#it’s the same reason Harrison Ford hates Star Wars

[imomnba-x07]

Chris Evans:

- continuously says he’s not coming back as Steve

- states he’s no longer captain America and is proud of the continued legacy of the shield through Sam

- TWEETS THAT SAM WILSON IS CAPTAIN AMERICA

Dumbass media outlets:

- but like, when are you coming back 🥺👉🏽👈🏽

[wheresarizona]

giiiirl if you say Cielito is bi in your mind now I need to know if she like came out to Javi or how she approached the topic like was she scared of how he was going to react? I need to know everything pleeeease

Brunettes

summary: Javier asks a question you aren't expecting.

rating: T (coming out, language, Javi's continued hate of Harrison Ford)

pairing: Javier Peña/bi!reader

words: 793

a/n: Okay, okay, okay, I’ll tell you my bi!Cielito coming out headcanon. Now, again, this is just how I imagine things would go down. So, Javi figures it out on his own. Lmao I've written you a drabble on how the conversation would go. I hope you enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Comments and reblogs feed me. I’d love to know what you thought!

Series Masterlist

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon that was being spent in your underwear and an oversized t-shirt as you lay atop your boyfriend’s bare chest on the couch. Your ear was to his skin, and you were soothed by his heart's strong, steady beat while you watched some romantic comedy playing on cable.  

“She’s so fucking gorgeous,” you said without thinking—you were pretty sure the actress’s name was Salma Hayek.

“I guess.”

You moved to look at his face. 

“You guess? Do you have eyes?”

He looked at you with a frown. 

“Yeah, I do have eyes, and I think you’re even more gorgeous.”

You scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

He pinched your ass, and your body tensed. “Stop that shit—I’m serious.”

You sighed, having a hard time believing he was telling the truth. “Fine.”

He grabbed a handful of your backside, and you both went back to lying on him and watching the movie. 

A few minutes later, he broke the silence. “Cielito?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna ask you something, and you don’t have to answer. I’m just curious.”

“Okay…?”

“Are you… also attracted to women?”

The question had your heart rate speeding up. 

“Um, wow, we probably should’ve talked about this sooner. I mean, we’ve been together for almost a month.”

It wasn’t something you’d been hiding from him. You just hadn’t known how to bring it up. 

“Your answer isn’t going to change anything,” he reassured. 

That made you feel better. 

“It wouldn’t bother you?”

“Why would it bother me? I don’t care if you’re attracted to men or women. All I care about is that you’re attracted to me.”

“I’m definitely attracted to you.”

“I know.”

“And yes, I do fancy ladies and dudes—I had a lot of fun in college. What gave me away?” 

“You mean besides when we watched Star Wars last week, and you thought I didn’t hear you whisper, ‘I’d love to be the middle in a Han and Leia sandwich’?”

“Oh, god, I’ve been obvious,” you said, pressing your forehead to his chest. 

He rubbed his hands over your back. “Yeah, you have.” 

You frowned, lifting your head to look at him. “You must hate it when I say someone else is attractive.” 

He met your eyes with a raised eyebrow. “Are you gonna fuck them?” 

“What? No.” 

“Are you gonna leave me for them?” 

“No. It’s never even crossed my mind.” 

“You can’t help if you find other people attractive—so no, I don’t hate it.” 

“Good—”

“—Unless,” he cut you off with a grumpy look, “it’s that asshole who plays Han Solo, ‘cause I’m pretty sure you have a crush on him with how many of his fucking movies you’ve seen and all the shit you know about him.” 

“Harrison Ford?” 

“Fucking Harrison Ford.” 

“Are you… jealous of Harrison Ford…?”

“No,” he answered a little too quickly. 

“Sure, Javi,” you said in a tone that said you didn’t believe him. 

“I’m not fucking jealous.” He smacked your ass, and you laughed. “He should be jealous that I’m the only one who gets to fuck you.” 

“See—then there’s no reason to hate the guy since I’m dating you and only want you.” Leaning forward, you kissed him. You pulled back and asked, “Is it just because he’s a man it bothers you so much I like him? Or would you feel the same if it was a woman?”

He was pouting. “I’d feel the same…”

“Good.” You kissed the tip of his nose. 

“Is there a famous woman you like as much as that Ford guy?”

“Oh, I’m gonna let you figure that out on your own since you’ve got that big, sexy brain, and I wanna see if you can.”

You could see him thinking hard as he looked away with his eyes a little squinted. 

“Are you really trying to figure it out right this second?” you asked. 

“Hold on.”

“You’re not gonna figure it out a minute after asking the question.”

“There’s this actress,” he started, “I’ve noticed in a bunch of shit we’ve watched I thought might be your favorite, but I’m realizing you’ve just got a thing for brunettes.” He looked at you. “I don’t know her name, but I’m pretty sure it’s the woman in that movie we watched Thursday night.”

Your mouth fell open. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Am I right?”

“I’m just so fucking obvious.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“You wanna know who I have the biggest fucking crush on?”

He frowned. “…sure.”

“This amazingly perfect guy named Javier Peña who has me head over heels for him.”

He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah—“ You leaned forward to kiss him, continuing to speak against his lips, “—I’d pick you over the other two in a heartbeat.”

“Good.”

Series Masterlist

[stormyoceans]

Monica, you often write about your bisexual ass. Is that true? May I ask how you understood that? I'm going through a metamorphosis of myself right now, and you give the impression of a person who cares, who can share experience of findingself.

hello, anon!!!!

i can confirm i am very much bisexual and that i've dated both men and women, although my actual serious relationships count amounts to a shocking number of...... two. so you know. im hardly an expert ;;;;;;;;

realizing i was bisexual was a bit.. tortuous for me, but im gonna try my best to keep it short. im also gonna put it under a read more since it's personal stuff and people may not want to see it, so if you're still interested about my personal experience you can find it under the cut!!!!!

right, so. basically i had this best friend who i had known since elementary school and we were very close and very affectionate with each others: we would cuddle and hold hands and even exchange little pecks on the lips as an hello. no one worried about it when we were kids and we never really questioned its 'normalcy', but as we grew older (around 11/12 years old) our families made it clear that that was not 'appropriate behavior', because certain things were okay to do only with boys

then high school happened and that was.. pretty much the worst period of my life ;;;;;;; my friend and i went to the same school and were in the same class, but while she was well liked and had quite a few relationships with boys, i was bullied a lot, until one day they started to refer to me as 'that lesbian', as if it were an insult. my friend started to pull away from me a little, but she would also buy me a rose for valentine's day every year and say she missed me and that no boy made her happy as i did, so i was. a bit confused ;;;;;;;; i also felt jealous of her, but i wasn't sure if it's because i wanted to be her or if i wanted her to just be with me

and you know, i was already deep into fandom spaces at the time, but it was also very different back then: there wasn't a lot of genuine queer representation (brokeback mountain came out when i was 15 and the only other queer relationship depicted on screen at the time was tara and willow from buffy the vampire slayer), shitting on female characters was considered 'cool', and you could find essays on how liking yaoi and being interested in MLM was 'completely normal because those stories are made exclusively by straight women for other straight women' (which is why i now hate this mentality but that's a whole different matter)

ANYWAY. after high school, my friend and i grew apart, then i met a guy in university who i REALLY liked, who shared my same interests and gave me back a little of self-confidence, and we dated for almost two years. then one day my friend contacted me out of nowhere to catch up and when we met she confessed that she had always liked me, and when she kissed me i didn't stop her. so we got together and were in a relationship for three years before it ended (badly), but the important thing here is that i was in my 20s at that point, and queer representation and awareness had started to slowly get better, especially in fandom spaces where there wasn't just heterosexuality and homosexuality anymore, but people were starting to talk about bisexuality and asexuality and gender identities too, so reading about all of that kinda did the trick for me. it's when i looked back and realized that there was a reason why i was obsessed with both sailor moon and dragon ball as a kid, and that i did indeed have a crush on harrison ford as han solo in star wars and heath ledger in a knight's tale but also on keira knightley as elizabeth swann in pirates of the caribbean and katie mcgrath as morgana in merlin. it wasn't an either/or situation, i liked both and that was who i was

okay so this still ended up being long as hell ;;;;;;; and im not sure reading any of this was actually helpful, or if im even the best person to talk to about this, but i do wanna say something that i find to be true for my experience, which is: i feel like a lot of people think about bisexuality as a.. perfect balanced proportion, for lack of a better term, like it means that you're attracted to men and women (or men and non-binary people, or women and non-binary people, etc.) in equal measure, but that's not true. you can be attracted to idk.. 9 men and 1 women, or 6 women and 2 men and 2 non-binary people, and you're still very much bisexual in all cases!!!!!!

and the thing is.. i think labels in this case are important when it comes to give you a sense of self and a sense of community, but they don't have to limit you. i also think it's completely normal to maybe feel scared and confused when reading about sexual orientations and romantic orientations and gender identities, because there are some people who just connect with a definition and know who they are right away, but there are also people who don't know if something actually applies to them or not and that's okay!!!!!!! you can take all the time you need to figure it out!!!!!!!!

and if you're not sure what to identify with, but you do know that you're not straight, then it's perfectly fine to identify as just that: not straight (i know some people are not comfortable with the term 'queer' but i personally like it because you can use it as an umbrella term with that meaning, however there's nothing wrong in simply using 'not straight')

so, um, yeah ;;;;;; again, idk if this can be helpful in any way, because figuring out about being bisexual to me was just a mix of.. liking someone and trying to be in a relationship with them and then realizing you can like both men and women and thinking 'oh that's me!!', but everyone's experience is different. i don't think i have any advice to give you, except maybe 'be open to possibilities and talk to more people to hear about as many point of view as possible', but also you were right to say that i care and if you need someone to talk to, im here for you

hope you'll find the answer you're looking for, anon, and please know im holding your hand through this journey!!!!!!

[danvssomethingorother]

I remember reading the only reason Harrison Ford starred in the new Indiana Jones was so no one could replace the character in a reboot and that’s depressing. He is just that dedicated to the character

But it’s also hilarious he’s the same guy who starred in the new Star Wars so he could finally murder Han Solo cause he hated the character so much and yet came back again to be the character. I’m going to guess he just doesn’t want people playing his roles even roles he hates

[tthankstoyou]

In a world where every member of the Glee Club is... you know, playing for the other/multiple teams, what do you think each of their big gay awakening was?

ASJDS THIS IS A GREAT ASK THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I’m only doing the main glee club members from season 1-3 but lmk if you want me to do the side characters or s4/6 newbies!

Quinn: Is it okay if I say a person she knew? It’s 100% Brittany. She probably didn’t realize people could be attracted to the same gender until she saw Brittany making out with a girl at a Cheerios party and wondered why she wanted to be the girl kissing Britt so bad. And like Britt is super open about her sexuality, which would only make Quinn more interested in what kissing a girl would be like.

Tina: Faith from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ Need I say more? Or the scene in ‘Jennifer’s Body’ where Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried make out.

Santana: Meg from ‘Hercules’ was definitely the cause of her first gay thought, although she wouldn’t have realized that she was obsessed with Meg bc of lesbian reasons until much later.

Mercedes: Hers was Number 3 from ‘Code Name Kids Next Door’ because of how she was adorable and such a positive light in the show. Mercedes was jealous of Number 4...... but she didn’t realize until later what exactly that jealousy was.

Brittany: The green m&m.... jkjk.......... but am i really joking tho? 🤔

Rachel: I know you might be expecting me to say someone from Broadway, but I see her more as looking up to Broadway stars as role models. They’re her inspiration and what she aspires to be. So I’m going to say the first time Rachel fell in love with every woman that was mean to her, which means that her gay awakening was obviously Regina George from Mean Girls. Regina was the first character that Rachel saw and immediately wanted her to slap her face and spit in her mouth.

Finn: Honestly... Finn seems like the Keanu Reeves type of guy. Like he watched ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ with his mom and stayed up the whole night looking up pictures of Ted/Keanu Reeves.

Puck: Robin from the 1997 movie ‘Batman & Robin.’ It’s all in how chiseled Robin’s chest was and the overall costume.

Sam: Just like with Quinn, it’s a person he knew. His was a boy that he went to his all-boys private school with. They kissed to see what it would be like to kiss someone... the other dude was like “No offense, but I think I’d rather kiss a girl” & Sam’s internally freaking out because he didn’t hate it as much as the other dude claimed to.

Blaine: It was definitely Han Solo for Blaine. He watched ‘Star Wars’ and the first thing he did once he finished all of the movies was googling pictures of Hal Solo and Harrison Ford. So not only is the franchise his start of becoming a nerd, but also how he realized he was gay. He would stay up until the later hours of the night reading Han Solo/reader fan fics & even writing them when he started running low on fics to read.

Artie: Something stupid like Max from ‘A Goofy Movie.’ He watched it and was entranced by Max... Max/reader was probably the first fan fiction he ever read.

Mike: Those magazines near the checkout line at the grocery store that have half shirtless men or the men’s shirts are like super tight.

