#it was a bit messy the luke part of the storyline was a bad call but other than that? got to see obi-wan look devastated for six hours.

[vaguely-concerned]

I finally watched obi-wan kenobi (2022) and I just keep thinking about... I keep thinking about obi-wan constantly talking to qui-gon, asking for him in the dark, begging for some sort of comfort from him, even if he never gets an answer. and vader/anakin still calling after obi-wan as he walks away from him again, twisted in hatred and obsession but still so -- desperate for him to hear it.

some part of you never does stop trying to call out for a parent even when all hope is lost, huh.

[redspiderling]

MCU Breakdown: That b-roll called Endgame, part 2

This mess has been swirling around my mind all day and I can safely say that once I managed to block individual offences and look at the greater picture, I was able to reach a conclusion that might bring some peace to my mind and, hopefully, yours too.

We’re not here to once again simply exhibit how this movie failed to express itself in a visual way, we’ll go a step further because I’m an asshole like that.

We’re here to explain why the failure of visual expression cheapens the story-telling process and leads to an unfulfilling cinematic experience.

I’m adding a “read more” this time because I actually remembered to do it.

Let’s ease ourselves into this.

Exhibit 1: Not using any visual storytelling elements.

This is the moment Pepper realises Tony has figured out time travel. That they can -potentially- travel back in time and save trillions of lives. And it’s shot, like this

Like a picture from a furniture catalogue. I’m saying furniture catalogue not only because the shot is 80% furniture and 20% character. Not just because it is quite dark, and the pieces that are drawing the attention of our eyes are the various lamps and candles, bright and shiny in an otherwise brownish, muddy frame. 

This moment hasn’t earned its existence in our minds as an emotionally charged one. 

It’s not just that Tony was never the character who envisioned himself as someone capable of “settling down”. It’s that our brains have been trained for centuries to look for visual clues. The wringing of hands, the beads of sweat on a forehead, nervous gestures, restlessness. The symbolism of a storm in the horizon that trouble is coming. They’re all simple things but they’re layers upon layers of meaning.

The trouble isn’t just that the Tony we know is not the Tony we’re looking at. It’s that the way the story unfolds, visually, doesn’t fill us with dread. Instead we are left looking at an image of a somewhat peaceful existence void of any emotional charge. 

How this scene represents the “enormous scientific revelation will restore balance to the universe but will potentially ruin our family” sentiment, is an enquiry for me to make and for the Endgame show runners to never explain.

Exhibit 2: Using visual storytelling elements wrongly

To move forward from that significant for all its insignificance moment, it’s old news in the fandom that Endgame took the concept of found family and kicked it to an alternate dimension. 

What we are looking at here, is the New “But Actually Really Damn Old” Dream of the MCU: Typical affluent white heteronormative Heaven. 

And yet that’s not the problem. It is a problem, in the general “this is the 21st century and it takes a bit more to impress us” sense, but it’s not a problem from the perspective of a story. You can tell good stories for us all to enjoy that begin and end with this narrative, as long as you do it well. 

It is quite obvious that the basic concepts of visual storytelling are known to these people. And they do attempt to use them on occasion. We’re talking about visual clues that will help nudge the viewer in the right direction, so that when the moment comes, the viewer will have seen it coming and won’t get annoyed. 

Thus one could easily assume any form of foreshadowing is better than no foreshadowing, right?

Perhaps. But from my experience, certainly not in this instance. This is one of the big problems with this film, it is not certain where to draw the line on just how much does the viewer know? Is this their first MCU film? Second? Did they see Cap 1 and skip the rest?

Our story tellers don’t use all the information they have provided us with, and that creates traps for them. Even when they do attempt to warn us for what is coming they create more trouble for themselves. Because foreshadowing needs to be consistent. And dead ex girlfriends who got married more than 50 years ago, are not a likely candidate for a love story in the mind of the viewers.

Visual story telling is crucial and it needs to be consistent. You can show me hints that I will pick up on. 

Here's Steve in the Avengers. He's certainly a man out of time, with his old man clothes.   

Thankfully, by the time the Winter Soldier appeared, he was fitting in quite well in the world. A modern man now, with a modern attire.

So I'm left to watch in bewilderment and wonder, why is Steve back in his old man clothes in Endgame? 

When did this regression occur? Viewers are not idiots. Like I said, we are trained to pick up on visual clues, it's crucial to our survival in the world. If I see a monkey eat seeds from a tree and then die, I'll remember not to eat from that tree.

I see the attempt here. The lack of colour and hope in the frame where Steve gazes longingly at the old compass, the soft, dream-like orange of his perfect life with his little wife. I can take a hint. Do I want it though? Have you prepared me for it? Does it make sense in terms of the other visual clues you've provided me with over the years?

