke, but for the majority of the film, we’re brutally bashed between scenes and set pieces such that we become numb. 

The other structural problem with this film is one which you can’t necessarily see in the histogram or the “journey” chart. This is my belief: the glittering veins of the film are the Jedi-Sith struggle, the blurring between the two... the genuine, moving, and perplexing connection between Kylo Ren and Rey. An orthogonalization (is that a word?) of the Jedi-Sith struggle into a young-old struggle (sounds kind of similar......... #trump). 

This is truly some inspired stuff. Some great scenes. many 9′s, a 10. But these veins of value are set in a truly worthless plot substrate. We have a horrifyingly re-treaded and cheesy and just generally infuriating attack on some ship called a “dreadnought,” and then we have a Battlestar Galactica simulacrum for the remainder of the film, a wretched and unnecessary and heavy-handed side-excursion to a cantina v3 (this time rich and black-tie, not a grungy bar!), we have Hux over-acting, and we have a god-awful Snoke, whose cancerous presence from Ep7 metastasized and was mercifully destroyed in Ep8 but not before causing lasting damage to the story arc.  We have so many moments of “this will never happen now... oh wait, it happened!” both on the good swing, and the bad. It’s as if in trying so hard to subvert the old tropes, the movie itself was simply an inverse image of the same old tropes. 

The other problem this movie has is that everyone... I mean pretty much everyone, except Kylo, Luke, and Rey, are mediocre at best. They’re caricatures of themselves, or someone/thing else. They have no depth and nuance. It’s extremely off-putting.

You can see I have a lot to say about this movie, which maybe is not surprising since it prompted me to undertake this entire exercise. Without further ado... 

Average score: 6.31 Standard deviation: 1.89

SCROLL. 6. Really lacking nuance. Everything is "heroic" vs "tyranny". And then... "But the Resistance is exposed!” How did they get exposed? I just don't get any of this. Why do they hope Luke will save them? This scroll is a total shit show. And it sets up another desperate escape from another rebel base... You know what? It seems like a bot got trained on all the other scrolls, and this is the output.

Rebel base discovered. 6.  Umm, intense walking and stilted dialogue and "oh no..." as the First Order arrives... mmm ok? This is at least a cool shot, where you can see the Star Destroyers from Earth.

Hux. 5. Dialogue is so bad. "I have orders from Supreme Leader Snoke himself... this is where we snuff out the Resistance once and for all." Incinerate Obliterate blah blah blah. Dreadnought.... meh. Burned out on superweapons.

Dreadnought and Poe’s Joke. 5.  Are we supposed to be afraid of another Mega-Star Destroyer after seeing so many destroyed by single ships in the past? And this is like a Death Star Lite with ground assault capabilities. I mean this just feels kind of uncreative and bland. Maybe a bit like Star Trek sorta showed up in Star Wars... REALLY bad cheesy joking with Poe. "Can you hear me now” joke? Your mother joke? Come on. Meh.

Attack the Dreadnought. 4.  Like I said... another single ship beats a huge ship... another “droid fixes shit in the middle of battle” shot... another hot shit pilot disobeys orders... and the worst part of all, Fuckin' gravity in space! If the bombers’ bombs are so dangerous, why do multiple bombers fly in such tight formation? Why not put them on oh, I dunno, missiles? Anyway, it's all down to one bomber... one person has to save everyone, of course. Of course the trigger falls below the deck but OH WAIT! she catches it with a backhand grab. Of course the bomb doors are open and she's not sucked out into space... Of course one bomber can take down the whole ship but they had like 10 at the beginning all tightly clumped. This is pure spectacle with no thinking at all. This is Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. This is Michael Bay level shit, and not The Rock Michael Bay.

Snoke angry. 5. Snoke sucks. He can do Force shit that nobody else can to the extent that it’s diminishing, kind of like back to Eps 1-2 treatment of the Force. Slaps Hux from across the galaxy. OK. 

Finn wakes up. 5. Why was he in a coma again? Because he got back-sabered by Kylo on the Death Star 3? I guess. And he wakes up: “I’m sure you have a ton of questions...” “Where’s Rey?” Laying it on preeeeeettty thick here with the whole “hey, guys, this guy really cares about Rey!” unrequited love thing. (By the way, this unidimensional Finn shit will continue). 

Rey meets Luke. 8. ... and Luke throws the lightsaber over his shoulder. Some have criticized this for being a “try too hard to be different” moment but the first time I watched, I laughed genuinely and appreciatively, and the second time, I still liked it. What’s with this Rey hair of three-loop-ponytail? It’s trying too hard. Leia’s earbuns were truly singular. 

Porgs+Lightsaber. 8. I liked this near-Porg-death joke. And Rey sees the X-wing. OK. 

Chewy and Luke. 7. Luke starts putting it all together... but if he abandoned his family, the Jedi, and everyone else so many years ago, why does he care “Where’s Han?” Shouldn’t he be totally resigned to the inevitable decay and death of the universe and everything? 

Throne Room Snoke. 6. Meh. “We have them tied on a string.” Meh. Snoke is being a dick to Kylo. I am distinctly aware of Serkis overacting. Maybe Serkis Saturation is a thing... March of the Empire music is hokey here, rather than good. Snoke says "HOPE lives in the galaxy" Meh. The former evil empire wasn’t so like, blatantly and caricature-evil. “You're just a child in a mask.” Fine. Snoke sucks.

Kylo kills his mask. 8. Another “Reject Ep7″ moment, but I still liked it. Fits well with the character also. 

Rey and Luke. 7. "Within weeks, the First Order will control all the systems." "You think i'm going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?" Three thoughts here: 1) yeah good point Luke, actually. 2) Wait, how does Luke even know what the First Order is? 3) Wait... this is the first of many “I’ll/we’ll never X” and then (spoiler) X happens later. Anyway, the island is beautiful. I don't know how I feel about the milking the weird animal. OK I guess? It's different at least. Flying across a pole to a cliff to stab a fish? It's OK. I guess this is a decent sequence.

The Jedi Tree. 8. Rey is called to the tree, Luke figures out she has force sensitivity (why didn't he sense it before? wasn't listening for it?) and she explains she feels the Force after he confronts her. I liked this scene fine. “It's time for the Jedi to end, i came to this island to die.” All good.

Leia on the ship. 6.  Cloaked binary beacon connecting Leia to Rey... mehhhhhh. Poe demoted - good, what an idiot. The Dreadnought thing was a disaster. Finn sucks here. Just not greatly acted. Probably not his fault - script problem. So overly focused on Rey. Now they need a new base for asking for help from outer rim.... wonder where we’ve heard this kind of thing before...

Snoke’s ship shows up. 5.  Snoke's ship is like 1,000x the volume of regular enormous Star Destroyers? Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And Poe “permission to get into an X-wing and blow something up,” with Leia’s “permission granted”... meehhhhhh. and then Kylo Ren fucks up the entire hangar bay anyway. Just doesn’t feel right. And this is where the “poor man’s Battlestar Galactica” really starts to set in. 

Kylo attacks the cruiser. 6.  Another "one ship destroys the fuck out of an enormous ship"... but I liked the conflict in Kylo, can’t fire on his mother.

Keeping out of range of shields. 3.  It was at this point I realized there were a lot of cutscenes in this movie. Like we had been been cutting and cutting and cutting for the first 30 minutes. I wrote: “I can barely keep up. and what the fuck? a smaller, lighter ship in space can keep out of range? what kind of bullshit physics is this? SPACE! FRICTIONLESS!”

Leia survives. 3. I wrote: “ OH dear god. that was atrocious.”

Chewy and Porgs, Luke. 6.  "Nothing can make me change my mind." OH REALLY? I BET SOMETHING WILL! R2D2 Plays Leia’s old message to Obi Wan. Mind Changed! Luke: "Tomorrow at dawn. 3 lessons."

Battlestar Galactica Laura Linney. 5.  Back to trying to escape the Cylons. Akbar dies offscreen, all Resistance leaders are dead. Bridge dead. Laura Linney comes in as the so-blatantly-queer leader of all. "The downtrodden and oppressed"... Hollywood laying it on a little thick, here. They are the spark that will light the fire, fine I guess. But even as a pretty left-leaning person, this scene broke my fourth wall. 

Holdo slaps Poe silly. 8. Very good scene. Finally, someone puts Poe in his place. This was the kind of feminist “resist toxic masculinity” thing that regardless of whether you like the message or not, had some subtlety to it rather than being ham-handed. 

Finn escapes, meets Rose. 4. Finn the idiot trying to find Rey for really no good reason. No depth of character - really obvious. He’s just the "GOTTA FIND REY!" guy this movie. Rose overacts. Finn running away again... Good, this makes sense! Finn and Rose are smart enough to talk jibberish at each other and solve the whole situation! Yeah, let's shut down the Destroyer! Yea let's sneak on board the Destroyer and disable the tracker! Also... how did Rose not already know they could be tracked through lightspeed? that obviously already happened literally hours ago, and there’s no way she didn’t know about the attack...

Poe and Finn stupid mission. 3.  Poe: "It’s a need to know plan and she doesn't." Ughhhhhhh booooooooo. Worst fucking plan. This is truly painful... another ragtag small group mission against the odds and against the wishes of leadership. Sure, this movie (spoiler) subverts the trope eventually, but in such a clear and blatant way that it still feels like the trope. 

Maz Kanata in union negotiations. 3. You can just imagine the writer’s room... “well, Kathleen Kennedy / JJ Abrams says we need to have Maz in Ep8 so she can return in Ep9. So how are we gonna get her in there? Hmm... well, let’s make it a hologram cameo so we don’t have to change script or design set. And maybe, hey, here’s an idea, a fun cameo! Something funny and unexpected! Like let’s have her be in the middle of a gunbattle! With who though? Nothing too serious... Oh! What about like Union negotiations? haha, that’s great! But let’s make sure it has some plot relevance... I got it, she can be the one who tips them off to the master codebreaker! Let’s make sure she says ‘find the master codebreaker’ twice so everyone is clear what’s happening.” fin

Rey-Kylo mind bridge. 8.  Pretty interesting scene. Kylo is good again, here as in most scenes. "You can't be here... the effort would kill you." Foreshaadowwwwwwingggg. Rey fires her blaster at the wall and the Nuns are pissed. Why didn't Rey tell Luke? Caretakers of the island. nice.

Luke trains Rey. 9.  It's a bit too fast how Rey just "gets it" ... like can't we warm up into that please? Kind of OK with the joking around with her when she reaches out, literally... OK and then the balance point is pretty cool, and Luke's lesson is pretty good. Although I don't love the seaweed anus (you know what I’m talking about), I do think that was a pretty cool scene. Luke is scared of Rey.

Back to Battlestar Galactica. 4. Getting frustrated, I wrote: “fuck i mean why are they so dead set on dumb ass missions?”

Chewy and Porgs. 7. Still too many scenes! I’m fine with porgs, I guess. I dunno. Not loving them, but also don't hate them like I hate the plot.

Rey and Kylo bridge 2. 9. Pretty great bridge scenes. Kylo more nuanced and mature than Rey. Kylo has water on him from the rain... should have been a foreshadowing to transportation in the galaxy or something awesome like that.

Canto Bight intro. 6. “Worst people in the galaxy.” Of course this would also be Hollywood ham-handed... The worst people are fancy richers. Stupid Western accent on big monster. It’s basically Monte Carlo. And it’s a New Cantina... but with bowties and cocktails this time! meh.

Canto Bight reveal. 4.  It's bad people! Heavy-handed. BB8 full of coins, ha, ha.... ha. Codebreaker plot gamut is over, good (sort of). 

Rey training. 7. Rey knocks over some rocks with her lightsaber. Funny. Decent. Although I wasn’t really impressed with her lightsaber wielding, to be honest. It seemed like they were trying to make it impressive. 

Luke and Rey lesson 2. 7. “The Jedi legacy is failure, hypocrisy, hubris.” I NOW KNOW THIS IS TRUE! Kylo takes a couple students and kills the rest... fine. Leia blamed Snoke... boooooO!!! Snoke is so dumb.

More BSG - fleet dying. 4. Current fuel at 6 hours. How does this square with the Luke/Rey pacing? Are we on two different timescales, like the great movie Dunkirk? Hux is lame.

Back on Canto Bight Benicio. 3.  Benicio del Toro is fine. The stutter tick is a bit overwrought. I wrote: “BB8 shoots coins like a fuckin’ bullshit idiot” so you know I was enjoying myself. I continue: “They escaped and left the fuckin' grate open?! now they're with the big dumb animals. show kids they're with the resistance. yay rebel logo. now they're riding the big dumb animals. on a track. now they're bulldozing a casino. now they're destroying cars. now the ship is destroyed. now they run up cliffs. and of course there's a cliff they almost fall down. ‘It was worth it to tear up that town and make'em hurt’ BOOOOOOO. Free the animal! ‘Now it's worth it...’ booooooo.”

Benicio saves the day. 4.  ddddddddd need a lift? what kind of stutter is this, anyway? 

Kylo-Rey and Luke-Leia bridge. 9. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. it's the only way to become who we're meant to be.” In addition to being a fantastic @EmoKyloRen tweet, this line and scene was pretty great. 

Rey goes to the dark hole (seaweed anus). 9. She opens up to Kylo. so cool. Really like this complexity. They fall in love halfway between light and dark, kinda? Luke blows up the cabin and Rey confronts him.