Kurt: I think it’s harder to pinpoint an exact moment for Kurt. He always knew that he was different, but didn’t know how to explain exactly what it was that made him a target for bullying. I’d say that one of his earliest gay moments was walking down the underwear isle and trying his best to divert his eyes from the half naked men with their bulges showing on the packaging.

[dameronology]

the one where you bring home a dog (s.r x reader)

on episode #48598 of val’s sitcom binge - this has a million sitcom references in it. sorry, but also not sorry 

also ft. tony, pepper and morgan because their little family warms my cold dead heart 

- jazz

warnings: none, probably language 

Steve knew when you’d done something. You had a look. The I’ve done something you’ll hate me for please hear me out look.

Okay, maybe this wasn’t wrong. Taking in a stray puppy and becoming attached to him in the space of approximately 0.001 milliseconds was hardly villainous but probably the kind of thing you should have discussed with your boyfriend.  Adopting a dog was a big commitment, and sometimes an expensive one. They needed care and attention and a lot of effort - but you didn’t give a singular shit about that when the little terrier followed you home from an alleyway. 

Asking Steve about it did cross your mind. But, not until you’d brought the little man a collar, a bowl, a little jacket and a chewy teddy. Your order of priorities may have been skewed but you had pure intentions. You realised that asking Steve should have been slightly higher on that list when he walked into your apartment and greeted you with what the hell is that?

That was when you cracked out the look; big watery eyes and pouty lips. It was the same look you had when you painted your bedroom wall yellow without consulting him first, and the same look you had when you accidentally let your niece bring his shield into school for show and tell. It was also the biggest weapon in your arsenal, because he couldn’t say no to it. Below the layers of stoic patriotism and steely determination, he was a big softie. 

‘It’s a dog.’ You responded to his query. ‘Four legs, a tail, a snout-’

‘- I know what a dog is, baby.’ Steve put his jacket down, walking further into your shared apartment. ‘And I also know that we don’t have one.’

‘Yeah, about that.’

‘Where did you even find him?’ Steve took a seat beside you, where you were sat cross-legged on the floor in front of your puppy’s new basket.

‘He followed me home. I’ve checked online and no-one’s looking for a tiny terrier.’ You said, absent-mindedly scratching his belly. ‘Look at him. How could you not want to love him forever?’

‘He’s cute, but dogs are a lot of commitment, doll.’

‘I know. Watering, feeding, regular sunlight-’

‘- he’s not a plant-’

‘- you know what I mean!’ You elbowed him in the ribs, a grin on your face. ‘I was going to ask you but I became too attached before I could.’

Steve looked at the little dog in front of him. He was laying on his back, tongue hanging out as he snored quietly. He was a dog person, without a doubt - his job just made it hard. In an ideal world, he’d have five of them, but he didn’t have the time. Perhaps your impulsiveness, on this occasion, was a blessing in disguise.

‘Also, if you kick him out I’m going with him.’ You continued. ‘We’re a package deal now.’

Steve knew he’d lost the argument before it had even started. Your steely determination and commitment to helping people (and dogs) was one of the things that made him fall in love with you. It felt a bit lethal when you were playing Monopoly but for the most part, it was admirable.

‘What’s he called?’

‘The scruffy brown hair and aloofness sort of reminded me-’

‘- no. We are not naming our dog after Bucky-’

‘- is exactly what I thought you were going to say.’ You quipped. 

‘How about Chewy?’

‘Like from Star Wars?’ You raised your eyebrows. 

‘Exactly. Because he’s hairy and I like to think that I resemble a young Harrison Ford.’

Chewy Rogers quickly assimilated into life at the Rogers household, of which he was now a valuable member. Even though he had his own bed, he preferred sleeping in yours - specifically between you and Steve. Then, he’d join Steve on his run in the morning, and you’d take him to the park in the evening. He left hair everywhere but when you took one big look into his stupid big, brown eyes, you knew you’d forgive him for murder. (Steve was familiar with the feeling - that was how he got into this predicament in the first place). 

But, Chewy’s favourite activity was his regular visits to the Avengers Tower. Between the showers of attention he got from Morgan and the influx of treats from Thor, he was in heaven.

‘Hey, little guy.’ Tony beamed at him, rubbing behind his ears. ‘I need to get one of these.’

‘Do it!’ You grinned. 

‘Tony, we already have a four year old. We don’t need a dog!’ Pepper called from the kitchen.

‘Steve said the same thing!’ You reasoned. ‘But I think it was something like we already have a Bucky, we don’t need a dog.’

Your boyfriend, who was stood a few feet away making coffee with Pepper, rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t fight the smile off his face. Steve had become more than attached to the furry little creature over the last month. Coming home to his little yaps and the sound of his paws on your wooden floors after a long day was nothing short of the best feeling in the world. 

‘I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. The devil works hard but a determined (name) works harder.’

‘You love him really.’

‘It’s true,’ Steve raised his mug of coffee in the air, as if he were drinking to your statement. ‘I’ve only had him for a month and a half but if anything happened to him, I’d kill everyone in the room and then myself.’

‘Don’t go soft on me, Rogers.’

[bonesgadh]

The problem of using original characters as bait for a sequel and why I think that, so far, Yashahime is not doing it right.

When you are planning a sequel I understand the need to use the original characters to get people interested in the new story, especially if the original is very popular and close to a lot of people’s hearts. Inuyasha is very special to me because I have been a fan since I was five years old and it has helped me through many difficult moments in my life, and I know it is special to a lot of people as well. 

 From the moment Yashahime got announced they stated the story would be about the three girls. However, the reason why virtually every single fan I saw on social media were asking themselves: “okay, but where are the originals?” was because of a very simple reason: they wanted you to wonder where they were literally from day one. Moroha’s bio straight-out said she was Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter but that she didn’t remember them because she had grown up alone. 

I’m gonna use two examples I’m familiar with to try to explain myself: Harry Potter and Star Wars.

Let’s imagine The Cursed Child never existed and that they do a movie sequel to Harry Potter instead. If they don’t show Harry, Ron and Hermione in the trailer, the obvious question among the fans would be: “where are they?” It wouldn’t matter if they already stated that the story will have new protagonists and a new plot, you only care about seeing them again because they are the characters you are familiar with. Also if they hint that their kids grew up alone and that they don’t remember their parents, you would immediately ask yourself what happened to them. It is narrative 1.0.

Even though I hated The Cursed Child, Rowling knew the Harry Potter fandom very well. There’s no doubt whatsoever that Albus and Scorpius were the main characters in Cursed Child, but we still got the golden trio in a supporting role aiding the new protagonists without stealing the spotlight. 

Now, moving on to Star Wars: one of the main reasons why the sequel trilogy crashed and burned was because they failed to give a proper closure to the original characters. Luke was too OOC, Han was in The Force Awakens only because they begged Harrison Ford to appear, and Carrie’s unexpected death got in the way of giving Leia closure. Also fans will never forgive them for not giving us at least one moment of the original three together. My guess is people in charge of the sequels hoped the new characters would be strong enough to carry the story on their own, which kinda failed because their stories weren’t consistent through the trilogy and the shadow of the original trio was too powerful.

If I had to guess, I would say the people in charge of Yashahime made the same mistake. They hoped fans would fall in love with the three girls and that they would be strong enough to carry the sequel to a story as famous as Inuyasha. Don’t get my wrong, I really like the girls, but I don’t love them the same way I loved the Inugang. And I know it is not a competition, but let’s be honest: you can’t help but compare every single detail, from the music to the characters. I don’t know if it’s a script issue, but if every single episode your fans end up asking themselves: “cool, but where is the original group?” you are not doing a good job at writing strong characters than can carry the weight of a sequel on their backs.

Three weeks ago we were fucking baited with that teaser of Miroku because they knew we would go batshit crazy, and they only gave us like two seconds without proper context. That same episode we got a brief mention of Sango and a flashback to an episode of Final Act. Since then, silence. Shippo hasn’t been seen or mentioned at all, and neither have Kin’u and Gyokuto. Now, if there’s nothing wrong with them and it turns out they are just chillin’ by the beach, then why the need of teasing us? They clearly wanted us to go crazy because of all the mystery and that is just mean.

Same goes for Sessrin shippers. I don’t ship that pair by any means; however, even I am annoyed by all the hints and teasing that screams at you that Rin is the mother but the people in charge didn’t have the balls to confirm it from the start. I hate when they tease fans and use us to get high ratings in order to make a reveal that IS SO DAMN OBVIOUS. I mean, SHE IS THE ONE INSIDE THAT DAMN TREE!!!

I kept telling myself “don’t freak out, we are only 2/3/4/5/6/7 episodes in.” Also Yashahime will have 24 episodes and if they are following the classic structure it means we already saw the first third of the story, a.k.a the set-up. BUT this is also a red flag for them. The fans are pissed off and even those of us who were like “guys, chill out. There’s no way they will reveal something important so soon” are getting impatient and mad af. 

In conclusion I like the show and I will continue to watch it, but I sincerely hope the second third of the story improves and they stop rushing shit for the sake of it. Also that they make these girls a bit vulnerable, I’m tired of them being so damn strong (I already ranted about this last week).

[rumandtimes]

Does Cultural Appropriation Apply to Natalie Portman?

Sean Ezersky

Assoc. Fantasy Contributor

Does appropriation apply to the worst parts of European cultures?

Today, I want to discuss cultural appropriation. Yes, the issue of the times. But what exactly is cultural appropriation? Well, nobody knows. Starting at the first word, it claims to be some kind of appropriation. And it has something to do with culture.

Firstly, it should be said that this article has nothing to actually do with cultural appropriation. That is because cultural appropriation is essentially defined by racism. The term first appears, so it goes, as a description of how racist citizens of England marginalised and exploited the peoples of the Caribbean, and attacked sections of the working class schtick, for fun. Sounds evil enough.

The term cultural appropriation cannot be used as a mild term or played around with much, because it is by definition a form of misconduct. The term cultural appropriation is defined by the words “inappropriate,” “racist,” and “commercialist.” There is no redeeming quality to cultural appropriation because cultural appropriation is used to describe exclusively irredeemable activity, markedly opposite to cultural exchange or respect.

Consider the worst perpetrator in the United Kingdom and the United States: hip-hop / rap music, curly hair, or a summer tan. Racists always attack these music genres and human characteristics un-European, placing them into the same box on the fringes of their minds, but at the same time view themselves as ‘cultured’ for dipping into the same music, view themselves as ‘interesting’ for factory curling their hair, or view themselves as ‘unique’ for getting a spray-on tan. There is a murderous and delirious sense of bad irony, that racists altogether marginalise, demonise, and lust after perfectly normal traits and human practices, which the racist calls exotic, for fear of being labelled as freaks themselves. That is cultural appropriation.

Another bad actor is the billion-dollar yoga industry in Western nations as well, which attempts at every corner to steal Indian culture then mutilate the original concept, taking the yoga gurus off the cover and planting in some body-bleaching whores, or some wavy Italian guy, to appeal to the racist American, à la youth female target audience. All the while, Hinduism, inextricable from yoga’s origins while not necessarily the same as yoga in any way, is viewed as a false and inexpiable religion by most people in the West. Yoga was not learned from the Hindu, it was looted, and replaced with a shallow, cruel, commercial, and disgraceful attempt to Europeanise and trivialise the hobby while selling it the crude sex markets. That is a form of cultural genocide and religion-sacking. That is cultural appropriation.

But this article is not about cultural appropriation, in a way. The distinction was only added to please those offended by the comparison. This article is about movies, as part of a series of Star Wars critiques, and it’s about Natalie Portman.

Long have I harboured a question about Natalie Portman’s career, as it is so vapid yet so prolific, so vain yet so ubiquitous. This is just the opportunity. Natalie Portman got her start in acting as a 16-year-old leading actress on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. She returned three years later as a 19-year-old lead on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, where her character dies. After moving on from the Star Wars prequels, she used that resume to enrol at Harvard University to study psychology.

She has actually commented on this, as all Harvard associates eventually do, saying she and her peers felt she was only enrolled because she was in Star Wars, and this insecurity led her to push harder than her friends in her classes and challenge herself by picking ‘harder-than-necessary’ classes. Still, psychology is the most common undergraduate degree major among women, so hardly original. Whether or not Natalie invites the assessment or feels it is correct, this is undoubtedly true; She, as most people, never would have been looked at by Harvard if she did not have some kind of bank of riches or wealth of limelight that could be mined by the admissions board. Natalie might want to be viewed as a genius of “Hebrew literature” who stood out among the crowd, but that is just impossible parlour speak. Not that she deserves to go to Harvard any less than anyone else, no one deserves to go to Harvard, as Harvard in the 20th Century existed for the sole purpose of excluding people who were not rich, famous, or connected: not academics, so Natalie’s lie to herself merely parrots Harvard’s lie to the world.