Exhibit 3: Shifting the responsibility

Did I mention how much Marvel lucked out with the casting?

There’s 0 visual language employed. There’s no symbolism, no light, colour or perspective of happiness, or hope, or hopelessness. The only thing between those two pictures that says Tony and Natasha are not having some really strange conversation with each other right now, is the expression on their faces.

The fulfilment Tony found in parenthood and Natasha’s heartbreak over Clint’s crimes is visible only through the talent of the performers, not through any visual clues the show runners left behind for us. 

Natasha stressing

Professor Hulk and Dr Strange paying their respects

Clint’s guilt

Wanda remembering her dead loved ones

Complex emotional moments laid entirely on the shoulders of the actors. Which isn’t entirely a condemnable thing, talented actors can pull strong emotions from their audiences, but they can only do so much. 

Lets reference a pop culture legend most of you will understand

We don’t remember Luke finding out the truth about his father just because  Mark Hamill is a really good actor. We remember it because in that moment, Luke had been brought to his lowest point. He was worn from battle, his life was hanging from a thread. Darth Vader was looming over him, the personification of everything he hated and in that moment he found out that a part of him came from that evil. 

That build up was the result of a well written script, of a masterful piece of music, a visual tone that brought us to the brink of a revelation. The performance was part of the tale that will be retold for generations. 

In conclusion 

While there have been literally dozens upon dozens of articles about fans and viewers and critics having “issues” with this or that in Endgame, the truth is that our real problem, is this mixed bag of hardly ever used, or wrongly used storytelling elements. One that has been building up to a disastrous result for years.

And while all that is the least of Endgame’s crimes in the eyes of a Natasha fan (I have a personal vendetta against the film at this point) I still can’t help but bemoan the loss of a singular opportunity for creating a milestone in cinematic history. 

Because if we can’t revisit Endgame for its story due to a complete lack in originality, and we can’t revisit it for its visuals, we won’t revisit it at all. And with it most of the MCU will go down as a piece of popular media that took the world by storm, but won’t have much to recommend it 10, 20 years from now. And isn’t that a shame. Edit: If you’re wondering why they messed up this badly, there’s a long list of reasons:

This wasn’t actually planned ahead. They didn’t write all the films from the beginning, they were making things up as they went along, so they created pitfalls for themselves.

They ignored the visual language.

They went along with weak scripts.

For Endgame specifically, they did ridiculously extensive re-shoots, which resulted in messy set ups (misplaced items on set, badly lit scenes, bad special effects) and bad editing.

They bit off more than they could chew with the amount of characters presented on screen, and never managed to create complete and fulfilling storylines for them.

Finally, they allowed bigotry and sexism to affect their judgement, thus placing the viewer against their narrative.

[buddiebeginz]

So I know I’m late to the party on this one but I’m gonna rant about my issues with TROS mainly because I just saw it again last night and I need to get some stuff off my chest. Warning this will probably get long and I’m sure I’ll repeat some stuff every one else has said

Also I know some of the things I bring up might be resolved to a point in the novelizations, with the commentary, or deleted scenes but most won’t see those so they don’t really count for the movie explaining things properly in some areas.

The movie has some enjoyable parts but doesn’t compare to TFA and doesn’t even come close to TLJ which in my opinion is the best out of the sequel trilogy. TLJ leaves you with all these questions at the end (especially in regards to Ben and Rey) in a good way that you think are going to be answered the next time you see these see characters in TROS but many of the questions are never answered.

Things feel messy and there’s too much going on all over the place. It’s easy to remember what the first two movies in the sequel trilogy are about it’s harder to remember all the stuff that went on in TROS because it feels really disjointed. Like they spend all this time looking for these triangle things (I forget what they were called) to find the planet Palpatine is on but little attention is given to what they are or why you need some special gadget to find these planets. Even when they find them it’s just over and done with pretty quickly. I also think there’s a lot better things they could have been doing with the final installment to the trilogy than wasting time on these things. Very little focus was given to character and relationship growth and development when it was literally the most important time to be giving it. There were so many scenes were I was just like what is the point of this? Like when they faked out Chewie’s death it felt really emotional at first and I was honestly shocked and sad. Then the movie was like psych just fucking with you he’s still alive and I’m like wtf was the point of that? All it served was so that they could go rescue Chewie but they could have done that without faking out his death. Or they could have had some other reason for them to end up on the ship like maybe rescuing Rey.

As others Have stated characters like Finn and Poe didn’t really feel like that had a good character arc through TROS and the series as a whole. I’d argue that TLJ gave a little more depth to both of them with showing Poe’s struggles in wanting to lead the rebellion and Finn’s whole journey with Rose and facing off against Phasma. I don’t think the TROS did too much to really close out either one of their storylines though well except for maybe giving Poe more of a chance to lead but tbh I don’t get all the choices they made for Finn.

