Movies in Review #1

It’s been 2016 for two weeks now, which means I’ve seen movies. As formerly explained, I like making lists – as such I’ve decided to try and keep a tally of all the (new) movies I watch over the course of the year. I’m going to try and keep a similar tally for books and I may even try and top myself and keep a list of my favorite songs every week as well. Who knows how far my OCD will go?

But back to movies: I’ve watched four new movies to me so far, so I’m just going to take a minute here and review each of them shortly. Enjoy?

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Fun movie, very 60s stylish. Henry Cavill’s posh American accent is almost distracting by itself, but it works for the character. Armie Hammer (who I always have a soft spot for whenever he shows up in movies) is great as the Russian second-half of the CIA/KGB buddy cop duo, and I found he delivered the humor better than Cavill did. And Alicia Vikander is my new Hollywood crush because she’s absolutely adorable and also great playing the stereotypical role of “whose side is she really on?”

The plot is serviceable, enemy spy organization, former Nazis trying to take over the world, yadda yadda yadda. The biggest problem I had with this film is that the movie is at its best when Cavill’s Solo (not to be confused with Harrison Ford’s Solo or Kirk Hammett’s solo) and Hammer’s Kuryakin are together and trying to one-up each other. But the movie keeps inventing ways to split them up, which…gah, why. The best scene in the movie is when the duo infiltrates the enemy’s base and they both spend the entire time bitterly wisecracking while trying to prove who is the better spy. Why not more of that?

The cinematography is also pretty great – while I can’t say this is the best movie Guy Ritchie has ever directed, the way scenes are shot make you really feel like this was a movie made in the 60s with really, really good effects. Overall, after watching it I felt like there was a classic movie in there somewhere, it just was slightly off kilter. Recommended if you like the spy genre sprinkled with period-ish movies, but don’t expect anything too fantabulous.

Dear White People (2014)

This movie I wanted to see from first seeing the trailer, and I just got around to finally watching it on New Year’s weekend. As expected this was a hilarious satire of all sorts of movements, beliefs, and ideals while pushing a very strong message. Tessa Thompson brings a ton of character as Sam, the outspoken in-your-face girl whose “Dear White People” talk show is what the movie is named after. Tyler James Williams is perfect as introverted Lionel just trying to find his place in college. And Kyle Gallner is absolutely fantastic as the idiot Kurt who you laugh at, at first, and then realize wait I know people like that.

The movie jumps right in and you have to pay close attention from the get go, because no time is wasted throwing you into the plots of the ensemble cast – it’s one of those movies that has several plot threads that don’t seem like they’re going to collide. Except then they do and they do so explosively. There is sarcastic, biting humor throughout and if you’re a person that can’t laugh at yourself, you’re probably not going to enjoy this movie. It might make some people uncomfortable but that’s the point – the movie has a message even under all the layers of (excellently written) humor.

One of the opening lines near the start of the movie (and the opening line of the trailer) is “Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man Tyrone does not count.” That’s about where this movie starts. Just imagine where it goes. It’s so, so great.

Static (2012)

So this movie showed up on my “Things You Might Like” list on Amazon Prime. I looked at reviews of it, and the reviews seem to agree that it was a medicore movie with a surprising twist that made the last part of the movie amazing. Several of the reviews said they were people who could normally see twists coming and did not see this one coming at all. Intrigued, bored, and having some Amazon credit so I could watch the movie for free, I went ahead and watched it to see what all the fuss was about.

I think all the reviews were shills.

The twist (to me) was obvious from about the first five minutes (and that’s being generous). And when I wasn’t messing around on my iPad instead of watching the movie as it dripped along, I was contemplating “well, if I think the twist is so obvious, maybe it’s going in another direction because everyone was so surprised.” No. It goes exactly in the direction you’d expect it to go.

The movie is by the numbers horror/thriller fare after the first half hour of long, tedious set-up, and comes complete with pointless shot of ‘young woman in underwear.’ I like Milo Ventimiglia and Sarah Shahi, but neither had anything to work with here and it shows. The only good part of the movie was the design of the antagonists in masks – they looked suitably creepy, but that’s all the movie had going for it. Thankfully, the movie clocks in at around 80 minutes long, so I didn’t have to be bored to death for a great length of time. I don’t recommend this unless you’re a masochist.

