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Star Wars: Obi-Wan – A Complete Waste of Time

The day Lucasfilm announced a live-action Obi-Wan series, I, like many Star Wars fans, were incredibly excited about the possibilities of what they could do with the show. Maybe they’ll pick a time during the Clone Wars when he’s a general and fighting, or training under Qui-Gon, or borrow one of the story arcs from the Clone Wars animated series. 


Instead, the creators specifically pick one of the least interesting times of his life; the period where Obi-Wan is hiding in the sands of Tatooine and keeping an eye on the “boy” in order to protect him.

We more or less knew that going in, especially after the trailer. So, okay, maybe the show will be a character study, with Obi-Wan trying to deal with the aftermath of the war, Anakin’s betrayal, the end of the Jedi, etc.

Maybe it won’t suck.

The first two episodes of the show premiered this week on Disney+, and while I didn’t have high hopes for the show after the trailer appeared, I was pretty bored by the end of the second episode. 

It’s so bad that I half hope/wonder if Lucasfilm will pull a Book of Boba Fett and have a couple of episodes where Kenobi isn’t even in them. 

Instead of crafting a series around one of Star Wars favorite heroes, the current stewards of George Lucas’ legacy are dead set on destroying Lucas’ creation. We waited decades to see a live-action Star Wars television series, and now that it’s here, you find yourself wishing they’d just stuck with the animated shows.

That’s not a knock on Ewan McGregor, who does the best he can with what little he’s given. Although you’d think even he’d have concerns with the approach to the character.

It’s not as bad as Fett, which was a complete mess. The first opening sequence was great, if not unfortunate, due to recent real-world events. We then move onto a second opening that introduces the Inquisitors and Reva, the only bad guy with a name, so she’s clearly going to play a major part in the show. Finally, we move onto the third opening, which takes us to Obi-Wan.

Two episodes in, and the show already feels bloated. There are only six episodes, and it still feels like that the whole thing could have been condensed down to a film. There are a couple of good scenes, but those could have been kept in the film. The inquisitors try to be intimidating, but they can’t come close to Darth Vader, who is one of the best villains in sci-fi.

So far, there’s nothing all that interesting to see in Obi-Wan. While they’ve borrowed some of the elements from the animated shows and Dave Filoni, this series is completely in the hands of Kathleen Kennedy. The show runners can’t seem to make up their mind on what they want Obi-Wan to be, and so far, the main antagonist is as one-dimensional as they get. 

Strangely, Disney is already playing the race card on critics of the show before it even aired. If the rumors are true about the show, and based on the first couple of episodes, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that they are, then fans will not be happy with how the series ends. Disney knows they have a stinker on their hands, and their already preemptively attacking “toxic” fans and blaming them in case the show bombs. 

I can’t really say much beyond that without getting into spoilers. 

I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not even sure I’ll finish the show. 

Besides McGregor, there’s no real reason to watch Obi-Wan. As much as I despise the prequels, I’d say if you really want an Obi-Wan fix, you’d be better off re-watching those films or watching Clone Wars. 

Okay — Spoilers incoming. Don’t read beyond this point if you don’t want the show spoiled.

You’ve been warned!!!

So, yeah, Obi-Wan is a broken man. 

Obi-Wan is plagued with guilt from both the betrayal  and the death of his “brother”, Anakin Skywalker. As we all know, Anakin succumbed to the Dark Side and betrayed his fellow Jedi by joining up with Chancellor Palplatine (aka Darth Sidious aka the Emperor). Anakin led the attack on the Jedi temple and killed both Jedi AND younglings. With Anakin at his side, Sidious was able to defeat the Jedi and take over as Emperor. 

Part of this feels deliberate; the current stewards of Star Wars (Kathleen Kennedy and her minions) are dead set on destroying any of the heroes from the original films. So, once again, we’re presented with a broken hero (arguably, over anyone, Obi-Wan has more reason to be broken than anyone else in Star Wars at this point in the timeline). 

Not that this is a bad thing; the show could have built an interesting story about Obi-Wan struggling to deal with his anguish of how things turned out and his duty to protect Luke.

But, no, Obi-Wan has abandoned his Jedi training, even hiding and backing down when there’s potentially bad things happening. Yet, he still clings to the duty that he’s to protect Luke and train him when the time comes. He’s treated like he’s a complete amateur when it comes to fighting and using the Force, and  he also seems to keep himself oblivious to the world around him. 

It all feels out of character for Kenobi. Even if he’s torn with guilt, his sense of duty to protect Luke would motivate him to keep up with his Jedi training and to be keenly aware of any threats that may head their way. He would know that he would need to be ready, and even after 10 years, he’s spent a lifetime training and fighting as a Jedi. He might get rusty, but the skills are still going to be there.

There are a couple of scenes that reinforce this idea that Obi-Wan, now Ben, is in hiding and will not risk revealing himself, even if it puts others at risk. A young Jedi is loose on Tatooine,  and he somehow recognizes Obi-Wan and pursues him out into the desert. Ben tells him the Jedi are dead and that the Jedi should bury his lightsaber out in the sand and hide. 

Then, Ben has a confrontation with Owen Lars, Luke’s uncle, and despite his anguish, insists that Luke should be trained (this is the great “like you trained his father” moment from the trailer). Owen is later confronted by Reva and the inquisitors while Ben hides in the shadows and does absolutely nothing while Owen faces off against them. Not only is Obi-Wan broken, but he’s now a coward. He defies the logic of the inquisitors, who tell us that “the Jedi hunt themselves” because they will always help someone in need even if it means putting themselves at risk.

But, the show doesn’t open with Obi-Wan. Instead, it opens back at the Jedi temple. We’re shown a group of younglings training with their master at the moment Order 66 is executed. It’s not clear, but it’s a safe assumption that Reva is one of the younglings. They have to watch as their master tries to save them from the clone troopers and ultimately sacrifices herself to protect them. 

Reva, strangely, seems to be obsessed with capturing Obi-Wan. It’s not clear why, but she’s obsessed to the point of completely ignoring the chain of command. The show could have tried to work this into a subplot, where maybe Vader shows favoritism to the inquisitors in a way to keep them motivated and to create a cutthroat level of competition between them, including the High Inquisitor. But, so far, the show doesn’t explain it. It just sticks with making Reva as unlikeable as possible with no explanation.

Speaking of unlikeable, the show does the same with young Leia. She’s a precocious 10-year-old, and the show tries to make her some kind of child prodigy. She’s taunted by a cousin, but she comes back with a long and bitter retort with a sense of perception and intuition that would make Sherlock Holmes jealous. 

But, even this doesn’t hold up, because when the plot needs her to be, she’s completely clueless, like when she runs right up to the kidnappers.

The entire Leia kidnapping subplot makes no sense. Bail Organa is well aware of Leia’s parentage; he and his wife are very public figures and appear to have Leia in public as well. So, it makes no sense that Organa has done nothing to keep his daughter safe. It seems like Leia would have been taught some awareness that there could be individuals in the galaxy who would do harm to herself and/or her family.

Reva hires thugs kidnap Leia. She somehow knows about the relationship between Organa and Kenobi. Reva also seems to  know that despite Organa’s wealth and resources, he’ll go to Kenobi for help. She expects Kenobi, being the Jedi that he is, to agree and ultimately fall into her trap. She also expects that her thugs will have no problems capturing a Jedi Master and General of the Republic. 

And this is where the show begins to fall apart. There’s an absurd scene where Leia manages to elude the kidnappers for several minutes. Organa, as predicted, reaches out to Kenobi, but he refuses. So, Organa shows up on Tatooine at Kenobi’s cave (if Reva had been so smart, she should have just tailed Organa  and would have been taken right to Kenobi). 

Kenobi initially refuses again, but then, he sees the young Jedi he encountered “hanging” in town (in a totally safe PG-13 way), and he changes his mind.

 Instead of discreetly transporting Kenobi to the planet where Organa has trapped the kidnappers, he lets Kenobi board a public transport ship carrying a lightsaber. Regardless of how clueless Kenobi might be about the Inquisitors, Organa would absolutely be aware of them and that both they and Vader have been searching for Jedi, especially Kenobi. So, it seems pretty dumb that Organa wouldn’t help Kenobi stay undercover because if he’s exposed trying to save Leia, it’s going to put Leia in even greater danger. 

But, nope, it’ll be fine. Kenobi goes to the planet, and despite keeping his cover about half the time, nobody seems to know him. He runs into a fake Jedi, and convinces him to show Kenobi where the kidnappers are. 

The fake Jedi guy is just odd. Sure, maybe this is still in the outer rim, but what idiot would run around pretending to be a Jedi when there are inquisitors, not to mention Vader himself, running around hunting and killing Jedi?

Kenobi finds “Leia” and springs the trap, where Reva’s thugs easily overtake him. But, luckily, Kenobi has an ace up his sleeve and escapes the kidnappers. Then, magically, he finds the real Leia. Does he use the Force? The show needs him to find Leia, so he does.

The writers could have played up that Bail told Leia stories about the Jedi and his friend Obi-Wan. She could have taunted “Ben” with “you don’t look like a Jedi” and be stubbornly unconvinced of his true nature based on her father’s stories. Instead, after seeing his lightsaber, she wants Kenobi to “make me float.”

And then, things get silly. The inquisitors arrive, and while the others are on the ground, Reva takes to the rooftops, for reasons. She also spreads the word to the criminal element of the town that Obi-Wan is there and puts a bounty on him. Kenobi and Leia discover this, and Leia, suddenly decides that the guy who is trying to rescue her must be one of the bad guys and runs off. 

So, once again, we get a ridiculous chase scene where a 10-year-old girl easily outruns an adult, a Jedi no less, and Kenobi runs around without any cover, so anyone can see who he is. Leia tries to jump across a wide gap between buildings and falls. Kenobi has to use the Force to save her, and the show makes it clear he struggles to access his power and barely saves her in time. Again, the show wants Kenobi to have abandoned a lifetime of training and is now, somehow, a complete novice in using the Force.  

Fake Jedi shows up and decides he’s going to help Kenobi and the girl rather than turn them in. He assures Kenobi out there that there are people willing to help the Jedi; he gives them a location to an automated transport that will get them off-world.

But, Reva, using all of her Inquisitor parkour skills, catches up to them. While they hide, she boasts to Kenobi the big, dramatic reveal of the second episode: Your boy Anakin is alive, and he’s Darth Vader. Obi-Wan is shocked, SHOCKED, to learn this.