They kept making it seem like Finn had romantic feelings for Rey  (like when he said he wanted to tell her something) even though they’ve only ever been friends and it didn’t make sense for that to be a part of their storyline. If they wanted to give Finn a love interest it would have made way more sense for them to have it be Rose, or Poe. I didn’t like the fact that out of nowhere they had Finn just suddenly become force sensitive at the end of TROS. If they wanted Finn to be Jedi or force sensitive that should have been introduced in TFA not in the very back end of TROS. I wouldn’t have had a problem with Finn being a Jedi but it just didn’t feel like that was supposed to be a part of his storyline for the majority of the series. The writing made it feel incredibly shoe horned in.

This is pretty nitpicky but the movie is super dark in places particularly the end fight with Palpatine. I’m all for good mood lighting but someone needed to tell the editors to inject some light because you could hardly tell wth was going on in some of those scenes.

Bringing back Palaptine was just one of the worst decision they’ve made in Star Wars in my opinion. It was totally unnecessary and worse it undermines all the work that was done in the original trilogy to get rid him. Vader’s sacrifice was essentially for nothing. I mean I know it was about his redemption but part of that was killing Palpatine. Killing the man who screwed up his entire life and turned him to the dark side. The origtrig was supposed to mean the end of the Empire. I just get the feeling they weren’t really sure where to take things after Snoke was killed but the thing is we didn’t need another Snoke or worse bringing back villains from the past. TROS should have been about Ben (which I’ll get to that when I talk about the shit show of an ending)

I wish there had been more talking between Ben and Rey. I know I’m biased being a Reylo shipper and I get that it’s a Star Wars movie so there’s going to be a lot of action but the origtrig had a lot of talking. I mean there were scenes full of Vader and Luke just talking. Some of my favorite scenes in the whole trilogy are when Rey are Ben are just talking. There was so much more I wanted to know about these characters.

THE ENDING

(which needed a section all to it’s self because that’s how bad it was)

So by now everyone has ranted about how awful the ending is but in all honesty as much as I feel the same it could have been worse. I mean it could have ended with Rey and Ben fighting each other and him dying without a smidge of redemption. Still the redemption he got was minimal and lazy to what this character deserved.

This trilogy was really about Ben and Rey and they should have been the main focus of the last one especially Ben. In the first two movies of the sequel trilogy we see how Ben is being manipulated by Snoke and how he’s very much on the dark side but there’s still light in him, light that Rey finds and brings out. TROS should been the culmination of Ben’s fight to go back to the light. We never really saw a big dramatic storyline with Vader and his return to the light (we just got that end scene with him saving Luke) but we could and should have gotten that with Ben.

If you asked someone what the sequel trilogy was about they’d likely mention Rey and Kylo Ren and the sad thing is Ben was a central part of three movies yet had no real resolution or solid focus at the end of series. 

The ending battle in TROS was mostly between Rey and Palaptine with Ben in there for a tiny bit and while I’m thankful we got the little bit of Reylo we got at the end if Palpatine had to be there it should have been Reylo battling him together. I found myself watching and thinking where the hell is Ben half the time.

When Rey says “be with me” in the middle of the Palaptine battle she should have been talking to Ben and not the force ghosts (who she didn’t know well) and he should have answered her back.

I don’t think that it was necessary to make Rey Palpatine’s granddaughter. I think they could have easily enough had her be powerful without having her be related to him. In actuality I think it would have made more sense to have her parents be nobody’s like was said in TLJ and it just happens that she’s really powerful. So you would have had Ben coming from a powerful loving family and being powerful yet turned to the dark side and Rey coming from a nothing cruel family who sold her and being powerful with the light. Not everything needs a huge explanation. I’m still very much of the opinion that Palpatine’s inclusion in TROS was totally unnecessary.

In TLJ there was a lot of focus put on Rey and Ben’s force bond it was even brought up sort of in TFA. We see it in TROS but I don’t feel like they ever really utilized it to the potential they could have. We should have seen more of them communicating through their bond especially during the end fight. And while I don’t think everything needs to be explained I still would have loved to see them talk about it in person. TROS shows us that their bond is so powerful it literally makes Palpatine exponentially more powerful when he takes their life force together but there’s never any explanation as to why Ben and Rey have this connection and why it’s so powerful. We’ve seen other force bonds with force sensitive people in the SW saga but never like these two have so what’s the difference? And why wasn’t it enough to save Ben?

