Let’s Talk Star Wars… Disney Edition.

So, back while everyone was awaiting Star Wars Episode 7 with baited breath, I wrote a post called “Let’s Talk Star Wars” in which I ranked the first six Star Wars movies in order of my enjoyment of them.

So now that Disney has put out three new Star Wars films, two of which are continuing the main story, how do they stack up? Let’s take a look.

First up: Rogue One. I’m starting with this one because it is a standalone film. I only saw it once in theaters, so bear with me. I don’t dislike this film. It actually had a very strong “Star Wars” feel to it. The CGI faces of Tarkin and Leia were disturbing. As for Leia, they should have not shown her face at all; we all saw the woman clad in white with the signature hair buns from behind, so we knew who she was. Also, the Mon Calamari dude who was not Ackbar looked funny; maybe they should have gone with a practical effect for this alien instead of CGI, like the original Ackbar was. Anyway, the characters in this film were not wholly memorable. I don’t think I could name any of them outside of saying “The Girl”, “The Droid”, “The Rebel Dude”, “The Pilot”, “The Blind Asian Dude played by Ip Man”, and “Ip Man’s Friend”. Were there other main characters? I don’t know. They all died, so I didn’t bother to remember. Anyway, most of the characters were fairly bland and generic; the only ones that stuck out to me were Blind Asian Dude and The Droid. Especially The Droid. When BB-8 was mega hyped for Ep. 7, and turned out to be a let down, The Droid from Rogue One reminded me that droids with unique personalities (that weren’t R2-D2 or C-3PO) were still out there. It also reminded me why Ep. 7 was so… blah. At any rate, this movie was still fun but not perfect. I would rank it as better than Ep. 1.

Speaking of Ep. 7, The Force Awakens, it was very much a blah film. Let me be clear, I saw it three times in theaters, twice ALONE, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But outside of the theater? I have felt no compulsion to watch it again. The film was technically good, essentially a rehashing of Ep. 4 (my all time favorite). The new main characters weren’t very well developed during the film, and the character of Rey kind of got on my nerves after a while, mostly because she just so happened to be good at everything and bad at nothing. I really wasn’t given a reason to care about these characters. But they interacted with old school characters of Han and Chewy, so good fun was to be had for all (except Han). The film needed more Poe Damaron. In both of the other trilogies, the films revolved around a trio of inter-connected main characters: Han/Luke/Leia in the OT and Obi-wan/Anaking/Padme in the prequels. Setting up a trio of Rey/Finn/Poe in this film would have been better, as opposed to just doing Rey/Finn. It doesn’t work as well. I heard that Poe was originally supposed to die, but JJ Abrams changed his mind later; it makes sense with how Poe was handled in the film, but it still leaves the question of who the third member of the trio should have been. BB-8 was basically a slightly useful puppy, not really a character in its own right. R2-D2 and C-3PO were clearly their own characters. The Droid from Rogue One was clearly his own character. BB-8 was a glorified pet. And Kylo as the villain was… lame? More of a petulant child than a force to be reckoned with. His introduction, where he was able to stop blaster bolts with the force was cool… and then he fizzled. The film as a whole lacked that “Star Wars”; there were moments of it here and there, but it felt just like the JJ Abrams Star Trek films: just another sci-fi/fantasy action flick, But With Lightsabers! Any way, after I had first seen the film I would have rated it above Ep. 1, maybe even Ep. 2. But after further reflection I saw that the film doesn’t make me feel anything. Like I’m pretty apathetic towards it. Like I mentioned, I have no intention of actively watching it of my own accord, especially when I could just as easily watch the vastly superior Ep. 4. It is just blah. And since I think a film should make you feel something (whether it’s love, hate, hope, anger, whatever) I have to rank this below Ep. 3, because at least that film made me feel something, even if that something is seething anger.