I call bullshit. Kenobi saw the security footage in Episode III. He knows Anakin turned to the dark side. Even if he thought he’d killed Anakin on Mustafar, Kenobi should be able to sense whether Anakin truly died. Even if he didn’t, it’s hard to imagine Kenobi never heard anything about Darth Vader, the Emperor’s right hand man, and would have been able to put two and two together. 


If Kenobi’s duty is to stay on Tatooine and protect Luke, then you’d think that Kenobi would at least try to keep up with was going on in the galaxy. He’d want to keep himself aware of any pending threats that could come their way rather than just be blissfully ignorant of everything. 

Then again, how does Reva know this? Vader’s true identity is a massive secret, and both Vader and the Emperor have killed to protect that secret. So, why does she know? How is she not dead?

Anyway, the High Inquisitor shows up and challenges Reva. When she reveals that she has Kenobi trapped, he decides he’ll take Kenobi down himself and take all of the credit for finding him. So, Reva kills the High Inquisitor like a chump. 

This gives Kenobi time to hop on board the transport, and he and Leia escape while Reva impotently screams at the parting ship.

While he’s on the ship, Kenobi does something weird. He reaches out with the Force and says “Anakin”, and we cut to Vader opening his eyes in his meditation chamber. 

And… that’s it. 

Obviously, now Kenobi has made Vader aware that he’s very much alive, it seems like the show will likely lead to a confrontation between Vader and Kenobi. 

Will there be a fight? Maybe. If there is, the show is going to make sure Kenobi gets his ass handed to him, but somehow, he’ll be able to get away, and Vader will let him.

Speaking of, it’s hard to say if the show will bother to explain how Reva has all of this hidden knowledge and/or her obsession for Kenobi. Does she blame him for Order 66? Did she encounter him in the temple, and did he leave her? Is there some relationship between her and Vader, and she’s obsessed with Kenobi out of her desire to prove herself to Vader?

In the end, though, I suspect that the rumors about the show may be true. Instead of Obi-Wan being able to defend himself against Vader and successfully protecting the lives of Luke and Leia, he’ll fail. Then, for reasons, Reva will have a “moment”, and may discover (or already knows, since she knows everything else) who Luke and/or Leia are, and possibly what their future holds, and it will be her, not Kenobi, that saves the day. 

Reva will get a redemption arc that will end at the end of Vader’s lightsaber.

(Update: I’ve seen the third episode, and well, the episode was pretty trash. Obi-Wan gets to face off with Vader, and he gets his ass handed to him. They’re already dropping hints that Reva is having “doubts” about being an inquisitor but at the same time is sucking up to Vader. There’s no consistency. I’m now betting that Leia will somehow use her 10-year-old genius intellect to convince Reva to switch sides.)

Kenobi will then slink back to his cave on Tatooine, and for “reasons”, Vader will not be able to track him.  He’ll still be broken, and he may even be worse off knowing that when the time came, he failed in protecting those he was supposed to protect. 

And that’s exactly where Kathleen Kennedy wants hm to be.  Once again, the current creators of Star Wars are hellbent on destroying everything came that before because they want people to like their new creations. The problem, though, is that they’re completely unable to develop anything new that generates the same magic that caught the imagination of fans for the last 40ish years. The sequels were a joke. The Book of Boba Fett was a disaster. 

Only the Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, have even remotely come close to creating a true live-action Star Wars series that’s enjoyable to watch. 

Star Wars and Obi-Wan deserve better.

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The Matrix: Resurrections — Another worthless sequel

I was intrigued after the first trailer dropped for the Matrix: Resurrections, but I was also a bit concerned.  As much as I liked the idea of returning to the lore of the Matrix, after re-watching the original and its both needless and horrible sequels, I really felt like Warner Bros. should just leave it well enough alone. 

But, Warner Bros. is a company that will do anything to squeeze every last dollar it can from the IP it owns, so Matrix 4 was inevitably going to happen. 

If you’ve never watched the Matrix films, I’ll spare you. Resurrections assumes that you’ve seen the previous trilogy, so you’re better off taking a pass here. If you’re even remotely interested in the Matrix, watch the original 1999 film and stop there. 

TL:DR – The Matrix Resurrections desperately wants to revive not only its main characters but the franchise as well, and although it touches on a few new ideas, it ultimately devolves into a low-rent re-hash of the original film. While some people may enjoy it, I was disappointed that they couldn’t figure out how to build a good story with the lore they had. I left the theater feeling like Resurrections was nothing more than a blatant cash grab by Warner Bros., and much like the previous two sequels, it probably shouldn’t have been made. 

I can’t go into much more detail without spoiling the original trilogy. I won’t spoil Matrix 4, but I will refer to the original film, so you’ve been warned.

Obviously, as we’ve seen from the trailers, Neo appears to be a) alive and b) back in the Matrix. Trinity is there as well, and she and Neo clearly don’t know one another. 

The first act has a bit cute and/or cringey meta to it. Keanu Reeves is now back as Thomas Anderson aka Neo, and he’s now a super-rich world-famous game designer who’s responsible for creating a mind blowing series of video games called — the Matrix. Tommy boy is also considered to be a bit crazy as he seems to have trouble keeping the “real” world separated from his video game universe. Regardless, his corporate overlords have decided it’s time to make another Matrix game, and they’re willing to do it with or without Anderson’s company.

(Apparently, this is true. Warner was already considering various treatments for a Matrix sequel without the Wachowskis before Lana Wachowski approached them)

A new cast of characters discovers that Thomas/Neo is alive and in the Matrix, so much of the first half of the film revolves around rescuing him (again) , teaching him about the Matrix (again) and showing him the real world (again). 

They literally show Neo clips from the original films, which represent the “games” he created to remind him about the Matrix.

There are a couple of new twists this time around, and a couple of interesting items are briefly introduced into the lore (both of which would have made better films) and quickly forgotten. Overall, though, the story simply dissolves into a bit of a re-hash of the first film. There’s some fan service as they bring in other characters from the previous films to either help or hinder the story. The new cast of characters is pretty forgettable, and even Neo is mostly just along for the ride.

In a way, Resurrections suffers from the same problem as The Force Awakens. As much as Warner wanted to milk another trilogy out of the Matrix, it feels like they didn’t have enough confidence that they could. So, instead of taking the time to plan out a well thought out three-film arc, they just went with a “safer” story meant to refresh the memories of fans. I guess they figured they’d just tack on more movies if Matrix 4 makes enough money. 

I think there’s enough lore there, and they introduced some decent ideas in Resurrections that they could have built a new trilogy around, but I don’t think Lana Wachowski was the one to do it. I think they really needed a fresh set of eyes.

Honestly, I think they should have just gone with a clean reboot. If you had to put Keanu in the film, give him a mentor role and build a good story that allows Neo to hand things off to a new cast.

Everything in the film just feels — worse. Gunfights aren’t as well put together as the bad guys now shoot like stormtroopers. The fight choreography, which was one of the standout features of the films, is also lackluster. Based on how hard Keanu trains for the John Wick films, it seems like he’s certainly still capable of doing the scenes. Maybe he had a scheduling-conflict or they couldn’t hire a good group of fight choreographers? Regardless, the fights are not up to the level of the other films. 

And, if you’re a fan of the film, you’re likely going to have questions, like: why would the machines resurrect Neo, who represented a major threat to their existence, in the first place? Why bring Trinity back? Why bring any of the bad guys back? Why stick them into a Matrix? What happened to the “peace”? Why, why, why… 

Not to worry, the film is going to do its best to barely answer almost none of those questions. Seriously.

Some popular characters are back, but with new faces. Even though Yahya Abdul-Mateen II adds some new personality into Morpheus, he’s no Lawrence Fishburne.  Agent Smith is also back, for reasons. Jonathan Groff does channel a bit of the original Smith, he just doesn’t project the same level of menace that Hugo Weaving did.  Really, all of the bad guys, though they’re great actors, feel miscast because none of them really feel like a threat at any point in the story. Most of that is simply because the writing is just that bad.

The film is mostly watchable, but it’s a bit long. It grinds to a screeching halt for long stretches before ramping up again for the next action sequence. The climax is a bit predictable, but there’s a decent action near the end. 

There are at least a couple of places where Keanu is put into a situation and he literally says “I remember this.” 

No shit, man. We remember it, too, from a much better film. 

The original Matrix was a fresh sci-fi story with groundbreaking special effects at a time, even 20 years ago, when Hollywood was already losing interest in taking chances on original material and banking more on established franchises with built-in audiences. 

The Matrix never needed a sequel, and yet, it now has three of them. After watching all of the films, I still don’t know why they bothered with any of them (beyond the obvious money grab).

If you’re really itching for a Matrix fix, go back and watch the original film and skip all of the sequels.

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Thoughts about Blizzard…

For most of us that have worked or are working in the corporate world, chances are pretty high that at some point during the year, you’ve had to take a training course on sexual harassment. 

The courses are pretty typical, but they all boil down to a couple of pretty basic principles:

  • Treat your co-workers with the same level of respect that you would expect to be treated with
  • Keep your grubby paws to yourself

You would think that in 2021, we wouldn’t need to do this annually.  We as adult human beings should be responsible and professional enough to not say or do anything in our work environment that would offend our co-workers and treat one another with respect. 

Then, this shit happens. 

California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sues Activision/Blizzard over allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment following a two-year investigation.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/activision-blizzard-sued-by-california-over-frat-boy-culture

There’s also a reddit thread that includes comments from current and former Blizzard employees. 

Activision Blizzard Sued By California Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture from wow

Part of the complaint has to do with blatant mistreatment of women and minorities, and the other part deals with patterns of sexual harassment within Blizzard going back years — as far back as 2008. 

It’s shocking. It disgusting. How the hell did Blizzard, of all companies, manage to fuck this up?  And, worse, it seems pretty clear that there was a company-wide effort to suppress any of these allegations and/or retaliate against the accusers.

I’ve loved Blizzard games for decades now. I’ve bought many of their games over the years; I’ve played World of Warcraft pretty consistently, if not casually, since 2004.  If I had gone in the direction of game development, working at Blizzard would have been on my short list of companies to work for. 

(Well, it would have up until a few years ago when the story broke that Blizzard savagely underpaid their developers, even by California standards. Their attitude was that having Blizzard on your resume was enough to offset that pay scale.)

That may have been true for a while, but over the last three years, Activision/Blizzard has burned up a LOT of that reputation and goodwill. 

One thing I want to put in here up front. As much as I would like to see Blizzard be burned to the ground, it’s not fair to the people who are still working at Blizzard who continue to be victimized by this behavior and/or simply have nothing to do with any of this behavior.  The company needs to make this right.