So Rey dies and Ben gives his life force to save her. We get scenes with Ben crawling over to Rey, holding her, and looking absolutely shocked and anguished that Rey wouldn’t be with him anymore. Rey comes back they kiss and we see the first real smile from Ben in the entire series. and then he dies. Rey looks sad for a moment Ben disappears and that’s it, that’s the last time any reference to Ben is made in the movie. Rey loved him too Rey was eternally connected to him too yet the movie would have you believe all she felt was one moment of sadness over loosing her other half. It makes no sense. It also makes no sense why Ben wouldn’t be a force ghost unless he’s not dead.

And this is more of a commentary about fandom but I see so many people talk about how Reylo is abusive or how Ben can’t possibly be redeemed because of all the horrible things he’s done but no one seems to consider the fact that Ben was poisoned by the dark side at an age much younger than Anakin. Luke also turned on him and then lied about it which I have a huge problem with the movies acting like that was in any way okay. Like the only one who called Luke out on that was Rey but still Luke is partially responsible for what happened to Ben. My point in bringing this up in the ending is that Ben comes back to the light and without a moments hesitation he saves Rey and that still isn’t enough for some people he’s still this awful abusive person. He had so many chances to kill her, to hurt her, wound her terribly and he never did in fact it was her who ended up stabbing and almost killing him.

I’m not sure if Carrie Fisher’s death changed anything of how the ending was going to go. I’d assume so and I’ve read that Leia was supposed to play a bigger role in this movie so I’m not sure how it all would have played out but the way they had her die I think was another problem. There’s a video with an ending fix that shows Leia’s death bringing Ben back and I think that’s how it should have gone. Their whole battle on the Death Star to begin with was kind of messy you had Rey stab him, heal him, and then just leave which what was the purpose of all of that? But having Leia die then was less impactful as it would have been in the final moments of the movie. We don’t really know why Leia died in the movie just that when she did Ben felt it and it made him stop. If they had her die at the end it they could have made it so she chose to sacrifice herself to bring her son back so he could finally go be in the light with Rey.

When people watched the origtrig they saw Luke, Leia, and Han defeat the darkness good won out. Luke was even able to bring his father back to the light and talk to him and give himself closure. At the end of ROTJ the whole group are happy and together and there’s peace for first time in a long time. You might not have known exactly where these characters would end up after ROTJ but it all felt very hopeful. Now I’m not saying that everything needs to be wrapped up in a bow like that but where is the hope and inspiration at the end of TROS? Sure they defeated the bad guys but Rey is alone on sand planet basically back where she started.

I get that JJ and the other people involved with making the movie probably thought let’s be poetic and have TROS end where the original pretty much started on Tatooine but storyline wise it didn’t make sense for this trilogy and these characters and it was just plain tragic to have Rey end up back on a sand planet alone. One thing we’ve learned from Rey through the course of three movies is how alone she’s felt her entire life. How long she spent waiting for her parents because she thought they were coming back. How it’s clear she just wanted to to be loved and belong. She found that sense of love and belonging with Ben through their force bond and right when they could finally be together right when he finally came back to the light he was gone. She didn’t even have her friends with her she was truly alone.

If they had to have Ben die at the end of the battle and have Rey alone on Tatooine what they could have done was have her hear Ben at the end through their force connection and leave it open for interpretation as to whether he was still alive or just a ghost. I also think she should have taken Ben’s last name. This would connect her to the original trilogy in a way that would make older fans happy and it would connect her to Ben in a way that would make those of us who love Reylo happy. The thing is Rey was closer to Ben and his parents than she ever was to Luke. No offense to anyone who loves Luke but he wasn’t exactly the world’s best mentor. I mean I loved him in the origtrig but I wasn’t too happy with how he treated Rey and definitely not happy for what he did to Ben. Rey didn’t need to take his last name to honor him or Leia and Leia loved Han and Ben so Solo would have made her happy too. I just think JJ gave her the name Skywalker to make the fanboys happy. But Rey will always be a Solo to me.

I don’t know if they were trying to leave things intentionally vague or not at the end but a lot of it was. Like I said though I think the ending probably went through multiple changes in large part do to Carrie Fisher dying but other reasons too. I do think originally Ben wasn’t going to die but for whatever reasons that was changed. The scene where he lays down definitely feels  weird like it was revered or something (as many have pointed out). I also don’t get the inclusion of force ghosts if they weren’t going to include Ben, either there should have been no ghosts or Ben should have been there too. Another reason I think the ending was changed was because of the scene on the Death Star. Why have Rey heal him only for him to die later? It felt like this movie was supposed to be about Ben’s healing and return to the light not his death. It just doesn’t fit.

I read this one post that talked about how Ben is dark with light and Rey is light with dark yin/yang they balance each other out and can’t exist without each other. So what is Rey’s life going to be like now that her other half is gone?