Priest (2011)

Every now and then there’s an actor/actress who always attracts your attention as the lead of the film and elevates your interest in the film simply by being in it, regardless of the content. To me, two of those actors are Paul Bettany and Karl Urban – so it’s no surprise that I was interested in this movie since they play the lead protagonist and antagonist, respectively. Unlike my previous review, I went into this one expecting it to be a bad movie and just wanted some enjoyable vampire killing action and some scene chewing by the leads.

I don’t know how Paul Bettany ended up with “stoic” as his character archetype, but that’s what his character is in this – in fact, his titular priest has almost the exact same range of emotion as his character Michael in Legion (This is another movie I’ll admit is horrible but I enjoy dearly, not in part because it’s what my friends like to call a “T-Man Movie” from top to bottom. I’ll explain what that kind of movie is in another blog post, probably.). Karl Urban gets a little more range to chew scenery and is pretty fun when he gets the chance to act, but unfortunately the movie doesn’t stray far enough from the grimdark line to get a true campy performance out of him.

The action is serviceable with the climax being the best (both in what happens and how it is filmed) and the special effects are neat-o but pretty standard Hollywood CGI action. Maggie Q is pretty wasted in her role. I was really hoping this would end up as one of my “awesomely terrible” movies that I put in when I need mindless action and fun dialogue (see: ConAir, Face/Off, The Rock, and a whole host of other 90s action movies) but unfortunately it doesn’t get mindless enough to be enjoyable. There are certainly worse movies made, but there are definitely better ones to watch if you’re in the mood for nonsense.

—

So there you have it. I don’t have anything else to say or anything clever to tie the reviews up with, so we’re done here. So, uh, bye I guess.

As the World Falls Down

There are a lot of topics I want to talk about on my blog. One of the unfortunate things about opinions is that not only do I have a lot of them, but every day something new happens which triggers a new idea and opinion about something that’s happened in the wonderful wide world of ours. There are stacks of things I wanted to talk about that happened last week, from the relevance of the #YallQaeda and #WheresRey hashtags to the Oculus Rift releasing at $600 and why VR shouldn’t actually be that big a deal in its current form.

Then David Bowie died yesterday.

So I’m going to talk a little bit about that instead.

Now I’m going to be straight up honest – I don’t really know a lot about David Bowie. I’m not a die-hard fan of his. In fact, I’d never really listened to a whole album of his until today. Of course I’ve heard songs by him that I’ve enjoyed – Space Oddity, I’m Afraid of Americans, Suffragette City. Dancing in the Street with Mick Jagger, Under Pressure with Queen. But those songs aren’t what I associate David Bowie with.

No, to me David Bowie will always be Jareth the Goblin King.

Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies in my childhood. As a grown-up, I can look at Labyrinth objectively and say it’s not a great movie in any sense of the word. (Chilly Down for example, while one of the most fun scenes in the movie and my favorite song, also has absolutely no point whatsoever.) That never stopped me from buying this shirt, though. Regardles of the movie’s quality, the scene that’s left an indelible mark on my brain is when David Bowie walks through the M.C. Escher castle with so much swagger while singing Within You. Forget Magic Dance or As the World Falls Down – that right there is The Goblin King at his finest.

Whenever a celebrity dies, there’s always an outpouring of R.I.P. and grief from fans and non-fans alike. But there’s always a few people who interrupt it with statements like “You didn’t know them, why are you grieving so hard?” Or “You know tons of people die every day, right? Why aren’t you grieving for all the children who died in X country?” Even I, when I woke up this morning and heard he had died, briefly wondered why I felt sad – I hadn’t listened to any David Bowie music in years and he wasn’t somebody I personally considered a hero or someone who influenced my life in any tangible way.

But when I really sat down and thought about it, he actually had influenced me. I’m a writer. I love writing. And due to being a writer, bits and pieces of every person and every thing I’ve interacted with work their way into my writing. My writing is an extension of me. And when I really, truly think about it – watching the unparalleled style and showmanship of David Bowie as The Goblin King as an impressionable young child made him a part of me. Because to child me, The Goblin King was the quintessential antagonist – villainous but complicated, a force to be reckoned with and yet still had weaknesses of heart. And those types of villains, those types of characters I consumed as a young boy were one of many facets that drove me to desire to create those same types of characters through writing myself.

David Bowie is an icon. There is a myriad of ways he could have affected people’s lives. Some people probably lost their virginity to Life on Mars. Others may have had religious experiences seeing him perform a live concert. Still others just enjoyed his music and movies for what they were – entertainment. And that’s why when a celebrity passes away, people take the time to grieve. Because even though I’ve never met David Bowie, his existence in a simple movie from 1986 has influenced me. And even though I know the world has a bunch of problems that are worth caring about, right now it’s time to celebrate the life of a star that has touched the lives of millions.