That said, if you feel the need to cancel your subscriptions and boycott buying Blizzard products in the future, that’s your choice. 

However, using this situation as an opportunity to spew vitriol at Blizzard employees and/or content creators who currently support Blizzard products IS NOT HELPING ANYONE. Worse case, you’re piling on people who are already victims of harassment in their workplace; they don’t need to hear your bullshit, too.

Let the wheels of justice, such as they are, do their thing. 

Many content creators that make videos about WoW: Asmongold, Preach, Bellular, and Taliesin & Evitel, among others have made their own response videos about the lawsuit and voiced their concerns about Blizzard’s behavior and the problems of simply “just quitting” supporting Blizzard. They are all worth watching.

(NOTE: I cancelled my WoW subscription a month before this happened because I was no longer invested in the game and hadn’t played in months)

How bad was it? There were instances where women were passed up for promotions and/or raises despite being the highest performers on the team. The were allegations that they would be passed up for promotions because they might become pregnant. Another woman was written up constantly for taking extra bathroom breaks even though she was eight months pregnant. Women would be assigned work so their male counterparts could play video games. Although the company provided lactation rooms, women were often kicked out of the rooms so they could be used for meetings.

On the harassment side, developers would openly joke about rape in front of female employees. They had “cubicle crawls” when male employees would wander the cubicles drinking while female employees continued to work, and the men would use the crawl as an excuse to harass their co-workers. Defendants described working at Blizzard like working in a frat house.

Some of the most egregious behavior involved a creative director for World of Warcraft, who would be so handsy with employees and/or attendees at conventions that other male employees had to pull him off of the victims. His hotel suite was nicknamed the “Cosby Suite” by co-workers after Bill Cosby. 

The absolute worst case involved a woman who was in a consensual relationship with her male supervisor at the company. She learned that he was sharing nude photos of her with their co-workers. She ultimately took her own life while on a company trip with her boss. Police learned after interviewing him that he had brought a number of sex toys on the trip. 

To make things even worse, the company actively dismissed or retaliated against anyone who complained about their mistreatment.  Retaliation included being passed over for projects, being unwillingly transferred to other groups and being selected for layoffs. The company also pushed back against some complaints by saying the accused was “too senior” to be held accountable. 

Many former employees are sharing their own stories on reddit that back up the allegations in the lawsuit.

I’m sure there are many on the internet who would love to blame all of this on the Activision/Blizzard merger, that Activision was the frat house and they “infected” hard-working “good guys” Blizzard. 

But, the allegations date as far back as 2008 — well into the “old guard” days of Blizzard. 

That means, chances are pretty high that folks like CEO Mike Morhaime and Senior VP Chris Metzen were well aware of the behavior happening within the company and did absolutely nothing to stop it. Morhaime has already issued a statement expressing his sympathy to the victims and claiming he had “no idea” any behavior was going on. Metzen also issued an apology, claiming he was completely unaware that any of this was going on.

Although both Morhaime and Metzen left the company (Metzen in 2016, Morhaime in 2018), it’s not a good look for either of them. Either they were aware of everything going on and chose to ignore it, or they were blissfully unaware of anything going on in their own company. Metzen worked directly with one of the named individuals. Metzen claims they didn’t interact outside of “story sessions”, but again, it’s a bit hard to swallow that none of these accusations didn’t reach him. In the reddit thread, one woman says she tried to reach out to Morhaime but was punished by her direct supervisor for doing so.

The lawsuit suggests that the patterns of behavior and the retaliation against the accusers was company-wide, so it feels pretty disingenuous for both of these men to claim they had “no idea” what was going on.  Regardless, it doesn’t appear that they were named in the lawsuit, so they’ll likely walk away relatively unscathed. 

J. Allen Brack, the current head of Blizzard Entertainment, also issued an internal memo (which was quickly leaked) saying the allegations were “extremely troubling” and makes assurances that the company takes these complaints seriously, even committing to personally overseeing the complaints. However, Brack has been specifically named in the lawsuit as one of the leaders who did confront one of the harassers, but downplayed the issue and only gave him a slap on the wrist. 

Activision/Blizzard has issued their own response, mostly saying that all of the allegations were “fake news” and that the California DFEH was being unprofessional in pursuing this lawsuit and basically suggesting that the lawsuit was a deliberate effort to smear the company. Instead of just saying they’ll fight the allegations in court, Blizzard strangely pushed their response further, which implies that yeah, they have never taken any of these allegations seriously.

There’s also some irony in that Blizzard is usually quick to react, and in some cases, too quick, to ANY allegations of harassment/assault when in involves people who are indirectly associated with the company and/or its games. They’ve banned a Chinese Hearthstone master player for using the spotlight in a tournament to protest the violence in his home country. They removed voiceovers for a character when accusations were made against the actor. Even though he was cleared, his content is still out of the game. A Twitch streamer was immediately banned when allegations came out against him. In that case, once the allegations were proven false, he was restored.

It’s also likely that the lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg as more former and current employees come forward with their own stories.

This news has to have made an already bad situation worse for anyone working at Blizzard, especially for the victims. It has to be troubling for anyone that works there, especially if they had no idea. The vast majority of folks there are just doing their jobs and are not directly or indirectly involved with any aspects of the lawsuit. There are rumors that work on WoW has already ground to a halt as employees are equally frustrated and outraged at the company’s behavior. 

The harassers who still work there may be worried they may eventually be publicly outed as the lawsuit continues, but seriously, fuck them. If the allegations against them are true, they should be exposed and purged from the company.

There’s also the reality that this isn’t just happening at Blizzard.  It’s been slowly but increasingly more apparent that this frat boy behavior has been pretty rampant throughout the tech industry.

The bigger question is: Will any of this fix things? 

Will Activision/Blizzard really take steps to making their workplace better? Will anyone actually responsible lose their job? Will they bring in an HR team that will take allegations seriously? Will HR ensure that any such allegations are investigated thoroughly and, if merited, the accused is punished for their behavior, including termination, regardless of how “senior” the accused is?

Will other people be willing to come forward now that the lawsuit is out? Will the state of California have enough evidence in the worst cases of harassment to pursue criminal charges? And, will they stick? 

Nobody wants to see another Cosby situation where, after finally getting caught, he eventually walks over a technicality.

Or, will Activision/Blizzard simply cover everything up? Will they wait for the courts to issue a multi-million dollar fine, and simply pay it? They might cut a couple of people as sacrificial lambs (if they haven’t already) and simply issue public statements  that they’re “taking steps” to improve things to appease the courts, while simply allowing the behavior to continue. 

In the meantime, it is my sincerest hope that the victims who have moved on have found better jobs elsewhere where they are treated with the respect they deserve. I don’t envy the choices that anyone still at Blizzard, especially anyone who is currently being victimized, may have to make.  Do you quit a job that, despite everything, you still love? Do you take a chance and report the harassment and hope that HR is finally listening?  Or, do you simply hunker down and put up with things as they are and hope things eventually change for the better?

The best thing that we can hope for is that Blizzard (at least internally) will take this lawsuit seriously, make real effort to purge proven harassers from their staff, and actually implement steps to ensure that the company never becomes this toxic for their employees again. 

It would also be great if other tech companies took this lawsuit as notice that it is way past time to take a long, hard look at their own work environments and remove any toxic elements from them. 

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So, Why Bother Buying an iPad Pro in 2021?

Does Apple Really Have Something Up Its Sleeve?

I’ve ordered a new iPad Pro, and it’s currently backordered.  But, lately, I’ve been debating about canceling the order.

(Note: I’m posting this a week before WWDC 2021, so I’m hoping that Apple proves me wrong, but I doubt it.)

What’s got me thinking are the reviews of the new 2021 M1 iPad Pro. The consensus of many of them seem to be — well, sure the M1 is faster than the 2020 iPad Pro. But, the 2020 (and even 2018) iPad Pro was already a fast machine. But —


It seems like a number of reviewers feel like the iPad Pro is now being held back by the constraints of iPad OS.  That’s feeling especially true now that we’ve seen that the M1 chip is perfectly capable of running Mac OS.  Sure, developers have to optimize their programs to take advantage of the new chip, but even in emulation, applications run very well on the M1 chip on Mac OS.

Plus, Apple has started to blur the lines between iOS and Mac OS even further by allowing iOS apps to be compiled to run on Mac OS. (Kind of a dick move by Apple to its developers IMO — here, have another platform that you should make apps for with free updates forever. A rant for another time) 

So, the question is: What, if anything, does Apple have planned for the iPad Pro? What’s the point of having an iPad Pro with an M1 chip if it’s still constrained by iPad OS?

It’s like handing someone the keys to a brand new Ferrari that’s limited to driving no faster than 30 mph. 

It still has a pencil. The 12.9 has a new screen. Sure.

The original iPad Pros had better screens and the ability to support the Pencil to distinguish them from the rest of the iPad lineup. Now, though, most of the current iPad lineup supports one of the Pencils, and the screen enhancements have mostly trickled down as well.

But, as we move towards a world where ALL Apple devices are running with Apple silicon, where does that really leave the iPad Pro?

Well, there are some options: 

1) Do Nothing: Apple can keep doing what they’re doing, which isn’t much. 

They might make some folks happy by creating Final Cut for iPad OS, but I think it’ll be severely limited. I don’t think Xcode will ever happen, or if it does, the workflow will be such a pain in the ass that most developers will simply not bother. 


But, mostly, this means Apple makes a few tweaks here and there, but they leave the iPad Pro completely limited by the OS. Eventually, the iPad Pro features will likely be absorbed back into the main iPad line. 

Why just take the boring route? Why not do something more with the iPad Pros?

Like what, you might ask?

2) Start experimenting with bringing Mac OS features into iPad OS.

Give the iPad a true “desktop” and a fully functional file system. Maybe a terminal, but I don’t think Apple will ever do that.  What about bringing more interconnectivity between a Mac and an iPad Pro? Let an iPad use an external display as an extended desktop (which is rumored to be coming). Or, what about this? Allow Macs to use iPads as pen displays. Connect an iPad to a Mac, and then, as long as they’re tethered, you can run Mac OS apps on the iPad and use the iPad Pro and Pencil as an input device. Wacom won’t like it, but they still have larger/better displays. 

How about this? Bring full multi-user support to iPad OS, which a lot of people have been wanting for years.

It’d be a bit tricky because Apple may have to “split” iPad OS into two: one for Pro features and one for normal iPads. Apple will likely never allow apps to be installed without going through the App Store. Tools that would be useful for developers would also likely be not be allowed on the platform.