Rey and Luke fight! 8. “ This is not going to go the way you think!” “I saw Kylo's future as solid as I'm seeing you. Ben Solo will turn.” Seen this before! It's cool but it's also a bit of a rehash. Luke won't take the saber. she leaves.

Luke and Yoda. 9. Yoda, laughing, burns the tree. “Skywalker. teach the failure. always looking to the horizon, not here, the need in front of your nose.” “Failure the greatest teacher is.” “We are what they grow beyond, that is the true burden of all masters.” I guess Yoda is just an amazing character because the lines writers write for him are almost universally great. 

Finn, Rose, and Benicio. 7.  Selling weapons to the bad and good... military industrial complex. "It's all a machine. Live free, don't join." OK... I like the different take, at least. 

BSG Again. 7. Poe confronts Holdo. Meh.

Rey goes to Snoke’s ship, Poe mutinies, Finn and Rey slip through shields. 6.  Who cares.

Robots ironing joke. 8. I liked this!

More sneaking around. 6. Is the hacker a good guy!? they get caught trying to shut down the tracker. I wrote: “Now stupid chrome Captain Phasma is dumb.”

Rey and Kylo in throne room. 9. “My good and faithful apprentice, my faith in you is restored.” Snoke still sucks but this scene is good. 

Poe and Leia. 6. Poe stunned by Leia. He's a dumbass.

Leia and holdo bye. 7.  Didn't feel that much emotion here either. Rebels "escape" sneaking out the back. 

Throne room again. 7. Snoke is super all powerful mehhh. "I bridged your minds, I baited you all." Emperor 2. Just like Luke, Emperor, and Vader. Tired. 

Crait rebel base. 6. Send a signal to allies in Outer Rim. Holdo knew to get transports out. Hide until First Order passes. Poe: "that could work" mehhhhh.

Benicio Betrayal. 3. How did he know that the transports were happening? nobody else did. Ridiculous. Why are the bombs arcing!?!!?! TOO MUCH GRAVITY. THIS IS SPACE. 

Throne room again. 7. Snoke super all amazingly powerful evil amazing omg. so dumb. Andy Serkis overacting is not good. Kylo "turns" against Snoke. Snoke really ruins this scene.

Transports getting domo’d. 5.  Still meh!

Post-Snoke throne room battle. 10. It's fine. So much action. Not sure why Red Guards are scary really. Rey and Kylo kill all the red guards. TWIST! Kylo didn't actually turn! Old v New, not Light v Dark! Great stuff here. "Your parents sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert. You don't have a place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me. Join me. Please." I mean this is really interesting!!! This like light-dark love mixing here! The Rey-Kylo interactions in both movies have been great. 

Holdo’s sacrifice. 9. I mean OK holy shit, but why had nobody ever done it before? Beautifully shot, total quiet was very impactful as well. Good job on this, although potentially problematic for the greater Star Wars universe.

Finn vs. Phasma. 6. BB8 in an ATST? meh. Finn: "Let's go, chromedome." Phasma: "you're a bug in the system." Matrix callback! Bleh. another villain falls down a large chasm. Good riddance, Phasma. 

The New Supreme Leader. 6. The supreme leader is dead, long live the supreme leader, mehhhhhhhh.

The New Hoth. 5.  Rey and Rose sneak under the door, of course :( Miniaturized Death Star Tech. Battering ram cannon. Siiiiiiiiiigh. Ice foxes are cool I guess. We have now had a Death Star or a Death Star-like superweapon in all films except Episode 1.

Battle of Salt Hoth. 6.  Trench warfare. It’s salt, so it's OK that it looks just like Hoth! Everyone drive in straight lines right at the enemy, Yeah that's the ticket. Monoski, yea that's the ticket. It's pretty, at least. Remember at the beginning of the movie when they said it was “A dreadnought,” not the last one? Why not just bring a dreadnought to this situation and destroy the whole planet? Falcon + Chewie + Porg + Rey having fun again. The falcon goes into a mine that looks exactly like the Death Star 2 scaffolding and tie fighters follow...... sigh.

Finn tries to sacrifice. 3. Rose saves him from himself.... booooooo. And in the process basically kills herself... to save each other from .... the evil? By love? We're gonna win by not fighting what we hate but saving what we love! As the Death Star tech punches thru the door and she passes out. dumb dumb dumb. Could have given Finn a non-unidimensional redemption!

Luke and Leia. 6. “The galaxy has lost all its hope. The spark is out." I BET IT’S NOT! mehhhh. How many times do we have to do this in this movie? "nothing can change my mind." "it's over." the spark is out." Just kidding! Something Can/It's Not/No it isn’t! Here's Luke! zomg!

Luke faces down the First Order. 9. Very pretty. intense. Hux "do you think you got him?" is funny. Kylo's anger is good. Very pretty shots. Luke brushing dirt off his shoulder is good. Hux getting crushed to the wall is a good and funny joke.

Luke vs. Kylo. 9.  Luke no footprints on second viewing, hey, nice job guys! “Every word of what you just said, is wrong.” Good Luke line. Second time in the movie he’s said it to good effect. I like that. 

Escape! 7. Why wouldn't Luke have just told them, "Hey, I'm stalling, you escape?" Why make Poe figure it out? Rey lifts the rocks. Hooray Force. 

Luke was projecting!! He dies. 9. That was an emotional end. Well done. Sun setting. Good callback.

Resistance escapes. 7. Luke is gone, Rey and Leia talk, Finn and Rose, how do rebuild Rebellion from this, we have everything we need right here. Meh. Aaaaaand we're back where we started 9 movies ago.

Little kid has Force. 6. ...and Rose’s rebellion ring. Hooooookey. "The masses will rise up.” Once again... It's been 70 years and we're back where we started.

VERDICT: 

Given the score distribution, I was surprised to see that the stdev was not the highest of all the films - but I suppose Ep1 had both Jar-Jar and Darth Maul. With the sheer scene count, our histogram starts to approximate a normal distribution around 6. Which is sad. The outlier 9′s come to us because of the good Force-centric scenes with Kylo, Luke, and Rey (but not Snoke). The outlier 3′s come to us because of Dreadnoughts, Canto Bight, Poe, and Finn (bad storylines). 

Which brings us back to what I said before about this movie being great in its Force thread and bad everywhere else. When you calculate the scores for all scenes with any of Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren, but nobody else, the average score is an 8.42. All other scenes average a 5.52. This movie had a very good story vein, set into a very bad plot structure. 

Perhaps the most damning verdict of all, however, is that I just don’t really care what happens next. I read one review which made the point that by this movie, the struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion has been going on openly for 70 years, and so little has changed. I noticed that, too. Death Stars have been built and destroyed and built again, destroying planets, narrowly missing the chance to destroy planets, and so on. Rebel forces have been against the wall and overwhelmed all odds to defeat an evil menace, only to find themselves under the menace’s thumb once again with historically instantaneous speed. Why is Leia still fighting? Maybe beyond the botox, this weariness is what kept me from connecting with her character or struggle at all. And no wonder nobody answered the call for help at the end of the film. 

Yes, Ep9 will have some inspiring uprising by a bunch of nobody’s, just like the climax of V for Vendetta, but how predictable, how uninspiring. Episode 9 - take it or leave it. And that’s the saddest realization of them all. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 7: A rediscovery.

I said before that Episode 1 / the prequels were the main impetus for this whole exercise. That is true, in a way. But it is only true in that I needed to see the prequels and the originals so I could compare my feelings about them with my Ep7 and Ep8 feelings.

If Ep7 and Ep8 didn’t exist, I doubt I would have undertaken this exercise. See, as I mentioned in the opening post, I had a suspicion that the new episodes were all the things many have criticized them for: derivative, overly commercial, written by committee. The magic of the originals has been lost, and we are left with simulacra.

It’s important that I come clean with a fact: I hate JJ Abrams. I think he’s a hack. He is fantastic at opening stories and god-awful at closing them. My hatred for JJ and his trademark approach began with the TV show Lost, where JJ opened an incredible number of fascinating storylines in the first 2 seasons, only to ad-lib the next four seasons to a highly unsatisfying ending. He re-made Star Trek by essentially cribbing from all the best Star Trek movies in the past, and I enjoyed that movie - while watching it, but not much upon reflection. For example, Young Cap’n Kirk is driving his father’s sexy car through the cornfields of Iowa - until he drives it over a ravine as big as the Grand Canyon. in the middle of Iowan corn fields. It’s a beautiful spectacle until you stop to think for a half second... wait, what? But by that time you’ve moved on to the next spectacle. 

Like eating a Big Mac, JJ Abrams tastes good in the moment and then you realize what you just ate is mostly soybean paste, flash-frozen low quality meat, spongy bread, rubber cheese, all buoyed by artificial aromas that trick your brain into thinking that this is delicious, but only in the moment. 

In short, a Big Mac is not good food, and JJ Abrams movies are not good movies. 

But I really wanted to give this movie another chance. I wanted to know - was Episode 7 the “one beer too many” on a big night out, the one that feels good in the moment, but you later regret? Turns you off the beer brand once and for all? Is Episode 7 the extra Halloween candy that you eat at 10:30pm that makes you nauseous, impels you to throw the whole bag out? Did I lose any love and hope for Star Wars because Episode 7 delivered too much of the same thing, a Disney-ified, Abrams-ified, unoriginal pastiche of a pastiche? 

The answer is “yes” and “no,” but mostly “yes.” This movie starts off amazingly - classic Abrams - but quickly loses its way, and tries to find it again by running into the same grooves we’ve already worn well over the past 7 Star Wars releases (in this respect, Rogue One gets the pass and Ep7 gets hurt because of my order). And while I was still eager to see Episode 8 (review to come), I was far less optimistic for the franchise, as I could see the blueprint for the future, and it is the same as the past. JJ Abrams is set to direct Episode 9, if you didn’t already know. 

But of course -- JJ Abrams filmmaking is perfectly attuned to this kind of review. Taking poll on my feelings in the moment is the best way to watch an Abrams movie. That way, I can’t think too deeply about the fact that we’ve seen this before - in copy or rhyme - in nearly every scene shot. So even though this movie grades out not great - I feel even less great about it the more I think about it. 

Onto the scores. 

Average score: 6.57 Standard deviation: 2.01

Scroll. 7. Wait, why is there a new empire and a new rebellion? Why doesn’t a new republic have the ability to amass more forces to defeat a fragmented group of Empire loyalists? Are we saying the Empire never fell? If so, what were we celebrating at the end of Ep6? (Movie moves too fast to have these thoughts in the moment... these come to you afterward). 

Jakku. 8. A cool star destroyer shot, Very cool stormtrooper visuals. BB8 is pretty cool. "This will begin to make things right." Poe is cool. Great and tangible feeling on the raid. Super scary. But wait... how did the First Order not scan for the X-wing? And Poe didn’t try to hide it? Even an awning or some covering would be fine. But still... good tension in the scene. Flametrooper! But wait... Another secret piece of info goes with a droid in the desert... mmmmmmm OK... Really like humanizing the stormtrooper, with a dramatic bloody handprint on (we later know is Finn’s) stormtrooper head. PTSD. And then comes Kylo Ren’s badass ship (that looks a lot like Darth Vader’s....).

Kylo Ren. 9. Kylo freezing the blaster bolt is superdope. I can forgive his Darth Vader wannabe character mask. I'm fine with the subtle "you talk first? I talk first?" joke by Poe. Fine to make fun of the mask as well. FUCK Captain Phasma - I immediately have distaste for this character. Finn’s Stormtrooper regret @ the massacre is cool. I like that.

Finn’s break. 7. Finn taking his mask off - a really powerful first shot. Captain Phasma is worthless. Did you know that this character was created because someone made concept art of a chrome stormtrooper for fun, Kathleen Kennedy walked into someone’s office and saw it and said “that has to be in the movie, it looks so cool,” and then they decided it should be a woman soldier for marketing purposes? What I’m trying to say is, the storytelling process was not the purest here. Phasma is exhibit A. 

Rey intro. 9.  JJ at his best: Really cool atmospherics on Jakku. Amazing wide shots of the empty destroyer bay. Rey is hot. Amazing shots. Huge scale of the desert and the downed star destroyer. Speeder... fine. Tie fighter wing down. amazing speeder shot with another downed destroyer. Fine with the stupid bird. (But... we have another mysterious sorta-poor desert dwelling force-sensitive hero?)

Trading. 9. Pretty beautiful shots (although borrowing heavily from Ep4?). Fine with the trading. I like the weirdo aspect of this girl idolizing the rebels and meticulously counting days. making a cool bread loaf thing. Lives in an ATAT, that's awesome too. Wearing silly rebel hat.

BB8 meets Rey. 8. Sorta bad dialogue (and “classified droid” of course). Nice desert shots.

Torture of Poe. 8. The mind reading is intense. Hux is fine. (But haven’t we seen a main character get tortured by Darth / Kylo before?)

Trading Part 2. 8. Why doesn’t Rey take the money for the droid? She’s so pure and perfect? Serendipity? 

Finn Rescues Poe. 7.  Wait... why? I guess Finn heard a good pilot is on board and he wants out. I don't love Finn’s heavy breathing. (Have you seen this? In bad action movies or even good ones, the actors are constantly hyperventilating to amp up the tension. I’m seeing it even in Harry Potter, particularly with Ron. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it ... like the Wilhelm Scream). The dialogue is fine but not great between the two, trying to get the vibe together. Tie fighter leaving the hangar bay... Kind of like that. Turrets on the outside of Star Destroyers never hit anyone... why do they exist? One tie fighter can escape a star destroyer!? Why do THEY exist? 