Goodbye David Bowie, and thank you.

As the pain sweeps through,
Makes no sense for you.
Every thrill is gone.
Wasn’t too much fun at all,
But I’ll be there for you
As the world falls down.

A Look Back at 2015

So anybody that knows me knows that I like making lists. For some reason, I get this weird satisfaction about ranking things in order and determining just how awesome things that are awesome are compared to other awesome things. To give you an idea of just how obsessive I am with list making, back in 2005 each week I made a list of my favorite 20 songs of the moment. Each week. For the entire year. And then on top of that, I established a point system and tallied up all the songs based on how long they were on the list/what position they were ranked, and at the end of the year I determined what my top 20 songs of the entire year were. The kicker? I did this all for myself – I didn’t tell anybody I was doing this until the very end of the year when I told my friends that I had done this task and offered to make them all a mix CD (yes I’m old) of my favorite tunes of the year.

By the way, if you’re curious, the #1 song of 2005 for me was Old School Hollywood, by System of a Down.

You aren’t curious?

Dang.

Well, now you can at least try to grasp my dedication to lists. And because of this, I can say with the utmost confidence that there are going to occasionally be lists featured on this blog. And since the new year is starting, I figure it’s time to reflect on 2015 and list off a few of my favorite things from the past year – from movies to television to music to books and games.

To make sure I don’t get carried away, I’ve limited myself to five things in each category, one absolute favorite and four more that are also really great but not quite my favorite. Enjoy!

Best Movie of 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road

Do you want to watch women kick ass? Do you want explosions? Do you want subtle characterization through minimalist dialogue? Do you want a fucking guitarist playing a flamethrower guitar on top of a column of speakers while traveling at 100 mph? If so, this is the movie for you. And even if you don’t want those things, this is still the movie for you because by the end of it your face is going to be melted off, so honestly who cares what you wanted before you started watching.

But seriously. My favorite movie of the year is pretty much a no-brainer. Mad Max: Fury Road is essentially a two-hour long car chase filled with balls-to-the-wall action. The majority of the stunt work in the movie is done for real with minimal use of CGI, which makes it a stand-out movie in this day and age just on those merits alone. Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and Nicholas Hoult all turn in amazing performances as Max, Furiosa, and Nux respectively. And the soundtrack hits exactly all the right notes, complementing each scene wonderfully while never overpowering the action it is behind.

What makes this my favorite movie is the fact that from minute one, this movie knows exactly what it is and compromises absolutely nothing about itself from start to finish. There’s no forced love story between leads. There’s no long speeches or melodrama. And even when the movie is radically violent, it’s not gratuitously shown – everything is done in picture perfect quantity. I find myself exiting movies a lot nowadays thinking about what tweaks could be done to make them better. My first blog post shows that – I enjoyed The Force Awakens a ton, and yet I found enough holes in review to fit a Death Star through. I didn’t exit Fury Road thinking about what needed to be fixed. I exited Fury Road and said to myself “I need to see that again, right now.”

Fury Road is an experience like none other. We’re probably not going to get another movie like it for years. See it.

Top 5 Movie Round-Up:
Furious 7
Kingsman: Secret Service
American Ultra
Circle

Best Video Game of 2015

Undertale

It’s really, really hard to quantify what makes Undertale so special without spoiling everything about it. It’s especially hard to explain it to people who don’t play video games on the regular. But I’ll give a short synopsis: a huge issue with video games right now is that in the major gaming industry, most games’ objectives revolve around killing, usually indiscriminately. There are your sports games and your puzzle games, visual novels and such. But a large percentage of games make their objective either killing or surviving being killed. And in most cases, you feel nothing for what happens. I mean, who hasn’t played a Grand Theft Auto and ran over pedestrians gleefully because you can?

Undertale flips that on its head. In the game, you’re given a choice between killing and not killing. You can end encounters peacefully instead of opting to fight, often times turning battles into a puzzle. And choosing to kill versus choosing not to kill drastically changes the game. Because everyone you meet is a character, the monsters have personality, and killing someone means something. And because of the game’s self-awareness, it leads to some very emotional moments to the point where there are certain musical themes that still invoke actual tears when I think about the game moments that correspond with them.

Of course, this is just the macro perspective. The game itself is wonderfully designed, mixing a typical RPG with bullet hell combat mechanics. Every character oozes charm and humor, from an anime-loving lizard to a dog who is so easily excitable he can’t tell the difference between playing and fighting to a skeleton who forgets he doesn’t have ears as he tries to dab cologne behind them. Oh, and the music. The. Music. Is. Amazing.

