#do y’all remember the hype when we first saw him in the trailer

[octolingplush]

I LOVE HOW BOUNCY HIS INTRO IS IN 3

[lieutenant-pride]

i was just thinking about that rant i made about avengers infinity war and how i saw avengers endgame a little while ago, well after it got out of theaters because i wasn’t truly willing to give marvel money for that, and now i just wanna go off the hook about the movie because i can  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i’m not even putting it in a read-more for spoiler purposes so much as putting it in a read-more because it might end up being long, but there are spoilers ahead anyway so for those five people who haven’t seen endgame and do care, be wary

funny thing is, i actually didn’t hate this like i expected to when i heard that time travel was one of its core constructs, but you know what i still don’t think it was worth the hype altogether and here is why

perhaps to make up for the fact that they didn’t kill any of the OG avengers, or for the fact that they probably didn’t need to exist in the first place, the snap apparently killed literally every single member of Hawkeye’s family that is not Clint himself. i guess we need an excuse for him to turn into Ronin, so let’s make his family expendable, why not

this film does us the discourtesy of confirming shuri’s fate as one of the fallen from last movie and the russos will pay dearly for this

the idea of destroying the stones with their own power was already proven a thing in the last movie when wanda did just that with the mind stone (while holding off five other infinity stones and a titan worth of power with one of her hands, by the way) but given the massive shockwave that occurred from THAT stone’s destruction? are you really willing to tell me he snapped again, had half his body disintegrate, and then the glove with all six stones just puffed into smoke?

actually how cool would that have been? that they arrive on the garden planet of whatever and thanos is just a fucking toasty corpse in a crater, and they realize what he had to do for that to happen? now i feel a little cheated

man, i knew from square one when i saw the first few trailers for this film that okoye was gonna get sidelined HARD, and she had maybe one or two spoken lines in the whole film? i get it, there are a lot of characters to go over in this big epic conclusion to the MCU’s biggest property/ies, but they definitely could’ve given the black panther cast a bit more love than this. i think i’m just salty over that bit though

did ronin kill in the comics? was that a thing he did? was he basically clint barton going jason todd for a little while, was that what it was? because please point me in the direction of those books if so

i really, really can’t argue much about the pym particle bits and the quantum realm (was that the one?) because time travel is a lot like nuclear physics when it comes to movies and comics and just works however the writer needs it to work in that situation, whether that refers to the means or the ends. i am glad however that antman gets this much attention as if he’s a legit member of the avengers. you know. like how he was one of the og members in the comics.

you know what i can argue about? how they try to sell their first attempt at time travel anWAIT JUST A MINUTE I FORGOT ABOUT BIG BANNER WHAT IS THIS HOW DID HE EVEN MANAGE THAT SHIT

i guess he had like five years to study and figure out how to make himself hulk on the outside without sacrificing the banner brains, but i’m very curious as to what the purpose is in doing that, since he was having more issues releasing hulk during the previous film and also the fact that he really had zero reason to fuse the two together. like, what threats was banner gonna face? what evildoers did he need hulk work for? if he needed some muscle of his own he could’ve just worked out????

you can also say that was bruce’s character arc during the first film actually, which is fine, but i’d like to note that if it is, then his character arc is resolved completely off-screen

listen, i get it. tony and pepper are a thing that had to happen, according to literally every film before this. i still think pepper deserves better or at least someone who doesn’t cause her as much stress as tony has caused for her. i mean i guess if that boy brings in the money though, do what you gotta  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

we get one scene of ronin at work and i kind of love it? i kinda wish we got to see more of his work, but i get why we don’t. this is like, the best thing that clint has to offer in this film

oh right i almost forgot, that first attempt at time travel with scott “having time moved through him.” cute gag, but this definitely doesn’t fly with scott’s first mingling with time travel and the quantum realm or whatever, and if we’re to assume they mostly repeated what they did during the post-credits scene of antman and the wasp, then why did this even have a risk of happening????

that was a cute gag though, mainly because paul rudd is a treasure

and since i’m discussing the time travel bits: the time travel in this movie is handled fairly well, and it introduces the prospect of timelines diverging rather than just having one singular strand of time flow! great! cool! but this has some bumps here and there in the film for the sake of drama, and this is the first instance:

clint travelling back to see his family for just a split moment of time. this is a moment that toys with rules constructed later, though i think that is a mixed bag and maybe i missed this detail. in every instance after this one, when the cast wants to return to a specific time in the future (their actual timeline and present) they sync up their time gps thing, but in this case? clint has no chance to do that. we don’t cut out a single second of his trip in the past, and i don’t recall him even looking at the time gps ONCE, and yet he can be forcibly pulled back to the present???

this is actually one of the only faults i can think of in the time travel, and they probably actually set that gps ahead of time, so whatever, maybe they actually handled time travel well here???