3) Let’s just go all out: Mac OS Touch.  Allow touch to be fully integrated into Mac OS, and allow the iPad Pros to be the first machines to run it. 

Touchscreen Macs?!? That’s crazy. Apple would never invest in a niche market like that. Or, would they?

Microsoft has already built this niche with the Surface line of products, and there seems to be a decent sized community of folks who are using or would like to use the iPad as their main computer. 

 We know the M1 can run either iPad OS or Mac OS. So, why not push the envelope? It could be a way to keep the iPad Pro line more relevant by pushing them to the Mac side.

This might take longer — and it might become a phased thing like they’ve been doing with converting iOS apps to Mac OS apps and the migration to Apple silicon.

The long term goal, though, would be to evolve the iPad Pro into a new line of Macs with touch support. They’d probably have a new name, and they’d probably come with two thunderbolt ports, but they’d be Macs. 

Imagine running a full version of Mac OS on an iPad, even in some limited form until Apple was ready to go to the next step. Maybe you can run it in emulation? Maybe you can choose to configure the iPad Pro to run in either Mac OS or iPad OS? 

iPad Pros are already at a price point where they kind of sit between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pros. The only Mac that might be cannibalized would be the 13 inch MacBook Pro. But, Apple can solve that by keeping the iPad Pro (MacBook Touch?) a generation behind the MacBook Pro M-series of chips. There are rumors abound that Apple is planning on a new M-series for the MacBook Pro line.

Unless it proves otherwise, Mac OS and the rest of the Mac line would remain without touch. Likewise, iPhones and the rest of the iPad line would stay within the bounds of iOS and iPad OS.

But, the main goal would be that Apple would have a platform where they could be free to experiment with the idea of truly integrating  iOS and Mac OS. Chances are, they’ve already have. The lessons learned from the new platform could result in new enhancements to either line. Maybe it becomes worth adding touch in some form to ALL Macs? Or, maybe features would evolve out of Mac OS Touch that could enhance iOS and iPad OS?

This is all fantasy, however. 

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think Apple will take any risks with pushing the limits of iPad OS. I would love to be wrong about this, but I seriously think that the only things that will be announced for iPad OS at WWDC this year will be some minor tweaks to the OS. Apple will put M chips in the iPad Pros, but the machines will continue to be limited by Apple’s constraints on the OS. 

And that’s a damn shame. 

We’ll see, though, what Apple announces at WWDC. 

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The Rise of Skywalker is a disappointing finish to the Star Wars saga

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (TROS), aka Episode IX, is a sci-fi action movie that’s the last film of the new Disney Star Wars trilogy, and ideally, it is meant to bring a satisfying conclusion to the “Skywalker Saga” that George Lucas created over 40 years ago.

Instead, it’s a movie that races at a blistering pace from the start, giving viewers no time to stop and reflect about what just happened. By the end of the film, you’re simply too exhausted to process everything. The visuals are great, and there are some decent moments in the film. This is the first film where the three major “good guys”: Rey, Poe, and Finn, spend a decent amount of time together. Despite the rumors of reshoots and multiple cuts of the film, it does manage to put together a semi-coherent, if not a very satisfying, story.

If you’re not a huge Star Wars fan and/or you just want an opportunity to shut your brain off for a couple of hours and watch a visual spectacle, then The Rise of Skywalker delivers. If, however, you really like Star Wars, or appreciate things like story and character, or if you’re not a fan of the previous Disney Star Wars films (especially The Last Jedi), The Rise of Skywalker is not going to take you to a happy place.

WARNING: THAT’S THE END OF THE NON-SPOILERY REVIEW.

What follows are my actual thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker, and I’m going to spoil the shit of it. If you HAVE NOT seen The Rise of Skywalker, TURN BACK NOW!!!

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!

There’s a moment near the end of the film that if you blinked, you may have missed it. Two of the female characters in the film share a brief kiss. They’re not major characters at all. In fact, I couldn’t tell you who they were except that the one was an older woman who was one of Leia’s friends/co-workers in the Resistance. 

The Rise of Skywalker echoes the final season of Game of Thrones — the film is solely focused on moving you from plot point to plot point, and it doesn’t want to you think about whether it makes sense. Even when what’s happening in the scene is significant, and probably should pause and allow the audience to feel the weight of what’s going on, TROS doesn’t have time for that. Instead, TROS only slows down to introduce new characters, who are mostly there to assure the audience that Poe and Finn are red-blooded heterosexual men, and/or buy time for the bad guys to show up. 

After seeing The Rise of Skywalker, it’s clear that as much as Disney wanted to make the last three Star Wars films, they had no real plan as to what should be IN those films — other than not to use any of Lucas’ ideas. In fact, even though J.J. Abrams and Lucasfilm deny it, it seems pretty clear that there were multiple cuts of this film, and the released version is just another spliced cut from prior versions. 

The net effect is that the movie feels rushed. There’s no time to explain about why this thing happened; just accept it and move on. Or, worse, things are brought up  in the film, then are simply never resolved. 

I would not be surprised, if, like Justice League, fans will eventually start demanding the release of the rumored “Iger cut” or the “Lucas cut”, hoping that a better version of the Rise of Skywalker existed at some point.

In some ways, The Rise of Skywalker, was kind of doomed from the start. After allowing Rian Johnson to have free reign with The Last Jedi, and the ultimately divisive reactions to that film, J.J. Abrams was left with a bit of bad situation. Abrams had to find a way to either a) just run with what he was given, or b) try to find a way to “undo” elements of The Last Jedi so he could tell a new story, and/or c) find a way to “redeem” the brand and bring back fans who did not enjoy either The Last Jedi or other Disney Star Wars films. Instead, he went with d) all of the above. 

Obviously, J.J. Abrams is not the guy you need if you need someone to devise a creative way out of the corner you’ve written yourself into. Sure, he can make films that are great visually, but he’s not much of an original writer. 

That said, there are elements in this film that, had they more time to be fleshed out (like say, over the course of a trilogy?), had potential. They do finally keep Rey, Poe and Finn together for a good part of the film, but there are no pauses to allow the them to really just “hang out” together, so nobody really develops any further from who they were in the first film. Rey now wants to be a Jedi, but what about Poe and Finn? Why is Chewie still around?

There’s an attempt to give Rey a story arc, to try make her less of a “Mary Sue” by having her have doubts and/or new powers that she’s not entirely in control of. However,  by the time you realize that Rey may have an actual character arc, she’s back to using powers she’s never had before. At one point she runs away, but instead of giving her a chance to express her feelings, she’s quickly given a pep talk and sent on her way. Also, her doubts/fears are never brought up when she’s facing Palpatine, who should have easily exploited such weaknesses. 

— Sigh —

Let me throw in a few things that I like about the film. 

The visual effects are top notch as always with these films — with one glaring exception. Oscar Isaac and John Boyega are great given what little they had to work with. Ian McDiarmid clearly had fun with being Palpatine. Adam Driver is clearly the best actor of the group though, and I think if the films had focused more on his story than Rey’s, we might have had a much better series. The soundtrack was also pretty decent, but like the film itself, nothing memorable.

Okay, I’m just going to make a list of things I don’t like about the film:

1) The Return of Palpatine (dun dun DUNNNNNNN)

This happens in the opening crawl. By the way, Palpatine’s back. He’s broadcasting from somewhere and talking shit about a “Final Order” and making new threats. Supposedly, the good guys have some ridiculous time-table to stop him, like, 16 hours?, or something. It doesn’t matter; the time is just there to arbitrarily move things along, and the cast will constantly remind you.

Why is Palpatine back? HOW is Palpatine back? The film’s not going to tell you. 

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (I know, right? I snickered when I saw this, too), though, doesn’t like the thought of someone challenging his “authoritah”, so he goes on the hunt for a thing – a Sith Wayfinder – that will show him the location of Palpatine. 

Kylo finds Palpatine in the unknown regions of space. Palpatine tells Kylo he’s been the voice in his head all these years; he’s been secretly running things the entire time. Palpatine says he made Snoke, and you think, oh, maybe this is figurative, until Kylo walks by a vat of fresh Snoke clones growing in a vat. Instead of killing Palpatine, Kylo decides to accept Palpatine as his new boss, since Palpatine’s got a fleet of ships that he refers to as his “Final Order”. In theory, the combined might of the First and Final Order will finish taking over the galaxy and establish a new Empire. 

But why? Isn’t the First Order basically in control at this point? The Resistance is mostly dead, so why hasn’t the First Order already established the “new” Empire? 

Anyway, Palpatine orders Kylo to go “kill the scavenger” (meaning Rey), so he goes on the hunt for Rey.

I get that since Snoke was killed in The Last Jedi, they needed a new bad guy. It was clear that Kylo was never going to be him, or at least, he was going to continue to be conflicted. But, they could have built something around that. They would have been better off introducing Darth Plagueis or some new evil entity. Simply recycling Palpatine feels lazy.

2) Rey’s Family

This was a major f**k you to Rian Johnson, but it’s also really disappointing. One of the few good aspects of The Last Jedi was setting up the idea that Rey could be this powerful while being nobody. Rey is not a Skywalker, or a Kenobi, or related to anyone from the other films. Even the last bit at the end, where the little boy appears to have Force-pulled a broom to his hand, fed into that idea that anyone could be a Jedi. 

Abrams plan? Nope. F— that, Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter. *sigh*

3) Palpatine’s Plan 

I’m not sure Palpatine even knows what his plan is in this movie. He wants to bring about a new Empire. He wants to kill the last Jedi (Rey). But, when Rey shows up, he decides, no wait, I want you to kill me. He says he’s been preparing a Sith ritual where if Rey kills him in anger, then his spirit and power would flow into Rey’s body. He’d effectively take over Rey’s body. Then, the film tries to spin this as the only way to save her friends is to complete the ritual (the scene basically echoes the same sequence between Luke and Palpatine in Return of the Jedi). Palpatine even opens up the roof to the Sith temple so he can shoot Force lightning at all of the Resistance ships and disable them (the Imper… I mean, Final Order ships, apparently had Force Lightning Plot Armor installed with their new Death Star guns). It’s meant to show Rey just how much peril her friends are in to pressure her into giving in (just like ROTJ)

Oh, yeah, the thousands of Final Order Star Destroyers all have Death Star guns on them. We don’t see this until an hour and a half into the film, and I’m almost shocked there wasn’t this brilliant bit of dialogue after the main characters learn about the guns: 

“They have Death Star guns!” 