I could honestly talk for hours about how great Undertale is. And even in the sparse amount that I’ve described here, I feel like I’ve revealed too much about the game. If you absolutely, positively won’t ever play it yourself, I suggest watching VoidBurger’s Let’s Play because she is a wonderful player and gets the humor of the game. I totally did not spend a weekend watching her entire Let’s Play because it was so enjoyable. But if you think you want to play it – go out and get it right now, I promise you won’t regret it. And remember – if you do choose to kill…

…you’re gonna have a bad time.

Top 5 Video Game Round Up:
Bloodborne
Tales from the Borderlands
Fallout 4
Rocket League

Best Television Show of 2015

The Flash

If you aren’t a fan of superhero shows and the superhero genre, you probably aren’t going to get why I like The Flash. The reason this is my favorite show of the year is simply because it embraces the absurdity of what it is and how utterly crazy comic books are, and then puts it into show form. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet at the same time manages to bring meaningful drama into the equation (except for a few low points in season one which have now been largely corrected in season two.) And this show has won me over as a fan even though I knew diddly-squat about The Flash going into the first season, other than he could run really fast.

All the actors and actresses bring their A-game and the entire cast ensemble has chemistry better than most shows that have been on for years. Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells is almost definitely the stand-out performance, he is by far the start of the show. That doesn’t take anything away from Grant Gustin as the titular Barry Allen, though – his enthusiasm is infectious and has great chemistry with Shantel VanSanten’s Patty Spivot of season 2. (It also helps she is drop dead gorgeous – am I allowed to say that? I’m saying that.) But the hands down best relationship in the entire show is Barry’s relationship with his foster dad, Joe West. Jesse L. Martin is the emotional center of the show and absolutely kills it every time he’s on screen. And if you don’t love Wentworth Miller completely chewing scenery when he shows up as Captain Cold, you have no soul.

The show starts off in season one with a pretty stereotypical “bad guy of the week” format, but it doesn’t take long for it to kick in high gear. In 2015 we saw resolution to the first season’s story arc of the Man in the Yellow Suit (and he’s not related to Curious George, if you’re wondering) and season 2 started off with a bang introducing Zoom, who is one of the most menacing villains that has ever graced the TV screen, in my opinion.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Zoom story wraps up in 2016 – as well as the Legends of Tomorrow spinoff that is starting this year too (think Sliders with superheroes starring Rory from Doctor Who). Even if you aren’t a fan of superheroes, I suggest trying the show. It’s honestly good and has a lot of charm. If you’re willing to put up with some comic book logic (“It’s Fucking Speed Force“) it’s worth your time.

Top 5 TV Show Round Up:
Justified
Person of Interest
Jessica Jones
Limitless

Best Book of 2015

The Aeronaut’s Windlass

Books are hard for me to do a full write-up about, mostly because while I read a lot of books over the course of the year, they are usually not recent. For example, I read all four books of the Mindspace Investigations series this year, and they are great if you’re into futuristic neo-noir mystery stories. I also read The Martian in preparation for the movie, and Redshirts because it looked hilarious. But none of those actually came out in 2015 – in fact, I only read two books published this year. So I suppose it wasn’t too hard for me to choose – although both books were phenomenal.

Jim Butcher authors one of my favorite book series of all time – The Dresden Files. I’ve also read his six-book series the Codex Alera, a more straight fantasy series that is pretty great as well. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that my favorite book I read this year is The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first book in the new Cinder Spires series by Butcher. Aeronaut’s Windlass takes place in a steampunk universe with airships and ethereal magic, and has Jim Butcher’s usual humor and stellar character development.

Unlike the Dresden Files which is told completely from the perspective of Harry Dresden, this book shifts between the perspectives of five characters – Grimm, the captain of an airship, Gwendolyn, an aristocrat who is blunt and horrible at negotiation, Bridget, a large, muscular girl who is from an ineffectual royal house, Folly, a practitioner of ethereal magic who is a few cuckoos short of a nest, and Rowl, who is a Cat. Yes, with a capital C, because of course cats are cocky and think they’re better than humans. All five perspectives are unique and each character is fun to follow, unlike some ensembles where you get to -that- person’s viewpoint and you just want it to be over already.