I think that the movie should have ended up with Ben and Rey together over looking some place green and beautiful (remember her saying she didn’t think there was this much green in the whole galaxy). Maybe some time in the future with Rey pregnant and them building a life together. They could have even had Ben teaching new Jedi students. I want to cry just thinking about it. There’s so many better choices they could have made for the ending than just Rey alone in the desert on mercenary planet where she’s probably going to have to fight to survive again.

Sorry this got so long I just wanted to get out all my feelings on this. If you read all the way down many blessings upon you and your cow. 😝💗 I’m totally open to talking about any of this even if you disagree just as long as you’re not sending me hateful bs.

[darknessfactor]

You can all probably infer, based on the posts I’ve been reblogging, that I’m not a fan of The Last Jedi.  No, I have not actually seen in.  No, I don’t plan to, not until we get close enough to Episode IX that seeing it becomes a necessity rather than a pleasure.  You’re welcome to dismiss what I’m about to say based on that, if you like.  By ‘dismiss’, however, I mean you can ignore me; please don’t leave some smartass reply that sounds like, “But how could you know that if you haven’t seen the movie?”

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way... 

I’m going to come right out and say it: I have been uneasy about the direction that Star Wars has taken for almost a year now.  The changes in directors, the revelations about what kind of person Kathleen Kennedy is... it all has made me tense up, has made my excitement for the franchise die down considerably.  It got to the point that, about a month before TLJ came out, my interest in Star Wars was at an all time low.  I couldn’t have cared less.  

Finn has been repeatedly excluded from marketing.  If that doesn’t make you uneasy... you may want to re-examine your priorities.

We also had the news, many months ago, that Mark Hamill disagreed with Rian Johnson about how Luke was written.  That raised my hackles as well.  Of course, he went along with it, because it’s his job and he’s a professional actor.  I relaxed when he later said, “I was, as I often am, wrong!”

Here’s the thing, though: actors lie.  They’re not allowed to give negative opinions about films they’re starring in when the film is still being promoted.  So while I might have relaxed a bit, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still wary.  Then, of course, there was the news that the Solo directors were leaving, and then that Colin Trevorrow was leaving.  You have to wonder at the stability of a franchise when so many things seem to be going wrong.

Now: when the critics posted their reviews for The Last Jedi, I was relieved immensely.  Generally, I agree with critics assessments.  The only major time I differed was with Batman V Superman (which I loved).  Even then, however - even then, I felt that tiny seed of uneasiness - and one of these days, I should just trust my instincts, because they’re almost always proven right.

That seed of unease drove me to find out spoilers.  And now the big part, and the whole point of this post (this is a very personal thing, so you can argue with me if you like, but it’s not really something that’s debatable for me):

The Last Jedi did not let down my expectations, as many critics are saying of the naysayers.  No.  What the Last Jedi did was confirm my fears.

Sound bad?  That’s because it is.  It is that bad for me.

I really had no idea where they would take Star Wars after TFA.  I loved that movie.  It had its issues - lack of worldbuilding being the biggest for me (we have almost zero context about what the galaxy is like except the First Order is like the Empire and there’s a new Republic) - but the new characters were lovely, and it was fun to watch.  I thought, “Wow!  If the first movie was this good, I can’t wait to see what happens next!”

However, there were a few things that I didn’t want to happen.  You may call this a preference.  I suppose it is.  But considering what year it is and everything that has happened with our government and society, I feel that it’s more relevant than most people like to believe.

In other words, these are my fears.  At the time, they seemed so absurd - because really, would Disney do any of these things?  After TFA, I assumed that it would be obvious to Rian Johnson and Disney that doing any of these things would just be a bad idea.

Surely they wouldn’t focus on Kylo Ren as a sympathetic character - after he murdered his own father, brutalized Finn, and condoned the deaths of millions after Starkiller destroyed the Hosnian system?

But look what happened.

Surely they wouldn’t use unnecessary physical violence, as well as verbal belittlement, against their characters of color?  Surely their storylines would be just as meaningful as Rey’s, as Finn is also a lead character?

But look what happened.

Surely Disney and RJ would have taken cues from TFA, and kept characterization and story arcs consistent, trying their best to avoid plot holes and tell a complete story?

But look what happened.

Surely Disney wouldn’t write Rey as being romantically or sexually attracted to Kylo Ren, after J.J. Abrams outright said that the interrogation scene was a metaphor for rape, and after Rey proved to be such a strong character in TFA?

But look what happened.