“They have Death Star guns?”

“They have Death Star guns”

Why so many ships? The tech used in the Death Star was a HUGE deal. It was a bit of a shock that the Empire even had the resources to build a second one. Then, they built Starkiller Base, which was like Death Star 3.0, and had an even BIGGER Death Star weapon. Palpatine, though, for reasons, found a way to cram the power and tech of a Death Star into a Star Destroyer, and then made hundreds of them. Since there’s so many ships, and they all have this power, it negates the original impressiveness of what the Death Star could do in the original films.

If Palpatine announced a threat with a deadline, why isn’t he already moving his ships into position? Why are they all just sitting there waiting for the Rebels… er, Resistance to find them? 

So, first Palpatine wants Rey dead, then he doesn’t. Then, Kylo/Ben shows up to stand with Rey against him, and Palpatine suddenly realizes that Kylo and Rey are a “Force dyad” that hasn’t been seen in generations. Palpatine can use the dyad to rejuvenate himself, for reasons, so he proceeds to drain the life force out of Kylo and Rey. 

But, he doesn’t kill them.

Rey recovers, and so, Palpatine shoots Force lightning at her. She blocks with her lightsaber for awhile, then decides she needs two lightsabers. Two lightsabers, also for reasons, does the trick, and she’s able to reflect the lightning back at Palpatine. 

At this point, Palpatine should have said “ow” and stopped doing that. Instead, he keeps going and effectively kills himself. Someone on YouTube pointed out, this is the third time over the course of the Star Wars movies that Palpatine has been seriously injured or killed by his own Force lightning. You’d think he’d have learned at some point.

  • Force lightning: Good
  • Force lightning in your face: Bad

Strangely, despite the fact that Rey does kill Palpatine in the end, his life force/powers don’t take over Rey’s body, also for reasons. The entire final confrontation with Palpatine is pretty sloppy. 

Beyond that, this is f**ing Palpatine we’re talking about — the guy that was playing 10th dimensional chess around the other characters throughout the other films. Normally, we see that he’s many moves ahead of the other characters, but in TROS, he’s just making it up as he goes. 

 Then again, since Rey won, and technically, she’s a Palpatine, I guess that means — Palpatine won after all?

Also, bringing back Palpatine cheapens the end of Return of the Jedi, where Vader turns on his master and destroys him in order to save Luke. This is the most disappointing aspect of the film because it shows how little Disney cares about the original IP they invested in.

4) Rey is still a Mary Sue

Sure, they try to show her training, and failing, and she suddenly has doubts about her path, and she has a vision of “dark Rey” and all that. Again, because of the rush, there’s no weight to it. 

But, she killed Chewie, you say? Uh, no she didn’t – that was the first of many death fake-outs. Later, for reasons, she runs off to hide like Luke, but Luke appear, gives her a pep talk (with a bit of a blatant f**k you to Rian Johnson), then sends her on her way.

This time around, Rey has force healing. When she’s pissed, she can cast Force lightning. She was raised on a desert planet, but she’s able to sail a skiff on water during a storm with waves so high that even the natives wouldn’t willingly sail on it. She knows how to pilot First Order craft with no problems. She can fly an X-Wing with no training. She can Force “teleport” to send Kylo/Ben a lightsaber when the plot needs her to. When she beats up the new character, Zorii Bliss, she immediately likes and trusts Rey. 

It also doesn’t help that it feels like Daisy Ridley is phoning in her performance. It’s clear she wants to move on from Star Wars, but then again, based on recent interviews, so are the other major players.

5) The Death Fake-Outs

Ugh. The first time they try to pull this, it’s bad. Really bad. Everyone sees there’s only one shuttle that takes off from the desert planet, presumably with Chewie on board. Then, Rey accidentally blows it up. Again, there’s no dramatic pause here for effect. The characters briefly feel bad, then move on. Abrams then reveals to the audience – aHa! – It’s a trick. Hux tells General Pryde they have a prisoner, and shows us Chewbacca. When Pryde asks, didn’t the ship blow up, and Hux replies, oh, there was a second shuttle.

Riiiiggghhht.

There’s C-3PO’s dramatic sacrifice, which just felt wrong. None of the new characters really like Threepio, so really, they’re perfectly fine with wiping his memory in order to get the translation of the Sith dagger. The film lets Anthony Daniels have his dramatic exit, which was mostly spoiled in the trailer, or so you would think. By the end of the film, though, R2D2 mostly fixes him. 

Poe’s old flame, Zorii Bliss, lives on the planet that Palpatine destroys along with the little puppet droid hacker dude, so it looks like they got blasted to bits. Nope, they’re both fine and show up in time for the final fight.

Rey delivers a fatal blow in her latest fight with Kylo, but feels bad, and heals him. Later, Rey dies in the confrontation with Palpatine, which actually would have been an interesting ending. Nope, Abrams pulls a Star Trek: Into Darkness, and has Kylo/Ben crawl out of the pit Palpatine tossed him into so he can sacrifice himself and revive Rey. They kiss to please all of the Reylo fans, and Abrams can pretend that Kylo was redeemed. 

6) Kylo’s “redemption” 

Yes, Kylo has been shown throughout the new trilogy as struggling between the light and the dark sides of the Force. However, when he’s given a chance to show mercy, he doesn’t. He still kills millions of people. 

He’s ordered to kill Rey, but instead, he plots to turn her to the dark side, and together they’ll rule the galaxy, just like Vader wanted to do with Luke. 

But so did Vader, you say. True, Vader’s actions did not completely redeem him, but Kylo’s actions certainly don’t either. He did nothing in the final fight except finish off the Knights of Ren, and then, only with Rey’s help. He’s only there for the Reylo moment. 

And let’s be honest: why should Rey have the hots for Kylo? She saw him once with his shirt off? In the course of these films, he’s kidnapped her, tortured her, murdered her first father figure (Han), tried to kill her on at least two occasions (maybe more?), tried to use the Jedi mind trick to order her to bring Luke to him, and lured her to Snoke’s ship only to bring her before Snoke. In both TLJ and TROS, he’s only interested in turning her to the dark side in order to consolidate his power (before he turns to the light). 

To Reylo fans, though, this somehow makes Kylo a keeper. I don’t get it.

How about this idea? Rey sacrifices herself to give Kylo/Ben the chance to stop the Emperor, and he does, giving him some bit of redemption by stopping the immediate threat. Rey has died, and Kylo/Ben cradles her, then kisses her goodbye. 

Now, Ben has a chance to begin a true redemption arc where he dedicates the rest of his life striving to live up to to Rey, Leia, and Luke’s example by trying to do some good to make up for all of the bad things he’s done.

That alone could have been Episodes X-XII, or a new Disney+ series, although Ben living and Rey dying probably would enrage the Reylo fanbase even more.

7) Scavenger Hunt

Now, we’re on to the mystery box that Abrams loves to use in all of his films. Here, it’s a convoluted mess. First, they go to find an “ancient” Sith dagger that, for reasons, Lando AND Luke were unable to find. Then, they have to find someone to hack C-3PO in order to get him to translate the Sith runes on the dagger. 

The dagger sends them to Endor, where, you know, the second Death Star didn’t disintegrate but instead huge chunks of it crashed into the moon, and there are many sections that are mostly intact. If you happen to stand in the exact spot on the moon, and use a thingy on the dagger, it will show you the approximate location of Palpatine’s secret stash abroad the Death Star. 

All this is for one of two Wayfinders that have Palpatine’s location, which Kylo destroys just as Rey retrieves it. The only reason the Resistance is able to find the location is because Rey runs off with Kylo’s ship, which has the other Wayfinder. It’s that Wayfinder that Rey eventually uses to send the location of Exogol to the Resistance.

So, really, the entire scavenger hunt was kind of pointless. 

8) ReyLo, but no FinnPoe

The only two characters in these films that have any major chemistry together are Finn and Poe. Rey and Kylo have a bit of chemistry, I guess. But, the entire Rey/Kylo interaction doesn’t exactly represent a healthy relationship (see above).  It’s not Padme/Anakin levels of bad, though. However, if anyone in this film should have kissed at the end, it should have been Finn and Poe. 

It’s actually pretty funny how the movie goes out of its way to give both Poe and Finn love interests in this film. Finn actually spends much of the film being almost uncomfortably obsessed with Rey’s location at any given point, and yells “REEYYY!” a lot.

Hell, they wouldn’t have even needed to show them kissing. At the end of the film while everyone is celebrating, Poe gives his old flame, Zorii Bliss, this little look and head nod, silently asking “so, you wanna hook up?” Zorii shakes her helmet with an emphatic “no.” But, swap Zorii out with Finn, and Finn could just look at Poe for a long second, then shrug his shoulders, and nod, and the two of them walk off screen. Don’t show anything and leave the audience guessing. 

9) Lightspeed Skipping

It happens very early in the film, but it’s insane. The Falcon is now able to “lightspeed skip” — meaning, they make a quick jump to lightspeed, stop, then jump again, rinse, repeat. Again, never mind that this breaks all of the “rules” of lightspeed in the Star Wars universe. The worst part is that they’re being pursued by TIE fighters that are now a) capable of also flying at light speed, and b) capable of tracking them through light speed. Dumbest. Idea. Ever.

10) Leia’s Death

My biggest issue is that there’s no weight to this scene; it happens, and the film just moves on. Even Avengers: Endgame took a minute to pause once they learned of Black Widow’s sacrifice. 

I don’t mind that she used the last of her energy to reach out to Kylo/Ben, even if it just distracts him for a moment. It’s not clear if the vision of Han was Leia’s doing, and I’m sure there will be internet discussions about that. Kylo thinks it’s just a memory in his head. But it causes Kylo to switch back to the light? This is another big moment that should have been given more time/weight.

The only gut-wrenching bit in the entire film is Chewie’s reaction to Leia’s death, but nobody’s got time for that.

11) The Dagger

Part of the scavenger hunt that the gang is on is to go to a place to find a thing that will give them a clue to the location of the next thing, and they find an ancient Sith dagger. The dagger supposedly contains the location of the only other Wayfinder out there that can give them the location of Palpatine. 

So, “ancient” Sith dagger, right? They get the dagger translated, which takes them to Endor, where the second Death Star was not vaporized, but somehow massive parts crashed on the forest moon. The dagger has a thingy that, if you stand in just the right spot while looking at the Death Star wreckage (you know, something that happened 30ish years ago), you could see the exact location of the secret room where Palpatine stashed the other way finder. 