It is a fun romp in a very believable steampunk world, however it is long and don’t expect a ton of resolution by the end – while Aeronaut’s Windlass has a conclusion, it is quite obviously the beginning of a saga and several plot threads are left hanging to be picked up on in the next book. Still, it is by far my favorite book I’ve read this year, even counting non-2015 ones, so I highly recommend picking it up if the universe sounds interesting to you and you feel like getting sucked into a long series.

Top 2 Book Round-Up:
Thunderbird
(I feel a little awkward not saying anything about Thunderbird since it’s the only other 2015 book on this list, so I’ll talk briefly about it. This is a sequel to a novel that came out in the mid 90s. I have not read the first book, but this stood alone quite well and was thoroughly engaging. It’s a sci-fi story that explores the political and social ramifications of humanity discovering a stargate that can teleport humans to other worlds. Don’t expect the typical action/adventure of planet-hopping that usually is associated with this kind of plot, though. It’s much more methodical and character focused as people debate things like how if they can reverse engineer teleportation, how will the automobile industry fare? It’s a very interesting and well-done novel, but a complete 180 on what I expected from reading the jacket cover.)

Best Album of 2015

Bullet for my Valentine – Venom

Amazon Prime Music has become my go-to place for music. There are so many “free” albums with a Prime membership that I’ll go ahead and plug an Amazon Prime membership right here. And you get it on top of free shipping, Amazon Prime Video, and all that other good stuff. But I’m not a spokesperson for Amazon, I’m supposed to be talking about my favorite album.

The reason I bring up Prime Music is because this year alone I listened to way more new music than I have over the past few years, just because of how easy it was to download an album to my phone and listen to it at work. This year I listened to two of Bullet for my Valentine’s earlier albums – Temper Temper and Fever, and really enjoyed both of them. They’re hard rock with lots of nice guitar riffs and solos, and a good mix of singing and screaming so I don’t feel like my ears are bleeding after listening to them. So when they released a new album this year I figured why not actually put some money down on it instead of mooching through Prime Music.

While I don’t like it as much as the other two albums I listened to, it is still overall a solid album and my favorite of the year. They don’t do anything radically different – there’s lots of great guitar which is what I was looking for although the pace of the album is a little slower overall than previous fare. Lyrics aren’t anything to write home about, it’s your standard thrash/metal/rock fare. The standout track for me is Skin, with You Want a Battle? (Here’s a War) being second.

I always find music hard to write about in terms of reviews, just because music taste varies so greatly between everyone. Two people can agree that an album is great, and yet have different favorite songs and even disagree on why the album is great. I, for instance, don’t particularly need to have thought-provoking lyrics with my music as long as there are good beats and a nice, solid guitar. But sometimes lyrics just resonate with me (and my favorite lyric of the year still has to be “My taste in music is your face” from Tear In My Heart, by Twenty One Pilots).

So if you like rock music, I suggest giving Venom a listen. If you don’t like rock music, you’re probably not going to suddenly have your mind opened to heavy metal and go to Ozzfest this summer. (Is Ozzfest still a thing? Am I that old? I should stop talking now.)

Top 5 Album Round-Up:
AWOLNation – Run
Trivium – The Silence in the Snow
Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface
Imagine Dragons – Smoke & Mirrors
So that’s my look back at things from 2015. Although, I have one more topic I want to speak about, and that is:

The Shittiest Turd of 2015

Fantastic Four

You can’t get worse than this piece of shit. I would have much rather spent an hour and a half trying to pull my own eyeball out with an ice cream scoop than sit through this movie again. I could see what they were going for with an outside perspective, but in the end all that showed up in the movie theaters was a boring crapfest. If you have a year time jump with 20 minutes left in your movie and NO ACTION HAS HAPPENED YET, you’ve got a problem on your hands.

If there’s one thing from 2015 I can recommend not partaking in, it’s this movie. Stay away from it. Stay as far, far, far away from it as you can.

Top 5 Shittiest Turd Round-Up:
ISIS
The Car Chase from Spectre
Konami
Donald Trump

And there you have it. Now it’s time to move on from 2015 and look forward to 2016 and what shitty turds the new year will bring us!

Only joking. Remember kids, while it’s fun to make fun of things and be aware of the crappy and shitty things in life, it’s more important to be happy and enjoy the good things.

This message is brought to you by the letter A. For Amazon Prime.

I’m not paid by them I swear.

A Long, Long Time Ago…

Spoilers for The Force Awakens Follow – You Have Been Warned

The first time I’d ever heard of Star Wars, I was around 11. Every Sunday I went to church for three hours, and the second of those three hours was spent in a Sunday school class that was divided by age. When I was 11, I happened to be the only kid in that age group, so for an hour every week it was just me and my Sunday School teacher. Me being the type of kid I was, I would always go right to class after the first hour and be sitting in the classroom waiting when my teacher showed up.