some o y’all people out here had the audacity to tell me that tony stark was the one who called steve roger’s ass “america’s ass” when it was in fact scott lang, and tony in fact called to question steve’s ass in that scene, and it is YOU i will not forgive for this heinous error

tony actually did nothing wrong in attaining the tesseract; he just got his head smacked in by a surprise hulk coming out of the stairwell

actually this made me remember a thing: couldn’t they have sent someone to grab the tesseract in asgard in case something went wrong in new york? they were right about picking the right year and time to get three infinity stones in new york, but they also managed to pick the right year and time to get two stones in asgard, so why not snatch that up as a failsafe?

thor really fucked over an alternate timeline by grabbing mjolnir from them, huh. cap couldn’t return that shit, after all; they need mjolnir for when we finally get the Mighty Thor. like, good moments between him and his mom, and that whole “i’m still worthy” thing was great, but are we gonna talk about the timeline that got fucked over for that???

so did they not discuss WHY they needed two people going to vormir ahead of time, or what? did nebula not tell them? she totally did, right? like did she not mention WHY gamora didn’t come back with thanos after he got the soul stone? why are they surprised when the mention of a sacrifice comes into play???

apparently only women die in vormir, and usually to advance the character arcs of men. i dunno i wouldn’t be too sore about this hawkeye sacrificing himself

i’ll be honest i don’t care MUCH about black widow but like let’s be real how much was hawkeye giving to the narrative???

also apparently they can’t do anything about getting nat back, which is inherently bullshit by the fact that gamora still exists in the past and you could very easily bring a nat from another timeline without fucking up yours. it’s fine; you had no problem doing that with mjolnir

how did they shrink the entire warship thanos was on exactly, and how long did they take to get that tech right???

what exactly is thanos’ weirdass boomerang blade made of that it can shred a vibranium shield?

anyway so they pay homage to every hero from the past twenty-odd films real quick, and they make the right choice in putting the black panther crew first, but i can’t help but think about how this is all just fanservice

wanda comes in to remind us that thanos ain’t shit without the infinity stones and NEARLY KILLS HIM ON HER OWN so someone explain to me why she doesn’t AFTER she gets back up???? like, can we assume killing thanos would put an end to most of this fight and send the rest of his forces running?

i already mentioned the fanservice level that came with the heroes entering on the scene, right? let’s not forget that the shot of all (minus one) the marvel women coming together is also mostly fanservice with no real meaning and it could’ve been cut from the movie and the narrative would not be too heavily adjusted, just as a reminder that marvel isn’t really treating the women of their properties well on film

thanos got real fucked up after two snaps and banner got fucked up after one snap, and you’re seriously telling me tony - a regular ass human being - lasted long enough to snap at all???

seeing peter and ned reunite with one another (i guess they both got snapped if they’re both still high school students ACTUALLY DID PETER’S WHOLE SCHOOL GET SNAPPED OR WHAT HAPPENED????)

okay but actually, the peter and ned reuniting scene got me much harder than any amount of tony’s death and funeral

seeing the wakanda crew serving up looks during tony’s funeral just reminds me that okoye got maybe two lines in the whole film, t’challa got Maybe One, and shuri got shafted for lines, and that makes me sad

i think Old Cap reuniting with sam on the bench is great and all, and a real good closing to steve’s character, however i have some questions to ask about it, namely how steve ended up in the same timeline after we made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR we were playing by diverging timeline rules, unless what you’re trying to tell me is that there was an Old Steve that just existed in our timeline the whole time and the fact that we never focused on Peggy significantly enough allowed yall to sneak that in

i also have to ask how in god’s name y’all didn’t take note of the man sitting at the bench out by the lake where you were performing your time jumping shenanigans?????

but yeah overall not actually a bad conclusion. tony’s dead, so that’s a plus. we won’t get any more of america’s ass in these films, which is a minus, but it could be worse

[storm-driver]

Oh boy, you wanna know? It’s gonna be a lengthy one, but I’ll do my best to make it entertaining, heh

Under the cut because L O N G P O S T

So first things first, it’s best if you know how old I am. As of March 2019, I am 17-years old, and I’ll be 18 by the end of Summer. Kingdom Hearts 1 came out just 7 months after I was born, so I wasn’t into it from the very beginning. 

Right around 2009, I found myself getting a PS2 from one of our neighbors because they were buying a PS3. And among the games they gave us with the PS2, Kingdom Hearts 1 was in that batch. My sister played through and completed the whole game, but little 8-year old me couldn’t get past the Chameleon boss in Deep Jungle. So I put the game down for a year or so, never thinking about it since. I went back to finish the game, got stuck on the legendary ‘THERE’S NO WAY YOU’RE TAKING KAIRI’S HEART’ boss fight, and I eventually beat the game! Go me!

I got a Nintendo DS and my sister bought me Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the DS because she realized I actually liked Kingdom Hearts. However, I hadn’t played KH2, nor did I retain too much of the information from KH1. My sister got KH2 for the PS2 a few months prior and assumed that the other save file was mine. Turns out she just accidentally saved twice >.<

So I played through 358 until I got stuck on one of the ridiculous bosses, I think it was Leechgrave? And I didn’t retain any of the plot, so I kinda just forgot it. Then... I actually played KH2. 