There’s more. The guy that had the dagger was sent to kidnap Palpatine’s son/daughter and his/her wife/husband and his granddaughter. The guy got the parents, but for some reason, didn’t get Rey, even though the film shows that they were all on Jakku. The guy uses the knife to kill the parents, and Rey eventually has a vision of all of this. 

Even if you ignore the “ancient” aspect of the dagger, why does the dagger exist at all? If the guy that owns it was on a mission for Palpatine, why not just give him directions on how to get back to the Unknown Region? If you don’t trust the guy, have him meet up with someone you did trust and have them fly back to you. What about all the ships what would need to deliver resources and/or personnel to build and man all of these new Star Destroyers?

Why does Star Wars need to have a Raiders of the Lost Ark moment, where you have to stand in a specific spot on land and pull the thingy out in order to see the location? Why not just put a tracker beacon on it? Or something? 

12) No Limits 

There are no limits in this film, and that alone kills much of the magic in Star Wars.

  • Kylo is able to Force teleport a necklace by grabbing it from her neck during one of their Force Skype conversations. Rey is able to send Kylo/Ben a lightsaber in a similar manner later in the film.
  • Rey is able to jump over Kylo’s TIE Interceptor, then use her lightsaber to cut through a wing and disable it. 
  • The ship crashes at full speed, rolling to an eventual stop in the desert, and Kylo walks out of the wreckage without a scratch.
  • Rey and Kylo can both Force pull a transport out of the sky. 
  • Palpatine can shoot out Force lightning that impacts thousands of Resistance ships, but no Final Order ships.
  • Palpatine has somehow built and manned a new fleet of thousands of ships, all of which have Death Star tech capable of destroying a planet. 
  • Rey is somehow, without training, able to block/absorb Palpatine’s Force lightning, then, with a second lightsaber, is able to deflect it back at Palpatine, which kills him. 
  • Palpatine is able to drain the life force from both Kylo/Ben and Rey, but not enough to kill them (for reasons). 
  • Rey is able to Force heal any wound, including a fatal lightsaber blow. 
  • Ben, now back in the “light”, can transfer his life force to resurrect Rey.
  • Force ghosts can interact with the physical world when the plot demands it. Luke appears and catches a lightsaber when Rey casts it into the TIE wreckage. He’s later able to pull a Yoda and raise his X-Wing out of the sea. Later, when it would make sense for the Force ghosts to appear and help Rey in her fight with Palpatine, they don’t. 

The Force powers are now so incredible, there are no real consequences to anyone’s actions. Even death doesn’t matter, because someone can bring you back, or, if you’re a Jedi, you can appear as a ghost and interact with the physical world.

13) Space Horses

*Sigh* Even though the Lando and everyone he brings with him have no trouble flying into and out of the space around Exogol, the Final Order ships need to be guided out via transmitters. Of course, there are only two: one on the ground, and one on the command ship. Why? Why can’t all of the FO ships just get the coordinates and go like everyone else?

Anyway, when the Resistance shows up, and the new General Pryde realizes they’re going for the ground tower, he turns it off and switches to the tower on his ship. So, General Finn, who is leading the ground assault, heads for the command ship, where he leads an attack with team of people riding “space horses” on the deck of a Star Destroyer. It’s not in space, but it is flying. None of the bad guys think to tilt the Star Destroyer over to one side and let the ground assault slide off. 

14) What did Finn want to tell Rey? Why does it matter?

It’s another example of how the film brings up something and never resolves. Early in the film, the gang is being sucked down into quicksand, possibly to their deaths, so Finn, thinking “this is it” — yells at Rey “there’s something I have to tell you” — 

But, they’re sucked down into the sand before he tells her. Of course, it turns out they’re all fine; they end up in some type of tunnel system underneath the sand. Then, Rey asks Finn what he wanted to say, and he’s like “Never mind. I’ll tell you later.” 

What? Hell, even Poe is curious, and asks Finn about it twice in the film. Finn never tells Poe or Rey what the big secret was. 

The obvious answer is that Finn has the hots for Rey, But, Abrams supposedly admitted later the secret was that Finn was “Force-sensitive.” In theory, Rey, being super powerful in the Force and all that, would likely would have known that. It’s never resolved, so why keep it in the film?

15) The Knights of Ren

Hey, look, we finally get to see the Knights of Ren. Cool, right? We’ll finally get to learn who they are and why they exist and all that, right? Nope. They chase the gang around the galaxy and generally arrive too late to be effective, and then they serve as a brief obstacle for Kylo/Ben to fight through near the end of the film. 

16) Lack of Rose Tico

There are a lot of people pissed about this, but I’m actually glad Rose Tico’s role was reduced in this film. I actually thought they could cut her entirely and it would have been fine. 

It’s not that Rose Tico is a bad character. She started off being kind of interesting. I didn’t even mind the social justice perspective she had, even though it made little sense in the middle of a Star Wars movie (especially since all of that had zero impact on the plot). I despised how they used her at the end, and the cheesy line she had with Finn after stopping him from sacrificing himself. That’s not the fault of the character or even the actress; that’s just bad writing. 

She’s only in The Rise of Skywalker at all for fan-service, and she adds nothing to the story. Either give her something to do that’s relevant to the story, or don’t put her in the film. 

17) Finn’s Force Sensitivity

It’s not that I mind that Finn is Force sensitive, but it just feels like fan service at the point it finally comes up. Of course, it’s also weird that Finn has spent a LOT of time around some  really powerful Force users that never detected it. Leia sensed who Rey was, but didn’t know shit about Finn? Come on.

18) The Rise of “Skywalker” 

As soon as I heard the title of the movie, I suspected that Rey was going to take on the Skywalker name in some way, shape or form. 

This was really just another fan service moment. Going back to Tatooine, having Rey say the name, and looking off into the twin suns’ sunset. I just don’t feel ike it’s particularly earned. I know they were going for the “ooh, look, see how we tied it back to the original film” moment, but it was still strange. Luke hated living there, and Leia had zero ties to it. 

And why Skywalker? Of the two, Rey was much closer Leia than Luke, so why not take the name Solo, or Organa? 

19) Chewie Gets a Medal

Why was this so important? 

Is that enough? I’m sure I could think of more if I have more time. I just don’t want to though. 

I had already watched a number of spoiler videos before going to see the film, so none of this was really surprising — outside of the fact that many of the spoiler sites got so much right. Most of my viewing experience was shaking my head in disbelief.

Looking back, I actually liked some of the new stuff in The Last Jedi after seeing it the first couple of times. It was interesting because someone did what I wanted: they tried to do something new with Star Wars. 

Rewatching it later, though, made it less endearing. Luke’s arc was probably the best arc, and it was clear that was the direction they were heading in from the Force Awakens. With Luke in hiding, it really meant only two things: 1) He’d been exploring the dark side and/or had grown powerful enough that he didn’t trust himself with the power and secluded himself to protect everyone else or 2) He’d failed at something, and the guilt of that failure consumed him. 

Once we learn that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, it was pretty clear that when we saw Luke, chances are they were going to present him as a broken man. And, in TLJ, they did exactly that, but then, they gave Luke a bit of a chance to redeem himself. 

I didn’t mind bringing up the ideas of the side-effects of war, how people are suffering and others are profiting from war without being directly involved in the conflict. However, none of that had any direct connections to the overall story of the film. Both ideas would make more sense being explored in a TV series, where they have more time to build up some stories around those ideas, and even have the protagonists do something to help. 

The most tear-inducing scene to watch in these three films was Luke’s scene with Leia in The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson had the sense to pause everything and let the audience focus on these two characters for a few minutes. It wasn’t just Luke saying goodbye to his sister; it was Mark Hamill saying goodbye to Carrie Fisher. 

But, after one viewing of the Rise of Skywalker, I don’t feel anything. Or, I guess I do feel something, since I’m about 6,000 words into a blog post about what I didn’t like about the newest film.  I didn’t shed a tear for Rey’s near death, or Ben’s actual death, or any of the “deaths.” Even Leia’s death didn’t really affect me, and that was disappointing. 

 At the end of three films, I never learned anything more about the new characters to make me like or hate them any more than I did at the beginning. Sure, Kylo stopped being an emo asshole. Finn had the most complete arc in The Last Jedi, and sacrificing himself would have been a great way to complete his arc. But, they robbed him of that, and then, did nothing with him afterward.

It’s clear Disney (or at least Kathleen Kennedy) doesn’t care about the IP they bought from Lucas, which is the most disappointing aspect of all of this. 

At the time of the acquisition, Kathleen Kennedy declared that most of the novels, comic books, and other material created outside of the movies would now be separate from the Star Wars canon — the “Extended Universe.” Only the films, the existing cartoons, and any new novels and films would be considered canon. The reason, she said, was she wanted new creators to have the freedom to explore new ideas with Star Wars without being constrained by all of the material that came before them. 

For the new Star Wars trilogy, they only kind of explored new ideas in a single film. Instead of following Marvel’s example and finding people who knew the material and appreciated/loved the existing lore, they just hired a “big name” director who had zero interest in Star Wars. Instead of exploring new ideas, he mostly just re-hashed material from the original films. There were other directors attached to some of these projects, but when it was clear they were not following the “Disney plan” — whatever that was, they were dismissed. 

I don’t even buy into the age-old argument that these films were meant for 8-10-year-olds. I’ve seen most of the Clone Wars and Rebels tv shows, and both of those shows had episodes that contained more “adult” material, and still told a better story in a 23-24 minute episode than the Rise of Skywalker did in almost 2 1/2 hours.

I know that the Star Wars films, despite their groundbreaking elements, are not the best narrative stories ever put to film, and even they didn’t plan everything out between films. 

But, since 2008, we’ve been living in a world where super heroes are living on both the big and small screen. There are fantasy and science-fiction shows out there that have captured the minds of millions of fans. Look at the success of Game of Thrones (except for season 8). 

Sure, many of these shows are not for kids, but my point is, we’re at kind of a renaissance when it comes to fantasy and science fiction in film and television, and as such, we as an audience now expect more from these shows. 

I was excited when Disney announced they were going to finally make episodes 7, 8 and 9 and complete the Star Wars saga. When they announced they were bringing back the original cast, I hoped that the original cast was simply there to kind of hand things off to a new set of characters. The original cast would make cameos, but everything else would be a new story with new characters for us to learn to love as much as we loved the originals.