One of these times, he remarked to me “You know, every time I enter the room and see you sitting here by yourself, I feel like Darth Vader coming in to interrogate the princess.” I, having no idea what he was talking about, stared blankly back at him. “You’ve never seen Star Wars?” I told him no. He then proceeded to explain to me the scene. Then next week, he brought in his VHS tape (yes I’m old) of the original Star Wars and actually played the scene for me.

I was captivated. And that was the beginning of my descent into Star Wars madness.

I made my parents get the trilogy on video tape so I could watch all three, and I loved them. To add fuel to the fire, the next year the Special Editions were released in theaters so I got to watch all three movies on the big screen soon after seeing them on tape. I began to consume anything with the Star Wars moniker – games, books, whatever I could get my hands on.

Then the prequels came out.

For a time, I was one of those people – the prequels did not exist. They were an affront to the amazing original trilogy that George Lucas blessed us with and WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE THINKING WITH JAR JAR and so on. Even now, I will still say that Phantom Menace isn’t just a blemish to the Star Wars name, it’s really a bad movie, period.

But that isn’t what this blog piece is about.

For a while in my teenage years, I considered myself a Star Wars superfan. I knew what Leia’s cell number was, what the alien in the trash compactor was called, and the number of Bothans that died to bring you this information. (It’s many.) It wasn’t just limited to the movies either – I knew who Luke Skywalker’s wife was (Mara Jade), why Ton Phanan was a cyborg (he’s allergic to bacta), and the name of Mirax Terrik’s ship (Pulsar Skate). But as I grew older and wiser (not necessarily at equal speeds, unfortunately) I began to realize that I wasn’t as big a Star Wars fan as I thought. Yes, I absorbed copious amounts of useless knowledge, but I noticed I absorbed useless knowledge about everything I enjoyed, not just Star Wars.

Around college time I stopped consuming Star Wars material. Outside of the X-Wing and Timothy Zahn novels, in fact, I didn’t really read any more of the Star Wars EU (which, by the way, now that useless knowledge is even MORE useless since it is not Canon(tm)). The only Star Wars purchases I’ve made in the last five years were two books – a new X-Wing book by Aaron Allston and a book called Death Troopers (because zombies + Star Wars, why the fuck not?). Of course, both of these books sit on my shelf still yet to be read.

Which brings us to The Force Awakens.

No, actually first let’s go back to 2009. That year, J.J. Abrams rebooted another beloved sci-fi franchise. And let me tell you, growing up I gave not one shit about Star Trek. I cared more about the Sun Crusher than Wesley Crusher. The most I ever watched of it were some Next Generation episodes out of the corner of my eye because my freshman year college roommate was super into it and wanted to watch old episodes whenever they were airing. I saw First Contact and thought it was a good movie, but that’s about all my interest in Star Trek.

But damn if the new Star Trek movie didn’t look cool.

So I went to see it. And it was a good movie. Do you know why it was a good movie? Very simple: old characters, old universe, but a new story. Now granted, there were time travel shenanigans and alternate timelines which allowed a window of opportunity for future installments to not preclude the already made movies and shows. Abrams brought back the characters that people loved, while not excluding new fans. He created a new origin story and opened up the possibilities for sequels, but still included nods to the old guard. Which is why the movie worked. When we saw Kirk, Sulu, and a red shirt guy get ready for an away mission, everyone knew what was going to happen. But there was no wink wink, nudge nudge, and the reference didn’t overstay its welcome. It happened, the story moved on.

Okay. Now we can talk Force Awakens.

It’s not a bad movie. In fact, it’s an entertaining movie. 50% of the new characters are wonderful. There’s some great action, and much like Abrams’ version of Star Trek, it pulls on nostalgia and references without being heavy-handed.

But it’s not a new story, and that’s where the biggest problem lies.

Star Trek 2009: Old characters, old universe, new story.
Star Wars TFA: Old and new characters, old universe, old story.

(As a side note, I was also underwhelmed with Star Trek Into Darkness for the same reasons: it was Abrams’ remake of an old Star Trek story and everything about the movie fell flat. On the other hand, I’m really excited for when The Trek & The Furious comes out this summer because it looks great.)