And I had SO much fun! I played on Beginner because I was 9-10-years old and I needed to if I ever wanted the hope of beating it. And around that time, Re:coded came out. So once I beat KH2, my sister bought me Re:coded and I played that... before getting stuck on a boss again. I can’t remember which one though, heh. 

I eventually went back to beat 358, did so, cried a lot because Roxas was immediately established as my favourite, and by then I was maybe 11-years old. Dream Drop Distance for the 3DS came out and I had become invested in the games at that point. So I was about to start watching the cutscenes for 3D... when I realized I was missing something... 

I never played Birth by Sleep.

I had seen a few of the cut scenes out of BBS by that point, but I didn’t actually know who the characters were. Surprisingly enough, when I saw Ventus for the first time, I didn’t associate him with Roxas at all. I don’t think I even processed that they looked the same. To me, it was just Ventus. Maybe that’s why I can see their nuances so well, I don’t know. Anyways, I went and watched all the cutscenes for Birth by Sleep, lost my fucking mind because OH THAT’S WHY ROXAS- OHHHHH and then I went to watch 3D. 

And lemme just say, by that point, it was all over. This game was now apart of my life. You could tell ‘cause suddenly all the references to Ventus in all of the games clicked for me and I WAS LOSING IT so much. I love that kinda stuff, I dunno why, but I doooo. 

And then the year after... 2013.... y’all know what happened. KH3 was FINALLY announced to be in REAL development, even if it was development Hell. I remember watching the livestream for the first ever KH3 trailer as it was happening and I was crying. Lil’ 12-year old Storm Driver sitting at their father’s cracked and broken laptop, crying over one minute of pre-rendered game footage. It was real. I was going to play KH3. 

So then the next few years were me establishing my love for the series. Right around when I turned 12 was when I’d actually been introduced to social media. I’d played games like Toontown and stuff on the computer, but I’d never used Instagram or anything before... I actually pride myself over still having my first ever IG account. I think I made it after the first KH3 trailer came out. Interesting. 

I managed to get one of my at-the-time close friends into the game, and they let me borrow their 3DS so I could play Dream Drop myself! But we had a falling out the next year and we didn’t talk or communicate that whole time. Fun little anecdote, the name “Storm Driver.” I chose that name after I’d played 3D because it was the name of the track for one of my favourite songs. Except... the name was mistranslated. It’s supposed to be “Storm Diver.” But in pure spite, I kept it as it is today. 

And that was how that friend of mine contacted me again, years later! They found my Tumblr and realized I was the same Storm Driver from the years prior and we reconciled and made up over what had happened. We still don’t talk much, just having each other added on Snapchat. But I’m happy that they reached out to me. 

Years passed and my love for KH didn’t die, but it did settle a bit. It spiked again in 2015, when the gameplay trailers were finally being released. But nothing really dragged me back towards it. Until 2017. The orchestra tour...

OH FUCK MAN, I WENT WILD. I fucking lost it. I did not calm down, for three or four whole months, this exact Tumblr blog was busting out frickin’ KH posts and all the like. And it has not stopped at all. ‘Cause soon after that, 0.2 was confirmed and released and I was losing my god damn mind over it all. I was so hyped for KH3, words cannot properly describe. During those months, I came to meet some mutuals on Tumblr that I now consider very close friends. Even if we’ve never met, I still feel a lot of joy just seeing their names and icons pop up in my notifications feed.

I started playing KHUX after the orchestra tour trailer came out. I used to pride myself over having (at the time) ridiculously strong medals that pushed me forward through a lot of the Proud Mode content without spending a single dime on the game. But of course, those medals are outdated now. My KHUX character is probably just average at this point. But that’s okay. I don’t really play it anymore, heh.

And in the months leading up to KH3, I just did my best to stay relatively calm. I joined a few Discord servers for KH, but I found myself feeling out of place. I started getting interested in other things, and with no one to talk to over those things, i started to talk in the KH servers. I was asked not to and it eventually led to me go and create my own server. It was initially a Voltron server, but as VLD has ended, I changed it to be a community server, where people who just wanna talk can talk. It’s a “private” server at the moment, because I don’t want to overwhelm myself and my two friends who moderate it. I’ve opened it a few times, to help get some more people in who just wanna hang out. 

My experience with Kingdom Hearts took a weird turn when KH3 was around the corner though. Someone kept making one-day accounts on Tumblr and DMing me the leaks of the game, including the ending. Lucky me, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of the plot-related stuff. But my impulse control is weak and I’d click the links just from the sight of them. So I knew what would happen to Sora at the end of the game before I’d even seen the final boss. I didn’t know how Roxas ended up there in the ending and I was REALLY happy to see him and Ventus and Xion standing together in frame. So I guess it kinda hyped me up to see how the game handled him and his return.