They crash. 8.  Fighter gonna crash. Hux is fine. Phasma is fine. Kind of a cool shot on the Tie fighter crash. I like the wide desert shots. Tie fighter sinking is cool. Finn stripping is humanizing. Desert shots are great here. (But we’re again following some crashed droids/people on a desert planet?)

Kylo and Hux bicker. 8.  What's with the bickering? But they do a good job. Kind of harkens back to Tarkin and Darth (too much similarity?)

Finn meets Rey. 7.  I like the monster kicking him out of the way from drinking the water at the watering hole. This is the point in the movie where I started to think - Rey is a Mary Sue? BB8 shocking Finn is fine. Finn laying it on a little thick with the humor.

Escape in the Falcon. 8.  Stop taking my hand! Meh. The Falcon! “That one’s garbage! ... The garbage will do.” Fine, pretty good. Cool shot of the Falcon escaping. BB8 in free fall in the Falcon is fine. "I'm getting pretty good at this" says Finn. You got one Tie fighter, dude. (The longer this goes the more this feels like old sequences from Ep4...) Going inside the destroyer is cool (and then feels like being in the Death Star in ep6...). The shut-engines-off-flip-downwards-and-shoot was a cool move, and some good shots in that sequence. 

Kylo temper tantrum. 8. I like this part. It's petty and stupid, but it's a good contrast to the control of Vader.

Falcon and Han/Chewy. 7. Finn says “Droid please” (eye roll). BB8 gives a flame/lighter “Thumbs up.” Meh. Rey is a Mary Sue perfect mechanic... Finn being into her is a little meh. Tractor beam is meh. Han and Chewy discover them, meh fine but how the fuck did they just so happen to be there? They explain away that Han and Chewy just happen to be right where the Falcon is, moments after it flies for the first time after sitting on Jakku for years. Classic JJ. Pretty blatant sentimentality by Han that I'm not really getting drawn into. Luke Skywalker map. All this said, Harrison Ford is good as always.

Rathtars. 7.  Death gang, Mantoon, Rathtar... meh. How did the second gang get on without him knowing? Fine with this I guess. Sad that Han is a sad old man hauling freight and swindling people. 7 movies and nothing changed. Rathtar monster is fine. (A little like Indiana Jones with large ball-like thing rolling down a hallway-like thing). Not huge on this chase sequence. Another alien tentacle monster dragging hero somewhere without eating hero. (Where have I seen this before?)

Snoke. 6.  This is where I really start turning on the movie as it relies more and more on worn tropes. Another massive hologram... who the fuck is this guy? Another... weapon? This speech sucks by Hux. Who is this ultra powerful force sensitive villain? Kylo Ren is Han Solo's kid... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeh. Where did this new emperor come from? Is he a Sith? What the fuck is all this.

Rey and Solo fly. 7.  Comedic + Mary Sue Mechanic is meh. Lots of references to old Star Wars here. Luke is running away? Why? (Is JJ opening mysteries that won't be closed?) Rey saying “I didn’t realize a planet could be this green” is a nice touch.

Han offers Rey a job. 7.  Why is Rey so attached to Jakku and her parents who have been gone for so long? Meh.

Maz Kanata's. 5.  Cantina 2... I really expected to like it better than I did, and I didn’t expect to like it that well. Really shitty music. So derivative as a scene. Relationshp advice with Leia? mmmmmmmeh. Empire again. Mmmmmmeh. Finn is a runner. Meh. Maz is a New Yoda, sorta. Meh. What's the point of Maz climbing on the table to look at Finn?

Kylo has feelings. 8. Crushed Darth Vader helmet is pretty cool. Have you seen the “Emo Kylo Ren” twitter? Worth it. 

Finn tries to run. 7.  This storyline is fine... Finn's a coward. He's in love with Rey for "looking at me" meh. They aren't so much conversing as just saying sentences at each other. Do they even know each other? it doesn't feel like a solid connection. (Kind of like another heterogeneous faux-mance of yore?)

Rey finds Luke's lightsaber. 8. I wrote: “At least it was a pretty interesting vision. Captivating. Lightsaber calls to her! interesting. Nobody waiting for you in Jakku. She runs away... interesting, OK, good.”

Starkiller. 1. Wait... the new base is a planet. It's a third fucking death star. Hux makes a shitty Nazi speech. What the flying fuck is this shit. Are we in the same system here? How did they build this weapon so easily when the Empire collapsed? How come people can see the weapon destroying the entire planetary system? What the shit. Fuck that. It looked cool at least, but this is a fatal and inexcusable flaw in this film.

BB8 Macguffin. 4. Sick of BB8 as the macguffin too, now. Rey wants to run, fine.

First order attacks Maz's. 2.  Meh. Give lightsaber to the team. How is the First Order here? Is everything in the galaxy really fucking close to each other? What is going on? Kylo is here too? And now Finn is going use a lightsaber. And Han can shoot without looking. And there's a TR8R droid with a like handheld weapon that fights lightsabers? And this novice can use the lightsaber and not die? And Han saves him and then gets captured? Big bowl of Nope. 

Resistance saves the day... 6. Why are these guys here? for the droid, sure, I guess. Everyone's looking for Luke. I'm sick of this battle already. Nice tracking shot of Poe I guess but sorta meh. Maybe I’m still hung over from the Starkiller reveal. 

Kylo meets Rey. 8. Force freezing Rey in place is cool enough. Kylo with Rey is good. Han watches her get kidnapped. Finn gets balls.

Han sees Leia. 6. I'm supposed to be sentimental about this but it's just sad. C3PO still sucking, all these years later.

Rebel base. 7.  Finn’s Reunion with Poe Dameron... fine. In the rebel base, fine. Leia is... fine. Old woman. Still fighting. Sad. What a treadmill this saga has been for her and for everyone. Map is partially complete, meh. R2 nostalgia. Meh.

Leia and Han. 7. Is this good? I can't tell if it's good. It's fine. Snoke seduced our son. Mmmmmmmeeeeehhhh. Still good in the kid! Good vs evil hooray! Turn the evil man good! (Where have we heard all this before?) 

Rey and Kylo battle of wills. 9. Kylo takes off his mask. Good drama and reveal. Rey is attracted to him. Good, interesting, sort of sexually charged energy and tension here. Really well done scene - particularly well acted. 

Snoke angry. 6. I wrote: “Just meh. Fuck Snoke.”   

Rey mind trick. 8.  Sure, I like it, she's organically discovering the force. Preternatural. Fine, OK with that. I like the stormtroopers walking away from Kylo’s temper tantrum.

The starkiller base again? 1.  Charging the weapon from nearby sun... just... pure spectacle. "It's another death star" says Han/Leia. No shit. Power of the sun... MMMMMMmeeeeeeeehhhhh. So unoriginal. "There's always a way to blow it up" says Han. Thermal oscillator.... mmmmmmm. Disable the shields (just like Ep6). Gotta be there on the planet! Of course, as always! (Let's attack another fucking Death Star the same fuckin' way as before - with a bombing run and a sneaky secret force on the ground).

Han and Leia bye. 6.  Meh, is how I feel.

Han et al assault base. 3. Meeehehhhhhhhhhhhhh let's land at light speed Hollywood style! The ship hangs off a ledge, duh! "That's not how the force works" meh. Yeah that's fine, but what a stupid plan. 15 minutes until death! of course! Phasma walking around by herself of course! Finn in charge! Meh. Not loving Finn. Rey sneaking around. Meh. Not a big fan of Boyega's over-acting comedic. "Yeah there is a trash compactor” meeeehhhh. More comedic tensiony stuff. Too much fan service, too much hokey. 

Another death star assault. 3.  It's pretty, but stupid. C3PO "it would take a miracle to save us now" meehhhhh. 

Kylo kills Han. 5.  Emotionally pretty sterile feeling. I’m just not there with them. And another infinite column for Han to fall down (like the Emperor, Darth Maul, Luke in ep5...) And everyone there to dramatically watch... just... meh.  Snoke... boo. This dialogue is just kinda shitty. "You know it's true. search your feelings." Adam driver does very well in this scene with Rey. He's really great. John Boyega sucking... overdramatic. No connection to Leia here as she feels Han’s death. Just don’t care. 

Kylo vs Rey and Finn. 7. Kylo is pretty badass. Amateur lightsaber fight: not a big fan. Pretty small fan, actually. Rey is badass but still amateur. Another ledge to hang off! Still, the fight is pretty cool. Snow steaming is cool after the lightsaber slices through. And even, a whole other ledge, a chasm in fact! Meh fine.

Trench run two. 6.  Another trench run. Poe flying inside = another DS2 core reactor shot.

Starkiller blows up. 6.  Snoke really sucks. Here comes the Falcon to save the day of course! In your darkest hour. Pretty shot. Pretty Death Star 3 explosion (and another death star blows up again...)

Celebration. 5. Dramatic Leia blows by Chewy and hugs Rey, but they never met. 

R2 wakes up. 6. C3po *still* sucks. Why is his arm red again? The part of the galaxy that has the map that is unknown and uncharted is right in the middle of the damn galaxy??

Rey goes to Luke. 9.  Beautiful scenery (Skellig Michael in Ireland). Dramatic. There's Luke! OK I like this scene. This is good. Super dramatic and memorable and iconic. At least the movie ended on a strong note. 

VERDICT

Is there anything else to say? The plot hangs together like a disintegrating, snotty piece of tissue paper. Everything is a crib of something else in the SW universe. The visuals are pretty and the beginning is fire, and most of the rest is obnoxious. Kylo and Rey are actor highlights, to be sure... but Leia is wooden and virtually inaccessible, Han is on autopilot, Finn is trying too hard, and Poe is fine (but not captivating to me). This movie really lost me and even though the numbers went up and down after ~Maz, my feelings were pretty low for the last 2/3 of the journey. Five “9″ scenes - mostly at the beginning or the end - and a fair amount of 7/8′s but also a lot of bad scores. A score of every number, except 10. A movie that scores better than it maybe should have, and it didn’t score all that well in the end. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 6: A rediscovery.

I’ve now reviewed Rogue One, Ep4, Ep5, all three prequels. It’s finally time to get back to the good stuff - Return of the Jedi. ROTJ is often cited as most people’s favorite from their childhood, but not necessarily on re-watch. Why? I was pretty sure I knew: it’s the shameless commercialism of the Ewoks, the derivative plotlines (another Death Star! More sneaking around Empire bases!) and so on. But truly, this movie is also very enjoyable. 

Upon re-reading my notes - there are far less of them, I think because I was actually into the movie again instead of analyzing everything. With Episode 1 and 2′s terrible dialogue and wooden acting and annoying plotlines, my brain was whizzing about, trying to understand just how these movies could be so bad. With Ep3, I felt myself analyzing how this film somehow *was* landing, and why it was different than the first two. With ROTJ, I got back to losing myself in the story, even though I was trying to remain conscious of the task at hand. 

While there are a couple lows (the Ewoks are mediocre at best as an adult-viewer, and George Lucas makes an inexcusable CGI addition to Jabba’s palace...), all in all this movie really fires. And what’s more - some of the most enthralling scenes in the entirety of the series occur here, and they don’t all include fighting and violence. I’m talking about the Emperor turning Luke. This is where the R1-4-5-1-2-3-6 order really works... we go from watching the Emperor turn Anakin in Ep3 right into the Emperor back at his old tricks with Luke. In both movies, the mind games and manipulation are really well done. I had many “Holy Shit!” 10-scene moments throughout ROTJ, mostly around the throne room, but prior to the climactic Vader redemption scene (which, surprisingly, was just OK). 

In fact, although this movie didn’t grade quite as high as Ep4 and Ep5, it has by far the most “10″ scenes, all of them (except “It’s a Trap!”) involving Luke and the Emperor in the build-up to the climax, when things are looking so grim for the rebellion and for Luke. Sure, I suppose I could have lumped more of these together, but each is so powerful on its own that I felt in the moment they deserved their own line items. 

Onto the scores. 

Average Score: 7.90 Standard deviation: 1.91

Scroll. 8. To the point and does the trick. 

Death Star and Vader. 9.  Beautiful new shot, with Death Star and Star Destroyer. The empire space visuals are so consistently amazing in this series. Great angry vader: “The Emperor does not share your optimism.” Great music. Great punchy scene.

Jabba’s Castle. 7. The big door is cool - C3PO sucks as always. Cool little eye in the peephole, and the big door opens. Pig guards are George Lucas trying too hard. Jabba is a pretty cool character. Luke wants to barter with him, there’s a little rat character that is fine, Solo is a wall decoration, and C3PO sucks again. Fine set of scenes. 

Jabba’s band. 1. George Lucas strikes again. He inserts a fully-CGI alien band, looking like a drunk person’s recollection of alien muppets, singing in a language that sounds like scat-man as a toddler. So unnecessary. Also, Jabba is rapey. 

Rancor eats a chick, Chewbacca, Lando in disguise. 6. I remember loving this whole Jabba sequence as a kid but it’s not really landing right now. The bounty hunter is Leia? Couldn’t they have sent someone less important? Han getting re-warmed is a cool visual. 