Every problem I have with The Force Awakens can be traced back to the fact that this movie is playing it so safe it’s not ever leaving first base, even when the pitcher has missed the catcher by a mile. Every single story beat can be paralleled to A New Hope (with the exception of one or two, which I’ll get to because not surprisingly they’re my favorite parts of the movie) and everything detrimental about the movie is because they were trying to squeeze it into an already-created story outline.

Don’t believe me? Okay, I’ll show my work.

The most egregious example is, of course, the Starkiller base. In A New Hope, the Death Star is a powerful, dangerous superweapon that actually inspires fear. When it destroys Alderaan, that meaning is conveyed to the audience. Up until that point, Alderaan has been a focal point of the movie – our main characters are going to said planet, so it affects our story. It’s Leia’s home planet, so its destruction also affects another main character directly. On top of that, we get the great line “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.” Everything about that portion of the movie is memorable because it directly affects the plot.

The Starkiller base has none of that. It exists solely because they needed a plot parallel for New Hope. They needed a weapon of mass destruction to threaten the home base, along with something for the X-Wing squadron to blow up victoriously after a very specific component is targeted. The system that the Starkiller base has no connection to our main characters – nobody is from there. Nobody’s trying to get there. Nothing important is there except for a nebulous “government” that up until this point in the movie has been as influential as squat. You can literally take out that section of the movie and everything about the movie’s plot still makes sense.

Not good, writers. Not. Good.

Oh by the way it sucks up stars like a Dirt Devil.

Now I’ve seen people say that “yes, this is stupid, but it sets up the Han Solo/Kylo Ren confrontation with a stylish backdrop so it’s okay.” No, no it’s not. You see – sucking up a sun’s energy is a fucking superweapon power of its own. It’s not as showy as a big laser blowing up planets, but anybody in a system where the star just got sucked into oblivion is going to die when physics takes over.

The movie can still be plot-driven without a superweapon. If you turn the superweapon into a regular First Order prison base, you can still have Finn and Han break in to rescue Rey. You can still have an X-Wing aerial battle with TIE fighters because the squadron is trying to cover their escape. Hell, you can even have shots of extras back at the Resistance base looking worried because hey, they’re worried about their friends instead of being selfish and worrying about their imminent destruction.

And fuck it, fine, even if you HAVE to have a superweapon – just make the thing suck up stars as its threat to all existence so you have your shiny metaphoric background. “What do you know about this superweapon, Finn?” “It sucks up a sun’s energy, then uses it to jump the whole planet into hyperspace because, you know, it’s a fucking planet and that takes a lot of energy.” “So now that they know our location, they can just suck up a sun and jump to our system, and then suck up our sun and kill us all?” “Yep, pretty much.” “Well, shit. ….does this thing have an open exhaust port?”

It’s things like this that are littered throughout the whole movie. “A New Hope had a droid with an important message, so we’re going to have a cuter droid with an important message. And our hero is going to discover the droid and take it under her wing.” “But wait, wasn’t there a translator droid in ANH?” “It’s okay, we’ll just have her be able to speak to the droid even though she lives in the shell of a crashed ship barely surviving by herself on a desert planet.” “Wait, but wasn’t a desert planet where Luke lived? Couldn’t we have some sort of other environment?” “Nah, because that’s the same kind of planet ANH started on and people fucking love desert planets. So then we’re going to have her escape with the droid in the Millennium Falcon.” “Wait, she can pilot too?” “Of course she can! Otherwise how are we going to have a chase scene with the Millennium Falcon? Moving on, they’re going to be looking for the Resistance, because A New Hope had a Rebellion.” “Wait hold on, but the Republic is the ruling government and there’s no evil Empire, just the First Order…so why is there a Resistance?” “Because we’ve got to blow something up, so we’re blowing up a Republic.” “Okay, but why do we need to blow something up?” “Well a planet got blown up in A New Hope, so we’re blowing up a bunch to top that.” “But do we need to ape ANH in every aspect?” “Um…duh? Oh, also, we’re going to kill an important mentor figure while the rest of the main characters are watching helplessly to add some gravitas for our bad guy…Harrison, you in?”

Maybe I’m coming across as a little nitpicky, but it’s all right there in the movie from beginning to end. Now don’t get me wrong, I still thought The Force Awakens was enjoyable, a good movie, and a fun time that’s much better than any of the prequels. But plot-wise, it’s a movie I’ve seen before. And that’s bad.

But everything that was character driven and not plot-driven in the movie was amazing. And that’s good.