Sure, Disney did introduce new characters, and some had interesting back stories, but they never delivered on bringing something completely new to the table. Both Clone Wars and Rebels, where the show runners there did know and care about the Star Wars lore, did deliver on creating new and interesting stories. They even succeeded in creating a new strong, female character: Ahsoka Tano, who has become a favorite for fans of the tv shows. 

But, the newest trilogy and the new characters just didn’t have the same resonance as the original cast. So, we’ve arrived at the end of the Skywalker Saga that could have had an amazing and satisfying ending, but instead has ended in disappointment. 

So, after all of that, how would I rank the films? 

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. A New Hope
  3. Return of the Jedi
  4. The Force Awakens
  5. Revenge of the Sith
  6. The Last Jedi
  7. The Rise of Skywalker
  8. Attack of the Clones
  9. The Phantom Menace

If you want to add Rogue One and, *sigh*, I guess, Solo, then the list would be:

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. A New Hope
  3. Return of the Jedi
  4. The Force Awakens
  5. Revenge of the Sith
  6. Rogue One
  7. The Last Jedi
  8. The Rise of Skywalker
  9. Attack of the Clones
  10. Solo
  11. The Phantom Menace

The only glimmer of hope I have for Star Wars and Lucasfilm comes in form of the Mandalorian. It’s the first live-action Star Wars television series, and so far, the press has been pretty good. I haven’t watched it yet; the rumors about the Rise of Skywalker made me super-hesitant to watch anything else. Maybe I’ll be disappointed about it, too. 

However, the Mandalorian was created by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, both of whom have some great backgrounds with franchises. After all, Favreau’s Iron Man kicked off the Marvel cinematic universe, and Filoni has been behind both the Clone Wars and Rebels tv series.

Maybe, just maybe, Disney have learned their lesson with the films, and, while they take a break from creating new films, take the time to find creators like Favreau and Filoni who can both build something new with Star Wars while still respecting the canon. 

Imagine if Disney/Lucasfilm could find the equivalent of the Russo brothers who could do for Star Wars what those two did with the Marvel films. Those would be Star Wars films worth seeing!

Until then, though, it’s probably for the best that Star Wars takes a break.

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So angsty…

 I’m apparently on a streak of watching Netflix teen-angsty shows right now. The Society is another one of these shows that asks: What if X happened, but instead of it happening to everyone, it only happened to teenagers? 

In this case, a New England small town’s entire teenage population finds themselves in an “alternate” version of their town in which they are the only people living there, and possibly the only people anywhere. So, it’s up to the teenagers to figure out how to cope with being in a world without parents, or laws, or internet. They have to try to rebuild a society (roll credits!) of their own in order to survive long enough to figure out how they got there and if or how they could get back home. 

Basically, it’s like a lite version of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, but filled with teenage angst instead of adult drama. It doesn’t go as dark as King’s version, and there are certain elements that the kids don’t have to deal with at all, but it’s very similar.

The show takes place late in the school year (likely May), and the town has a strange smell permeating the area. Apparently, it had appeared before recently, and the town leadership hired someone to “clear the air”, but, now, it’s back. 

For reasons, the town decides that they’re going to pack up all of the high school kids and ship them off to a nearby camp for 10 days, while everyone else stays behind (adults, all the little kids, pets, etc) to deal with the smell. I know. I know. 

Anyway, the kids load up on the buses in the evening, and while they’re driving around that night, there’s a big storm. Then, the buses stop, announce that there was a mudslide blocking the road to the camp, so the buses have brought them back home. 

It’s the middle of the night, and nobody is there to greet them. Parents are also not answering their cells. The kids simply shrug this off and head home for the night. When they get home, they can’t find anyone there either. 

The next morning, the kids regroup to try figure out what’s going on. Nobody can find their families, they can’t reach anyone on their cell phones besides each other, and there’s no internet!!! Someone gets smart and hops into a car, figuring they’ll just drive over to the next town and see what’s going on. They get to the town’s border to find that the road is gone and blocked by a massive forest. The check the other end of town and find the same thing. In fact, it appears there’s a forest surrounding the entire town (there’s a dramatic pan out to show a nearby bridge with train tracks crossing underneath, and we’re shown that the tracks now end in forest).

Dun…Dun…DUUNNNNNNN!!!

Oh, man, what on Earth are a bunch of teenagers alone in a town with absolutely no adult supervision going to do???

(Throw a HUGE party, of course)

After a few days of partying, one of the main characters, Cassandra, who is quasi-popular but also the student body president, decides that they should probably start thinking more about how they are going to survive long term. She starts setting up work assignments, consolidating the housing (which the rich kids hate sharing their mansions), etc.  They assign a group of kids to start investigating what happened and why they’re where they are. 

They’re worried about the food supply and kind of worry about the water and electricity. Although they do guard the local grocery store, nobody seems to follow up on how they’re getting water or electricity and what they might need to do to keep all of that running. They pick up trash, but there’s no discussion of where it goes (I figured the town landfill was likely outside the town, and they wouldn’t have access to it)

Two kids do find out that there was a deal between the town and a man who was to be paid $1.5 million to get rid of the smell. For whatever reason, once he did his job, the town leaders (some of the kids parents) decided not to pay the guy. Some other details are revealed, but the show doesn’t follow up on them at all until the last episode. 

To help the kids adjust, Cassandra and her friends, who have basically become the leadership, decide to have prom, and it’s a good night for most of the kids. Then, someone decides to murder their leader, Cassandra. What are they going to do now?

So, yeah, there are some interesting bits to the show, as the kids decide how to try to organize some type of society and a set of rules to live by. Most of the drama, though, spends a lot of time on who’s trying to hook up with whom. Sometimes, the decisions don’t make sense.

For example, for reasons, they decide to put Cassandra’s little sister, Allie, in charge. Why her? Was there not a student-body vice-president or another senior that could have taken over? Or, simply, nobody wanted the responsibility.

So anyway, on top of trying to deal with all of this responsibility dumped on her head, Allie’s also presented with a possible suspect in her sister’s murder. She now has to figure out how to arrest the suspect, detain him, set up a trial for the accused, and then, figure out what the convicted killer’s sentence should be. 

In other places, the situations fall flat. One night, a storm causes a blackout, and suddenly, some of the teenagers decide to loot the local hardware store for all of its flashlights. Other teens show up to stop them, and a major fight breaks out. Only… this is supposed to be kind of a rural small town, so blackouts from thunderstorms, and equally likely, snowstorms, would be a thing. Most homes in the area probably have plenty of flashlights, and lanterns, and a few may even have generators. The point was to illustrate what would happen if chaos took over the town, but it just felt like a really weak example. 

Although Allie has a pretty good character arc, most of the characters are pretty one dimensional, and it’s a shame that they couldn’t have at least played with creating some before and after situations. Like, for instance, one of the guys is revealed to be an actual diagnosed psychopath. Why not give him a redemption arc in this new world? Instead, he’s stays true to type. 

Daybreak, another teenagers in a impossible scenario series, at least manages that. All of the major characters in that show have a pre- and post-apocalypse life, and sometimes, it creates tension between the characters.

The series ends with the town getting ready to have elections for a new mayor and, for the first time, a town council, and looking for some land to farm because they’re realizing they’re going to run out of food. There’s a huge twist though.

There’s also a mysterious ending that will have viewers wondering what is really happening – even possibly wondering if the kids are all dead? We won’t know until season two.

It’s not a bad show. Allie is great to watch, and a few of the other characters are interesting. Campbell, the town psychopath, oozes menace in every scene he’s in, and Elle, who enters into a relationship with Campbell (and everyone forgot to mention to her that he’s crazy), is fascinating to watch as she struggles with being stuck in this situation with Campbell. But, most of the characters are pretty basic. Most of the guys are all brainless or douchebags. Harry is a rich asshole. The football players are all dumb jocks, except for one, who has a BIG secret (and I bet you can’t guess what it is!) Even Will, who is supposed to be the “poor kid with a heart of gold” – the resident “nice guy” – spends a lot of time trying to get laid. 

Most of these characters are what I would consider to be “upper middle class” who have likely never worked a day in their life. So, there’s some fun in watching them trying to figure out how to do certain things, and begin to understand that there’s a lot of stuff that happens that they simply never appreciated. A couple of the characters realize that someone needs to learn to be a doctor/nurse to all of these kids. Next season, they’re going to have to figure out how to farm, and it’s not clear if the town contained a tractor supply or anything that might have farm equipment for them to use. They’ll likely have to go “old school” on farming. 

The only other disappointment about the show is that it really loses focus on anyone looking into where they are and/or why they’re there. They tried to explore the woods in the first episode, but unfortunately, a girl is bitten by a snake and has an allergic reaction to the poison and dies. So, for that reason, they simply abandon investigating their surroundings until the last episodes, when, over five months later, a small team goes looking for farmland outside of the town limits. The mystery of how they got there in the first place doesn’t really come up again until the last couple of episodes.

But, overall, it is a pretty decent show. I think the show could have been a lot better if they had focused more on the kids actually dealing with their situation instead of just the usual teenage drama. The five month time jump between episodes six and seven is pretty jarring. The show is certainly setting up that things will be harder for the kids in season two, so maybe the show runners will find more things for the kids to do and and find some personalities for the other characters.

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Daybreak Review

Have you ever wanted a Zombie apocalypse show more in the vein of comedy-horror like Zombieland instead of The Walking Dead?

Have you ever wanted to throw in a whole bunch of teenage angst into said zombie show?

If so, then Netflix’s Daybreak might be for you. 

At some point in the near future, some world leader or leaders decide it was time to start a war, possibly via Tweet, and they nuke California (and presumably, other places). The “nukes” were destructive, but somehow only killed off most of the adult population. The rest roam the streets as “Ghoulies” – basically zombies that mindlessly repeat the last sentence they said before dying. For example, the characters encounter one Ghoulie who was thinking about “10% off yoga pants.” But, basically, the only people who survived the bombs more or less intact are all of the teenagers. 

Oh, and no guns, because California, I guess? And, pets, have mutated. The only real example they show is a pug that has mutated to maybe 10 times his normal size.

Josh, an admitted “C-level” student who moved to Glendale from Canada, has found that he may have been a bit of loner and bullied and had no friends in high school, but he kicks ass in this new post-apocalyptic world. Like Zombieland, Josh and other characters constantly break the fourth wall and converse with the viewer. Like Zombieland, Josh has a list of “rules” for surviving in this new world.