At the end of it, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed KH and I will continue to, I’m sure. I’ve also played TWEWY for the DS, so I’m sure that the tie-ins it’ll have with the future of Kingdom Hearts are going to be amazing. This game latched onto me when I was an infant, and it’s been nine long and incredibly fun years so far. I’m happy that we’re not done yet ^^

[riskeith]

hii!

manifesting xiao for you!!!!! it surely will be worth it after all that wait and all those rolls shsjdhsj <3 you’ll probably upgrade him and his weapons and talents and all that right away too, huh? spilling all your recourses on one stotic lil boy 👅 (can’t say i blame ya he deserves it) FUNNY YOU MENTION THAT when i did the guiding light seal puzzle before the stormterror battle i accidentally forgot to change kaeya’s weapon to the ones i’ve upgraded so he was stuck with the dull sword and i was like why the FUCK doesn’t he do any damage and then it hit me . yikes 😬 Lmao has that ever happened to you?

oh really? reading all of that makes it seem like we’re in the bad end of the stick dhdhdjdjfh but you made me curious to try it out tbh... now where could i get a hold on a pc..... hm

yeah omg you’ve gotten so far now i can’t imagine how bizarre it would be to revert back to giving like 10 dmg and facing level 3 villains lmao still sometimes even i find myself missing the early days things weren’t as stressful then ): do you?

school did start which is why haikyuu is perfect!! it’s been keeping me very warm and happy tbh... 🥺 you know something i noticed this time watching is that kagehina are Always around each other. i honestly don’t remember them doing that but watching now it’s like at almost every scene they are either standing next to each other or showing up to the other’s scene and it’s like??? damn???? y’all live like this? idk if that changes in future eps but right now it’s Constant. i love it.

dude i’m such a nostalgia person i’m always up for a trip to the good ol’ days bc sometimes you just gotta go back to things for your own sake. but fun Fact i started watching voltron after it ended so i missed so much of the hype while it was ongoing.. literally came into it while it was a goddamn mess. i knew that klance wouldn’t be canon but watching i couldn’t help but hope... how was it stanning while it was ongoing?

(you saying that reminds me of the what if we kissed meme..... what if we kissed in the genshin co-op mode 😳 anyway you’re at such a high level idk how much i could help you... i suppose we could just run around but yeah i do play in europe... 😭)

RED AND BLUE GAYS!!!!!! RED AND BLUE GAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the purple light were mega gay like hello????? especially since lance is bi and it was Him that said the line and hfjdhdhsjdjdhdj fuck ! i’m so sad now ever since we started talking about them i’ve just been missing them sooooo much it’s crazy... KEITH DESERVES THE UNIVERSE he’s so sweet and caring in his own way and he grew so much like compare s8 keith with s1 keith and see!!!! he matured so much and god . at least he’s helping the galaxy with his lesbians now

dude i wanted to say that but i was scared it was an unpopular opinion.... hunk and pidge could be so mean to him sometimes for no reason or just shoo him aside and no??? don’t do that to your friend????? it irked me sometimes bc you could see that he got upset about it but he felt like he had no one to turn to 😭😭😭😭😭 kms but keith. keith is good.

THE I LOVE YOU SCENE did it also take you sooo much by surprise like i remember watching and just going AAAAAA??????!!!??!!?? and the art???? mister anime keith kogane?????? it was so beautiful and so perfect and so sad ughhhhhhh funny how keith has 2 out of the three i love you scenes on voltron even tho he’s the stotic type .

i’m thinking but honestly all i want is some fluffy angst... a punch in the gut with some final kissing . i love fics that rewrite the sunset scene always chefs kiss... or you know how in season 7 for some reason they always called out for each other first? like when lance has his crashing scene keith yells out lance come in twice??? or when they are stuck in the galra prison and they yell out each other’s names???? idk something about that would be amazing to read???? ok i rambled idk rewritten canon klance is just Mwah... OH IM SO EXCITED TO READ THOSE SNIPPETS EEEEEEE :DDDDDD TY FOR SENDING THAT

i’m soooo glad you liked the fanart when i saw it i HAD to send it your way... it’s the little bois in their animal hats 😭😭🥺 i love them so much it’s soooooo cute 😭😭 i’ve been stalking the original tweet and there’s some other version and they’re super adorable too 😭😭😭😭😭😭

hope you had a wonderful day today + yesterday... take care <333

hey heyyyy~

actually i don’t think i have many resources to give him bc im focusing on levelling up my team for the ascension rn FJKHDSKFHSDKJFHSDK but for sure i will do it... anything for him 😩 AHAHAH nooooo but yes ! during the chalk prince dragon event i used festering desire in dragonspine but my higher levelled sword everywhere else, but sometiems i forgot to switch back and was stuck with shit damage 💀

yeah actually i see a lot of poeple complain about not being able to do missions on mobile either (or having a really hard time with it) fskjhfksj but there are for sure people who would think mobile is better so 🤷‍♀️ to each their own! ahah does anyone in your family have a windows laptop/pc? steal borrow it 🤪

i definitely miss the easier days!! it’s fun going to an area with lower level enemies bc i defeat them so easily.. but then again their drops also aren’t as good so you trade one thing for another i guess lol

ikr?!?!?? like we get it you’re inseparable omg.. it’s so cute when they go seek out asahi as well and hinata hides behind kageyama and then points and at him like he’s showing him off.. lives in my mind rent free 😌

oh i see!!! that’s so brave of you omg you knew all that and still decided to give it a shot? fshfkdsjf. it was. insane. like talking about the positives only, it was just everyone going crazy every time there was a single hint of klance is canon king and just ugh. it was all so exciting and hype and like the energy you know?? especially when there were conventions where they were revealing trailers or new info wow tumblr was buzzing.. (reminds me of when klance was top ship.......) i miss that kinda environment tbh! but also now that i’m in uni i don’t think i’d have the energy to keep up fhskfjds