Finn is one of the best big screen protagonists I’ve seen in a long time. He’s afraid, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, he doesn’t want to be a hero – and yet he steps up anyways. He doesn’t fit into any established archetype in the Star Wars universe – he’s not a scoundrel like Han Solo, or a naive farmboy like Luke, or a wisened Jedi like Obi-Wan. He’s a Stormtrooper who doesn’t want to be a Stormtrooper, and also wants to get the fuck out of Dodge. His moments with Rey, BB-8, and Poe are the highlights of the film, and my favorite action sequences are when he’s desperately trying to use a lightsaber as a weapon and getting his ass kicked instead.

On the dark side, Kylo Ren is one of the best big screen antagonists in a long time, too. He’s a much better realization of the dark side of the Force than the stoic Darth Vader or the scene-chewing Unambiguously Evil Emperor. He’s a brat who gets angry when things don’t go his way, and the first time he is challenged by somebody who can also use the Force he fails miserably because he’s used to being the Only One. You can imagine exactly why training this kid in the Force would go horribly wrong.

I mentioned earlier two story beats that were my favorite scenes in the movie – the first involves Kylo Ren. After Rey and Finn escape, a terrified mook comes up to Kylo Ren and gives him the bad news. Because of how closely ANH was being paralleled, I was expecting Kylo Ren’s “Force Choke” moment. Instead, he goes batshit and hacks a computer terminal to pieces. And I was excited and happy. Because it did exactly what I wished the rest of the movie did: played on our nostalgia for the original trilogy, but did something new and unique with it, thereby throwing a curveball at our expectations.

The scene is improved upon even further when later on, him hacking things to bits is played for comedic effect by Stormtroopers noping out of the way. At that point you realize these guys aren’t afraid of Kylo Ren the same way people were afraid of Vader. People feared Darth Vader because he would Fuck You Up. People fear Kylo Ren because he’s just Fucked Up.

The other scene that stood out to me was the goofy killer aliens in a spaceship scene. It was refreshing because it gave us a little breathing room. We got to see Han Solo in action again (to everyone’s delight) and we got to have some more bonding time between Rey and Finn. Granted, it wasn’t perfect and instead of drawing from A New Hope it felt more like it was being drawn from Men In Black, but let’s be honest here. Because this was included, we got to see Han Solo chuck a guy into a monster’s open maw.

And don’t we all deserve to see that?

There’s more I could talk about. Like how BB-8, despite being a Walking/Rolling Merchandise Hook(tm), was incredibly cute and a great addition to the droids in the Star Wars universe. Or how Rey could be a great character if she wasn’t overburdened with all the necessary Plot Skills. (To make a D&D metaphor, you can tell that Finn and Rey are both at the same level, but Finn’s player has clearly never played D&D before, while Rey’s is totally a min/maxer.) Or how Poe should have either stayed dead or not have been introduced until halfway through the movie. Or how General Hux and the giant hologram Snore were useless cookie-cutter Obviously Evil villains. Or how I know his name isn’t Snore, but seriously. Why waste screen time on His Boringness when we could have more Kylo Ren being his delightfully obnoxious self?

In the end, I know I’m not a Star Wars superfan. I know this because I haven’t watched any of the original trilogy in at least five or six years. I wouldn’t even put any of the original trilogy in my top ten movies of all-time. I won’t be putting The Force Awakens in that top ten either. But I also don’t think The Force Awakens ruined anything. Yes, Disney did take years upon years of Expanded Universe content and toss it in the trash compactor, but honestly wouldn’t you do the same if you just bought Star Wars for $4 billion? The Force Awakens is overall a solid character piece which brings me hope for the next two episodes, providing they don’t mirror the original trilogy in those as well.

I know I’m not a Star Wars superfan because I nearly didn’t even get tickets to see TFA opening weekend, only did so because a friend asked me to go with him. I know I’m not a Star Wars superfan because I’ll probably only see the movie once more in theaters, if that, but I’ll gladly pick up the Blu-Ray at some point for my collection. I know I’m not a Star Wars superfan because I can look past my long history with the Star Wars franchise and look past the glaring flaws in the movie and say to myself “You know what? The Force Awakens was entertaining and had great, memorable characters. Maybe this can be a new generation’s New Hope.” And I know I’m not a Star Wars superfan because I’m secretly hoping the cliffhanger in Episode VIII involves Jason Statham calling up Kylo Ren after blowing up General Hux and telling him “You don’t know me, but you’re about to.”

Then again.

I did just write a 3000 word treatise on the new Star Wars movie.

Fuck if I know what kind of fan I am.

But that’s just my opinion, man.