These are the big ones, and this isn’t even counting the stuff that happened that I didn’t even think to be afraid of.  Amilyn Holdo is heavily implied to be bisexual in one of the novels, so we can now count ‘bury your gays’ among the fears that I didn’t even think of.  The plot itself is messy and doesn’t go anywhere, except to destroy/kill nearly everyone in the resistance and to kill off Snoke so that Kylo Ren becomes Supreme Leader.  Poe Dameron was belittled and mocked by Holdo for wanting to know the plan and being reasonably upset that Holdo won’t tell him.  And there are people out there crying ‘feminism’.  

Here’s the other thing: we live in a society that is steadily getting worse.  Our very rights are being stripped from us.  People are dying because they don’t have access to healthcare.  The US is not the only country with fascism on the rise.  And The Last Jedi, a movie that does not exist in a vacuum, no matter how many people will insist that it’s ‘just a movie’, shows us that the group we’re supposed to root for - the Resistance - is dying, with almost all their leaders being killed, with no help on the way from other parts of the galaxy, with the First Order going strong.  

Star Wars is, on top of everything else, about hope.  It’s about love.  But I see none of that in this movie.  I see the characters I love being taken apart, being torn down, until there’s almost nothing left to hope for.  I see good people dying in a Game of Thrones-esque massacre, as the situation just continues to get worse and worse.  If I wanted that kind of negativity, I’d actually watch Game of Thrones.  

Before you argue and talk about Rose’s line to Finn, or the children at the end of the movie who use the Force: that would be a violation of this little thing I like to call “show, don’t tell”.  It’s harder for me to believe because it was told to me, not shown.

The fact of the matter is, The Last Jedi is the very last movie I need to see right now.  And you can laugh at me all you like, but I actually cried upon reading the spoilers.  Not in a good way.

Call me what you want.  Call me a whiny little bitch.  Call me salty and laugh as you drink my tears.  That’s fine.  This post isn’t meant for you, anyway.  

[tigerlily-sunshine]

When I said has calum been hurt by passed lovers was bc of those lines where Michael and calum said that luke does this all the time. Do you as a writer like calum and Michael? N there better be a god damn good reason why they didn't call or text lol love you!

(Follow up to this post.)

So that scene. I have sort of already answered this, but I waved aside most of my answer, because it would be super spoiler-y. Here, it is no different, but I will try to dance around what I’m trying to keep quiet for now yet still sort of answer your question… at least until chapters twenty-two and twenty-three. Those are “secret-telling” chapters where this scene in particular should make sense.

As I previously said, this scene isn’t referencing a past “fourth” lover. It is purely an out shoot of exactly who Luke is as a character in this story and how he wound up in the relationship with Calum and Michael to begin with. There is a loneliness aspect to Luke that is probably - hopefully - already obvious at this point in the story. It is akin to Ashton’s loneliness, but it is also different. Why it is different is what lead to MichaelandCalum becoming MichaelandCalumandLuke.

What Luke does “all of the time” isn’t bring home (potential) lovers. It is that he thinks of the entire world before he thinks of himself. It is one of the reasons that Michael and Calum welcomed him into their relationship. He is very giving. He doesn’t ask for anything in return. And that is key. It is sad, but it is important…

(I should mention here that there is a whole lot more to everything that I have said thus far, especially about why Luke is in the relationship to begin with, but that’s what the rest of the story is for.)

Is there a good reason why they haven’t called/texted Ashton? Yes and no. This is actually a point that is hit on several times over the last few chapters, so I won’t go into the reasons, but they aren’t really nefarious. They are sort of rational. Maybe. But that doesn’t make the “bad” ones “good.” ;)

As a writer, do I like Michael and Calum as characters? I’ve actually been asked versions of this question in the past, particularly with regard to Calum in this story. (My answer to this is only in light of fanfiction and not the actual people, because I’m sure they’re lovely, but I don’t keep up with their personal lives.)

Yes, I do like Michael and Calum as characters. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t write them. Simple as that. But have you read any of my other stories? It must be Magic is basically a glorification of Michael (and to some extent Calum), and Make Pretend that You and Me Lived Ever After Happily is a total lovefest for Calum. (Also to my point, Luke is sort of an asshole for a lot of It must be Magic, and Ashton isn’t the best lover in Like the Stars Love the Sky.)

As far as See the World Hanging Upside Down is concerned, I didn’t set out to sabotage Calum or Michael. They just sort of naturally got their roles in the story as I planned it out.

The story was always told from Ashton’s point of view, and it was always intended to be endgame ot4. In fact, I started writing the story after I got the idea for the opening dialogue between Ashton and Luke at the very beginning. That meant that Luke got to be the coworker that Ashton has a crush on. This left Michael and Calum without a role to fill. I didn’t want all four of them to be instantly in love with the idea of this whole, big relationship, so either Michael or Calum had to be the “reluctant” one. I’ve always had a soft spot for Michael. He was my favorite member of the band when I first stumbled across them, so I picked Calum to be the “reluctant” one. Everything spiraled from there.