But I want to go back just a second. Yes, Natalie Portman said she studied Hebrew at Harvard, even if not intensely enough to double-major in it. That is because her name is not actually Natalie Portman. Her name is Neta-Li Herschlag, and she is Jewish. So, studying Hebrew isn’t impressive knowing she speaks fluent Hebrew at home. That is not to undermine literature, as English-speakers still study English literature, but it’s hardly extraordinary. Hershlag, as I will now be exclusively referring to her, is using her association to Harvard, Judaism, and other, lesser, things to seem smart, yet all of those were gifted to her by either birth or Star Wars.

Now comes the question of cultural appropriation. Neta-Li started her acting footprint as an understudy for the part of Elle Woods in Broadway plays. Yes, that Elle Woods, aside Britney Spears no less. It hardly seems like the right role for a good Jewish girl. But lo, there are some who might point out that Hershlag is an Ashkenazi, and therefore not actually Jewish, that is, not a Semitic person. This is a touchy subject for the Jewish community, particularly since the establishment of Israel: Who actually is Jewish, by means of ethnicity or heritage, and not just language and religion? Is there a meaningful distinction between the Semitic Jewish culture that remained in the Levant, the Sephardic Jewish culture that emigrated to Africa and Iberia, the Mizrahi Jewish culture in Iran and Arabia, the Yiddish Jewish culture that stuck around in Germany, and the Ashkenazi Jewish culture that settled Eastern Europe? Really, who knows, and that is a deeper question; a question, perhaps, for a student of Hebrew literature, wherever we should find one.

Nonetheless, Hershlag is most certainly not British. That Israeli-American nuance is fine for the world of “Naboo” in Star Wars, which ideally would defy every concept of the term “ethnicity,” but works less congruously for Elle Woods. In Star Wars, Hershlag was a doppelganger of Keira Knightly, a dyad which has persisted the entirety of Netali’s 30-year-long career. Here too, we find questions.

Netali gave an interview, which I discuss almost on a daily basis among my social circle, where she firmly wanted to establish herself as a kind of British legacy. She said, of herself, “I iron out my Jew curls” and bleaches/dyes her hair, for no particular reason other than she wants to, and thinks it will make her fit in. Netali also went on to say that no one has naturally yellow hair — which is true, they don’t — implying that a non-Jewish, European actress would not face the same questions about her hair she did. Because the concept of hair straightening and hair bleaching are Nazi holdovers in British and American culture, and as someone who personally hates Nazis, this endlessly infuriates me. All the more so because Hershlag identifies as Jewish!

If Hershlag thinks modifying her hair to make it look ‘more European,’ or, more correctly (since almost all young Europeans have brown hair), to make it look more Hitlerite, more ‘Arianised,’ is acceptable, then she must either view herself as European first and Jewish second, or just care very little about the legacy of antisemitic racism. Why else would a person who calls herself Jewish want to alter her appearance so drastically, in order to look like a posterchild for one of the Hitler Youth?

Many Jewish-Americans feel pressures of Nazi antisemitism and colonial racism in the United States, and many Ashkenazim respond to that by changing their names, Nazifying their looks, and abandoning the Jewish religion. Netali retains a veneer of her Jewishness on the inside, within her own self-perception, while turning into the Arianised version of the Elle Woods archetype on the outside, for the world to see. Is she just playing a part? Is there a real difference in the personality and values of Netali Hershlag vs. Natalie Portman?

People don’t treat her as such. Keira Knightly, for instance, is an Englishwoman. Knightly claims she is ‘British,’ not English, but she is definitely English. Intriguingly, Knightly never went to school, reportedly a dyslexic, while Hershlag, in the Jewish stereotype, went straight to Harvard College. I wouldn’t say Hershlag seems like a nice person, she seems like an ordinary person. Remember that she is part of the Star Wars pantheon of small-time actors who were lifted by George Lucas to notoriety, like Mark Hamill (despite him being my favourite Star Wars actor, I can never remember his name), Harrison Ford, and of course, Sir Alec Guinness CBE.

Jokes aside, with all the classically-trained, upper-class, heavy-hitters from Britain — Peter Cushing OBE, Sir Christopher Lee CBE, and Sir Alec — not to mention the affable nobodies from Hamill to Ford, most Star Wars people are considered likable, especially by fans of nerdom.

That is not to say anyone was struggling, as every lead character in Star Wars was already documented as rich and famous by the time they were cast, but they were “nobodies” in the sense they were not household names until after the film became one of the first Hollywood summer “blockbusters” in history.

Most of all, it is undeniable that, other than Lucas, no one defined the Star Wars films as much as Carrie Fisher, if not for a want of contrast. Fisher was the only female character in all three of the movies, and both the predecessor and counterpart to Hershlag’s character in the Star Wars prequels. Does Hershlag meet the comparison?

The two are very different, both personally and on-screen. Fisher at the age of 19 had sex with numerous middle-aged members of the cast, often the only female and only teenager in a room of dozens of men, forbidden to wear a bra or choose her own hairstyle but allowed to partake in the rumoured plethora of drugs on the set. Hershlag, part of Star Wars from 16 to 19, was entirely unremarkable, both in life and profession, not a very impressive actor or much of a hoot. Again, the good Jewish girl. Some blame Netali’s poorly role on the weakness of the prequels compared to the originals, just as some blame Carrie’s bipolar diagnosis for her eccentricity. Both of these are half-truths, as personality and talent can never be substituted for anything other than what they are. Nonetheless, Fisher and Hershlag were both made rich and famous. While Hershlag is the lesser in terms of her performance, she probably got in the end a much better long-term deal.

A boring role meant Netali would not be immediately typecast, though she went on to play exclusively the girl-next-door leading female interest for a male protagonist, much the same as in Star Wars: Episode II. Coming into acting younger meant she could largely leave acting after childhood, then return to it later as an adult experience. Moreover, we never got to see teenage Netali chained to a bed in a gold bikini.

Our good, Jewish girl.

So, if Hershlag is playing roles given mostly to British, or Hitlerite, actresses, is she not taking away from the British actor? There are too many actors in the world. They are overexposed and over paid, seen too much and given too much, as they are in the same camp as clowns, entertainers, and comedians. But, people like to be entertained, and in the world of capitalism where only money is worship in lapse of dignity, anything people like sells, and anything that sells can make people rich, and riches are a substitute for class, if only a thin one. Just as the weak-minded can be fooled by the Force, so are they easily bought and sold. The British or American actor suffers for nothing, and there are too many of them as it is.

But, does Hershlag have a place in displacing them, or moulding in to become one of them? And would it be cultural appropriation? Undeniably, Netali is conforming to something objectionable when she plays simple roles as sex objects and Hitlerite women, embracing if not embodying the racism and problematic nature of Hollywood casting. But then again, it is with her very body that she represents this trend. One could defend Hershlag, saying she is made to do these things, that she is not so much appropriating Western culture for her ends, but more so that Western culture is stifling her true self, at least if she wants to continue to have a role in acting.

An interesting counter-point, but undermined by Hershlag’s particular brand of coy self-promotion, and eagerness in taking on such roles. And are the Jewish people entirely exploited by Hollywood? In many respects, so-called Europeans are exploited by powerful Jewish moguls in media more often than the other way around, even if they are Jewish Europeans themselves. Harvey Weinstein, a Jewish millionaire who sexually assaulted non-Jewish Western women in order to get them roles, his Jewishness hardly made a ripple.

The biggest names in Hollywood: Steven Spielberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Rudd, Marta Kauffman, J.J. Abrams, Scarlett Johansson, Harrison Ford, John Stewart, Louis Szekely, Mila Kunis, Daniel Radcliffe, Rachel Weisz, Gal Gadot, Roseanne Barr, Judd Apatow, Marcus Loew, Lauren Bacall, Adam Sandler, Amy Schumer, Larry David, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cassidy Freeman, Stanley Kubrick, Jennifer Connelly, Richard Dreyfuss, Samuel Goldwyn, Julia Garner, Elijah Allan-Blitz, Kirk Douglas, Ellen Barkin, Ingrid Pitt, Darren Aronofsky, Eva Green, David Geffen, Lesley Ann Warren, Paul Newman, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ben Stiller, Louis B. Mayer, Alison Brie, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chuck Lorre.

As Conan O’Brien jokingly stated: “The Cash-ews run Hollywood.” Almost every major production in Hollywood has a massive Jewish section of development. The United States, for whatever reason, is a majority “Christian-identifying” country, but Judaism plays a much more massive role in the culture than Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism combined. Even most of the agnosticism in ‘progressive’ Hollywood values comes largely from material secularism, or Jewish incredulity of Christianity, not an ideological pull towards atheism. Is this cultural reproachment why Jewish people are pulled towards media and entertainment, theatre being a known haven for outcasts and oddballs? The Judeo-Protestant alliance of the Hollywood ilk would seem to disqualify the established Jewish community — rich, interconnected, secular Jewish communities of New York, Los Angeles, and DC — from being an oppressed mass.

An important editor’s note is that the actors listed are: Jewish people who adopt non-Jewish appearances or non-Jewish values to a borderline-racist degree (i.e. Eva Green: Jewish actress who plays roles bookmarked for non-Jewish Europeans), thoroughly Jewish people who refuse to identify as Jewish (i.e. Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Jewish billionaire heiress who plays Jewish characters on TV), or regular observers of Judaism who are really, really famous (i.e. J.J. Abrams: co-director of the controversial Star Wars reboot).

More often behind the scenes than on-screen, but usually leading the show when taking a starring role, the Jewish imprint is inseparable from American movies, media production, television, the comedy scene, finance, and screenwriting. Is Jewish not the ruling order of Hollywood? And then would Europeans be the group on the margins? But why, if Jewish people write, pay for, and put on the shows, are there so few Jewish actors, and of those who are, why do they not look Jewish, or a better question would be, why do they try to avoid looking Jewish, and actively attempt to look Western European? That gives the impression that Jewish people are still marginalised in media, even if they are overrepresented in media, and generally more affluent, interconnected, and educated than those non-Jewish counterparts. Why do Jewish people go out of their way to appeal to racist audiences, and in the process erase their own Jewishness.

Maybe it is because the Hollywood Jewry isn’t actually Jewish. Nothing about their jobs or their behaviours embodies the Jewish religion. Most people in Hollywood in general consider themselves as nonreligious, yet that too, might be an influence of a markedly Jewish trait. Non-Christians in the United States are much more likely to turn to atheism and agnosticism on the one hand or fanatical extremism, likely due to being outcast by the mainstream Protestant dialogue, with liberal Jewish people often going agnostic and conservative Catholics often going supercharged while Muslims live on somewhere off in the shadows of public perception.

Yet nonreligious Jewish people still identify as Jewish, separating the religion of Judaism from the ethnic mark. Faith has nothing to do with appearance, and appearance is the base of antisemitism. Enter non-Jewish-looking Jewish people, usually women with heat-flattened hair, like Netali Hershlag and Gal Greenstein Godot. That is not to say they don’t look Jewish, as in an equal measure they all do and at the same time no one does, since what a Jewish person “looks like” is a narrow heuristic based on problematic cultural expectation. That is not to say they are or aren’t Jewish. But are Jewish people like Natalie Portman being forced to conform to racist society, or are they jumping on the bandwagon of racist society and using it to their advantage? Is there actually a difference between the two?

There is a deeper question lying beneath the surface here: The questions of “Jewish complicity in racism?,” “Jewish participation in neo-Nazism?,” and “If ‘Jew’ is a ‘race’ and ‘White’ is a ‘race’ then why are there ‘White’ and ‘non-White’ Jews?,” which other people have asked before. This article is not to address those questions, but they are acknowledged.

Certainly, there are some Jewish people who attach themselves to racist tendencies and Hitlerite habits out of personal advantage in the racist countries in which they might live. In this narrative, the notional collaborator Jewish community would blame the Europeans for racism and cast themselves as convenient survivors. That is not a uniquely Jewish trait, it is a flawed human trait, bystanderism, which defies religious teachings. Why there is such a prevalence among rich, secular Jewish people, of racism mixed with liberalism, is a concern. It could be as simple that, at a certain point, the trait “rich” might start to cancel out the trait “religious.” Old guard antisemites would be unforgiving regarding hatred towards ‘ethnic Judaism,’ and contemporary racist sentiments would reject Jewish people from the points of heritage and beliefs, but it is not immediately clear if Western neo-Nazis would target non-religious Jewish people who, quote, “pass” as Euro-Christians.

If Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim join Western cultures, ideals, and appearances while abandoning the Jewish religion, are they functionally Jewish at all? In the absence of different brands of generational antisemitism, what is holding back an atheist Ashkenazi from becoming a Nazi themself? The Jewish community and Israel critics have been ablaze with debate about the Eurocentric, Ashkenazim-focused account of Judaism in the West, drawing attention to the issue of inter-Jewish racism and inequality among the diaspora of the Jewish faithful. This question is debated separately for Jewish communities because unity is their faith. Followers of Christianity have always cut one another down over heresies and infidelities, but discourse and diversity have defined the post-Rabbinic tradition. The notion of one Jewish diaspora being more powerful than another, based not even on secularism such as in Christianity, but based solely on racism and adjacency to Christian empires, causes non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities to question that proximity in values and appearance Western Ashkenazi populations have with the goyish counterparts. Even the terms Ashkenazi and Mizrahi have taken fundamentally racist connotations, particularly in the advent of Zionism, to separate the ‘European Jewish’ from the ‘Arabian Jewish,’ in a kind of wartime apartheid of academia; a conflict emblematic of larger paradoxes in modern Israel.