Han woken up. 6. Still can’t buy that they’d send Leia to rescue Han. Han’s blindness is kinda lame and the jokes are too. The Jabba sidekicks are also lame. Not loving this. 

Luke and the Rancor. 8. Luke falls into the Rancor pit and tries Jedi shit and it doesn’t work. But he’s clever and kills the Rancor. Pretty good job, pretty good scene. My roommate likes the crying monster. 

Sarlacc pit & Jabba’s ship. 6-8. Cool desert beasts, really cool desert ship. R2 as a cocktail waiter is funny. Luke: “Free us, or die.” And R2 shoots the lightsaber to Luke and the fighting begins. Lando cliffhangs, Boba Fett vs. Luke is cool, and Boba Fett dies an ignominious death (apparently in canon he actually survives). All in all, it’s a bit hokey and prequel-like, so I assume George had his grubby hands in here. Leia strangles Jabba, Luke flails away with the lightsaber looking really badly trained (in great contrast to the expertise of Ep3), and Lando kind of gets saved from the Sarlacc pit with a rifle. Some 6, some 8, hard to disentangle from my memories of the scene.

Emperor arrives at the Death Star. 9. Incredibly beautiful shots, great heft and foreshadowing. 

Yoda dies. 9.  “When 900 years old you reach, look as good, you will not.” Great line. Love Yoda - this version, not the Shaun-White-Parkour-Tasmanian-Devil lightsaber version. He tells Luke he’s not a Jedi yet, that he must face Vader. Not ready for the burden! Rushed to face him! Luke made a mistake! “Jedi strength flows from the force. Beware anger, fear, aggression. Dark side. Once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Luke. Don't underestimate the Emperor.” Very good stuff from Yoda all around. And this part: there is another Skywalker!!! (but it never matters?) 

Obi-wan force ghost. 9. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Vader did kill your father... from a certain point of view.” Luke must face Vader again, but Luke won’t... “Then the Emperor has already won.” And then of course... It’s Leia. 

Attack Prep. 7. “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.” I thought that line inspired Rogue One, but apparently not. Here we are again... a Death Star and a small crack team preparing to take it down. 

Emperor Confident. 8. Just another great punchy scene. 

Shuttle Tiberium. 9. Sneaking onto Endor to disable the DS’s shield... and we’re just like Rogue One again with the access codes. Vader on his Super Star Destroyer senses something... Good Chewy and Han tension. But Luke knows he’s endangering the mission. Vader is such a badass. 

Endor/Speeders. 9. The first thing I wrote for this scene was “C3PO SHUT THE F*** UP” but notwithstanding that outburst, this unique, gripping, and beautiful scene gets a great score. The Redwoods are recognizable to Northern Californians but few others, and as in real life, they are majestic and mysterious on film here. Amazing sound effects. The tension of possibly being outed by a patrolman is very high. Luke cuts off the front of a speeder with the lightsaber... so sweet. 

First Ewok. 8. Contrary to what you might remember, the Ewoks do not always suck. The first teddybear that finds Leia is kind of menacing. They avoid capture and make friends but it’s a pretty good scene. 

Vader and Emperor. 9. The Emperor is so damn badass.

Caught in Ewok trap. 5. More George Lucas Hijinx! Hokey. OK with Ewoks, not OK with C3PO becoming their God. 

In the Ewok village. 4. C3PO on the throne. Luke does force stuff. R2 shocks an Ewok and he does a stupid jump. Meh. 

C3PO telling Ewoks a story. 4. I guess the power of a story? They get help from the Ewoks. meh. 

Luke and Leia. 7. Luke has to face him. Decent scene between the two. 

Vader lands on Endor. 9. Beautiful shots here. Vader and Luke interaction. Search your feelings (again). "It is too late for me, son." Vulnerability there. A bit of foreshadowing. I like!

Shield generator attack begins. 7.  A little cheesy that the Ewok grabs the speeder and we do the chasing again, but I guess it serves the plot.

The rebel forces amass. 9. The rebel fleet is amazing. Very pretty. In retrospect (fore-spect?) the heterogeneous fleet reminds of Battlestar Galactica. 

Luke meets the Emperor. 10. Shit! Things sound very bad! 

Shield Generator Fail. 8. Uh oh! 

It’s a Trap! 10.  This all happens so fast, last two scenes and then this. Great music, great twist moment. Totally unforeseen. Admiral Ackbar gets his moment and forever becomes an internet meme and a real world reference. This space battle is intense.

Emperor turning Luke. 10.  Emperor seems to have all the cards. "it is your destiny."

Ewok's revenge. 7.  Mmmmmm. Actually not as bad as I remember because the Ewoks are a bit dangerous, even if primitive. OK, some dumb shit. Swinging ropes like tarzan, flying around with wings and dropping rocks. Self-hitting. Decent physical humor but also meh. Decent job with the emotional Ewok friends death.

Fully operational! 10.  Fuuuuuck! The Emperor is smart! Shit! Scene is a 9, but gets a 10 because of importance.

Luke tries to kill emperor. 10. Such a mindfuck. Pretty amazing.

End of the endor battle. 7. Meh. It’s fine. 

Luke and Darth fight. 10.  Let the hate flow through you.

Luke and Darth fight 2. 10.  Luke tries to hide and not fight.  "Your thoughts betray you. Sister! Twin sister. You have betrayed her too.” Stilted dialogue. Luke's love for Leia gives him power. Very much like Darth in the prequels. Darth’s hand cutoff. Fantastic music. Emperor: “Your hate has made you powerful. Fulfill your destiny.” He thinks back to his own hand destroyed and how he is like his father. Really great storytelling.

Attack on the death star. 8.  These visuals are really cool. But it’s a bit ridiculous to fly through the Death Star with a ship as big as the Millennium Falcon. I mean, the first DS was destroyed by a torpedo going down a tube not more than a meter wide... why would they engineer this thing to have a corridor wide enough for fighters to fly through, and right to the core reactor which will blow the entire thing up? 

Darth turns back. 9. It’s such a big moment, but is it actually well done? Emperor: "you will pay the price for your lack of vision." "Noooooo!" Hmmmm. it was great but it wasn't a 10. A bit hokey on the script. Why not cut the Emperor in half with a lightsaber? We’ve seen Jedi defy gravity before, why not assume he will survive? 

Anakin dies. Luke escapes. 8. “Take off the mask. you already saved me. Tell your sister you were right.” Great musical choices.

Han and Leia kiss. 7. Meh, it’s fine. 

Celebrations. 9. Good reunions and happy stuff. A bit cheesy but pretty good. 

Anakin/Darth funeral. 9. Pretty emotional. Pretty good. 

Credits. 7. WTF with this music choice. 

VERDICT: Things that will stick with me include: speeders, Emperor, and the Sarlacc pit. Speeders and Emperor are just awesome. Sarlacc pit was fine but memorable. This movie is entertaining, and yet, the most blockbuster-y of the original three, and that doesn’t sit as well with me at the end. But did I enjoy it? Surely and absolutely, yes, I did. ROTJ has far and away the most amounts of 9′s and 10′s of any of the films... only a few missteps keep it from being crowned as the best film in the franchise. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 3: A rediscovery

Finally, for the love of all things holy, we come to the end of the prequel trilogy. Somehow, some way, Lucas manages to salvage this one, likely by relying even more heavily on others (editors, scriptwriters, and John Williams) to save him from himself. The movie is therefore consistently *not* shitty, and even when shitty, great music and visuals typically overcome. In fact, while not as amazing as the original trilogy, the only true hatred I felt for this film was everything surrounding the General Grievous character, which, like Dooku, felt wholly unnecessary and dumb. 

The other structural benefit that this movie gets is that we are finally close enough to Episode 4 to actually connect people and events directly to it. Where Lucas perhaps admirably (but terribly) tried to tell fresh stories in Episodes 1 and 2, Episode 3 gets to ride on the original trilogy’s coattails a bit. 

Still, there is good here beyond that structural advantage. Hayden Christensen is actually quite good. I suspect he got some acting coaching but I also suspect that Lucas either was getting better or got out of his own way and just let the kid act. Same with Padme. I’d go so far as to say some of their scenes here are - shocker - almost believable.

The entire story arc of how Palpatine turns Anakin is, in my estimation, very well done. And despite being completely ridiculous, I still enjoyed watching two powerful Jedi fight at their peak powers when Anakin and Obi-wan face off. Ewan McG really crushes it this whole movie as ersatz-Alec-Guinness, and whether or not you think “I have the high ground” (Anakin losing) is realistic or stupid or whatever, Ewan’s Obi-wan shares real and moving emotions through this entire sequence, which Thank God, as this is the critical moment for the biggest villain in the entire series, and perhaps all of Science Fiction. 

Onto the scores. 

Average score: 7.00 Standard deviation: 1.77

Scroll. 8. Rescue a chancellor + it’s a trap! is all good, but I’m not on board with Grievous. Still, all fine. Managed to avoid using stupid adjectives. 

Space battle. 7. Here we get a *very* cool opening shot of a crazy space battle over Coruscant. Great music, amazing space battle, overwhelmingly so. The precursors of the X-wing and Tie-fighter are pretty cool here. Good scaling here as you see a single pilot sucked out of a cockpit into the chaos. But then, why would you fire a missile that releases a bunch of robots that tear your ship apart? Why wouldn’t that missile just be kinetic? And why aren’t they trying to save the Chancellor right now? 

On the ship. 4. Great lightsaber fighting if a bit cheesy. Grievous and crew are also very cheesy. R2 grease is cheesy. Cheese in the elevator. Lucas finds a great way to ruin a decent scene.  

Dooku. 8. Cheesy CGI Dooku flipping around... and why would Chancellor be happy about Obi-wan doing in the close-up shot of him when they’re fighting? He’s obviously not acting here... and at this point we know Palpatine is evil, so why that choice, George?  Anyway, intense Anakin-kills-Dooku scene. Anakin’s turning and conflict is good here. 

Space battle 2. 5. Two highly sophisticated interstellar spaceships broadside each other with cannons like pirate ships in the 1700′s. Wilhelm scream. Bleh. 

Grievous Battle. 7. We keep having to contend with forced humor while watching entertaining fighting. I like how Anakin is on the fence here between a “dark” and “light” approach. The action is cool - almost too much going on. Anyway, now Anakin and Obi-wan need to land this huge cruiser as it crashes to the planet... Great re-entry visuals, something not yet seen before in the series (even if seen before in Star Trek). Good scene. 

 Palpatine back. 8. Anakin continues to do well with acting on the edge of light and dark. Aliens in the back of this discussion scene with Palpatine, Windu, and Anakin are annoying, C3PO is gold now? and as always, awful, and Generally Samuel L. Windu continues to suck. But we have a secret Padme love reconnoiter! And she’s pregnant!! Hayden actually does well here. Sort of at his core showing some dark but acting out the light on face value because he knows he should. SO much better. Good scene, even. 

Grievous returns home. 6. Not a fan of this Grievous character. Move to Mustafa. Fine. 

Anakin and Padme on Coruscant. 7. Christensen is fighting the bad script, but his acting really is much improved. So is Padme’s. This whole “Anakin has nightmares that grip him” thread is really good, even, and quite believable. Traumatic childhood, why wouldn’t he have some trouble controlling some deep fears? 

Yoda and Anakin. 8. Discussing Anakin’s premonitions... Yoda and Anakin dance around some really touchy and good stuff here. Good Yoda teachings. “Let go of everything you fear to lose.” Hard! 

Anakin on the council. 8. A series of punchy little scenes with the tension between Palpatine and the council coming to the fore. Well-shot, good intrigue. Yoda goes to Kashyyyk - Why? Do we really need to go to Kashyyyk? The Jedi’s failures are evident in their political spying-machinations to use Anakin (duh, an obviously conflicted dangerous guy) as a pawn.

Talking of the prophecy. 8. Another good set of intense and important dialogue. Even Windu does not suck. 

Anakin and Padme. 7. A bit of an argument between the lovers... Padme too trusting and fails to listen. OK dialogue but actually good acting! 

Darth Plagueis. 9. This scene is really great - one of the highlights of the movie for me. In front of a spectacular backdrop of some weird space Cirque du Soleil, Palpatine starts planting seeds of more powerful force teachings in Anakin’s head. Super intense... “search your feelings” is overused in this series but this one is decent. The chancellor is manipulative AF and it’s impressive. “The sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power.” 

Kashyyyk. 4. We get a wookie charge, a Tarzan holler, and a really shitty battle scene. What’s with the trench warfare? The battle looks like one of those ads for those crappy game apps that Arnold Schwarzenegger shills.  

Obi-wan and Anakin. 8. Bad dialogue, good acting.

Anakin and Padme, again. 8. Anakin confessing that he feels lost, feels himself turning uncontrollably. I like this. 

Strange planet and Obi-wan. 4. Here we’re back into Grievous-land. Obi-wan rides a stupid lizard thing, and then jumps right in the middle of 100 enemies. Why? 

Grievous fight. 2. Four-arm lightsaber is just dumb. And there are a billion droids... just shoot Obi-wan all at once. We see Jedi dying easily in Ep2 and 3, why is this so hard? Grievous spiders into a stupid roller ball thing and Obi-wan chases on the stupid lizard. He loses his lightsaber. Can this end please? 