(WHAT IF WE KISSED!! IN GENSHIN CO-OP!! HAHA JK... UNLESS?! that’s so funny fskdj but i wish 😔😩 makes a second reroll account just for this? HAHAAH. and noooo even if we didn’t do anything i feel like it’d be so fun just running around hfkdsjs. and maybe i could carry you w your quests it’s always been my dream to help someone out like my brother can just come into my world and one-shot enemies 😩 but maybe some day!! cross-server will happen)

:((((((((((( S1 KEITH AND S8 KEITH THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 😭😭😭😭 keith went from being a lone wolf expelled from the garrison to finding his MOTHER!! AND THE BESTEST SPACE WOLF DOGGO!! AND LEADING A FKN ITNERGALACTIC ORGANISATION!~!!!eASKJDHSAFHEHFSDIUHSAZODUQWEQWYRHIASKJDNCSOUADHB. marmora!keith............. both a blessing and a curse.... but that uniform tho 🥵

i cried!!! so much watching that scene lmao!!! can’t remember how i felt at the time but i was probably also surpirsed.. and ikr? that’s poetry in its own tbh we love that keith said the most ‘expressive’ and ‘emotional’ lines the most

sunset scene... sunset scene!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg yeah them just calling out for each other’s names first like??? explain please?? omg also remember when keith chose lance in the quiz.. AND LANCE CALLED KEITH THE FUTURE? FUCKING EXPLAIN???????? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! there is no heterosexual explanation. okay but now that you’ve put sunset scene in my head... either rewrite where lance was looking for keith to confess to him bc they were going back to space and he wanted to get it out or.. in the future where klance are together and lance has a dream about it and suddenly realises wait. did keith already like me back then. and then they talk about it ... hmmmmm . AND WOOOO NO PROBLEM!! HOPE YOU ENJOY <33

i def have to look at the other versions!!! honestly this meme is kinda the best thing out there rn so many cute baby renditions of charas.. blessed!! i love them all sm...

thank you!! hope yours have been great too, and school is treating you well :**

[lunafeather]

judeehopps replied to your post “If anyone else has seen The Last Jedi already and wants to discuss,...”

I’m curious about what you think. What did you think of it? I have mixed feelings...

Overall I enjoyed it a lot, but it did have a lot of issues. I think I liked The Force Awakens a lot more, so I’m glad that JJ Abrams will be directing Episode IX and not Rian Johnson, though obviously Abrams isn’t perfect. This film also continues Star Wars’ penchant for gorgeousness; so many scenes and shots were absolutely breathtaking in their beauty. This might be my favorite film when it comes to that.

Spoilers below the cut! (Also, fair warning! I have a lot of thoughts)

I wasn’t a fan of the limited interactions between our main trio, especially Finn and Rey -- whose relationship literally drives the narrative of this trilogy. Don’t get me wrong, that hug at the end literally made me squeal with joy it was so pure and sweet, but that is seriously all we got and like??? I DO ship Finnrey but I also just enjoy watching their friendship so this was a major downside.

Speaking of ships, I am VERY anti Rose/Finn. I feel like the kiss at the end of the film was incredibly forced and awkward, and came out of nowhere. They have okay chemistry, but I didn’t get a romantic vibe from them at all, so for her to swoop in with this huge romantic gesture and pull out the “I love you” before passing out was very out of place. I feel like they barely know each other, and Rose’s feelings are heavily impacted by her initial view of Finn as this Rebel Hero, and that her jump from awe to fury to love is just a natural progression of her fangirling, and not actual love. Not to mention the fact that Finn literally just froze when she kissed him, it wasn’t reciprocated at all. I hope that they have an adorable “WOW that was awkward” moment in the next film but that they remain friends only.

I really enjoyed Rey’s arc over the film. I think she is more powerful than we realize and I really hope we get to see that power as she trains to be an actual jedi (I’m sure we will). I also really enjoy her parallel’s to Luke in that she is insistent that Kylo can be turned and tries to sway him against her mentor’s wishes, that she is just SO GOOD inside (I, like others, was afraid they may try to tease her switching to the dark side, but I’m glad this film just reiterated how good she is), but I also love that where Luke succeeded, Rey did not. I think it would be very predictable and boring for Rey to “save” Kylo the way Luke “saved” Vader.

Branching off of that, the trailers had a lot of people spouting that whole, “ohhh this is just another copy cat/rehash of Empire, just like TFA was identical to ANH” (which is bullshit anyway, TFA had many homages to ANH but the story was different in a few key ways) crap that I am glad was destroyed immediately. All this chatter about the AT-ATs and the rebels trying to escape a base and Degobah and blah blah blah. None of it was founded, the film was actually VERY different from ESB. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.... but I digress.