This is not the focus of this article. Obviously, Jewish people living in Western Europe and urban America are more “Western” than people who live somewhere else. And obviously, Western nations have a serious and prolonged issue with racism. However, welding those two facts together, then conflating them with Judaism in some sense, would be a mistake.

There are some racist people in Hollywood who identify as, or are identified as, Jewish. That is not the question. The question is: How does the concept of cultural appropriation contribute to that complex dynamic, of conformity and exploitation in Hollywood, even amongst the big names?

This all comes back to the perceptual balance of power. Just as the term cultural appropriation is defined as a group being in a oppressive position and exploiting something that that group itself has made derogatory.

Is Netali Hershlag appropriating Western culture? In a way, yes. As a rich, powerful Jewish actress, she could hardly be said to be put at a disadvantage to Keira Knightly (Harvard versus dropout, remember), or the millions of aspiring brown-haired actresses who are shunned from Hollywood castings. And yet, she decides to look more like them. Obviously, as an ordinary woman herself, she has been victim to the usual sexism and obsessive demands of producers and directors concerning appearances, but that is hardly so say she is a victim. At any moment, she could deign to take a different part or produce her own movies (I would balk to call them films), rather than be typecast as the sexy and innocent girl-next-door. She lives the life of the good Jewish, girl, but never takes on those types of roles, opting instead for Princess Amidala, ballerina Nina Sayers, valley girl Elle Woods, comic book Jane Foster, or Englishwoman Anne Boleyn. Hershlag could at any moment leave acting to climb the ladder a Harvard A.B. clears the way for. How could Harvard Law School, or subsequently the California Democratic caucus, say no? Who wouldn’t pay for a doctor’s visit with the woman from V For Vendetta?

This is not to say that Jewish people are appropriating or imposing themselves upon Westerners, but it is to say that there is a distinct group of Jewish people who draw from Western or Hitlerite practices while entirely avoiding ‘Juden-haus’ or ‘Euro-trash’ rhetoric that hampers people on both sides of the racist conflict. Portman is Netali’s grandmother’s name, so she does have some kind of loose claim to it, if her cousins are still go by that name and she is close with them, while Natalie is a form of the name Neta-Li, and plenty if not most actors use stage names. Many people do racist or questionable things because they are in fashion. But altogether, one must ask the question why the self ascribed curly-haired Netali Hershlag is appearing is French wig and makeup commercials. Is it raw, unidealistic money? Is it Maybelline? Or it is fake hair, fake lashes, and a fake identity?

Natalie Portman is hardly an inspiring figure for women, playing roles subservient to men, often murdered by her lovers or terribly afflicted herself. This is true in Star Wars, Black Swan, Thor, V For Vendetta, and when she played the wife of wife-killer Henry VIII. Where is the liberty in being bedded by an uxoricidal maniac, be it a tired British period piece, or the obsessive Anakin Skywalker? Body modification of any type is not the product or respect or exchange, and can only be looked down upon as unnecessary and insecure. Acting is lying, but that does not mean the actress must change their looks or change their self to read some lines to a camera.

[bethanyeliseart]

Rise of Skywalker, a movie I genuinely loved!

Ok so I've had almost a full day to think about my thoughts on Rise of Skywalker. Right from leaving the cinema, I knew that I loved this movie! Sure it had it's flaws but every single Star Wars movie does and I like to think the positives outweigh them. It had amazing cinematography, the adventure was there, and all the emotions that come with Star Wars.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I think first I'll talk about the flaws because I love ending things on a cheery note. First, Rose Tico was pushed to the sidelines and I wish we got to see more of her character arc. I think after seeing the backlash some fans had for Rose, JJ was afraid to have her in the spotlight. She could've done more. I would've liked to see her interact more with Finn even platonically. And interact with Rey.

Second, I'm a huge Anakin Skywalker fan so part of me feels like they disrespected his arc in this movie with Palpatine being back. I kinda felt like it was all for nothing. But then I did see some other reviews that said he brought balance for a long time, but balance isn't permanent. So that post brought me some peace on that, thanks to who wrote it (I can't remember who, sorry!).

Third, Ben Solo's death. So I'm not sure if I just hate it because I loved his character or if it really wasn't a good decision. Star Wars stuck to their algorithm of redeeming the villain but to only kill him seconds later. We already saw this with Anakin. Did we have to see it again? Then again it was really meaningful that he sacrificed himself for Rey. Maybe he's still alive somewhere, idk I'm in denial still.

Ok so now onto things I liked/loved which is a lot, but I'm not good with reviews so I might not name all!

First I must say that I loved Rey and Ben's relationship and chemistry. There isn't too much dialogue, but you can see how much they care for one another through expressions. Props to Adam Driver for conveying so much in just looks and actions. The way he looked when he found Rey's dead body was so heartbreaking. He looked so vulnerable.

Also the way Rey was so relieved to see Ben after he brought her back. She smiled like he was this bright light. And oh my, my heart fluttered when they kissed. It's probably just me being the huge romantic that I am, but that was one of my favorite parts. From the beginning they had a strong emotional connection. In TLJ we can see how strongly they feel for one another. Ben wants her to be by his side constantly and really opens up to her. Rey does the same. She let's her self open up about her past and desire to belong somewhere/someone to Ben. In my mind, the buildup was there. It saddens me that it had to be a tragic romance, but Star Wars always has that tragedy. Ben also showed that hope leads somewhere. Rey held onto hope that he would return to the light and he did. He was at peace when he died.

Second thing I loved was the trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe in this movie! We have been waiting to see them all in action together since TFA. And JJ did not disappoint. The banter between the three flowed nicely and was comedic. It felt like a family. It was also so nice to see Rey interacting with Poe! You can tell they have spent a lot of time with each other. For those who think Rey is alone, she has these two guys for her family.💛

The scene where all the ships showed up last minute gave me Endgame vibes and I loved it. Especially when the main theme started.

The entire be with me scene in the throne room was chilling and awestrucking! (wow that first part of that sentence just threw back to GoT😨) When Rey looks up into the sky and the lightning fades to the calm and serene stars I too felt so relaxed. The soft music was so lovely, John Williams never fails. Hearing the jedi voices was what had me smiling like an idiot, especially hearing Anakin's voice saying "Bring balance as I once did". (I guess that's proving that his arc wasn't completely ruined). I would've loved to see Hayden Christensen, but I appreciate that we got to hear his voice.

Was anyone else so surprised to see Han even as a memory? It's not even that I was surprised because of how it goes into the plot, because it makes perfect sense for Ben to look back and remember his last interaction with his father. His father would be the key in him returning to the light. It just surprised me because I did not expect Harrison Ford to show up on set of Star Wars ever again😂. It was a very nice and welcome surprise though. From the moment he killed Han, you could tell Ben felt regret and remorse. I also loved that Leia reached out to her son one last time, showing Ben that his family has not given up on him.

LEIA! It was so awesome to see her training as a jedi with a lightsaber! That flashback gave me so many chills. I loved how Leia continued to train Rey even though she knew she was related to Palpatine. It shows that Leia doesn't judge someone based off blood. Leia loved Rey and had faith in her. People can't help where they came from.

It was so sad to see Leia die but we all know it was going to happen. Chewie's reaction was so emotional and made me shed a tear. The galaxy will remember Princess Leia and Carrie Fisher forever.❤

The Ending

Overall, I loved the ending. Sure I'm still devastated that Ben is dead, but looking at the big picture it was good/satisfying.

People are saying that Rey didn't grieve Ben and she moved on too quick. I think she knows that he will always be with her because no one's ever really gone. He is one with the force. (Ngl, part of me likes to believe he is alive out there somewhere or waiting to come back).

Also as I said before Rey still has people she loves! Finn and Poe are still alive and there for her.

This is just the way I saw it, but I don't think Rey plans to stay on Tatooine very long/permanently. Rey didn't start and end the same way. She has a family now (Poe and Finn) and knows who she is. I think she went there to pay respect to the Skywalker family, it is where it all started with Shmi and her son, Anakin. She buried the lightsabers because they are no longer needed (her new lightsaber is beautiful btw) And don't hate me, but I don't mind her calling herself Rey Skywalker. She felt a deep connection to the family and both Luke and Leia took her under their wing. She doesn't care for/need the name Palpatine. It's not who she is. Which brings me to people being mad that Rey wasn't a nobody. I respect their reasons and everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don't think it hurt her character arc. Rey being related to the worst Star Wars villain and still not falling to his dark ways shows how strong she is! She defeated him and brought balance once again to the galaxy despite being his blood.

The ending shot was beautiful and was a perfect way to end the Skywalker saga. The binary sunset and theme was ethereal. It's how the movies started and it's how it ended.

Star Wars is tragic, romantic, and hopeful. This movie showed all of those things. We lost Ben but he felt love again with Rey. Hope was restored with him turning back to the light and Rey defying expectations of a Palpatine. Personally, I loved this movie so much and it did not let me down.

Feel free to add anything you liked about the movie!

[tcm]

Team Leslie Howard By Susan King

Leslie Howard has gotten a bad rap over the decades. Ironically, it’s because of his most famous role as Ashley Wilkes, who is obsessed with and weakly indecisive over Scarlett O’Hara, and married to his sweet distant cousin Melanie in the Oscar-winning Civil War epic GONE WITH THE WIND (’39). In fact, when I first saw the film at 13 during one of the epic’s reissues, I said “ewww” when I first saw Howard on screen. The British actor was far too old for the part and seemed to be caked in make-up to look younger. And in fact, he was old enough to be the father of Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie. I kept shaking my head when my mother told me Howard was quite the matinee idol in the 1930s.

He also seemed disinterested in the role. The performance isn’t awful, but he just seemed to be going through the motions. Truth be told, he didn’t want to be in the movie. He even wrote to his daughter: “I hate the damn part. I’m not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley, and it makes me sick being fixed up to look attractive.” Howard further said of the movie: “Terrible lot of nonsense. Heaven help me if I ever read the book.”

Then what was the reason he did the movie? Because GONE WITH THE WIND producer, David O. Selznick, gave him an associate producer credit on INTERMEZZO (’39), the romantic melodrama based on the 1936 Swedish hit. INTERMEZZO also marked the Hollywood debut of Ingrid Bergman, who had starred in the original.

Considering I was so unimpressed with Howard as a young teen, I have been a member of Team Leslie since the 1970s. (I can almost forgive him for playing Romeo at the age of 43 in MGM’s ROMEO AND JULIET, ’36.) Though his acting style is of its time, I love his romanticism and his glorious voice. I feel the same way about Ronald Colman, who, like Howard, excelled at suffering from the slings and arrows of love.

Though he made some silent shorts, Howard’s major movie career only lasted 13 years from 1930 to his tragic death in 1943 at the age of 50, when the commercial plane in which he was traveling was shot down by the Nazis. Growing up, Howard’s films were rarely shown on television. Thankfully, TCM and Warner Archive has changed all of that. He was so much more than Ashley Wilkes. Besides being a star on stage and screen, he changed the career of Humphrey Bogart, earned two best actor Oscar nominations and also directed and produced films.

Howard’s career was bookended by the World Wars. Howard, who was of Hungarian/German Jewish heritage, suffered from shyness growing up in a Forest Hill London neighborhood. And, this sensitive young man experienced shell shock during his World War I service. Acting was prescribed as a cure. The debonair, gentlemanly Howard quickly became a star on the London stage and made his Broadway debut in 1920 in Just Suppose. For the next 17 years, he would appear on the Broadway stage often not only starring in plays, but producing, writing and directing.

And he made his Hollywood film debut in one of his Broadway hits, OUTWARD BOUND (’30). With arrival of the talkies, Hollywood look to Broadway and the London stage for talent who, unlike numerous film stars, had had trained voices and could handle dialogue. He earned his first Oscar nomination for the film version of another Broadway vehicle BERKLEY SQUARE (’33). For years, the uber-romantic time-traveling fantasy was unavailable to be seen. I actually bought a bootleg DVD off of eBay, but the print was so bad it was unwatchable.

A few years ago, TCM aired a beautiful print. All I can say, it was worth the wait. It is stagey and creaky, but I just loved it and so will you if you have a romantic bone in your body. The lavish Alexander Korda production of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (’35) was the movie that changed my opinion of Howard. I watched it late at night in a horrible TV print that was riddled with commercials. But I was gob smacked. Howard seemed to be having a field day as a foppish British aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, who is actually the brave and dashing Scarlett Pimpernel, a mysterious man who rescues French nobility from losing their heads during the Reign of Terror.