Windu senses plot. 9. Windu wants control of the senate. Yoda doesn’t like it. Palpatine is walking his tightrope very well. Very good dialogue, Anakin isn’t sure, great job all around. Palpatine comes with the hard sell at Anakin - you’ll have the power to save Padme! 

Grievous chase and fight again. 2. Terrible bullshit. Hand-to-hand combat, really? Grievous is so dumb. Cheesy laughing. Of course, Obi-wan hangs off a ledge. Finally Grievous is dead. 

Anakin tells Windu. 7. Windu is dumb, but there’s still good tension. Anakin is conflicted and Windu knows it. Dialogue a bit stilted. 

Padme and Anakin across the city. 9. This was a really striking scene. Wordless, just two lovers sensing each other and connecting with each other across a beautiful city at sunset. John Williams amps up the emotional tension with a longing, tragic swoon. Super interesting scene. Great highlight. 

Confrontation with Palpatine. 8. Windu and Palpatine fight. Anakin arrives late. Emperor parkour is kind of unnecessary. Hissing and shit is also kind of “meh.” Emperor is vulnerable and makes annoying pleas, and Anakin betrays Windu, and knows he fucked up. But he has fallen, and his helplessness is tangible. This is what’s cool about the treatment of the dark side - it’s not like Anakin is that stoked about it, but he’s a slave to his own emotions and fears and he feels trapped under the Emperor. Very well done. Palpatine has “Unlimited POWER!” Good scene but not a 9 or 10. 

Sith planning. 7. The Jedi are now enemies of the Republic. Anakin is still a bit helpless and weak and conflicted. Palpatine’s “Sith will rule and we will have peace” is that great and special kind of evil where all the right words are being said but you just know those words are being so perverted (sound familiar?) 

Order 66. 9. Kill all the Jedi. Starts with Obi-wan riding the stupid lizard with his lightsaber out (why?), but I’ll forgive this time. Good drama. Yoda senses it happening. Chewy’s there... meh. Anakin slaughters the bad-acting kids. (I still get annoyed at “younglings” and “padawan learners”... God, George, you’re a dork). Intense acting, very sad. Padme does well here, also. The betrayal is strong. The music matches. And Yoda heads to Dagobah. 

Aftermath Order 66. 8. Yoda gets rescued by Senator Organa, Anakin starts lying to Padme (she’s so naive), and C3PO manages not to be awful. Plot moves along. 

Senate and politics. 6. Viceroys again (they suck). Senate needed to control the galaxy - I guess a bit interesting. Safety and security -> Galactic Empire. Cheesy line about “democracy falling to applause.” 

Mustafa - Anakin and Viceroys. 8. Really cool imagery. R2 annoying-ish. Vader massacre. Anguish in his mind is great. 

Yoda sends Obi-wan to kill Anakin. 8. Intense and good emotional conflict. Preparing for battle. 

Padme confronts Anakin. 6. She’s running fast for a pregnant woman. Anakin is twisted. Bad dialogue in this scene, and anyway, from evidence from the movies, Anakin was never a good person, so why does Padme not like the new Anakin? He’s out of control as he chokes out his own wife. “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!” ... “Only a sith deals in absolutes.” Is it really true that there are only two ways to connect to the force - Jedi or Sith? Sigh. Anyway. 

Vader and Obi-wan fight. 8.  Two of the most powerful force-users at the height of their powers. I’m OK with all this theatrical dancey fighting. Funky force jumping is meh. Super dramatic visuals. Way over the top with the whole swinging-running-jumping on big metal things falling into lava, and jumping from platform to robot droid on the lava. Obi-wan wins the words here: “From my point of view the Jedi are evil" sucks. "Well then you ARE lost!" does not suck!

Yoda confronts the Emperor. 6. Bad Yoda dialogue (not typical), and bad Yoda parkour. Kind of liked Yoda when he wasn’t a lightsaber-wielding badass. Yoda hangs off a ledge. CGI Yoda sucks. Emperor throwing senate flying platforms is just over the top. 

Obi-wan defeats Vader. 9.  “ You were the chosen one!!” great stuff from Ewan here. Haden matches well. Great emotion. I am willing to forgive the fact that one simple tactical advantage (”I have the high ground”) leads to Vader’s defeat, particularly because he obviously is overconfident and on tilt at this moment, so even if more complex, would have been the same impetus and outcome. But... why doesn't Obi-wan kill him, out of mercy, even? Would have solved a lot of the issues in the next 3 movies. 

Padme/Obi-wan on ship. 7. Padme gets a really tough line to deliver here. George Lucas really sucks. 

Vader lives. 8. So I like this robotic-surgery-transformation sequence where Vader gets into the suit and his breathing starts. Looks good. 

Padme loses the will to live. 6. So ends the life and times of Padme, a shell of a character with very little depth or believability, who fell in love with an aggro, rapey, creepy kid who turned into an evil man. Whatever. 

Darth is reborn. 5-8. All of this is good except the “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!” which is definite cheese and, IIRC, made a lot of people laugh in theater. 

Leia and Luke. 6. Yoda says Obi-wan has some stuff to work on re: the path to immortality. Doesn’t that sound a bit too Voldemort/ Sith? C3PO and R2 get their memories wiped, that’s how they forget who Anakin / Darth is. 

Death Star under construction. 9. Great scene - no words. Like that. 

Alderaan. 8. Another ending? Man, Lucas does NOT want to let go. Considering what happens next (with Disney’s movies), maybe he was right. Good call-back music to original JW score here - these are gimmies. Tattooine. Fine. 

VERDICT

Have someone else write Padme’s lines, eliminate Grievous and the diversion to Kashyyyk, and this movie sits very comfortably in the pantheon. It doesn’t have a single “10″ scene, but a bunch of 9′s and a boatload of 8′s and 7′s just like Eps 4 and 5. 

Oh, what could have been, if the prequel trilogy was instead just one movie, a bit better than this one. The histogram reflects this nicely. Way to almost-redeem yourselves, Lucasfilms team! 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 2: A rediscovery

OK... at this point, I’ve reviewed in series: 

Rogue One Ep4: A New Hope Ep5: Empire Strikes Back Ep1: Phantom Menace

And boy, I am not excited for Episode 2. Still, I’m ready to give it a chance. 

What happens when I do this is, I watch a movie that improves upon the effort in Episode 1. You can sense here that George Lucas took a lot of the criticisms to heart, maybe even ceded some control to others whom he trusts. Jar Jar is significantly toned down, the spectacle is there but the mystery and darkness is turned up a bit. 

Still, we have a mostly flat movie. Only one “9″ scene and really it’s just the visuals, which have always been Star Wars’s strength. And, we are introduced to George Lucas’s Awkward Teenager Fantasy of a Space Romance (tm) featuring a horribly directed Hayden Christensen and a bewilderingly amenable Natalie Portman. Like, at no time at all in this movie does it make sense that Padme should be falling for this petulant, whiny, and kind of creepy kid... unless we simply assume that she kind of sucks, too. 

Despite John Williams again trying to save the day (and this romance) with a score that soars to beauteous heights with Across the Stars, the film definitely fails here. The infamous “sand” line, etc etc etc all to come. 

Lastly, we get an incredibly hokey and just inexcusably bad Gladiator style setpiece. 1′s and 2′s abound. The end result is a film that kind of flops on the main plot points and otherwise just plods the prequel plots forward, setting up an ep3 that might well have been made into three movies since it’s the only prequel that is interesting or ties to the originals in any satisfactory way. 

On to the scores. 

Average score: 5.48 Standard deviation: 2.07

Scroll. 7. This whole scroll made me say, “I guess...” Like, fine, I guess Count Dooku is a necessary new Sith character. I guess the Republic needs to create an army to help the Jedi... None of it makes me that excited. Appropriate omen for the rest of the movie. 

Approaching Coruscant. 6. Very pretty ship. Very pretty cloudy day on Coruscant. Terrorist attack! Holy shit! Hollywood dramatic death of the decoy getting killed, bad directing/acting by Amidala. I wrote, “woof.” talk about botching an interesting idea. 

Palpatine and Jedi. 7. More expository scenes here. “Dooku was behind it.” Sure, whatever. Keep republic together, sure, whatever. Yoda is fine. Samuel L is bad (must be the directing...). Palpatine scheming is just sort of Meh. 

Obiwan and Anakin. 8. Not too bad, to be honest. Ewan does well, he’s turning up his “Alec Guinness” knobs quite well. 

Jarjar / Padme, re-meet Anakin. 7. Damn, Amidala friendzones Anakin immediately. Anakin less good in this scene vs. with Obiwan. But the tension here actually makes sense.  I wrote, “I’m OK with it.” Jarjar, man. Boo. 

Worm assassination attempt, city chase. 6. This was supposed to be a big sexy setpiece and I was not loving it. Pretty imagery - very bladerunner - but Anakin’s “not another lecture” and subsequent arrogance during the chase scene means I really can’t understand how the Jedi didn’t see this coming. He’s a total prick. On top of that, one basejump from a speeder down 500 feet to another moving speeder *might* have been excusable, but two? And Obiwan catching a lightsaber out of nowhere? Plus, we get bad alien cutscenes. They go to a bar and there’s robot football on in the background, and that’s just a SMH / facepalm type stupid easter egg. Wasn’t into the cigarettes / “death sticks” line that much either. Anakin as a detective is a “meh.” Just... lots of falling flat going on here. 

Jedi Council and Palpatine. 8. Obiwan tracks down the bountyhunter-assassin and Anakin gets to guard the Senator. So, I actually think this is starting to set up Anakin’s turn pretty well. Palpatine is subtly sowing confusion, discord in Anakin’s mind. The council shows serious flaws in trying to spy on Palpatine via Anakin. Palpatine can appeal to Anakin’s ego. Again, the Jedi really were pretty stupid, which I guess we just have to believe (and call-forward to Episode 8, Luke’s POV). 

Jarjar becomes senator. 3. Copy-pasting my notes: “bad. why is anakin monologuing? padme is just sitting there. anakin temper tantruming for no reason. anakin a little rapey.”

Refugees. 3. I skipped over this scene accidentally and that would have been appropriate. Anakin and Padme stilted banter is bad. “At least we have R2! ha, ha, ha!” Good music (as always, JW). 

Diner. 5. Obiwan goes to see an “old friend.” They give a big alien a mustache and have him talk like a Chicago line cook. Gimme a big “meh!” Gotta go to the outer rim to meet some cloners. hurray. 

Library. 7. Jedi archivist arrogance. The mystery deepens - no system is there where the cloners are supposed to be! zomg. But this is all fine, and almost decent with deepening the mystery. 

Padme and Anakin refugee dinner. 7. Kind of as painful as watching someone’s first date at a bar while waiting for a friend. “Attachment is forbidden but we’re encouraged to love unconditionally” and a bunch of other hoke. Anakin is persistent. Still, not a bad scene. 

Jedi training w/ Yoda. 7. A little hokey how Yoda asks the padawan kids to guess at why there’s no system in the archives. A bad yoda chin scratch. A little hokey, but good. 

Back on Naboo. 4. Good music. Dialogue between Anakin and Padme continues to be pretty rough. “Keep our faith in the republic.” More politics. Lake country. Anakin and Padme tension is dumb. 

Camino. 7. Bad name, cool scene. Good mystery unfolding... why is Obi-Wan expected? What are all these soldiers doing here, who ordered them, what’s going on? Kind of clunky revealing dialogue and the CGI is a bit out of hand but also decently cool. I wrote: “I’m OK with the secret army storyline.” 

Lake country on Naboo. 2-6.  Padme is smoking hot. Beautiful scenes here, but then we get this gem: "I don't like sand. it's coarse, rough, irritating... gets everywhere. Here, everything's soft and smooth." Anakin is such a douche. Padme lets him kiss her, but why? Not sure i'm buying this shit. Love song (Across the Stars) is amazing. Beautiful waterfall. But then they dissect their first kiss. mehhhhh. Let's talk politics at a picnic? No. "Make people agree." Anakin is authoritarian and sort of evil. How could she fall in love with this dude? Then he surfs a cow. No. Now they’re rolling around in the grass. No. No thanks.

Django and Boba on Camino. 8. One of the better and subtler scenes maybe in the whole series for acting. Obi-wan and Django do a great job of dancing around each other verbally while sizing each other up. 

Anakin-Padme Dinner / Wooing. 3. God, I wish I didn’t have so much to say about this tripe, but I do. I guess i'm fine with wooing Padme with Jedi tricks... But I still don't really buy the love story. And now we get lines like: "I'm in agony. the closer I get the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you." Suuuuuper creepy. “Haunted by the kiss you should have never given me.” “You are in my very soul tormenting me.” Honestly! This is like The Room. "THEN YOU DO FEEL SOMETHING!!!" Just a bad scene overall. Now Anakin is getting nightmares. "Your presence is soothing." Meh. Natalie Portman - did I mention she’s smoking hot? Anakin's mother is suffering in his nightmares, so he’s leaving to help her. Padme will go with him!? what the fuck. Bad lines too. Also callback to Luke leaving to help Han and Leia... I don’t know. Bad.

“Collect call.” 7. I believe this is the scene where Obi-Wan calls back to the council and Yoda or Samuel L. says their powers are diminished for not being able to see the creation of this clone army. Decent plotline, OK. 

Django Fett vs. Obi-wan fight. 6. Decent. Too much ledge-hanging and Jedi are too super-duper-heroey. Tracking Django is fine but looked hokey. 

