Olde Phoenix Inn

This is the latest big budget Star Wars production from Disney

I love it

It does a couple of things that tickle me

It panders to my inner 11 year old. I ran around the scrubby deserts east of Riverside at age 11 fantasizing about getting on a space ship and flying away to adventure.

This is the plot. A group of children stumble into a space ship and find themselves whisked off to adventure.

It starts off, episode 1, in Star Wars Suburbia - this section might as well have been directed by Steven Spielberg. I liked the world building of this. It was Star Wars, but it was also ordinary. I enjoyed it.

One of the characters is a little humanoid Elephant guy. Very cute. Some folks like elephants. Dennis' wife Shelly for instance. The cute Elephant people knocked her out.

It's borrowing from "Treasure Island". the kids stumble into a rogue. His heart or may not be gold. We don't know yet. Jude Law plays with guy with charisma and Panache.

So Jude Law is explaining the Galaxy to these kids as they go, like any good mentor or Merlin type.

Just like the previous one, The Acolyte - all the money is on the screen. Sets, costumes, make up. The CGI is good - this is something you can't take for granted anymore - the technical ability to do good, subtle CGI that supports the story is present

But in recent years we've seen situations where studios have put too little money and too little time into CGI and it shows. A rushed crew with too few resources and not enough is going to turn out shitty work and it's going to show (ahem ahem. She Hulk or Jupiter Ascending)

In the Second Episode, the gang goes to a pirate base which is everything a Star Wars pirate base should be.

The set design and decor occasionally hits you over the head with with "THis is Star Wars doing Treasure Island!" like they have hannoks and nets in the found pirate ship that are borrowed right off the Pirates of the Carribean sets.

And the Cutlasses. And dusty old skeletons. And the big hats that the dusty old skeletons wore when they were more meaty some time in the past.

Don't think too much about it. Its space fantasy. get a brace of blaster pistols, a cutlass and an impractical hat and lets go rob us some space dubloons!

I recommend this series. It's fun and has fun things to say about the Star Wars Universe.

Like yes, some places look like "Space Van Nuys" and some places look like "PIrates of the Carribean in SPACE" as it SHOULD BE

Addendum

The Acolyte

The Acolyte was the most recent Star Wars Series. Like the Above the costume design, set design and make up design were wonderful. The show LOOKED very good.

The kind of fan who cries like a little bitch about things cried about the Acolyte. The lead was Amandla Stenberg who is a black woman.

None of the leads in the movie were white guys.

And that's what they were bitching about. Make no mistake. All the stuff about bad writing, all the stuff about acting performances. Bullshit. Rationalizations for the fact that they don't have enough imagination to see just people in all the faces. Excuse making for holding a color card up to the screen.

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The Plot revolves around a 15 year malfunction A set of bad decisions that eventually explodes

The show is set 100 years before the Battle of Yavin. Part of the brief is to show HOW the Jedi became arrogant, filled with hubris and blind to their own weaknesses.

A Well meaning Jedi, one who sees himself as the hero of the show makes a series of decisions, all correct or at least debatable given his context, that add up to anger, violence, betrayal and problems.

Its a tragedy. The guy who's off base and should pick up the clue never quite picks up the clue.

It also points out that asking people to make complex moral and ethical judgements in the middle of a down and dirty, desperate light saber fight for their survival may have weaknesses and maybe more of this should be discussed BEFORE HAND.

My two favorite characters out of this show are

Badger-Guy. A pilot or crewman on a transport. Comes over all brave and gets in a sith's face. And SURVIVES the experience. better to be lucky and cute than good.

Senator Rayencourt - a Republic Senator who demands an audit of the Jedi and what they're up to. Once you see how it all breaks down, you see this guy has a point and the adults in the room should have rolled with his idea.

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The Acolyte is "A Star Wars Martial Arts Movie" the set designs are heavily influenced not only by Star Wars but also Midieval China and the classic Kung Fu movies set in that time.

I liked it. Even while I was yelling at the characters for being dumb. (That they were making bad decisions was the POINT of the thing)

It had things to say about the setting, the characters and the story and it said them well.

A note

In recent Star Wars shows and Star Trek shows, there have been a lot of people who were not Straight White Guys.

If I hadn't heard people crying and bitching about this before hand I might not have even NOTICED

In my imagination humanity has a LOT OF FUCKING PEOPLE in it, and they come in all sorts of varieties.

If you're picking humans at random, you have just more then 50% change of picking a female

and a 3 in 8 chance of them being either Indian or Chinese

All of Africa has a population of 1.3 Billion so factor that in.

When we grew up straight white men were the default. Because straight white men in America had the money and the power, ad so TV and movies were built around them as the audience.

Non-straight was considered a deviation from straight

woman was considered a deviation from man

and non-white was considered a deviation from white.

But that idea of straight white men being the default is a sketchy accident of history

It carries the idea that non-straight non-white non-men are the other - Different. outside the norm.

"But why does this character have to be a black woman" is question that carries it's own answer

Its rooted in the assumption that a black woman needs an excuse, a reason to be there, but white guys do not.

That default - that assumption that white guys are the default.

Smash that. Get rid of it. Put the broken pieces of it in the trash.

That's the beginning of a Star Trek that happens right here on Earth.

IDIC!

So - IMHO

if someone is complaining about the writing on a show, or just says it's no good

Immediately check the leads against a color card - if they're not straight white guys, make the critic show his work. Get to the details.

In my experience - if they devolve into circular nonsense, then there's your answer.

That doesn't mean black people can't be in a bad TV show or movie. It doesn't mean a gay character is automagically good

Also factor in that many "Critics" absolutely cannot tell the difference between "I didn't like it" and "It was objectively bad"

You may not especially like Jackson Pollack paintings, but a lot of folks did. He had something to say about painting and art. People you DO like my have learned something from him

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When I see someone bashing a modern Star Trek or Star Wars show, I've been burned often enough to turn around and ask "Are the leads non-white or non-guys?" and "Can this person tell their opinion from a fact? Or a hole in the ground?

Lots of loud bitches out there. And many of them have takes that are not worth the time of day.

IMHO

People is people, Jackson Pollock was an artist, a CON artist. There is no art in his art. Dribbles of paint on unfortunate cloth or other materials.