The actor returned to Broadway in 1935 in Robert Sherwood’s drama The Petrified Forest. He also produced the hit play in which he played the epitome of his disillusioned romantic. This time around he’s Alan Squier, a poetic but disenchanted Englishman hitchhiking across the U.S to seek the meaning of life. He ends up finding love and death at a café in the Petrified Forest. The play also starred Humphrey Bogart who electrified audience as “the world-famous killer” Duke Mantee. 

When Warner Bros. planned to have Howard reprise his role in the 1936 film version, Howard insisted that Bogart, who certainly wasn’t a box office name, play Duke or he would quit the film. Bogart’s career was changed because of Howard, who does take a back seat to the actor’s riveting performance. Though they have diverse acting styles, Howard and Bogart’s scenes together still pack a wallop 84 years after its release. The following year, they reunited for STAND-IN (’37), a kicky but rarely seen comedy about Hollywood. And nine years after Howard’s death, Bogart and Lauren Bacall named their daughter Leslie after the late actor.

Howard earned his second best actor Oscar nomination for the delightful British production of George Bernard Shaw’s PYGMALION (’38) as Professor Henry Higgins opposite Oscar-nominated Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle. Howard also directed the film, produced by Gabriel Pascal, with Anthony Asquith.

With England at war with Nazi Germany, Howard left Hollywood and went home to London where he began working for the British war effort. He starred in, produced and directed my favorite film of his PIMPERNEL SMITH (’41), a rip-roaring exciting update of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. And it’s hard not to think of Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones watching the movie. Howard, the self-assured director, gets a wonderful self-assured performance from Howard the actor. And the final line is a real corker. He also starred with David Niven and directed the well-received aerial propaganda drama THE FIRST OF THE FEW (’42), which was renamed SPITFIRE when it opened in the U.S. shortly after his death.

Howard was on a commercial flight from Lisbon, Portugal bound from London on June 1, 1943 when the Luftwaffe shot the plane, which had 16 other passengers and crew, down over the Bay of Biscay. It would have been so interesting to see where Howard’s career would have gone after the war. Would he return to Hollywood? Broadway? Would he had abandoned acting for directing?

Over the years I have talked to some actresses who worked with him. Despite the fact that de Havilland appeared with Howard in the romantic comedy IT’S LOVE I’M AFTER (’37) and GONE WITH THE WIND and did the Lux Radio Theatre version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, she told me she didn’t get to know him well.

Celeste Holm got to know him maybe a little too well. Though Howard was married, it is no secret he had a wandering eye. She was appearing with Howard in the late 1930s in the touring production of Hamlet as a lady in waiting and Ophelia’s understudy. “I was wearing a gorgeous scarlet dress with a gold wimple and train,” she told me during a 1997 Los Angeles Times interview. “After my scene, I immediately exited to the first wing. I could see the show from there.” Howard soon entered the wing. “He took one look at me and before I could say anything, he took me in his arms and kissed me as beautifully as I had ever been kissed before or since. I was totally unprepared. I had only met him the night before.”

The actor was myopic and as soon as he kissed her, Howard realized it was the wrong woman. Holm went to the dressing room. “One of the actresses I was working said, ‘What happened to you? You look like you have seen a ghost.’” The actress started to laugh at the memory. “She said, ‘He was having an affair with the girl in New York who wore your dress. He probably forgot where he was.’”

[a-reasonforthoughts]

My thoughts on the Rise of Skywalker, because quarantine forced me to finally watch it. !!!!Spoilers!!!!!

Growing up, Star Wars was my childhood. My sisters and I read all the books (including the comics) and we packed the Essential Guides with us everywhere. Because for our deep love of the Extended universe, when the last few movies came out we had... mixed emotions. I didn’t even see the last movie when it came out after hearing some less than stellar reviews. So here’s my review, or rather my reactions to the Rise of Skywalker. (Yes, I actually sat down with paper and pen and watched this movie.) Title craw: The DIABOLICAL First Order.

‘The Emperor has returned.’ Wow, the are expecting us to go along with a lot aren’t they.

Cool. Kylo wrecking everything.

Yay, a planet that isn’t snow, desert, or forest. Hold on tight kids, they’re throwing us right into this one. We’re already at Palpatine’s house.   Ew. Whats with the tank?

Whoa eyes! What’s up with his lips? Can someone bring this fossil a drink?

Imperial March playing while a Star Destroyer rises in the back ground. Is this Vader’s old ship? Rey is “Not who we thought she is.” Thought she was “Nothing”?

Ew, what is Klaud, and why is he here?

Who are all these people on the Falcon? “How do we thank you?” “Win the war.” aren’t you all on the same team? Why do you need to thank him? Cool, another planet thats not snow, desert, or a forest. Never mind.

Oh great, Rey’s here.  Looks like the Lightsaber is fixed.  I know the names of a bunch of these plants! When Luke was training with the ball thing (Training remote) he was just trying to deflect the shots. Rey’s trying to take down the whole forest. 

You sure you want to destroy that thing Rey? There can’t be to many of them laying around Who are all these people? Why’s the Falcon on FIRE?! Since when is “Light-speed skip” a thing? Seriously. Who are all these people? I thought after the last movie there was only like, 10 of them left. Hey! It’s Merry from Lord of the Rings!

What’s this old orange doing here?

“Sith Way-finder” Sigh. Are Poe and Rey a “thing”? Are Finn and Rey a “thing”? Why’s everyone here but R2? There he is. Why did they not bring him?!

Now I’m watching a Planet of the Apes crossover.

That guy who was on the same team is dead now. His blood is clear so the rating doesn't go up. Well, Hux is certainly different.

Someone must have taken his hair gel because his hair was never this poofy before.   Is this a Holi Festival, or Burning man.

Why are we learning the name of this random kid? Rey just walked away from her, what was that? Yay! The force link is still there!

Kylo is giving off stalker vibes. It’s nice to see him growing into his role of Supreme Leader. Looks like everyone hates him. Wait- Who is this guy?! Why are they following a stranger!

It’s LANDO Oh, so Rey know’s who Lando is, but thought Luke was a myth. Makes sense. Boom. First order is here.

Lando: “My flying days are over.” Why? “Give Leia my love.” Ew.  Wait, why is Lando out here? Did Luke just leave him? He said he came here with him. Has the emotional issues of being abandoned by Luke led him to never fly again? Is this a parallel story to Rey’s abandonment? What’s the motive here movie!  They made it even harder for these Storm Troopers to see out of those helmets.

3PO is getting a lot of lines. Rey *is distracted* Ship *Blows up*  Now they have sinking sand. WAS THAT ALMOST A CONFESSION?! This guy just says, “The Falcon is not responding.” when asked, and they’re like “Don’t be such a downer!” Oh yay, they survived.  Kay, we’re just brushing over Finn’s almost confession. I’m sure they’ll come back to that later. *Cough* Okay, that flashlight bit was funny. 

How do you know that’s the guy you’re looking for? That could be anybody’s skeleton! How’d they find a knife that neither Luke, or Lando (who might have been here for 20 years) could find!  Rey’s making friend’s with the basilisk.

She just transferred some of her life force to the snake! Why!? This old ship they found in the desert still works. “Chewie, tell Rey we got to go!” Why can’t you do it? You’re not doing anything. Axe. Here comes lover boy.  How to Breathe, the movie, by Rey.

Trailer shot.

Was he just gonna run her over?

Cool, she’s pulling the ship out of the sky. Uh oh, helmet’s off, there goes her focus.

Now they’re playing tug-a-war with the ship. It’s the light saber fight all over again.  Whoa!!! She juST LIGHTING’D THE SHIP! Kylo Looked freaked out for a second! She just told Finn she had a vision of her and Kylo together, and he looks like he’s gonna cry. 3PO tells them how horrible and dangerous it is to override a droid’s programming. “Let’s do that!” That droid looks like a yoga wheel and a hairdryer. 

Rey to the new droid: “Someone treated him badly. It’s alright, you’re with us now.” Yeah, just don’t watch what we’re about to do to this other droid.

Looks like we’re adding another girl to this love triangle (hexagon?) She’s not supposed to be a Mandalorian is she. (So help me-) I hate you and I’m going to turn you in *Hit’s her over the head and pulls out a lightsaber* Okay, lets go.

Why they so mad at Poe for being a smuggler?  Wow. They are forcing C-3PO to do this. Backup his memory to the hairdryer! It’s got to have a reason for being here! C-3PO “Oh! I just had an idea of something else we could try-” ZAP!  ...Was that supposed to be funny? These writers need to learn what humor is, and when to use it. Why are we focusing on Poe and his old girlfriend the Power Ranger? Wah! What’s up with 3PO’s eye’s? Is he a Sith droid now? Why does he have that function?!

Rey, you’re boyfriend’s here. They wiped 3PO’s memory and he doesn’t know who anyone is, but he’s still polite. Poe angrily points “That’s gonna be a problem!” Our heroes ladies and gentleman. I hope the First Order just blast them. That Admiral’s badge just let them in? Like no one reported that missing?? Wiped 3PO’s memory and they’re getting the dagger anyway. Worst rescue ever. 

Vaders Helmet has had a hard life. Rey has a vision in every scene she's in.

More ‘Rey’s family history’ with Kylo “Tell me where you are,” She’s in your room dude.

R.IP. Vader Helmet

That Stormtrooper behind Kylo must be so confused.  *Sees helmet, breaks link*  “She’s in my quarters!” Told you so. Why is Hux the spy? When did this happen? What does he think the outcome of this will be?

3PO just wandering the halls with a crossbow. 

“You are a Palpatine.” Wanna be a Solo? Is this like his fourth proposal? OooooOOOOooo, that was cool! Kylo standing in the blast of the Falcon’s engines was a moment we needed!

Yikes! They took out Hux fast! They didn’t want to question him or anything? No?

The Death Star was blasted to smithereens, why is it here? How is it here?

They made that dagger to line up with the wreckage? I’m pretty sure things that are constantly beat by the ocean will move or erode over time. Who even made that? What was the purpose?!

Yay, another scavenger  Who’s also a ex-Stormtrooper, because why not.

That’s a horse covered in a rug. Rey’s out trying to kill herself again.

“There’s another Skimmer!” Wonder who that is. He is literally following her to the ends of the galaxy. 

Wait- The throne rooms still in one piece?! The chair and everything?!!! Dark Rey- YIKES! TEETH

I thought he stopped the holocron with his foot, I was really surprised when fingers formed and he picked it up.

Kylo acting so cool as she’s trying to slash him to ribbons. I see Merry again! Wait- What’s Leia got to do? And why does Maz know? They’ve never explained what this strange orange is and what she can do.

Finn’s in deep- Wait how'd he get out here?????

Leia don’t distract your son while he’s fighting for his life!

SEE!!!!!!!

“I wanted to take your hand. Ben’s hand.” You think he’s going to leave you alone after that?

Why is Rey just a total mess in every movie.

Chewie mourning Leia is a good touch. It’s nice to see the reaction of someone who ACTUALLY knew her.  Whoa! They got Harrison Ford to come back! That must have taken a lot of bribery (or blackmail).

Has almost dying given Kylo/Ben the power to see non-Force user ghost, or is he just going nuts? So this is just a rehash of Han’s death scene. 

Aw, he called him Dad- Hey don’t throw that away, you need that!

He’s nuts. Those red helmets look stupid. Aaaaand it’s the Death Star again Merry in the background! Why’d they make Poe the General? Lando finally got off that planet 

“General.” “General.” She’s burning his ship. Good luck Kylo/Ben.

You know how hot that fire has got to be to burn metal “A Jedi weapon should be treated with more respect.” You brat.

Why did he have Leia’s lightsaber here? “...it would be picked up again, by someone who would finish her journey.” Oooookay, but why not just have her take Luke’s old Saber? It’s gotta be laying around here somewhere.

I know it’s symbolic and all that he’s raising the x-wing, but there’s no way that thing still works.

Alright, 3PO’s memories are back. Why’d we have to go through all that? I spy Merry again! How does Poe know all this stuff about Exogol? He’s just a fountain of information over here!

“Now we take the war to them!” That’s literally what you’ve done every movie ever No one is questioning how Lando got here. Isn’t this a secret base? *Dr. Evil voice* ONE MILLION STAR DESTROYERS 

Who even wrote this story line? Finn’s going with his gut and everyones just going along with it. Not like you could all die or anything. They brought the rug horses with them

How are they breathing in space!? Those red troopers still look stupid.

What’s this crowd chanting? Are they speaking Parseltoungue?  “I never wanted you dead.” That’s why I told Kylo Ren to kill you.

Hang on- his plan is ‘You be the empress, and I’ll just possess you. Grandaughter.’  EW. Why would she want that? How is that a tempting offer? Someone’s gone senile. Direct quote: “I got to go do something!” “I’m coming with you!” Why do these people get attached so quickly?! 

“Luke was saved by his father. The only family you have here is me.” Yeah, but I got a boyfriend who follows me everywhere!

Ben runs and jumps: “Ow.” We finally get to see the Knight’s of Ren in action! (Where have they been this whole time?) “Once you kill me I shall become apart of you!” So she could just, not kill him. Right? Oh yeah, here we go, now we got a showdown!