Tatooine. 4. A fancy ship lands at Mos Eisley... man, they’re really going back to this well a lot. We see the stupid slave owner bug guy again and long story short, Anakin’s mom has been taken by the Tuskan Raiders. Time to kill some things. 

Obi-wan tracks Django. 6. Asteroid field again. Depth charges again. Supposed to be a good action setpiece but I’m distracted because there’s not supposed to be any cool noises in space. Fine with Obi-wan faking his death to avoid Django. Very pretty scenery and Obi-wan sneaks around some. Whatever. 

Anakin on the mother hunt. 1-7. Clever shadow of Anakin-as-Darth on the side of the building. Back to good music from Ep1. Finds his mom, and we’re back to bad dialogue. “Ani? Ani? Ani? Ani?” ... should feel something here, and don’t. The actor chemistry is just so bad, and I blame George. Still, Anakin going HAM is a good slip to the dark side. Hebrings his mom back dead, and proceeds to monologue shittily to Padme. "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things. I'm good at fixing things.” Awful. “Why'd she have to die? Why couldn't i save her? I know I could have?” what the FUCK. Terrrrrrrrrible. "I killed them. I killed them all." "I'm a jedi, I know I'm better than this." OK, finally at the very end as he breaks down, some sort of decent turn in this scene.

Count Dooku. 4. Jesus, how long is this movie? We get a random weirdo trying to create a new treaty with the trade federation to oppose the Republic. TWIST! This is what the rebellion does, but they’re somehow good! Sigh. 

Yoda and Windu. 4. “Pain, suffering. Young Skywalker is in pain.” Whatever. 

Funeral, message. 4. Here’s what I wrote and I remember none of this: “Clete is fine. Not really buying the whole anakin thing with mom. anakin stay where you are and protect the senator! padme is a mess too.”

Senator scheming. 5. So blatant. Sometimes this plotline is really well done and sometimes is sucks. Could have given this a 3-5. 

Dooku and Obi-wan. 7. OK, we have an exposition-y scene where Dooku tries to recruit Obi-wan to his side. This scene saved by two very good actors giving a good performance. 

Jar Jar in Senate. 2. The worst thing the franchise ever did gets to deliver the vote that gives Chancellor supreme powers. Jar Jar is a f***in’ tw*t. And Chancellor creates the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Padme and Anakin on planet. 1.  Oh, right. Anakin was going to go find Obi-wan or some shit. Padme saving the day with her senate powers! mehhhhhh. C3PO and R2 engage in dumb banter, but not as bad as jarjar. We’re now on some kind of shop floor ... that’s a No. Padme is now running through stampers. No. Bad. Dumb. No. Anakin also dumb. No. bad. My reviewing devolves into 2-year-old level angry language. We see machines making machines. C3PO hangs off a ledge. R2 flies around... come on. Wow, this is so bad. Padme falls into a fucking steel boiler. NO. NO NO NO. Anakin’s lightsaber is cut in half and we get a terrible "Obi-wan's gonna kill me." BOOOOO. And now droids and the fucking bountyhunter show up. God, that was worthless. 

Padme and Anakin pre-Gladiator. 2.  Anakin gets to deliver this gem: “I’ve been dying each day since you came back into my life. I love you.” I don't feel this makes any sense. Except I guess it’s clear now, as i said at the beginning of the review, that Padme kinda sucks. “I truly deeply love you.” Why?

Gladiator Death Battle. 1. HOW LONG IS THIS MOVIE? Also: GOD, THIS IS HORRIBLE. The only good part is Obi-wan with some sarcasm, otherwise we have unnecessary zerg monsters and midriff-revealing claw slashes and general dumb gladiatorial action. The “bad feeling” line was terrible, worst of the series. And where did Padme get her fucking keys? 

Jedi save the day. 3. The Jedi look very hokey and stupid, to be honest, and they don’t look like very good fighters at the end of the day. Scores 3 for light sabers but otherwise it’s a 1 or 2 scene. What’s the end game here? Get surrounded and killed? Django vs. Mace Windu who cares. We get terrible Anakin and Padme cheesing, terrible C3PO humor, bad Jedi vs. Droids action, just all around shit. 

Clones save the day. 5.  Yoda arrives with clones to save the day. At least the plotline is somewhat nuanced - who is fighting who, who is good and who is not. This ambiguity is good. But nobody wanted to kill Dooku until he was already escaped? Sort of mediocre action. Soundtrack just sounds like the matrix. Why is yoda so into the fighting? He’s trying to protect the Republic, which he knows is eroded. The jedi sure fucked up.

Death Star Plans? 5. So having seen Rogue One, this doesn’t make any sense at all (continuity errors!) ... but the DS was actually a design from the Trade Federation, apparently? Not into this. George Lucas sucks and Dooku sucks. 

Dooku Chase. 7. God, I can’t wait for this to be over (the movie and the review). Padme falls out of the transport - OK. Obi-wan and Anakin argue and it’s good. Finally some good acting out of this guy. 

Dooku fight. 7-9. Notwithstanding that Dooku seems like a very unnecessary character, this climax is decent. Anakin’s an idiot apparently, and force lightning is apparently a big sith weapon. OK light saber fighting until double-lightsaber fighting, at which point it’s hard to follow the action. George is too busy focusing in on faces. And Yoda shows up. Huzzah. Fun to watch him with the light saber, maybe a bit too much spining around and Yoda ParkourTM, but why is he shouting? Aren’t Jedi supposed to stay calm? What happened to the Quigon meditation approach? Dooku esacpes. bleh. 

Dooku Sidious meeting. 8. It’s all going to plan, yes, yes. Who the fk is Lord Tyranus? Very good music. War has begun, cool. All to Sidious’s plan, no surprise. 

Yoda and Windu. 7.  "Victory you say? Not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the clone war has." Meh. 

Clone Deploy. 9. The visuals of Star Destroyers lifting off and a huge army deploying is pretty cool. This is the highlight of this movie, which is sad. 

Secret Marriage on Naboo. 7. Very pretty shot, no dialogue is good, anakin has a fake arm, bad kissing. definitely not an “8″. 

Credits. 6. The tone of the ending music (traditional theme) is too upbeat. Should have taken a page (pre-emptively) from Rogue One’s book and used a quiet, somber theme. Gets there after a minute or so. Bleh. So glad this is over. 

VERDICT

Not memorable, not unique, and basically a handful of scenes could have done the job here instead of what felt like 5 hours of filler. Happy to forget this movie ever happened. It grades out on the histogram as mostly 7′s and an even distribution around 4 or 5, but really, the 7′s were often due to boredom or “meh” type scores. Very flat movie in experience, with only downside and very little upside. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 1: A rediscovery (dear god)

In a way, this whole exercise was because of the prequels, and specifically Episode 1. I mean, it couldn’t have been that bad, right? Enough time had passed for me that the movie existed mostly in sketched lines in my mind, not fully formed... flashes of moments, a lingering feeling of disappointment, but how much of that was the  legitimate first-hand experience of watching the film vs. the hundreds and thousands of hours critics and haters put in to lampooning, lambasting, harpooning, blasting, and generally defecating liberally on this abomination?

Well, to quote Han Solo from Episdoe 7, “I was there, kid. It’s all true. All of it.” 

I truly, honestly began watching this movie with an open mind and genuine and innocent excitement. I truly, honestly nearly immediately started hating this movie, all over again. And the hell of it is, there is some really good stuff in here! It’s like a cake that calls for some really good organic eggs, hand-milled flour, pure, deliciously refined sugar, some really high fat content Irish butter, and then about a pound and a half of diarrhea and the frosting needs to be a picture of genitals. And the instructions are “put it in a bowl and then put that bowl in the oven until it’s on fire.” 

What I’m trying to say is, George Lucas makes some god-awful decisions in here and he’s too damn rich at this point for anyone to tell him “no” or clean up after him, like they clearly did with the other films so far. I’m talking Gungans, Jar Jar, Anakin, every ounce of actor direction he gives, and his script. Oh, the script. What is most striking is the excessive amount of exposition in the script. It’s as if Lucas forgot that the writing axiom is “show, don’t tell,” and instead everyone in the movie spends half the time “telling, not showing.” It’s terrible stuff, it’s hard to follow, it’s emotionally hollow, and at worst, the dialogue just flushes you straight out of the movie and makes you question your decisions that got you to this point. 

But, Lucas is good at imagery and some of these concepts truly do delight. Ugh. I can never write a review that can do this movie the violence/justice it deserves, and there are so many more that do a great job of it... but I’m the one who live-blogged it and graphed the scores. So, let’s get onto those ratings. 

Average score: 5.00 Standard deviation: 2.08

Scroll. 7. Trade dispute, huh? It’s not like this is an impossible place to start... Think of a scroll that says, “Sometimes evil takes root in the blandest, most boring places.” Something ominous and foreshadowy could have made starting here, in a weird pseudo-callback-to-Boston-Teaparty-or-Dutch-East-India-Company conflict, a non-shitty place to begin the prequel saga. But no. This is a pretty bad scroll, but at this point, I’m still giving it a shot. 

Trade blockade emissary opening. 6. OK, these aliens are straight-up just Chinese caricatures. I mean would this shit fly in 2018? Volumes have been written about this, but it’s still jarring the first time it happens. Are you serious, George? The robots are cool. The Trade Federation... so dumb. “Is that... Leeeeeegal?” God. Bad. The interaction with the Naboo is also awful. And to top it off, they really blow the load with “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” about one minute into the movie. 

Jedi fighting droids and sneaking. 6-8. The droids going “roger roger” and talking badly... no. The lightsaber use here is very cool. So is the force use. Apparently Jedi are now very fast? You’ve got cool Jedi stuff and bad other characters.

Queen Amidala and invasion force. 6. A lot of talking instead of showing here. The invasion shot is decently cool. 

Jar Jar. 1. My scale is 1-10, or else this would have been a zero. I truly forgot just how god-awful Jar Jar is. Lucas keeps trying to make this excuse that “you have to remember, Star Wars is for 11 year olds,” but the original Star Wars didn’t have anything as egregious as Jar Jar. He is the turd in the punch bowl. He is the bad apple in the bunch.  He is the carbon monoxide seeping into your bedroom. “Exqueeze me!” “Gunga City! Hidden City!” Just a lot of terrible stuff. And why do Jedi “Padawan learners” (sigh...) have rat tails? 

Gungan City. 1. But let’s not stop at Jar Jar. I forgot just how miserable the Gungans are as well. Of course we get Jar Jar’s “Soooo good bein’ home”! and “How Wude!” but did you forget? The Gungan king gets to say “You in biiiiig doo doo this time!” And other distasteful movie things. Go through the planet core. Meh. Lucas did a good job with one thing: the visual of approaching the Gungan City. Pretty. 

Planet Core. 1. Oh look, Jar Jar is clumsy! Oh look, a big monster, callback to other Star Wars big monsters, but there’s always a bigger monster to eat it! Sigh. But it’s not just that. We get “the force will guide us,” like the Force isn’t some mystical, deep, semi-conscious universal flow but a fucking quotidian, pedestrian tool you can switch on like a phone or pull out of your wallet like a set of directions. It’s cheap. Oh look, another enormous monster bigger than the last. And another one. Jar Jar sucks. 

Sidious and Trade Federation. 6. This is fine. 

Invasion of City / Escape. 5. John Williams is doing his very best to save this movie. Pretty scenery in the city and of the queen - really, the best part of the movie so far is the scenery (and maybe using a lightsaber to melt a blast door). What else here? The viceroys suck, the dialogue is bad. Jedi snooping around is... fine. Jar Jar is such a pox that I could give every scene he’s in a 1, but I’m numbing to his ordinary awful and only downgrade scenes when he’s the primary focus. Jedi trying to get off the planet? Fine... I wrote “I liked that they did the switcheroo thing with the queen” but... why? Why did I like that, in retrospect? Was it just so that Keira Knightley could be cast in a role where she looks exactly like Natalie Portman as part of the plot? By the way, google both of them and Daisy Ridley. All three are carbon copies. ... anyway, force-pushing droids happens too often and is cheapening that, too... and the Droids are worse fighters than the stormtroopers. But whatever. 

Escape planet. 7. Even more good music from JW here. Jar Jar poxes it up again with another “how wude!” like, stop trying to make Fetch happen, George. R2 and droids in space trying to fix the ship is cool. Wait... how did R2 never tell Luke that he’s the son of Darth? He should have known all this shit!!! Star Wars, man. Anyway, a bunch of people stand around one pilot and the ship escapes. Fine. 

Darth Maul intro. 5. More telling, not showing. “This is my apprentice, Darth Maul.” The viceroys continue to suck. Didn’t like this intro. 

On the ship with the Queen. 3. Why is the queen 16 years old? Commend the droid, R2. Meh. Queen meets Jar Jar. Such a pox. Bad plot advancement all around. 

Landing on Tatooine. 3. “Disturbance in the Force” again comes out so pedestrian and quotidian. The Force is cheapened. Jar Jar is a pox, Mos Eisley callback is fine and fun. We meet Anakins’ slave owner flying idiot character which feels like George Lucas got carried away with the CGI toys again. Anakin. What a dud. But it’s not all this kid’s fault... this script is terrible. The lines are forced. Padme does decently well considering this 5 year old’s exposition. Jar Jar blows it again and again. “Mind tricks don’t work on me” ok, whatever the hell you say George. Can’t buy the hyperdrive. OK, whatever. Ugh. This is rough. “Yippee!!” says Anakin. Jesus. So bad.