I am a tad miffed that Finn’s force sensitivity wasn’t touched on AT ALL. As far as I’m aware, someone has to be force sensitive to use a lightsaber and Finn used Luke’s at the end of TFA. I hope they touch back on that in Episode IX.

A big thing I am distressed about is the fact that one of the original trio is basically going to be killed off in each film. Han in TFA, now Luke in TLJ, and obviously Leia will need to be killed off in Episode IX... It’s really fucking depressing. Part of me hopes that they will write IX in a way that Leia doesn’t need to die but never appears on screen -- I feel like of the three, she would be the one to survive. It’s possible, narratively, but I doubt they’ll do that. Still.... Also, seeing as Luke became one with the force or whatever, I feel like he will train Rey from beyond, the same way Obiwan often advised him after his death. So maybe we’ll at least have that.

Upon further reflection, I feel like the Casino excursion was very misplaced and unneeded. It was hectic and rushed and urgent, the whole movie was, and I wasn’t a huge fan of that. Star Wars movies ebb and flow with their pace, usually taking place over a moderate amount of time, but obviously this film had a very short time span and I gotta say, I’m not digging it. I prefer the story building, character building pace of the other films.

Humor was out of place a lot of times. The other movies were funny, yes, but the humor in this one was much too....modern? Even in TFA the humor was more classic, in this film it was annoyingly snappy. I really hated the opening scene and its “joke” with Poe pretending he couldn’t hear Hux. Hux should be scary and looming and menacing but that scene just made a fool out of him, and for that to be the OPENING scene is just.... no. Turned me off immediately. Some of the humor was spot on, like Chewie being watched by the family/friends of the bird thing he was trying to eat. THAT was good. Even Rey knocking that giant piece of rock over the cliff and annihilating those aliens’ cart of stuff was good. But most of the other humor was off.

My favorite moment/shot, and I’m sure it’s a lot of people’s, was Holdo hyperspacing into Snoke’s ship. Everything about that was GLORIOUS. The quick burst shots of the lightning blue spikes cracking the ship, the DEAD SILENCE -- no music, no sound effects, nothing -- until the delayed noise of the explosion, I was AWED. The ENTIRE THEATRE gasped and then hushed in the same awed silence as myself. What an amazing idea and execution.

Other favorite shots, Kylo and Luke standing on opposite sides of the screen, waiting to battle -- the colors and composition were beautiful. Crap, there are more but I can’t remember them now.

Mother fucking LEIA ORGANA, using the force to survive being blown into space. SHE DID THAT, Y’ALL. Do you have any idea how powerful she has to be to do that kind of shit??? I seriously thought they were gonna kill her off.

Luke Skywalker being a sassy shit during his astral projection gave me so much life. I love him.

I’ve seen a lot of disparaging comments about Yoda showing up but I actually liked that bit. I think it was one of the times when the humor was on point, and they had to have used a puppet because he looked great.

After a lot of discussion with my ex, we came to the conclusion that Leia must have known Luke wasn’t really there at the old rebel base. Initially I thought it was a vision/wonder twin connection like Kylo and Rey were having (which..... wtf???? Why was that happening? Could it not?) but then everyone else saw him so.... still, I think Leia knew it wasn’t really him. I think that’s why she didn’t touch him/hug him -- because they are VERY huggy twins -- and why she left Han’s dice behind. I think she knew she wouldn’t see him again, which breaks my heart. Because how alone is Leia now? She lost the love of her life, she lost her son, she lost her brother. Ughhhh.

So yeah, this stupid “connection” between Rey and Kylo the film was trying to force on us just.... irked me. I have heard that R*ylos are fangirling over the movie, which boggles my mind because Rey literally hates his guts?? She was disgusted by his naked chest and demanded he clothe himself?? She literally tried to save him because she’s a good person, not because he’s ever done anything to deserve it or because there’s some kind of “love connection” there?? He fucking mind raped her, guys. He almost killed the first person to ever COME BACK FOR HER. (again, why did this movie focus on the Rey/Kylo shit when there is a goldmine with Rey/Finn??????) Oh he’s also a fucking pyscho murderous asshole who killed Rey’s friend and hero in cold blood.

Anyway.

Snoke as a villain: Disappointing. Boring. Anticlimactic. I pity that we didn’t get backstory on him, though I suppose we never got any for the Emperor until the prequels. Still.... Snoke was a very thin and half assed master villain. Shouldn’t there be waaaaaaaaay more lore about the Knights of Ren? Is that going to come into play in Episode IX, seeing as Kylo is now the Supreme Leader? Also, how the fuck am I supposed to take Kylo seriously as the next major villain when he continues to throw temper tantrums and be easily manipulated by outside forces?

On that note, did he choose to spare Leia because of that conflict inside of him, or did Leia force sense him and mind influence him to not shoot?? WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

Second to last point: Not enough Chewie.

Final point: I liked the examination of perspective. Luke’s story of what happened the night Kylo went crazy, Kylo’s story, and finally the truth. How we twist things to feel better/to get what we want. How every story is biased. I thought that was neat.