Well, that was anticlimactic 

WHAT IS HAPPENING Poe just realized he's the worst General ever.

YO. Don’t tell your troops there is no hope! What is wrong with you??? Why isn't Lando the General? He is a lot more qualified!!!

Wait a minute!! Where were all these people when LEIA ORGANA called for help????

Wedge Antilles!!!!!! So all the life force sucking was just so Palpatine could up grade his outfit? *Flings Ben into a pit* Palpatine is so done with the Skywalkers Hey, I know these voices!!!! Aaaaand now he wants to kill her. So whats our big moment? TWO lightsabers! 

Why did the make that the big epic moment? Why didn’t they have Ben run over and they do it together- It would have been perfect for his story arch! Rey: “And we” Together: “are all the Jedi!” Now she's dying. Why? Not even the writers know So Finn’s Force sensitive. Cool I guess? This is a really touching moment for them, even more so if they did anything other than fight this entire movie!

This kinda feels out of nowhere

I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW

NOW SHE’S SMILING AND FINE. HE JUST DIED Merry’s here again and I can’t even be happy about it Now Finn has to chose between Rose and the new girl  Poe’s trying to start something with his Power Ranger old flame, and she's like “Not a chance.” Now everything’s all happy like BEN DIDN’T JUST DIE. ARE WE NOT GOING TO ADDRESS THIS?????????? Oh hey, it’s the Lars farm. Nobody else moved in after all these years? Now she's burying the Skywalker lightsabers in the place they all hated.

WHY IS BEN NOT HERE!!!!!!! HE WAS A MAIN CHARACTER FOR THESE MOVIES AND THEY DID HIM DIRTY!!!!!!

Well I guess they had to wrap this mess up somehow

[themillenialfalcon]

Look here’s the thing... 

I’m not condoning John Boyega’s behavior. Or Oscar Isaac’s for that matter. Yes, it’s unprofessional and unadvisable for a variety of reasons. And, yes, his comments about Kelly Marie Tran’s strength of character were not warranted at all. 

But... if you think that John’s comments actually have anything to do with condoning or disparaging one ship over the other - you’re entirely missing the point. 

He’s not an anti. 

He just doesn’t give a shit. 

About any of it. 

He doesn’t care who he pisses off. He doesn’t care who he pleases. And he is brushing off people who are upset at him about it with a smug laugh because that EXACT reaction is actually illustrating the very thing he is venting about. 

His relationship to Star Wars is entirely different than ours. In his mind, there are no segments of fandom. There is one fandom. Star Wars. And in his experience, it has toxicity and harassment bleeding from every corner of it. 

He’s been dealing with the backlash since TFA. John got a headstart on the fan backlash from the JUMP by merely being a black person in a Star Wars film. He has been the target of racist comments and bigotry since the SECOND his head popped up in the very first trailer. And he’s probably had to deal with entitled and upset fans in some manner or the other every single day of his life since. 

The man is done. And if I’m being honest, I can’t say I entirely blame him. 

That doesn’t mean I like what he said. That doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed that he’s firing back at fans. I am. But I understand why he probably feels the way that he does. 

And I’m not saying this to make anyone feel in the wrong for being upset about it. Be upset about it. You have every right to. 

I am only saying this because we have GOT to stop looking to actors and content creators to get validation on the things that we like. 

John Boyega’s opinion DOESN’T matter. 

His approval or lack there of about the ship that you love or hate DOESN’T matter. And the fact that he is involved in the production doesn’t make his opinion on your personal tastes any more relevant or valid. 

Back before things like Twitter and Insta were a thing - fandom had a better understanding of this. Because we weren’t able to actually communicate with actors and creators in real time. 

Alec Guinness famously hated Star Wars. 

Harrison Ford was legendarily lukewarm about Star Wars and didn’t like even being asked about Han Solo in interviews. 

Natalie Portman is the same to this day. 

And it never stopped us from loving Star Wars and shipping our ships and going on with our lives. It never made us feel like we were wrong for liking the thing that these famous actors did not enjoy being a part of. 

Because it DIDN’T matter.

Like the movies that you like. 

Ship the ships that you ship. 

And stop worrying about getting approval from people that seem to have some kind of “authority” over the content. They have no more authority than you do. 

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. 

[unexpectedreylo]

Here It Is:  My Spoilerific Review/Post Mortem of TROS

When I saw The Last Jedi two years ago, the movie haunted me for days, for weeks, for months.  It inspired the imagination, dragging me into the world of Reylo and reassuring whatever reservations I had about the post-Lucas sequel trilogy.

The Rise of Skywalker haunts me too but more in a “Demon House” kind of way.  It fires up the imagination, but more in the sense that it keeps you up at night thinking of all of the ways it could’ve been better.

This isn’t to say I hate the movie.  I don’t.  It’s not even entirely or mostly bad which is what makes it extra frustrating.  You can laugh your way through a total disaster like “Cats” or “The Room” but a movie with plenty of promise and of talent behind it that makes some bad decisions is tragic.  Especially since this is the closing chapter to a trilogy and the saga itself.

You can see there are bones for what could’ve been a really good, maybe even great movie.  One of my favorite parts was the opener where Kylo Ren literally descends into hell/the underworld to confront the devil for no other reason than he didn’t even want Satan above him, a man who serves no gods or devils.   (That right there is a classic Byronic hero.)  Exogol is a great haunted house/spooky setting.  The revelation that it was Palpatine manipulating him all along was a shocker and makes Ben’s story that much more poignant.  I also really liked the contrast with Rey’s introduction, a beautiful shot of her in the verdant forest floating among rocks as she’s meditating.  She is Persephone in her element (which makes the ending all that more baffling but don’t worry, I’m getting to that).

This sets the stage for the revelation that the two are part of an intriguing concept, a Force dyad, kind of a Star Wars version of soulmates maybe even twin flames.  The two just had to acknowledge the feelings between them, reunite, and take out the Sith trash while Rey finally confronts her own dark side.   I don’t mind the latter concept at all because with the trilogy’s thickest plot armor, I think it’s valuable to put her in some peril and to have her better understand Kylo/Ben.

Abrams also wanted to recapture the feel of 1980s blockbusters like the Indiana Jones films or The Goonies, both made by his old mentor Steven Spielberg.  That’s most palpable when the Space Scoops Troop, er “trio,” falls into quicksand and pokes around an underground cave looking for one of the film’s many MacGuffins.  Abrams does good set pieces and powers them along with snappy dialogue.  Like TFA, it’s peppered with some genuinely funny scenes.

If nothing else, you can’t blame the cast for any of the film’s problems.  Everyone does the best they can with what they’re given and the long-standing chemistry between various pairs (Adam and Daisy, John and Oscar, Adam and Harrison Ford for example) do a lot to serve their scenes.  I think Oscar’s best scene was when he confesses to Leia lying in state that he doesn’t know if he can be the leader the Resistance needs.  It’s an honest, human moment.  Daisy continues to infuse Rey with her natural luminance.  I particularly liked the few quiet moments she has, such as meeting the children on Pasaana or healing the snake.  It shows her compassion and foreshadows healing Ben.

Daisy does pretty well with what she is given about struggling with her dark side.  (Remember, she didn’t write her own screenplay.)  Maybe it’s unpopular to say this but I kind of liked her brief turn as “Dark Rey.”  I have no doubt had she turned dark she would be pretty scary.  Her desire for revenge and fear of her own nature--driven by genetics or not--were intriguing concepts and I thought she tried to make the most of it in her performance.

Ah Adam Driver.  God bless that man.  He brings his considerable A-game 100% of the time no matter what and it shows.  He could sell sand on Tatooine.  I have no idea why they put the mask back on him other than a marketing department decision as I suspected, but taking it off when he’s making his appeal to Rey before she leaps out to the Falcon carries a gravity few people can pull off.  His reconciliation with Han was one of the film’s highlights.  For once the repetitive nature of the script actually worked in TROS’s favor, as Kylo retraces his steps in that fateful scene from TFA and finds a way to clear his conscience.  I also think this was originally meant to help the audience forgive him, especially since right after this he renounces the dark side.  Which makes later choices baffling, which I’ll get to.  Driver’s shiniest shining moment though is when he is once again Ben Solo.  Deprived of dialogue for the rest of the film other than “ow,” he nevertheless manages to convey a different personality that is very much Han Solo’s son.  His fight scene is right out of a 1970s martial arts movie, imbued with determination and sass.  I want to see a trilogy about THAT guy.

The Reylo scenes are, well, until it goes south, wonderful.  Some of us would’ve  preferred a lot less fighting but I see it as mostly Rey trying to deny herself and Kylo not being sure if he really wants Rey to turn to the dark side.  (On that note, I wish we’d seen Rey’s vision of sharing a throne with Kylo rather than just hear her talk about it.)   As I predicted, the turning point of the relationship came after the lightsaber battle on the Death Star wreckage.  I find it interesting that Kylo hesitates to kill Rey--partially because of his mother’s influence--and it’s she who could’ve killed him.  She immediately recognizes the dark side was turning her into something she didn’t want to be and nearly costs her the man that deep down she loves.  She heals him completely and along with her confession that she would’ve taken Ben’s hand, his soul is nearly healed by the power of love alone.  Which makes the film’s later choices baffling.  If you think about it, Ben’s turn is even more dramatic than Vader’s.  Vader chose his son over the Emperor at the last minute, some inkling of his light still there shining through at the right moment under duress.  Ben flat out rejects the dark side of his own volition.  That is pretty powerful.  Which makes the ending far more painful.

Rey and Ben’s one big romantic moment was tender and sweet and that was a pretty good kiss.  We finally get to see Ben’s big toothy grin.  Even though we all hate it, Driver did an amazing job conveying first his sorrow over Rey, then his relief, his joy, his love, and finally his strength leaving him.

Visually, the film looks great.  I think J.J. did an even better job shooting this film than TFA.  Adding to the visuals is the fabulous art direction.  They hired supervising art director Paul Inglis immediately after his previous flick Blade Runner 2049 came out, and that decision paid off.  This leaves the film with a number of beautifully-rendered scenes, whether it’s the haunted house scary underworld beneath Exogol, Kylo Ren’s starkly white quarters, the landscapes of Pasaana, the stormy seas around the Death Star II’s wreckage, the shot of Rey hesitating in the Star Destroyer’s hangar before leaping out to the Falcon, or Rey meditating among the floating rocks during her introduction.

I liked D-O and Babu Frick.  I even liked the lady who complimented Kylo’s helmet.  

Where do I start having problems?  The first time I saw the movie the scenes with Leia didn’t bother me but the second time I saw it, it was far more apparent they wrote around the bits of footage they had left.  It was a valiant effort to make Carrie Fisher part of the last film she never had the chance to perform in but it didn’t feel organic.  Since Leia dies during the movie anyway, I don’t know why having her pass away offscreen in between TLJ and TROS is less merciful to the audience than having her body lie beneath a sheet for half the film.  No wonder Billie Lourd skipped the premiere of this flick.  I couldn’t take it if it were my mother either.

On my second viewing, the Resistance base scenes started to get on my nerves.  Maybe it’s because I got tired of looking at the same group of like 10 people over and over.  Maybe I was annoyed that the only purpose of those scenes was to earnestly spout exposition.  Now, exposition is important.  I’m surprised Abrams, notorious for not bothering with it even if it’s necessary, even did this much.  But there was something about George Lucas’s Rebel base scenes that made these people look and act like guerrilla soldiers.  Maybe it was Lucas’s experience shooting films with Navy guys as a student, or his documentary style.  Abrams’s Resistance behave more like college students and activists than soldiers.  

But TROS’s biggest problems lie in its breakneck pacing and its writing.  Parts that should’ve had greater emotional resonance don’t because it moves along too fast.  I would’ve sacrificed one of the set pieces/action scenes or chuck one of the pointless new characters for the sake of deepening the relationship between Kylo and Rey or showing us more Ben Solo.

Some of the characterizations seemed off.  I know a lot of fans are deeply unhappy Rose Tico didn’t get to do much but I was surprised to see her in it even to the degree she was there.  What gets me about the whole Rose thing was her relationship with Finn is totally forgotten FOR NO REASON.  Really, why drop it?  There was no narrative purpose for doing so!  

General Hux is totally wasted in this film, reduced to little more than a cameo.  Sure it might be a surprising twist that “I am the spy!!!” (LOL) but his reasons for it are totally OOC.  He might despise Kylo Ren but to the point of helping the Resistance?  This is the guy who cheerfully blew up the Hosnian Prime system and wanted to blow up more.  He’s evil, a psychopath, a true believer in the First Order.  He might give the Resistance a tip that would result in embarrassing Kylo Rey and use that to start a coup against him but just helping the Resistance out of petulance and spite?  Nah.

Poe tries in this film to be a combination of rogue and deadly earnest idealist, but you generally don’t find those two qualities in the same person.  One second he’s talking about smuggling space dope, the next second he’s saying stuff like “Good people will fight if we lead them!”