Stuck on Tatooine. 3. Later in this movie I will realize that this entire plot convolution is so that we get a pod race. I mean, cart before horse amirite? Terrible storytelling in service of a, dare I say, mediocre setpiece. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, we have to meet Sebulba, a forced villain, and also find out that C3PO was made by Anakin (sigh... for an entire galaxy, this sure is a small world). Lots of exposition with Sebulba and Jar Jar, lots of CGI gone haywire, and generally just boo. 

Darth Maul and Palpatine. 6.  The dialogue is forced here, too. It’s striking the difference between past movies when it didn’t seem so stilted and hacked, and this movie. And nobody had the cojones to tell George he was laying a stinker. Still, this scene is fine. 

More on Anakin’s home and podracing setup. 4. Jar Jar is such a fucking pox and young Anakin is so bad. So bad. You start to realize that we’re going to rely on pod racing to get us off this world, and that is saddening. Why is Anakin’s mom sort of like French or French Canadian? Everything just doesn’t make any sense and puts you off. Why did Qui Gon worsen the deal of his own accord? The store guy sucks, Anakin sucks, I give it a 4 just to have a different score. 

Anakin’s mom and pod racer. 1-5. Scene is going along “fine,” and then. No. You’re NOT going to make Anakin an immaculate conception. Jesus (literally). Boo. And then you have the little baby kid friends coming over? “Come on, let’s go and play ball! Haha!” Oh my no. Jar Jar blows it again by firing up the pod. Watching mom saves this scene from a pure 1 with some small amount of emotional heft. Sigh. 

Midichlorians. 6. Ugh, I mean, if they’re going to do this, I guess this is fine. I didn’t hate Midichlorians in the moment but I do think, like a lot of this movie, the force is cheapened.

Darth Maul on Tatooine. 8. Finally, a decent scene. Cool ship, ominous, send probe. How did he know they were on Tatooine? Force? Spies? 

More pre-podracing. 5. Just a lot of boring, unengaging buildup. More slave bartering and a chance cube... Just, why? And why would this shop owner dude trust that Qui Gon wouldn’t try to alter the cube’s path when he already tried to Jedi Mind Trick him? Just... sigh. No Jar Jar in this scene so it gets a 5. 

Podracing. 3-5. I’m not going to apologize. I thought this whole thing was hokey and cheesy and unnecessary. It’s been 55 minutes and I feel like I’ve been watching this movie for 2 hours. Sebulba is cheesy. The two-headed announcer is cheesy and hokey. We get a larry, curly, and moe routine with some droids. We get a Jar Jar fart joke. Jabba the Hutt bites the head off a creature and spits it into a gong to get the race started. Sigh. Anakin’s pod doesn’t start. Sigh. OK, now we’re podracing. Is this cool? I can’t tell if I think this is cool or stupid. The sound effects are cool, the set is cool. Setting the table for a racing videogame I guess. Once you’re on board with the fact that the entire movie centers around podracing, then I guess the action is fun. Sand people taking pot shots is funny. Multiple characters just shouldn’t exist. Cut shots of the kid friends suck. Once you’re in the scene, the tension is fine, but meh. Every detail seems wrong. We should be rooting for Sebulba here so that there’s never a Darth Vader but here we are, happy that Anakin wins. Not a fan. 

Post-race. 5. Such bad dialogue. Forgettable. Mom is neutered in emotion when it should be a powerful scene. 

Darth Maul ambush. 8. This all happens so fast and is fucking awesome. A bit too close-shot on the sabers, so it’s hard to see what’s going on. Post-fight sucked, but the fight was great. “Pleased to meet you, Obi Wan.” Ugh.

Naboo/Padme. 5. Plot is moving along. Anakin is an idiot. Weird that Padme is a teen when she meets him. George messed up. 

Coruscant. 5. “The entire planet is one big city.” Don’t tell, show. But, the city building is very cool. Jar Jar awful, Palpatine poncy, Queen doing fine here but why so wooden? That’s a George decision and it doesn’t sit well. Politics are meh but again, if spun correctly could have been fine in terms of evil getting hold in mundane detail. But it wasn’t so this is boring. 

Jedi Council. 7. The whole “vergeance in the force” Jesus immaculate conception + prophecy thing is still meh. Yoda is good here and Samuel L. as Mace Windu is disappointing (foreshadow: not the last time you’ll hear it). 

Senate hearings. 7. Beautiful scene. Don’t get the weird pronunciations or the constantly moving camera. Vote of no confidence... meh. I guess kind of cool to see the politics unfold and the pieces fall into place for the emperor. 

Anakin at the Council. 8. “Fear is the path to the dark side. I sense much fear in you.” These are good lines from Yoda and this scene is good. 

Padme’s dresser. 5. Jar Jar: “Yousa thinking, yousa people gonna die?” and the Gungan grand army are all awful. Queen going back to Naboo because the senate no longer functions. I’m numb to Jar Jar. 

Council, Anakin. 5. Too much exposition. Qui Gon is an idiot and blinded. Anakin sucks. More midichlorian stuff. Jar Jar is a pox. Why 5? I’ve lost the will. 

Back to Naboo. 4. Queen wants help from Gungans. Meh. Padme’s ship is beautiful. So much exposition. Where’d the Gungans go? Who cares? The Gungan negotiations suuuuuuuck. The Gungans suuuuuuuuuuuuuck. 

Pre-battle. 5. We get secret passage sneaking (of course). Everything is just weird. Why is Queen Amidala so wooden, George!? Everything screams “no faith in the audience.” 

Gungan Battle. 1. The big shields are cool, everything else is the worst. Jar Jar is the worst. The droid carriers unloading is cool. The energy balls are so dumb. The droids entering the shielded area is cool, but Jar Jar sucks so bad. Jar Jar ball shot. Jar Jar fucking sucks. And a lame celebration at the end. 

Battle in the City / Space. 5. Battle is tense and getting pilots to their ships is cool. Pretty ships and scenery taking off and in space. Lots of ships. Yay! Anakin in the plane is so dumb. “This is tense!” God awful script. I wrote “batman guns” and I’m not sure why. Queen captured by the droids.... no surprise. 

Darth Maul battle (Duel of the Fates). 9. Undoubtedly the best set of scenes in the film and probably the only thing I wouldn’t be willing to torch with a flamethrower. John Williams creates an all-time winner score. Fantastic 2-on-1 fighting. Great pacing. The double saber is cool, if impractical, but he uses it pretty well. Great choreography - if a bit too dancy. Why is the palace of Naboo all of a sudden a crazy space-looking set? Feels like we should be in space here. Not a fan of the two-handed hanging off a ledge by Obi Wan, but I am into Qui Gon meditating as he and Darth Maul are separated, with Darth Maul pacing. Great contrast between the light and the dark side of the force, and hey - great showing, not telling! Same thing when Darth kills Qui Gon - no quarter, and immediately moves on to facing Obi Wan. So good. But not as into Obi-Wan once again hanging off a ledge before slicing Darth in two. Still, overall, finally a good scene in this movie. 

Battle in space. 2-6. Some choice lines from Anakin: “Oops! This is NOT good!” “Take this! and this!” “Whoah!” “Oops!” “now THIS is podracing!” Good action ruined by these lines. A cool explosion and I guess a decent Independence-day style mothership-shuts-down-the-drones thing here (that observation from my roommate). 

Qui Gon last gasp. 5. Qui Gon still wrong after all this time about Anakin being a good person. Obi Wan cradles Qui Gon’s head in his lap as he dies - Hollywood kitsch. Boo. 

Trade Fed gone, Celebrations. 5. What a poncy senator. Naboo scenes are cool. The music is nice. How did Anakin have time to grow out his rat tail? Gungans suck. Hokey celebrations. We’re almost done, thank God. 

Yoda and Obiwan. 7. Yoda knows what’s up. “Don’t take Anakin as your Padawan learner.” So why’d he give in? Qui Gon’s funeral is fine. “Always two there are - no more, no less.” Yoda is good. This movie was awful. 

VERDICT No.

(Sigh). Fine. The fact is, even if we remove the Gungans and Jar Jar which themselves ruin every scene, this movie is centered around a pod race and Darth Maul. One of these things lands, the other doesn’t. Without a significant plot rewrite, this film is doomed from the start. I think I got numb to how bad it was... most scenes I labeled “5″ probably could have been lower from the script alone. But I was just trying to make it through. Histogram below. Bad movie with three good scenes (Darth Maul x2 and Jedi Council x1).  

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 5: A rediscovery

Empire often seems to be remembered as the best movie in the series - so dark, so unique, and that twist! Few might remember that the movie received pretty poor reviews at first. Some argue that Episode 8 will face the same (optimistic) fate - bad reception, great longevity. 

As it turns out, The Empire Strikes Back has an incredible amount of scenes of exceptional caliber. More “10′s” and “9′s” than Episode 4... but also, some real head scratchers in here as well. The entirety of the opening sequence and the Hoth battle has not aged well, and neither has the Han-Leia relationship, which is, dare I say, qutie rapey and grating. There’s also the mystifying shift from pronouncing Han like “Hohn,” which is how everyone always says it, to Luke pronouncing it like you would “Hand” with a silent “d” for just one scene when he’s about to be frozen in carbonite. what? 

So why does this movie get the plaudits? It has to be those peaks. Yoda. Jedi training. Darth and Luke. Cloud City. The failures and the trials and tribulations, the depth of the Force, the darkness within Luke and the moral ambiguity throughout. It’s a far more challenging movie than A New Hope, although as it turns out, grades quite similarly, as you’ll see below...

Average score: 8.00 Standard deviation: 1.29

Scroll. 9. We start out with a solid scroll, although we’re already bleeding into “Evil Lord Vader” and “Young Luke Skywalker,” unnecessarily bland and hokey adjectives. Still grades high. 

Luke and the Yeti. 7.  Not too surprising that I forgot this scene existed... the only memorable thing is force-snatching the lightsaber from the snow, which happens in the next Luke-Yeti scene anyway. This scene is just Luke getting smacked and dragged away. Quite hokey. Apparently they wrote this all in to cover up Mark Hamill’s motorbike accident face. 

Solo leaving Leia. 6. So I wrote “great chemistry until Han pulls the classic Harrison Ford rapey thing.” I don’t remember the great chemistry and only remember the rapey vibe. 

Luke Lost Problem. 6. “Use the Force” is fine, although entire yeti cave thing continues to be hokey. Why did Luke not just kill the fuckin’ yeti? He has a lightsaber. Why didn’t he stay in the cave, where he could likely survive? Han on the Tauntaun is fine or even good. C3PO is finally good here, sensitive and understated, and Chewy being sad is also sad to me. The Obi-Wan force ghost telling him to Go to Dagobah is a bit misplaced, and although I accept the intrigue and mystery, why is this the moment Obi-Wan appears to Luke? All the other force ghost appearances seem to be more appropriately timed. Anyway, some real survivalist shit here as Han finds Luke and cuts open the Tauntaun to survive. Sort of hate Luke mumbling “Dagobah, dagobah.... dagobah.” Not Mark Hamill / George Lucas’s best scene.

Luke and Han found / Luke rehab / Han and Leia... 5. We continue a mediocre beginning to this movie by continuing to force awkward sexual tension between Han and Leia. Is George Lucas acting out some fever dream fantasy that’s been stuck with him since an awkward puberty? 

Empire probe destruction. 6. Fine. 

Superstar destroyer. 9. Finally something good in this movie! It seems like the scenes on the Empire ships are always so good, at least in R1, Ep4, and Ep5. Vader is so sharp, always. The imagery is so striking. 

Hoth evac, battle prep. 8. I would have assumed I’d grade this a 9 before rewatching, but there are some weaknesses to Hoth, pre, during, and post. It starts here with some good comedic stuff from Han and Chewy, and some real emotional resonance with Han, Chewy, and Luke. The tension ramps up as the surface attack approaches... Vader continues to be a badass, more as a general than a soldier. Force choking someone through a video screen expands the legend. Are we serious that in a galaxy with hyperspeed travel, a ground defense is going to include literal trenches dug with humans with guns pointed at very large artillery and space-tank-equivalents? Ion Cannon provides cover for the transports... sure, OK. First transport away cheer is ... fine. Pre-battle chatter is hokey. 

Battle of Hoth. 8. Almost gave this a 7. The ATAT’s are another iconic object, and scary at first. But the flying scenes are ... this word a lot... hokey. Not nearly as great as I remember. I’m fine with it... harpoons taking down the ATAT, didn’t remember Luke crashing. But if blasters don’t work on ATAT’s, why keep shooting? We interject with more “meh” manufactured Leia-Han tension. Luke does a Legolas-taking-down-an-elephant-war-beast move and the ATAT is down, but it’s not enough and everyone evacs as stormtroopers and Vader!! enter the base. C3PO sucks, yada yada yada, and Luke makes it somehow to the last transport and that transport somehow makes it past the blockade. Fine. 

Falcon pursuit, asteroid field. 8. We get a great shot of “evasive action” between two star destroyers, and we get decent comedy/tension in the Falcon. “Never tell me the odds.” Yeah, OK. Cool and iconic visuals of the Falcon flying. 