The truth is - and maybe I’ve mentioned this in prior posts - that Michael didn’t originally have his own storyline. Luke was the one who wanted Ashton to join them. Calum was the one who didn’t. Ashton was the one who had to deal with it all. And Michael? He was just there… but that seemed unfair. It seemed like a waste of his character, so then the shower scene with Ashton happened, and Michael clammed up, but, in the process, he got his own part in the story.

I don’t write stories intending to villainize any of the characters for kicks and giggles. But stories have to have conflict. I’m not much of a fluff writer, in case you haven’t noticed. Well behaved characters do not create conflict. They don’t. I find them boring to write. They don’t lose anything. They don’t gain anything. Furthermore, they don’t stand to either gain or lose something. What is the point, then, of writing the story?

I do write stories intending to capture the reality of life and love and people. Good people do bad things, on accident or on purpose. Life happens. It is messy and unpredictable and sometimes so overwhelming that an otherwise rational actor doesn’t act, well, rational at all. There are good times and bad times, both in life and in love, and that’s sort of the beauty of the crazy world in which we all live.

So magic doesn’t exist. So polyamorous relationships aren’t as “welcomed” as they seem to be in StWHUD. So people don’t typically meet the love of their life on a city bus. So people don’t survive a plane crash and wind up on the same desert island. So dozens of my other storytelling techniques or plot points are either exaggerations or fictionalizations of real life.

None of this means that I cannot strive to infuse reality with fiction. Part of wanting to portray, or pay homage to, the crazy world in which we live is making even my favorite characters out to be the “bad” guys sometimes. Certain storylines work better with my absolute hands-down favorite character being a tee-totally jerk. Other storylines work better if my least favorite character is the hero.

That was certainly a long walk for a short drink of water…

I have previously shared this, this, and this from the next chapter and have yet to finish editing it, so here is a bit more. (I’m going to try to post the next chapter either tonight or tomorrow, for real this time.)

Ashton fishes the hiddenkey out of the planter box next to the front steps. He uses it to open thefront door then returns it to its original spot. If it hadn’t been obvious howmuch Ashton didn’t belong here, it is now—having to use a spare key to enterthe place that he had foolishly called home, because nobody gave him his own key.It leaves a bad taste in the back of Ashton’s mouth.

[xboxmovieguy]

What happened to The Last Jedi?