Finn, God love him, is reduced to largely running around yelling, “Reeeey!” and eagerly trying to tell Rey something but the film never really got around to what it was.  It wasn’t until a Q&A session that Abrams revealed Finn was trying to tell Rey he was Force sensitive (something that should’ve been developed over the course of the trilogy).  Abrams had time to show us a random lesbian kiss for representation points, but no time for Finn to tell Rey he was Force sensitive?  Huh?

The story not only contradicts the previous films--I wonder if Abrams even saw his own movie TFA much less anything else besides the OT--it contradicts itself throughout.  Palpatine’s return is never really explained and his motives with Rey keep changing.  MacGuffins are added on top of MacGuffins with side missions thrown in.  Chewbacca is blown up then he’s miraculously alive on another transport we didn’t see.  Abrams and Chris Terrio didn’t just add to Rey’s origins, they blatantly spackled over it and TLJ’s overall message.  Discovering one is of evil origins is a gothic storytelling trope but really, it should’ve been developed since the first film so it doesn’t feel like whiplash from something else.  Everyone keeps telling Rey don’t be afraid of who you really are, but Rey ultimately does nothing but run from who she really is.  With each reversal, retcon, or contradiction in the film, it leaves a mess.  We’re supposed to believe Rey was better off sold to Unkar Plutt than be with her not-so-bad parents?   Who the bloody hell had sex with Darth Sidious?  You mean to tell me Luke and Leia knew all along Rey was a Palpatine but they never bothered to say anything and somehow they had more confidence in her than in their own flesh and blood?  Oh while we’re at it, I noticed the second time I saw the movie they straight up gave away Ben’s death before it happened!  WTF?  “Leia saw her son’s death at the end of her Jedi path.”  It seems like Luke and Leia were resigned to Ben’s fate as some horrible destiny that couldn’t be changed but Rey was still an open book to them.  That’s so stupid and really fellow OT fans, how does this respect our childhood faves?  Han comes off as the only decent person in this thing.

Rey and Ben taking on the Emperor was a great applause moment, the dyad unified against the ultimate evil.  For the most part it was fantastic...until The Yeetening.  Two things annoy me about the remainder of the conflict against Palpatine.  One, Rey and Ben should have destroyed Palpatine together.  If Rey could do it on her own then what the hell did she need Ben for?  He could’ve sat out the rest of the movie at Starbucks and remained alive while Rey killed Palps on her own.  There’s no point to their combined power because it wasn't necessary.  Two, while poor redeemed I-turned-back-to-the-light Ben was crawling up the pit with no help from anyone, every good guy we ever knew of in Star Wars, even from the cartoons, is giving a voice over pep talk to Rey.  (It seems cheap too since we don’t see the characters.  Avengers Endgame did this kind of thing far better.)  How about if the pep talk was given to the BOTH of them?  That Anakin Skywalker, the man Ben had idolized, had time to say “wakey-wakey” to his tormentor’s granddaughter and not his own grandson is appalling.  The third thing is while Darth Vader defeated Palpatine with the love for his son and his long-gone wife, Rey defeats Palpatine simply with power.  Rey and Ben’s love for each other could’ve been the force that defeats the Sith once and for all but for some reason it doesn’t occur to Abrams and Terrio.

I could’ve forgiven most of this--the jar of Snickles and all--had they got the resolution right.  But they didn’t.

ROTJ and ROTS’s endings were masterful.  ROTJ gives you an idea of what trajectory our heroes were likely to follow:  Han and Leia were going to end up together, Luke was going to bring forth the next generation of Jedi.  ROTS sets up Obi-Wan on Tatooine, Yoda on Dagobah, Leia on Alderaan, Luke on Tatooine, Darth Vader on a Star Destroyer, and poor Padmé on her way to Star Wars Heaven.  I have no idea what happens to Finn.  Maybe he’ll train with Rey.  Maybe he’ll go to college.  Maybe he’ll backpack through Europe.  I have no idea.  His story just stops.  Same deal with Poe.  Aside from getting shot down by Zorii, what’s he going to do?  The film gives zero indication.  It goes from the Free Hugs session to Rey squatting at the old Lars homestead.

The biggest crimes though occur to Ben and Rey.  Ben’s death sucked all of the air out of the film.  Yes, it’s beautiful that Ben loved Rey so much and so selflessly he was willing to surrender his life for hers.     It’s beautiful that it never mattered to Ben who Rey was, whether it was “nobody” in the last movie or the granddaughter of his tormentor/enemy in this one.  Had the Palpatine concept been there all along, there would’ve been something sweet about healing the rift originating in the prequels.  But I wanted Ben to live.  I wanted for once for someone to address the issue of atonement but Terrio and Abrams were too lazy to bother.   If The Grinch could be redeemed AND find atonement with those he wronged in a 30 minute Christmas special with commercials, then why not Ben Solo in a 150-minute movie?  

I could have lived with a sacrifice arc though had it been handled correctly.  But they flubbed it big time.  The sacrifice isn’t honored at all.  He just dies, he vanishes as Leia’s body vanishes, and he’s “never to be seen again.” Or mentioned.  Rey barely reacts on camera.  It’s as though reviving Ben from certain death, choosing good over evil, making a valiant attempt to save his girlfriend armed only with a blaster, and giving his life for hers weren’t valued by anyone.  The movie didn’t give a damn.  When Vader died in ROTJ, he at least had final words with Luke who then burns Vader’s remains on a pyre.  We see Anakin restored to his true self join the Force Ghost crew at the end of the movie.  We got none of this with Ben.

It’s also the most frustrating and disappointing disruption of a romantic arc since 1980′s “Somewhere In Time.”  In that film, Christopher Reeve travels back to 1912 and finds true love with Jane Seymour.  Everything is going great and Reeve’s character has made the choice to stay in that time and marry Seymour.  Then he pulls out a 1979 penny and is sent “back to the future” as Seymour screams.  At least that film though had the decency to reunite the love birds in the afterlife.  Which might explain why the movie still has a cult following to this day.  Tragic love stories always make sure there’s some kind of catharsis for the audience.  Rose takes Jack’s name, lives her life as he asked her to do for him, tells his story, and reunites with him when she dies.  Romeo and Juliet are united in death and the healing of their respective houses begins.  Even Padmé got a state funeral and had the legacy of her children.  There was no such catharsis for Rey and Ben.

Rey ends up right where she started:  alone and in the desert.  She got the Dorothy ending, there’s no place like home.  But the difference is Dorothy is a child not yet ready for the big scary world and the answers to her problems weren’t out there but right where she was.  Rey is a grown woman.  She should’ve been treated like one.  Instead she is deprived of her lover/soulmate and while such a separation should have been painful, it doesn’t even register.  She has a “found family” but they’re not there with her.  She’s in a home others tried to escape from, haunted by ghosts instead of being among those she loves.  Taking the Skywalker name seems tacked on, as though they realized if the name is to live on somebody needed to take it.  Why not then just have made her Han and Leia’s or Luke’s daughter in the first place?  It’s worse when you remember it’s a Palpatine who’s usurping the name.  Or when you realize she’s still hiding who she is.  

Here’s what would’ve been better.  Rey tells the Resistance about the pure selflessness of the Skywalkers and she wants that to be the core value of the new Jedi going forward, where every new student was going to learn their story.  Then we see her anywhere but Tatooine, happy and surrounded by students of all ages.  Maybe Finn training too.  She sees the approving Force ghosts of Leia, Luke, and Anakin.  Then Ben, clearly a different entity, materializes beside her.

Or something, anything other than what we got.

It’s as though they kept making story decisions without giving any thought at all to their implications.  They tried to do too much while being lazy about it.  They went for expedience--copy pasting ROTJ when convenient--over meaning.

The ending accomplishes what no other Star Wars film has done to me in 42 years of being a fan...it broke my heart and fulfilled my worst suspicions about where the ST was going to end up, largely due to its deflating ending and terrible denouement.  It leaves for me and many other fans a big gaping open wound, not closure.  

Ultimately the sequel trilogy’s biggest flaw is that there clearly was no plan.  What we got was a billion dollar game of exquisite cadaver with no real design for characters, their arcs, the story, or even what message these films are supposed to have.  Every decision was based on the director’s own ideas along with corporate meddling.  So we get conflicting ideas and blatant spackling over what the last director didn’t like. Was Kylo Ren meant to be a guy we love to hate or a lost boy we want to come home?   Was Rey a heroine we can all aspire to be or a lost princess of darkness?  What the hell was the point of Finn or Poe?  What does this add to the saga overall aside from more stuff?  Who are these films even for, old OT fans or young fans?  I believe it’s this lack of a plan that has generated so much confusion and bitter internet wars among fandom.  

[argylemnwrites]

TRR Remastered

Alright, trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent and not a jumble of words.

I hate this for a lot of reasons. I see everyone frustrated that old players don’t get access to the new content, so I’m not really gonna address that here. The reason is obvious; PB eliminated outfit choices that old players already paid diamonds for. That does bring me to my first point, however...

Erasing =/= Editing

I know some of the older books (ROE, TF) have been getting some edits and additional diamond scenes. Now, I haven’t played these revised books, so I gladly welcome any corrections/clarifications, but I am guessing nothing was eliminated from those books, that it was instead all new content added to those stories. Here, PB is certainly getting rid of content. They are adding new diamond outfits that replace, not supplement, the old diamond outfits.

This is messy for a lot of reasons. I bought that leather jacket outfit in chapter one in my first playthrough, and honestly, it helped me build my MC. Now, years later, she feels so real to me, and quite frankly, I don’t think I would have imagined the same woman if I couldn’t throw her into a leather jacket as a go-to casual look. She wore that outfit all the time, including into TRH. That possibility is gone for new players.

Why? The art is paid for already. It exists. Why get rid of content people love? It’s the same issue I have with the special editions of the Star Wars original trilogy, when George Lucas just added a bunch of shit, messed with stuff, and then actively worked to make it impossible for people to own the original versions. Versions of those films that were very near and dear to their hearts are now relics that are difficult to watch.

What is Canon?

That actually flows into my next thought, which is that we will now have two versions of canon for this story. Star Wars fans will hear the phrase “Han shot first” and know exactly what I’m talking about. To briefly summarize, in A New Hope, Harrison Ford’s Han Solo shot a bounty hunter who was verbally threatening him before the bounty hunter could make a physical move. It was an important character moment to introduce Han Solo as a man who was comfortable on the wrong side of the law. In the Special Edition, he lets the bounty hunter get a shot off a nanosecond before he shoots, making the bounty hunter wildly incompetent as the shot was at point-blank range, and erasing some of Han’s moral ambiguity as he now clearly kills the alien in physical self-defense.

So what is the canon version of Han’s character defining introduction? Is it the original or the more recent and more readily accessible? We now have that same issue with TRR. The old players have certain introductions to these characters. Looking at the screenshots, new players are going to get a different impression of/interactions with Liam, Drake, and Maxwell. Which of these is the canon version of the events? How does the fandom navigate this going forward, when newer players who only know TRR 2.0 start to grow in numbers?

Just Why?

Why would you significantly alter a giant cash cow for your company, but only for some players? This is such a messy way to go about things. It will piss off loyal readers that they don’t have access to certain content. This is just a fact. It’s one thing to add content to encourage replays. It’s another to essentially release a new version of the story for only a select portion of your user base.

But I’m now left to wonder if I would have fallen in love with TRR had I started playing it today. My MC would undoubtedly be a different woman as she wouldn’t rock a leather jacket, and she wouldn’t be the devil at the first ball. Those outfit choices were more than aesthetics; they helped define her personality. Her interactions with Liam, Drake, and Maxwell would also be different if these screenshots are any indication. Would I care about this group as much if things were significantly different?

So yeah, I hate this. I also hate that new chapter one diamond outfit with a burning fury, but that’s probably beside the point.

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Okay, these are not expert/Hardcore Nerd opinions, but I’m so used to being surrounded by Star Wars and keep being surprised that other people aren’t, so...Some Kind Of Star Wars viewing guide for people who aren’t into Star Wars

STARting point:

Basically, if you like robots, aliens, and big space battles (and/or are a special effects or sci-fi design nerd), you’ll probably enjoy Star Wars.  If you don’t...the writing and acting quality varies from version to version, and between different movies in the same trilogy.  Star Wars is more a thing to enjoy because it’s fun, not to appreciate as high art (unless, again, you’re a nerd for special effects or design).

The original movie, aka Episode 4: A New Hope, is the best starting point because it sets up the central characters and conflict, is a lot of fun, and if nothing else you’ll get like 60% of the Star Wars references people make.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is also a lot of fun and could be watched as a standalone, but the plot can be hard to follow, and the other Prequel movies (Eps 2 & 3) are best viewed through the lens of “how does this inform the events of the Original Trilogy” since they’re kind of awkward, confusing, and depressing without that context.  Only start with 1: The Phantom Menace if you have some nostalgia for it.