I lied, one last thing: I am on the fence but leaning towards hating Rey’s parents being “nobodys”. I think it’s an interesting choice but not one that lends anything to the narrative. I think the hype around her parentage was stoked just so they could say, “HAHA she actually isn’t anyone special, you were speculating for nothing!”. Speculating is fun. Bloodlines are fun. Let nerds discuss! A big part of me hopes that Kylo was lying to Rey to make her more upset and thus “more likely” to swing to the dark side. To encourage her fear that she really was abandoned for no reason. BUT it would also be unique to have her be so special despite coming from nothing.

Alright, I’m done. I may think of more but that’s it for now. My rating would probably be like.... 6.5/10. In the top 5 but not the top 4. Enjoyable and beautiful but nothing special and a let down in regards to story and character development.

[wreckthelist]

we shall never surrender: how dunkirk took my breath away

I love film highs.

It’s the rare, addicting exhilaration of having my mind blown and my senses captured by the unexpected. The fantastic blow of being hit by a phenomenal experience, of having gone and lost my head and disappeared, transported into somewhere beyond the imagined.

And Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk pretty much destroyed me.

I’m going to rally here and agree with the reviews I read prior to my screening that the film was light in terms of emotional depth, but god, did I get so sucked into it, so invested. (Blame it on my unabashed, unadulterated love, attraction, and devotion to dark-haired boys who are all angles and sharp eyes.)

I shook my head when my war-crazed, history fanatic of a high school friend enthusiastically gestured at the Dunkirk trailer preceding our Wonder Woman showing. A ‘trio’ of trailers (peppered with Hans Zimmer’s fabulous, anxious tick, tick, tick) attacked again before my Baby Driver one, and I was left unconvinced.

“Looks good,” he said, “Watching it for sure.”

Of course you would, you war history buff.

(I miss him. Of the three of us, I’m the one left here halfway across the world.)

But then first came the lauds for the One Direction leading man, proclaiming Mr. Styles’ genuine acting abilities, despite this being his debut. The embargo came down, and the hype definitely got to me.

Nolan’s best, seemed to be the critics’ consensus. Watch it in IMAX if you must, no matter how far you have to travel, how long you have to wait.

I’m a BFI Member. I paid for a year’s subscription during my time here completing my grad studies, and normally I’d wait by my laptop, after having my monthly scan through the upcoming month’s Advanced Screenings and Members-Only showing, for the prompt 11:30am battle for tickets. (Granted, it’s only for me, there’s nothing to worry about in that aspect. I’m the most fanatical film fan I know.)

With Dunkirk, I’d waited for so long, having been so casual about it and not at all anticipating the film like I would for, say, Call Me By Your Name (my slot to name-drop that film y’all will be talking about by the end of the year like Moonlight. Stick with me, bear with it, and you’ll know.) that I forgot the IMAX would be filling up.

So yeah, at around 7pm, while taking a break from drafting my project report (big sigh and wild eyes), I decided to check out the IMAX showings on the BFI website.

I don’t remember my last IMAX film. It’s been so long since I’d treated myself to one, or deemed a film worthy of one. IMAX is an occasion, a decision, an event. And with this film, too full aware of my own exasperation with war films, I was going to watch it once and once only. Better to go all in, all or nothing. Go big or go home.

(Pour your clichés on me. Do it.)

I’ll say outright I shouldn’t have been surprised that the showings from 6pm onwards were sold out (SOLD OUT! In the freaking IMAX auditorium on the freaking Southbank in the freaking London!).

Taking advantage of the flexible working hours I was (and am) fortunate enough to have (I’m going back to work after this review, I swear. I’ve got to write this down, otherwise I’ll forget the rush of seeing Fionn’s face at 18K of experiencing the film), I started checking the showings before noon.

And the showing with the best seating available for a single person, surprise, surprise, was the 7:15am, the very first, on Britain’s biggest screen, at the highest possible resolution (18K, 15/70mm. God bless shooting in films.)

It would mean waking up at the crack of dawn (5:30am – my alarm for this morning. But thank God for summer sunlight.) and skipping my full, home-cooked breakfast to get on the Tube from West London all the way to Southbank (I’m jealous of the people living around Westminster, I am. Maybe just this once. Or maybe for being always so close to the BFI.)

But, and I will say this once for this film, I wasn’t going to watch an IMAX film, particularly a war one of shooting, torpedoes, bombs, and fires—from a seat that would torture me for two hours.

It had to be good, and it had to be done.

For that, I was willing to get up and come down.

I bought my ticket (we’re not talking prices here.), and, funny enough, I did end up getting tortured for the good two hours.

Let me breathe, Nolan.

Leave my children be.

It was a Row F seat, kind of okay and not too much of a hassle to watch planes fly around and boats and ships getting wrecked to hell. (The first time I watched a film so close to the screen was a Chinese martial arts feature, two rows from the front, that left me dizzy and disoriented, promising myself that I’d never let it happen to me, or my senses, ever again.) The guy asked if I wanted a T-shirt at the entrance, and I was caught off guard.

“Medium or Large?”

(They’re out of Smalls, of course. Sad.)