Dagobah landing. 7. This is all fine. R2 pops out of the X-Wing, fine. R2 snorkels along the bottom, eaten by a snake thing, spat out, and spits out mud... all fine. Great atmosphere. 

Vader helmet / Falcon chasing / Falcon fixing. 7. I wouldn’t say the movie is dragging here, but we are definitely losing some momentum. Vader: always badass. C3PO: always annoying. Han and Leia: always hokey and forced. Han: always rapey and egotistic. Han would not survive #metoo and #timesup. 

Yoda. 9. I forgot how weird and delightful the first Yoda meeting is. Great mystery and pacing. The little green monster is hilarious and charming. Hitting R2 with a stick is a great LOL. 

Emperor transmission. 9. We go from the light to the dark - “we have a new enemy.” “Search your feelings Vader.” This line, of course, will be repeated about 1,000 times (search your feelings), but this scene has power and poignancy. 

Yoda’s house. 10. One of my favorites in the whole series. We forget how subtly and smoothly Yoda shifts from a wonky creature to a Jedi master. “The boy has no patience.” “Much anger in him, like his father.” “Reckless.” “Looked away to the horizon.” So many great lines in here, which will resonate as I watch other films. Just an amazing scene. There’s a good reason Yoda is himself such an icon. 

Asteroid escape. 8. Gross, weird, and very starwarsy. Big giant worm is honestly pretty cool. Still not loving the Han-Leia dynamic. 

Jedi training. 9. Another great set piece with Yoda. Clear your mind of questions! Go in and face evil. “Nothing but what you bring with you” and Luke sees his own face under Vader’s mask. What a fantastic scene. 

Falcon dies again... Escape. 8. I feel like maybe C3PO exists solely to be told to “shut up” in satisfying manner once or twice per movie. Hiding the Falcon on the back of the Star Destroyer is really cool and I’m sorry I forgot it... releasing with the trash is great. Floating away is great. Turning C3PO off is great. And finally, Boba Fett does something simply by following the Falcon. 

More Jedi training. 10. Yet another one of the very best. “Do, or do not. There is no try.” It’s too good to believe that Lucas wrote that line. “Unlearn what you have learned.” It’s all inspiring and hints at such depth. Love it.

Even more Jedi training. 9. “Always in motion is the future.” Yoda is great, Luke is being such an idiot and deserves all the things he’s about to trigger.

Cloud City intro. 8.  Pretty great Han-Lando chemistry here, and just a touch of foreboding with C3PO getting shot. The opening imagery of Cloud City / Bespin is just so beautiful. 

Luke leaves Dagobah. 8. Upon retrospect maybe this should have been a 7. Luke is being such a whiner (what’s new), Yoda says “there is another” but is there really? Leia never trains in the force. Nothing happens in Return of the Jedi, as we’ll soon see. Was this a foreshadowing with a third trilogy in mind!?

More Cloud City. 9. I think the single shot of Vader in the dining room gives this sequence its high score. Everything else is fine to good - C3PO and Chewy have some humor, Lando and Han are both good. Even Leia and Han are gettting better. 

Torture on Cloud City. 8. Good tension between Lando and the team. 

Solo in Carbonite. 9. C3PO so annoying, with Leia and Han finally not annoying. We get the “I love you!” “I know” exchange. Bad continuity with Han being frozen with his hands up, when he had handcuffs on. But no matter. Iconic scene. 

Luke first fights Vader on CC. 9. Great tension. Sort of don’t understand why Vader doesn’t bring 10,000 troops with him wherever he is. First lightsaber fight between Luke and Vader isn’t as good as I remember, but still visually beautiful.

Saving Han from Bobafett. 6. What the shit with “Haaaaaan(d)” instead of “Hahn”. And then he’s gone. Wasteful scene that you probably don’t remember. Lando running around freeing people, C3PO humor sucks, get to the Falcon, escape, fine. OK.

Luke vs. Vader, part II. 10. The twist! But even before that, let’s not forget Vader fighting dirty by hucking things at Luke. SO #darkside. Such an abusive relationship! Cut off a hand, THEN offer to rule the galaxy together! Bring order! It’s your destiny! Luke hangs off a ledge -- so hollywood but I still forgive it in the moment. 

Luke Ledgehanger pickup and escape. 8. Overdramatic but somehow works in this moment. Why didn’t Vader stay to find Luke? Couldn’t he sense him? Falcon hyperdrive fails again. We get it, it’s a piece of junk that is still charming and fast etc. etc. etc. 

Ending chase scene. 7. Vader on his ship, talking to Luke across space - that’s very good. “Why didn’t you tell me?” But C3PO still sucks so much, R2 fixes the hyperdrive, and Vader shows his wrath once more. Nice, fine. 

Ending scene goodbye Lando. 8. It’s a good between-movie cliffhanger ending. Great space imagery, roll credits. 

VERDICT It starts slow and the last minute or so is a bit weak, but the peaks of the Force - Yoda on one hand, Vader on the other - make this movie a classic. Solid pacing and action and tension throughout keep it moving along as well. Manages to have a lower stdev than Ep4 by avoiding any truly low scores. It’s less singular and packaged but the movie packs a memorability punch right to the brain.

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 4: A Rediscovery

STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE

Where it all started: a runaway ship and a jettisoned escape pod to Tatooine. This movie was and is truly great: iconic, consistent throughout, unique, creative, funny, exciting, with only a handful of dud scenes, particularly toward the end (surprising). The opening scroll of Episode 4 is one of the best scenes in all of the series, particularly good when you compare it to some of the later scrolls that sound like a 7th grader wrote it for a homework assignment entitled: “Use seven different adjectives in a three-paragraph mini-story.” And this movie also has the Cantina scene, which might be the best scene of all. 

A few other surprises: 

The movie drags in the end of the beginning, after the droids land in the desert. It takes some time to pick the meandering storyline back up. 

The scenes with Vader and Tarkin are always consistently incredibly well acted, scripted, and executed. They zip along and you feel like you’re in the room. 

The Obi-Wan / Vader fight was much better than I remember.

The Trench Run has not aged well. The tactics are asinine and sort of brought me out of the movie.

There is a terrible and wholly forgettable scene right after successful DS destruction and right before the iconic and awesome throne room / medal-giving scene at the end, and this forgettable scene suuuuuuucks. Maybe I was a little harsh, but singlehandedly kept Ep4 from being the best of all the movies. 

Average score: 8.00 Standard deviation: 1.39

Opening scroll. 10. Perfection. Punchy synopsis of Rogue One, brings you right into the action, no superfluous words (again, a sin that is committed many times later on in the series). 

Chase and escape. 9. SUCH an iconic shot, with the Corellian Corvette desperately trying to outrun a Star Destroyer (we don’t know what they are yet, but they are mesmerizing images). Beautiful and unique music. After seeing Darth Vader crush in Rogue One, I wonder a bit why he didn’t just slaughter them all here, but I suppose he needs to make sure the plans are secure. The first look at Iconic storm troopers. Droids manage to advance plot without being annoying (spoiler: won’t last for long, because C3PO sucks). This set piece ends with an iconic shot of the jettisoning escape pod, beautiful sweeping planet shots, and Vader being a sharp badass. 

Tatooine droid landing. 6. The pacing is a bit slow. C3PO and R2D2 are iconic, but annoying here. Why do they shout at each other instead of transmitting signals, I find myself wondering? 

Jawas. 7. Super tense, eerie, spooky, and weird. Love this. No music helps. Manages to be funny without trying too hard, and lets the weird lead. Cool steampunk tech and funky droids. I still give it a 7 because the pacing is a bit slow. 

Searching in desert. 8. Why are the stormtroopers riding animals? No matter. The tension is rising right on cue. The Jawa... trailer? moving city? is really cool.

Meet the Skywalkers. 8. Love the uncle here. “Alright, shut up” to C3PO - crowd pleaser! Luke is whiny but not overly annoying. Seems very natural. Surprised R2 units aren’t worth more, but for reasons I’m not supposed to know yet. 

With Luke and Uncle. 8. Who is Obi-Wan Kenobi! Love the mystery here. The iconic double-sunset overcomes Uncle Owen being a dick. Great hinted line about “too much of his father in him.” ... “that’s what I’m worried about.” 

Speeder and sandpeople. 8. More mystery and weirdness. Great tension. Into it. 

Obi-wan. 8. More mystery, more intrigue. Great dialogue here as we learn more about the galaxy we’re in. We learn about the force (deeper than we learned in Rogue One). The backstory of Luke’s father doesn’t really make sense the way he tells it, but I suppose with hindsight that lack of clarity is forgivable. Why is he so willing to train Luke in the force - desperation? 

Death Star conference. 9. Tarkin is a badass. Vader is a badass. 

Tragedy at Skywalker farm. 9. Serious emotional heft here. Smoldering bodies. Wow. 

Leia tortured by Vader. 9. Short scene but so very well paced and tense.

Mos Eisley. 10. This sequence is just amazing. The Jedi mind trick, the Cantina. Music restarting after the lightsaber fight. All this interspersed with the tension of the droid search. Han crushes his intro, Obi-wan Dads Luke so hard. Greedo is great. Both shoot at the same time, so that controversy is solved. This scene will be considered for “best overall.” 

“Set your course for Alderaan.” 9. Near-perfect scene again with Tarkin. Short and well-paced to keep the story moving. 

Droid search and getting off Tatooine. 8. Great tension in the searching, I’m fine with the added Jabba scene to show how “deep” Han is in it, and the fantastic iconic shot of the Falcon taking off. Lots of fun.

Falcon chase. 8. Great tension and space shots. 

Alderaan destruction. 8. Great acting. Leia does her best, but it’s hard to get a sense of the destruction of the whole planet. Not much at stake since we haven’t seen it or met anyone from there. Rogue One did this better. 

Talking in the Falcon. 8. “Let the wookie win.” All sort of out of place after we just watched a planet get blowed up. Great Han stuff, great stuff with Luke getting a taste of the Force. 

Asteroid field Alderaan. 9. “That’s no moon.” Such cool shots. Falcon gets pulled into the Death Star. Vader is on point again. Just perfect pacing. 

Death Star sneaking. 8. The “first” (or second, in my order) of a long line of scenes where small numbers of rebels sneak around a large Empire base, but this one is fun. Good tension. R2 Hax0ring and Obi-Wan jedi ninja sneaking are fun. Not big into the stupid crackpot idea to save the princess from the jail, but the Han vs. Luke argument here is fun. C3PO manages not to be terrible, but also not good. 

Leia rescue. 6-8. The cleverness of the “my god, he’s loose!” Chewy prisoner plan is fun. Great sexual tension with Leia and Han from the get-go. Great, iconic trash compactor scene and first (and most natural?) “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Very annoying “3PO!!” repetition by Luke. The blaster accuracy and subsequent shitty hollywood rope-swing with Leia and Luke is kind of grating and that part is a 6. 

Vader and Obi-wan. 9. Starts out with yet another great scene with Vader and Tarkin. Watching Vader vs. Obi-Wan is so much more interesting after watching him go HAM in Rogue One - Obi-Wan must be powerful and dangerous. The fight is better than I remember, and you almost forget Luke’s annoying “Ben!?” exclamation. How does Luke get Ben’s lightsaber!?

Escape in the Falcon. 7.  Takes a while to get the scene setup, but builds some good tension. Great soundtrack, great effects. R2 putting the fire out is funny. “Great kid, don’t get cocky!” But why only 4 TIE fighters chasing them? What about the tractor beam? Why are these star destroyers so big? Why are you so happy that “we did it” when you’re still right next to a huge death star? 

Leia and Han. 8. These interactions are incredible. Luke is a schmuck here, and Han fucking with him is funny. 

Yavin 4 pre-attack. 6. Great tension-building with the Death Star getting to Yavin vs. planning for the trench run. Han leaving with the reward is great. Pacing is a little slow given how urgent this should be - what’s with all this pilot grabass? Luke and Leia is a mediocre scene. X-wing takeoff scene is fine at building suspense but is it really necessary? 

Trench Run. 7. Great action vs. Death Star approaching its range. Great aerial battle with TIE fighters. “X-wings too small for a huge battle station” trope will be repeated so many times you wonder why they build the ships so big. LOVE Vader getting after it himself in the TIE fighter. The A-wing trench run is very fun. Tarkin’s arrogance here makes no sense given Rogue One... he should know there’s a vulnerability. It’s a very tragic attack... everyone is dead and it comes down to Luke. But why are all the pilots simply acting as fodder for Luke? Why don’t they try to engage the TIE fighters? “Use the force!” and “The force is strong with this one!” are hokey but I guess that’s OK. We get Tarkin saving the scene with “you may fire when ready,” which is so well delivered every time. Han ex Machina at the end here. And Luke succeeds. 

Short celebration. 3. Vader is alive, straight into a god-awful scene. Sparse clapping and quiet “hoorays” and hokeyness all around. What the shit, Lucas? 

Ending celebration (Throne room medal scene). 9. Fantastic music and framing and imagery. R2′s back! Yay hokey!

Credits. Such memorable music. Fantastic. Credits in the stars. 

VERDICT

Yep, there’s a reason this movie launched a multi-decade world-changing franchise. Lucas’s vision is powerful but you can also see how he was helped along by great editing, and you can see where the editors met their limits (post-DS celebration scene... man, so bad). Most scenes were 8′s or 9′s, a couple 10′s in there, and only one score below a 6 at all. Great movie.

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.