Episode 7: The Force Awakens is also a lot of fun and has the added bonus of a more diverse cast, but it and its sequels heavily build on and reference the events of the Original Trilogy.  The basic plotline of “evil fascists VS people trying to stop them” is probably easy enough to follow, though, so you can probably start here if you’re okay with getting some Original Trilogy spoilers, but you’ll most likely want to watch The Original Trilogy before watching 8 or 9.

Rogue One and Solo take place before The Original Trilogy and can probably be viewed first if you like the cast or concept of either (Rogue One: “here are the people on the ground doing the hard work that sets up the other heroes’ victories,” Solo: “it’s a heist movie IN SPACE!”), but they’re fairly dark by comparison and some of the big reveals or other details might make more sense with the context of seeing the Original Trilogy first.

The Mandalorian takes place on the fringes of the Star Wars universe and barely references any events or characters from the rest of the franchise (and even then, neither the audience nor the main character are expected to know who or what they are), so you can start here if you don’t mind minor spoilers for who won the (Original Trilogy) war.

The Original Trilogy (4, 5 & 6, 1970s-80s)

Lots of fun, heavily referenced in pop culture, great designs and cool puppetry and other practical special effects.  These are the movies with Mark Hamill as Luke, Carrie Fisher as Leia, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo.  All of them are great and bring a lot of charisma and humanity to their performances.  4: A New Hope is the really iconic one and is mostly a fun adventure through space.  A lot of people love 5: The Empire Strikes Back because it’s darker and hate 6: The Return Of The Jedi because it’s sillier, but honestly, it comes down to personal preference.

Once you’ve seen The Original Trilogy, you can freely watch either of the other movie Trilogies.  Just watching 4 is enough to let you skip over to the standalone movies or the TV show The Mandalorian.

The Prequel Trilogy (1, 2 & 3, 1990s-2000s)

These are the movies with Ewan McGregor as young Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen as Anakin, and Natalie Portman as Padmé.  A lot of people shit on these for being “bad movies,” and yes the acting is often flat, the plots can be hard to follow (Original Trilogy is a simpler “bad government VS good rebels,” Prequel Trilogy has a lot of political manipulation and nuance but doesn’t explain it much), and a lot of it is watching people making decisions that you know from the Original Trilogy are going to turn out badly.  But I unironically love them, and they have really amazing design and special effect work (the CGI of course looks dated now, but it’s still phenomenal), and a lot of fun moments.  1: The Phantom Menace is another fun adventure through space, but with a lot of awkwardly racist alien caricatures who are thankfully played down or removed from the other movies.  2: Attack Of The Clones is a space adventure with an unfortunately uncomfortable romantic subplot, and 3: Revenge Of The Sith is relentlessly dark but I like the emotional drama of it.  Again, either you’ll think they’re fun or you won’t.

Like I said above, these are best watched after having seen the Original Trilogy, to inform the backstory and characters’ actions, VS being watched as standalone movies.

The Sequel Trilogy (7, 8 & 9, 2010s)

These are the movies with Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, Oscar Isaac as Poe, and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren.  Like with the Original Trilogy, all of them are great and bring a lot of fun and depth to their characters, and also 7: The Force Awakens is a fun space adventure, and people are divisive over 8 and 9, 8: The Last Jedi being darker and 9: The Rise Of Skywalker being lighter...but with the added meta-drama that 9 spends the entire time trying to undo or contradict things that happened in 8 (and an extra level of meta-grossness in that 9 seems to bow to things that Toxic White Guy fans hated about 8, like removing a major WOC character).  I personally prefer 8 because it’s a neat subversion on a lot of accepted lore and concepts from the Star Wars franchise and was disappointed in 9 as a result.  But once again it comes down to a matter of taste, and at the end of the day the main thing about Star Wars is fun dialogue and cool sci-fi stuff.

These should be watched after The Original Trilogy because they heavily build on and reference the events of it, though 7: The Force Awakens is a reasonable “First Star Wars movie” if this is the version you’re most interested in...just with inherent spoilers for The Original Trilogy.

Standalone Movies (Rogue One & Solo, 2010s)

Rogue One takes place immediately before The Original Trilogy but is darker and more of a heavy action-drama about people making difficult choices, with a good, largely-POC cast.  Solo also takes place before The Original Trilogy, though I feel it has some clunky writing (a droid character who’s reasonably upset about the literal enslavement of her own kind is treated as delusional and comic relief??) and also gets pretty dark with lots of character deaths, but it has the fun of being a heist movie with a conscience.

Like I said above, these can prrrrobably be watched without Original Trilogy context, but at least Rogue One is probably more rewarding if you’ve already seen 4: A New Hope.

The Mandalorian (TV show, 2020s)

This is the show with “armor guy and Baby Yoda” X’D  It’s basically a Western about a guy drifting from town to town across space and helping people with their problems...which mostly involve fighting and killing people.  As always, amazing designs and special effects, and I find the writing consistently compelling.  There are a lot of bonuses if you recognize a character, character design, or prop design from another Star Wars media, but since you don’t need to know them in order to understand the episode you’re watching, you may not even realize they’re references (which is the BEST way to do a reference).

This takes place immediately after The Original Trilogy, but you can watch this first if you don’t mind knowing who wins the war.  Though there are a few worldbuilding details (like being able to recognize the evil Empire’s uniforms or ships) that are probably a bit less confusing or a bit more rewarding if you've at least seen 4: A New Hope.

Other Media

I haven’t seen/read/etc much of any Star Wars except what’s listed above, so I can’t really offer any advice here.  But the CGI TV show The Clone Wars probably relies on you knowing the plot of Prequel Trilogy eps 1 and 2 (since it takes place between 2 and 3)...and if you’re jumping into some other Star Wars media and you can’t understand what’s going on, look at its copyright date and check what movies came out before it did, to gauge what you’d need to watch for context.  But all the movies only rely on knowledge of other movies, the other media are about fleshing out other aspects of the universe or things that happened between/before/after the movies.

Otherwise all I can say is that the Star Wars: Droids cartoon from 1985 is delightful and the few eps I’ve watched don’t require any Star Wars knowledge whatsoever.  (It’s long out-of-print but some kind soul put it on YouTube.)

[warzofstarz]

star wars Thoughts at 4 am

ok so rise of skywalker happened,,, and i have mixed feelings. i didn’t hate it but i didn’t love it either (and i usually love star wars movies), so i am in desperate need of a little rant about both the good and the bad in the conclusion of the saga

DISLIKE

1. JJ ABRAMS DISREGARDING ALL OF THE DEVELOPMENT WE EXPERIENCED DURING LAST JEDI. this is what i am most upset about. you don’t have to like tlj, but you can’t pretend it never happened. it’s like he was trying to completely backtrack on everything that happened in tlj bc it was ~his~ vision for the franchise. i think that is disrespectful to not only rian, but to fans who grew attached to the development of the characters. we see finn revert back to first movie finn (lovesick puppy lowkey), rey become an invincible child of the sith, the end of the skywalker family line, complete abandonment of rose, and a total shift in the message of the trilogy. all jammed last second into the film. the next few points all have to do w this

2. the fact that in tlj it is revealed that rey is truly nobody- she’s not some all-powerful descendant or some with royal blood- and tros completely ignores this and makes her a palpatine. the whole point before was that she’s normal, but that doesn’t make her any less powerful, smart, or strong. the message from the first two movies was that you don’t have to be in these elite categories to be special and powerful, which is an important message to every single child and adult watching. it empowers us as viewers to believe that we have the capability to be great, no matter our status, birth name, ethnicity, class, or where we are from. you can find family when you have none. you have the power to change your life. when jj decide LAST SECOND to make her a palpatine, with no clues thrown into the first two movies to lead us to believe this, it feels like a joke. the rey we had come to sympathize with is suddenly an all-powerful sith, seeming stronger than even anakin and yoda, even though she had never even completed training. this reveal is not emotional and literally loses respect rather than gaining any from the audience. a cop out. i felt less emotionally attached to rey than in the previous two films bc of her sheer perfect power

3. rose being 100% sidelined even though her character was incredible in last jedi. her arc was one that i truly couldn’t wait to see finish and sadly we never got it because she was completely abandoned so it could just be a trio once more. i love her. the disrespect.

4. the sudden introduction of zorri just so that poe has someone to flirt with??? like if you wanted to prove he was heterosexual make him flirt w someone he has actual on screen history and chemistry with, like uhhhh idk? rey?????? dont get me wrong tho she is a badass and i love how she shuts poe down!! queen

5. how they throw it in there that finn is force sensitive but don’t fully explain it?? and he never even tells rey??? this is SUCH a cool concept yet it’s never even hinted at until the third movie and its not further developed as to why. likewise i wish we saw the stormtroopers before they left the first order. see what they dealt with and the abuse they endured bc it’s such an important facet of the trilogy and literally drives finns character

6. how we never touch on why poe felt it when rey was tortured?

7. i wish leia hadn’t died and she rallied support w lando

8. if they are a dyad why didn’t rey and ben fight palpatine together?? then no one would have died??

9. i’m just really sad that they chose to kill ben because even though rey takes their name, the skywalker bloodline is gone, while a palpatine lives on. the entire purpose of the first six movies is anakin bringing balance by defeating palpatine. somehow, palpatine survived this (never explained!!!!), which completely defeated the purpose of the first six films and strips anakins chosen one status and ultimate sacrifice of any true importance. in the end of tros, the palpatine bloodline lives on while the skywalker bloodline is gone, and i can’t help but to feel like that contradicts the theme of the original saga in which the skywalkers defeat palpatine and hope lives on.

10. lastly, i just don’t think george lucas would have wanted ben to die. when people kill off main characters to make the movie more emotional, he has literally said “i don’t like that and i don’t believe that” he goes on to say that he hates when main characters are killed, stating “the whole point of the film, the whole emotion that i am trying to get at the end of the film, is for you to be real uplifted, emotionally and spiritually, and feel absolutely good about life. that is the greatest thing we could ever possibly do.” so, i’m sure some of you could see why i have a little issue with killing someone who has finally recognized the error of their ways and wants to be better. yes, he has done awful things that cannot be separated from his new identity as ben, but i think that it would have been even more impactful to make him live with the crimes he has committed and still make him keep fighting his demons to join his legacy on the light side. overall, bens death left a sour taste in my mouth, and for that reason i don’t walk out feeling uplifted. i just wish i knew what george lucas is thinking right now.

LIKE

1. ben solo’s arc and han. now, before some of you pop off at me, i still think he was awful and horrible and didn’t deserve instant forgiveness, but i also think that someone who has grown up his entire life being treated like the spawn of satan by all adults who are supposed to love him would fuck him up majorly, like it would to anyone else in that situation. i think that he deserved another chance at experiencing love and happiness, and i absolutely adored the scene with him and han solo. it was honestly one of the best parts of the whole movie. thank you harrison ford. the whole “i don’t think i’m strong enough” and him tearing up to his dad CUT DEEP. AND THE “dad-“ “i know” LIKE LITERALLY MY HEART. bringing back the “i love you” “i know” so they are LITERALLY TELLING EACH OTHER THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!! i’m at peace. adam driver’s acting was absolutely phenomenal. so much respect for him. truly incredible.

2. i loved poe and rey’s bickering. lowkey thought it built some chemistry between them. and how poe seemed quite jealous that finn knew stuff about rey that he didn’t, literally asking him more than once (1nce) about it, like???? han leia vibes. tea. but also poe and finn

3. i really liked jannah SOOO much (and i usually am not one for introducing a character so late) but, like i explained in detail above, i wish they had built that backstory better and introduced her a little bit sooner with more screen time. but i loved her and finns connection and understanding of their trauma.

4. FINN AND POE BEING THE CUTEST HUMANS EVER. that’s all. i just love how they care so very much about each other like stop. cogenerals.

5. ALL THE JEDI VOICES WERE SO FREAKING COOL. CHILLS.

6. i honestly think that’s all. i don’t have anything more

7. OH WAIT HUX BEING THE SPY. i ate that shit up. yes. we stan. AND the hint that he was going along w poe’s phone call in tlj so that the resistance could escape (that’s how poe KNEW it) like YES

8. the animation of young luke and leia made my heart weep

9. that lil sketchy bitch babu and the new cone droid that talks,, mmm

10. OH THAT THE FORCE BOND LETS THEM TRANSMIT OBJECTS THRU IT LIKE THE VADER MASK SCENE WAS ICONIC

11. this is so sad that i am putting this in my “like” parts but the fact that they didn’t kill chewie and that they showed him being so torn up about leias death

12. OH AND CHEWIE GETTING HIS MEDAL THAT WAS SO HYPE

13. rey burying the skywalker lightsabers and looking into the sunset, perfectly tying back to luke doing the same 42 years ago

overall, if i don’t think too hard, i did like it and felt kind of at peace. BUT it could’ve been much better @ JJ :/ i feel like it didn’t do the saga justice as the “conclusion of the saga” bc there is still so much left unanswered. but, like i said, i did enjoy it a lot and have so much love for this world. rant over. i love u star wars. thank u for everything. <3