“Oh. Medium,” I replied, catching the black, “I saw Dunkirk in 15/70mm IMAX,” from him, and muttering, “Cool!” under my breath, already bewildered and getting ahead of myself.

That I wasn’t going to be excited for this I’d forgotten. That I was nonchalant and even shying away from the prospects of seeing a war film was wiped clear from my mind when I settled down in my seat.

(I was here for the good seat and the IMAX cinematography. I was here for the bombs and the boys and the anticipated film high I knew I was going to get. I was here to watch Harold Styles act his way out of French beaches, and I was here to witness the very first showing of Nolan’s war epic on the gigantic, couple-of-storeys-high screen, the way every critic out there was saying it was to be seen.)

“Since it’s the first showing, we wanted to get a picture,” said the general manager, “So turn around and raise your T-shirts to my colleague at the back.”

I’m sure someone’s T-shirt was blocking my face, and that’s okay. It was a thing—something—to be there, at that moment, at that time, for this screening. It was definitely a thing. It was my thing.

My cousin had asked about what I’ve done so far in terms of life outside the classroom during my time in London, and he was (duh. Knowing him.) unimpressed with me murmuring about going to the movies and the theatre and the concerts.

But this is my thing. He may not understand it. And he never would. But this is my thing. This is my life, this is the exhilaration I hold onto. This is my one true love, my joy. I love films, I love poetry, I love theatre, and I love music. It’s a lifelong love affair that had me from an early age and one I would stay committed to, till death do us part.

That said, the film started and the first friendly face we saw on screen was Fionn Whitehead’s.

(Thanks to the time-zone differences and advanced screenings in Bangkok, Twitter was a-fluttering with pictures of the Dunkirk boyband (est. 2017)—you can’t stop me. I didn’t start this. They did. *points finger*--Fionn (I’m putting my boy first. My boy.), Harry, Aneurin, Jack (Lowden), Barry, and the Big Leagues: Tom (Hardy), Cillian (Murphy), Kenneth (Branaugh), James (D’Arcy), and Mark (Rylance).

So you could say I, a fan of names, had the boys distinguished from the get-go.

Existing in the Twitterverse as I am, it’s impossible not to get swept up in a phenomenon the scale of Dunkirk’s. It was bound to happen.

Okay. Especially when I’m following one of the biggest Jack Lowden fans.)

It’s a huge responsibility for Fionn, to carry the film from the start and (spoiler—AVERT YOUR EYES) to be the last face we saw.

But boy, did he do a great job.

It’s a harrowing film, one that left me gasping, hand over mouth, at moments. I let myself go, give myself in completely (as one does), and Nolan took me away.

There’s the beaches, the skies, and the sea. The cameras swept across the screen, put us in the pilot’s seat. Bombs rattled the auditorium’s seats. I jumped each time shots were fired, hands clasped on my lap and praying for my boys.

The other reason I was going to stay away from this film was for fear of getting too absorbed, and here I was, nearly shedding a tear at the chaos unfolding in front of me, so close, and at a devastating scale.

There’s Fionn’s freckles up on the screen, Harry’s voice and Aneurin’s damp, curly mop of hair. They’re caught below a boat’s deck, water pouring in from the leaks around them. We cut to Tom Hardy in the skies and Jack Lowden in the civilian boat with Mark Rylance at the helm.

That little (SPOILER) scene of Aneurin alone on the ship, eyes closed, head resting against the wall, was one of the most subtle, touching scenes I’ve ever watched. Its quiet intensity burned me, stirred me. I love my boy Aneurin.

(But Barry! But Barry!

No spoilers here, so I’m going to yell. What emotional manipulation. How dare you did us like that.)

The deafening soundtrack, the bombs, the horrifying spectacles, the boys’ terrified, troubled eyes trapped me. I was immersed, stunned, and so involved it baffled me that a film could catch me so.

But I let it happen. Let it run its course, followed the boys on the beach, in the seas, below decks and on board sinking ships. Nurses handed them blankets, tea (ah, Britain), and toasts with jam, and that Harry Styles could carry scenes so convincingly was a wonderful, satisfying revelation.

I left the auditorium feeling so #shooketh and clutching my Dunkirk tee. That last scene (SPOILER again. I’m giving you advance notice with the CAPITAL LETTERS.) with Fionn reading the newspaper article, the shot of him, his eyes cast down, voice in solemn stillness and unwavering clarity as he read the words proclaiming Britain’s willpower, ended the film on a powerful note.

^^^this adorable nugget.

(Those. Eyelashes.

I adore profiles. And I love, love shots of people looking down.)

I’m still reeling from the film high (for good measure), and believe me when I say this, go watch Dunkirk in IMAX. Do not miss this chance. Do not let this go. Treat yourself. Do it. Feast your eyes and lose yourself and hollow out your hearts.

Nolan’s gifted the world with a war classic, and this is one we would be talking about for years to come.

PS. I’m writing this at the National Theatre right after the screening. It’s been two hours, and I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to get so attached to a certain black-haired leading boy. And I’m still not fine.

PPS. Seeing Aneurin and Jack so soon after finishing War & Peace (2016) is such a treat.