Okay so I know that people have said a lot about this film and most of it is very over the top and melodramatic like this movie made them feel physically ill or that this is the most egregious thing they’ve ever seen. I’m aware many of the over the top sound bites that have been collected have been from Star Wars fans that have just left the theater and are probably pissed that the movie they were waiting for sucked, but really it is just a movie remember that. For those people that think that’s me not respecting the material or not being a Star Wars fan and understanding their plight, I have seen all the films and I am familiar with the lore and plot of Star Wars, but I treat it like I do any other form of entertainment, if I don’t like it I just ignore it and focus on things I do like, for instance the original trilogy of Star Wars films, along with Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One. In saying all that The Last Jedi is a terrible film for many reasons, but the funny thing is almost none of those reasons are reliant on it being a Star Wars movie. Sometimes a movie is just bad because things during its production were done poorly. This is a different argument than my previous one for why I didn’t care for The Force Awakens. That film was bad because it ripped off whole plot lines from A New Hope and because it ignored the lore of Star Wars for the sake of having an ending where the good character beat the bad character despite everything saying they shouldn’t. The Force Awakens is a bad Star Wars movie, but The Last Jedi is just a bad movie. Lets break it down bit by bit and see exactly what I’m getting at here. Lets start with writing, something that if done correctly can truly make a films great and if done poorly like in The Last Jedi can make the scenes unnecessarily funny or cringe worthy. This lack of writing skill is most evident with the plot of the film, there are many plot threads that literally go nowhere. Now there will be SPOILERS for the film here so if you don’t want to know what happens then stop reading. So at the very beginning of the movie Finn who has recovered from his lightsaber wound and a new character named Rose leave the Resistance flotilla that is under attack by the First Order to find a hacker to help them break into Supreme Leader Snoke’s flagship and shut down a device they are using to track the Resistance through hyperspace. This plot line which takes up probably half an hour of screen time leads to Finn and Rose getting caught on board the flag ship and trying to disable the tracking device is never brought up again. A second plot line revolves around Poe the ace Resistance X-Wing pilot from the previous film. After many of the Resistance leadership are killed during an attack on the bridge of the command ship except princess Leia who is badly injured, and unconscious but alive. This puts Admiral Holdo in charge of the fleet. Holdo refuses to explain any of her command orders to her senior staff and even when faced with being held at gunpoint refuses to explain her plan. This leads to Poe starting a mutiny that ultimately leads to him being knocked out by Leia as he attempts to take command of the ship from the bridge. It is only then that it is revealed that Holdo was bringing the ship to an old Rebel base that only herself and Leia knew about from the Galactic Civil war thirty years prior. This entire thread was completely useless and the film painting Holdo as an incompetent and hopeless leader even more confusing. Honestly it seems more likely that the writers were trying to think of some way to use Poe and they created this plot line for him to pad the movies run time and give him something to do so fans wouldn’t forget about him. There are other stunted plot lines that are a result of character deaths like Supreme Leader Snoke. To be honest I actually liked the death scene and felt it was an original way to kill off a character, but the problem is that Snoke was set up as this big mysterious character in the previous movie and they do nothing here to explain where he came from or how he has risen to the seat of power that he has? Another strange character death is Captain Phasma, who is presumably killed when she falls into a flaming pit after an anticlimactic battle with Finn. She’s almost like the Boba Fett of this series where she looks really cool and everyone seems to acknowledge how bad ass she is, but ultimately she doesn’t do much and winds up dead without much of a hint at who she is and why she’s there. Some of the dialogue is also quite cringe worthy, especially from the new character Rose, a great example is her calling Benicio Del Toro’s character a “lying snake” after he betrays them to the First Order. The romance and I use the term romance in the loosest form possible here, between her and Finn is by far the most forced thing in the entire film and really just seems to take the audiences attention away from the main plot following Leia, Luke, and Rey. Now outside of the writing there was a particular cinematography choice that really bugged me and that was the handling of the scenes where Kylo Ren and Rey are speaking to each other over some sort of mental link using the force. During these scenes the camera only shows one character or the other in the locations they are at. For instance the scene starts with Rey on the planet training with Luke and then the camera switches to Kylo on board Snoke’s ship and switches between the two depending on who’s talking, but despite the fact they mention they can see each other in their own environments Rain Johnson decided to make it so we don’t see them both in the same location until the last shot where they touch hands. It mainly bothers me because this seems kind of strange when you could show Rey on the ship talking with Kylo and then change and show Kylo talking with Rey on the planet, the way they did it just feels sort of cheap to me. Another strange plot line that was sort of explained was the thread from the last movie about who Rey’s parents were. Kylo explains to Rey that her parents were nobodies and sold her on Jakku for “booze money”, so the only question I have is why even bother with the plot line if her parents were really nobodies, it would have been easier to just say she was an orphan and make her parents just a foot note without taking the audience for a one and a half movie ride just to tell them that. Then we reach the acting in this film, most of the actors do their roles fine, but there are two that stand out to me. First is Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, he doesn’t really act so much as just says all of his lines like he’s angry or constipated or a mixture of the two, either way he just seems very uncomfortable throughout the entire film. The other culprit is Kelly Marie Tran as Rose, she can not deliver a good line in this film without coming off as annoying or naive, I mean there are lines about her feeling sorry for giant horse rabbits, while presumably her friends are being blown to bits by the First Order. Then at the end she may steal the only meaningful character death in the entire film by saving Finn’s life while he;s attempting to make a heroic sacrifice to save the remaining Resistance forces from being exposed by a giant laser cannon blowing a hole in their base. Rose knocks his ship out of the way while he’s trying to ram his sand speeder into the mouth of the weapon and says that they’ll win by saving each other, but wasn’t that what he was trying to do save everyone else by just sacrificing himself? Anyway her character and her plot line are useless to the overall plot of the film and does nothing to develop the character of Finn other than to give him something to do. I’m not even going to mention the whole Leia using the force part of the film or Yoda’s force ghost summoning a bolt of lightning, but both of those instances were a bit out of left field for me. There’s also the problem that Leia survived the movie which makes no sense considering Carrie Fisher passed away earlier this year meaning now they have to kill her character off in between movies. One other thing that I’ve seen that hasn’t been addressed was if the middle of this movie was cut and re-shot. People have pointed out behind the scenes photo’s of Daisy Ridley as Rey fighting at night with a lightsaber on the island where she trains with Luke, but that was never in the film. Along with supposed scenes involving Rey battling a sea monster and talking to Anakin Skywalkers force ghost (Reports also said that Hayden Christensen the actor who played older Anakin in the prequels was on set at some point) it appears that many of these scenes were either cut out or edited and replaced with other scenes. Of course right now most of this has been taken from fan speculation and theories on why the movie seems to have such a messy plot line. So to summarize The Last Jedi is a complete mess of plot holes and stunted or just wasted storylines that just go towards padding the movies run time. So what did you think of The Last Jedi and do you have any faith towards Episode IX?