Now for Ep. 8, The Last Jedi. Oh boy did I have a lot riding on this film. I was one of those people who said we should wait until Ep. 8 comes out before completely ruling out Ep. 7. And boy, did that come to bite me in the butt. Ep. 8 was a mess. A visually stunning mess, but a mess nonetheless. I’ve pretty much exhausted my frustration with this film by talking ad nauseum about it with friends and colleagues, so I’m going to boil this down to two things that put the nail in the coffin: the Disney Humor and the final act. The first is easy to explain: there is a lot of Disney Channel-esque hokey humor in the film that really ruins otherwise good moments. Like, in the originals there were funny moments, but they weren’t deliberate jokes. The prequels had some cheesy joking, but it was mostly inoffensive. For this film (I did not notice it in Ep. 7) cool scenes like the opening fighter attack was ruining by a cheap throwaway gag. Not cool, Disney. Now, the final act in and of itself was not wholly bad, but in conjunction with the rest of the film it felt very disjointed. I define the final act as the scene on the red dust planet. I think the film should have ended with the Rebels escaping the First Order, getting to the planet, their future uncertain and needing to regroup and reconnect with other factions, and with Rey flying in the Millennium Falcon to meet up with them, leaving that final act to either occur at the beginning of Ep. 9 or just not at all. I would have been okay with that film; it was full and complete, the characters had all gone through more development, and I was satisfied. But the final act not only felt tacked on, but it just dragged out the film, added some really awful, stupid plot moments, and did a complete 180 on Kylo’s character development. Like, it just took all that development and chucked it out the window. I was done. I left the film saying, and I quote, “Well… that was a movie.” Because there was nothing else to say. This was the movie that was supposed to make Ep. 7 worth it. But it didn’t. Were there good things in this film? Yes! Not only was there more Poe (who is the best new character in the series), but the opening scene with the X-wings  (minus the aforementioned gag), the lightsaber fight in Snoke’s throne room, the Force connection between Rey and Kylo, and the infinite Mirror Scene with Rey: all well-done, engaging elements of the the film. I understand why people might like it, and I don’t begrudge anyone’s enjoyment of this film. But there was a lot, a LOT, wrong with it. So, I have to rank this above Ep. 7 (and below Ep. 3). Without the final act, it would have ranked above Rogue One.

Anyway, that just my opinion. I love Star Wars, and I’m not giving up on it yet (although I have no plans to see the Solo film – it just looks unnecessary). My butt will definitely be in a theater somewhere when Ep. 9 comes out, you can count on it. May the Force be with you!

Me, My Grammar, and I

So I’ve noticed this trend in movies and TV shows lately. And by lately, I mean over the past few years. And it’s not a good trend.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you would say something to your mom like, “Me and Bobby want to go to the park.” And your mom would respond, “Bobby and I, not me and Bobby.”

I remember. And it was a good thing because saying “Me and Bobby” in that case was grammatically incorrect. However, the massive emphasis on this grammar issue children often commit seems to have pushed back too far. Nowadays, people appear to be so afraid, so wary, of using “me and” or “and me” in any context, even when it would be grammatically correct.

This is the trend I am seeing in film and television, more so with television.

Consider the following sentence:

Mom drove Bobby and I to the park.

This sentence is grammatically incorrect. Yet, I constantly hear characters in shows and movies making this exact mistake. I find myself muttering at the TV “Bobby and me.” The proper version of this is, “Mom drove Bobby and me to the park.” But people (mainly writers and speakers) are so afraid of using “and me” because of the aforementioned childhood correction.

So what is the difference between these two situations? Well, ‘I’ is used as the subject of the sentence, while ‘me’ is used as an object. “I want” is a complete sentence, with the subject ‘I’ and the verb ‘want’. For “Bobby and I want,” both ‘Bobby’ and ‘I’ are the subjects. With “Mom drove me,” ‘Mom’ is the subject, ‘drove’ is the verb, and ‘me’ is the object which the verb is acting upon. For “Mom drove Bobby and me,” both ‘Bobby’ and ‘me’ are objects being driven (acted upon by the verb ‘drove’)

So how do you know when to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ in these situations?

It’s simple, really: forget the other person.

What do I mean?

Reconsider the sentence:

Mom drove Bobby and -?- to the park

Now, forget about Bobby. The sentence becomes

Mom drove -?- to the park.

How would you finish this? Would you say, ” Mom drove I to the park” or “Mom drove me to the park”?  Me, right? Well then, if you add Bobby back into the equation, it shouldn’t change.

How about

“Bobby and -?- want to go to the park.”

Forget the other person,

“-?- want to go to the park.”

Of course, the answer is ‘I’, since you would say “I want to go to the park.” Adding in Bobby shouldn’t change that.

So, writers of film and television: Follow this guide. Stop perpetuating this grammatical error.

Sometimes Empathy is the Worst

I am not overly fond of horror films. By that, I mean that I hate them and will not watch them. I am not one who finds entertainment in scaring myself.

But there is one tactic used in non-horror films, typically in dramas, that I hate worse than anything “scary movies” could throw at me. And it is a tactic typically used for comedic purposes. I don’t know what it is called, but I dub it “The Mortal Humiliation Tactic.”

Basically, this tactic is when the main character is desperately ignorant about something—something that everyone around them deems commonplace. The main character then goes and humiliates themselves by unknowingly saying or doing something out of ignorance in front of people who know better. They are then humiliated beyond belief.

I hate these scenes. Like in horror films, you can see them coming a mile away. I sit there thinking to myself “Don’t do it. Don’t say that stupid thing. We all know better. Just don’t do it.” But they always do it. And then I feel the crushing embarrassment, stemming from my overzealous empathy. It sucks. When I sense these scenes coming, I usually mute it until I think it has passed.

This isn’t to say there aren’t exceptions. There are a few instances of this occurring that I do not mind. The only two that come to mind are in The Parent Trap (either version) and in “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

In The Parent Trap, the twins are on a camping trip with their father and their soon-to-be evil stepmother. In the first version, the twins convince the fiancé that smacking two sticks together will make enough noise to scare away cougars. Their father sees her doing this and corrects her. In the remake, they give her a bug repellent spray that is actually sugar water. The father discovers this and tells her so. In both versions, the father looks at the woman like she’s kind of gullible and should know better.

I don’t mind this because no one likes the woman anyway, so seeing her embarrassed so is actually enjoyable.

In “He’s Just Not That Into You,” Ginnifer Goodwin’s character mistakenly believes that Justin Long’s character is into her. After a party, she makes a move but Justin’s character claims that he is not interested in her romantically and chastises her for ignoring his advice. The reason I don’t mind this is, even though I do feel terrible when she is humiliated, after he finishes she turns it around and chastises him for being cynical and bitter.

Anyway, all this thought has come about from a Hallmark movie, of all places: When Calls the Heart. In it, a teacher moves to undeveloped Western Canada in the 19^th century. Her first night there, she hears what she thinks are wolves and is scared out of her mind. In the book, she brings this up to a 9-year-old boy who comes to fetch water and wood for her house. He calmly tells her that it was actually coyotes and that she shouldn’t be scared. In the book, this scene is sweet and not terribly embarrassing because only the nonjudgmental little boy knows about her mistake. I don’t actually know what happens in the movie, as I paused it right before I think her embarrassing moment is about to be sprung. She is currently in front of the class with all the students and their parents waiting to hear about her. I am praying she does not mention the so-called wolves!

Well, that’s my two cents on movie tactics I hate worse than horror films.

[Update: The teacher does not mention the wolves. My nerves were spared.]

[Update #2: Later she is about to do something even more horrifyingly embarrassing. I stopped watching then and there,  and I haven’t been able to watch since.]

[Update #3: It has been 5 months. I still have not finished the movie. I doubt I ever will.]