It’s been six months since the attack, and instead of uniting together, the teens have carved out territories that match the same cliques they had in school. The Jocks have taken over the high school campus, and have built a “Mad Max” inspired gang lead by the school’s best football player. The 4-H’ers are off in another part of the city. The cheerleaders have declared themselves “Cheermazons” and took over the country club. One social outcast had the foresight to take over the local mall. There’s also a mysterious boogeyman called Baron Triumph that rides a Triumph, captures kids and eats them.

Josh, though, continues to run around on his own, but he has a mission. The girl he likes, Sam, apparently left him a Post-It Note at his apartment shortly after the attack, and his mission is to find her and save her. Early on, the show is pretty vague about whether or not this is a mutual relationship.

Josh eventually does make a couple of friends. One is Angelica, a 10-year-old super-genius who is a sociopath that Josh used to babysit. The other is Wesley, a black jock who previously bullied Josh, but who left the Bro Jocks and has now declared himself a Ronin on a mission of redemption for his past mistakes. Wesley was inspired by watching “kung-fu” movies, but constantly references Japanese concepts. 

The first couple of episodes mostly establish the world, and most of the other episodes flesh out the back stories of the various characters. There’s definitely plenty of teen drama, but the show doesn’t take itself that seriously. The only “new” aspect I can say about the drama is that Josh is written with the basic premise that all white teenage boys, even the “nice” ones, are jerks. Seriously, the character feels like he’s been pulled out of an 80’s John Hughes movie dropped into a modern teenage drama, like 13 Reasons Why. It really stands out when all of the other major characters feel more “modern” than Josh, especially with regards to his relationship with Sam.

For some extra meta, Matthew Broderick appears as the boring old school principal in flashbacks, which should be amusing for Ferris Bueller fans. He probably has his best moment in episode four, where, in a flashback, he deals with parents and a kid who want to buy his way into better grades in order to maintain his football eligibility. Broderick plays the character so straight it’s hard to tell if he’s enjoying the role.

Overall, though, as long as you can set aside your suspension of disbelief (and the show will stretch it — like when the nuke goes off within visible range of the homecoming game, and everyone just ducks and covers to protect themselves from the blast winds), it is overall pretty entertaining. It has more than enough funny moments to offset the cringe-worthy ones, there are a few decent twists in the overall story, and you may only find yourself yelling at the TV a few times (mostly at Josh). 

The show also leaves itself wide open for a second season, provided Netflix gives them one.

While it doesn’t break any new ground, Daybreak is an uncomplicated comedy-horror show that’s worthy of a weekend of binge-watching. To me, after watching some of the more recent and more serious teenage dramas (13 Reasons Why, Euphoria), that’s not such a bad thing. 

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Backed into a corner…

A person who is painted or boxed into a corner is someone who has created difficulties for themselves by their own actions where there are no or very few favorable outcomes.

So far, it appeared like the “Teflon Don” president Trump has been able to escape anything sticking to him, from collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, multiple instances of potential obstruction of justice charges, to many, many cases in which Trump and his cronies have simply ignored the emoluments clause of the Constitution and have used the office of the President to add to their personal coffers.

And yet, it looks like El Cheeto Supremo may have really stepped in it this time. 

The situation with the Ukraine has already presented enough evidence to finally persuaded enough members of the House that Nancy Pelosi formally announced a formal impeachment inquiry on Trump.

But, why now? After everything that happened (or rather, didn’t happen) with the Mueller report, why is it this phone call the issue that’s triggering people’s response that Trump has finally crossed the line?

The biggest thing is that it’s pretty simple to explain. As opposed to the Mueller report, which was over 400 pages, the whistleblower report is only 9 pages long.

Here’s the TL;DR:

Trump (and Guiliani, and likely others) leveraged government resources ($400 million in military aid) to pressure a foreign entity (Ukraine) to do them “a favor” (in this case: find Hillary’s missing email server and investigate Hunter and Joe Biden for corruption) for Trump’s personal gain (dig up dirt on a political rival in the 2020 election).

That right there is an impeachable offense.

Then, the White House, realizing that this call could have major implications, actively worked to cover up the event by moving all documentation related to the call to a “top secret” server meant for matters of national security, which does NOT include saving Trump’s ass.

Another one.

Then, days later, Attorney General Barr received the whistleblower report, looked it over, declared that there was “nothing to see here” and tried to make it go away. 

Possibly another one, depending on whether Barr was acting “on orders” from Trump.

Trump released the transcript of the call, and now that the whistleblower report has been made public, a number of sources have verified elements of the report (including the White House, which admitted moving all documentation about the Ukraine phone call to the top secret server).

Reports have come out stating that, per the whistleblower report, phone conversations between Trump and Putin and Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia are also on this server. 

The major differences between this and everything in the Mueller report are: 

1) The Ukraine call (and visits) are linked directly to Trump and Guiliani, his personal attorney. 

2) Trump and Guiliani (and the White House) have admitted they made the call, and Trump provided a document (not a transcript) of a good portion of the conversation from that call, that shows Trump repeatedly brought up investigating the Bidens.

3) The White House has admitted moving documentation to the top secret server (although they’re trying to spin/deflect who actually ordered moving the files)

4) The whistleblower suggests in his report that the Ukraine call is just one example of a disturbing pattern of behavior from the Trump White House.

Nothing in the Mueller report is as clear-cut as this. Yes, Russia actively tried to interfere with our election, and they would have colluded with the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign was simply too inept to understand what was being offered to them. Most of the obstruction of justice incidents involve Trump wanting to do something that, if his orders had been obeyed, would have clearly been obstruction. In many of the cases, though, Trump’s subordinates simply ignored his orders and waited for him to forget about the whole thing. 

But will he be impeached? 

That’s harder to say. As of today, the House has the votes it needs to pass articles of impeachment. However, Republicans in the Senate are currently steadfast in declaring their loyalty to Trump, and a few have declared they’ll never vote for impeachment. Ironically, at least a couple of those members (I’m looking at you Graham and Moscow Mitch) have videos from the Clinton impeachment contradicting everything they’re saying now.

But, public opinion has already shifted in the last week. It’s hard to predict if the House can continue to make a case for impeachment before the public and push public opinion even further into supporting impeachment.

There was a report somewhere that said most voters were against Nixon’s impeachment when the inquiry began, but public support turned against him as the House made their case. By the time Nixon resigned, more than 2/3 of the public were in favor of impeachment.

At what point will public opinion persuade Republicans in the Senate from staying on board the sinking Trump presidency and save their own hides? It may happen sooner for those facing re-election in 2020, especially if public opinion in their home states turn in favor of impeachment. 

Trump and the GOP will likely try to stonewall the inquiry, which isn’t going to be a good look for them, considering Trump offered up the initial transcript. If they start ignoring subpoenas or trying to hide behind executive privilege now, the public may wonder what they’re hiding. 

And, as we’ve seen over the last 2 1/2 years, Trump will go to any length to keep from admitting he was wrong about anything, no matter how trivial (see: Sharpiegate). He doesn’t want to lose, but, considering all of the other investigations involving the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization, Trump likely also doesn’t want to face any legal repercussions either. 

We’ll likely get to see Trump go insane as his ego fights with the mafioso part of his brain over whether to fight or flee. Maybe Putin will set him up with a place in Moscow?

Will he quit? Does Trump have some other goodies on that top secret server that would take down Pence and other GOP members with him? Does his buddy Putin have enough kompromat on leading members of the Senate to ensure they fall in line and vote against impeachment? 

Remember, all Trump needs is 34 Senators in his back pocket, and he walks. 

Or, will Trump completely lose his shit and take us to the brink of war to cover his own ass??? I’m not talking “civil war” with far-right extremists; I mean, like, actual war, like war with Iran.

Let’s hope not.

Maybe the House will be able to make their case against Trump, public opinion will continue to rise in favor of impeachment, and enough GOP members of the Senate will discover enough of the crumbling remains of their spines to finally do something that puts Country over Party.

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The Folly of Impeachment (or, maybe not)?

The New York Times came out with a breaking news story today that reveals yet another accuser of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The central point is that one of his Yale classmates had come forward to say he had witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself to an unwilling female student, and that even though he gave all of this information to the FBI, the FBI never investigated the matter.

The fact that the FBI didn’t fully investigate the other allegations against Brett Kavanaugh while he was being considered for the Supreme Court shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point. The GOP made sure that the FBI’s scope was extremely limited, and gave them a short deadline to complete any type of investigation. It was clear during that time that the FBI made no effort to look into the reports made by other accusers, and that’s exactly the way the GOP wanted things.

So, naturally, the 2020 Democratic candidates now want to impeach Kavanaugh. At the same time, the House has taken it’s first baby steps into an impeachment inquiry of the Trump administration. 

The reality, though, is that nothing will come of any of it. The Democrats will crawl through the steps of some type of inquiry, but I suspect most of it is just for show for their constituents. See? We’re doing something!

The Democrats had zero chance of getting an impeachment inquiry moving while the GOP had control of both houses of Congress. Sure, they have control of the House, and now they can start proceedings and may even put together an indictment. But, it’s always been clear that it’s unlikely they’d ever get enough Republicans to flip in the Senate to actually impeach Trump.

But, now, Trump and the GOP have rigged the game even further. From other investigations in the House, we have seen that Attorney General Barr is wielding the Department of Justice as Trump’s personal law firm, and he’s done everything to obstruct any requests from the House committees.

Now, Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. We know Kavanaugh believes in two things: that the President is above the law and cannot be indicted for breaking the law while he’s in office, and beer.

So, the impeachment proceedings will try to move forward, but Barr will actively block any requests for documentation. Trump officials will simply ignore any subpoenas to testify. If anyone actually does testify, Trump and Barr will scream “executive privilege” to keep them from giving any useful testimony.

Trump and Barr are effectively daring the House to try take the Trump administration to court for their obstruction, where they’ll simply appeal to the Supreme Court. Since Trump and the GOP have stacked the Court, all they have to do is wait. If a case goes before the Court, and the Court rules in Trump’s favor (which they will almost certainly do), they’ll set a precedent. 

Once that happens, Trump will do whatever the hell he wants, and there’s little anyone can do to stop him. 

Even if things don’t go that far, if the proceedings drag into 2020, Trump will use his “bully pulpit” to scream that the Democrats are only using impeachment as a way to try discredit him. They can’t beat him “fair and square”, so they’re “cheating” to try steal the election. Trump’s cronies will eat it up.

Should Trump lose in 2020, don’t expect him to go away gracefully either. If things look bad for Trump, you can bet he and the GOP will start screaming about voter fraud again. If the election is close (and even if it’s not), I fully expect Trump not to concede. 

Trump and Barr will challenge results in a few states, and if it gets to the Supreme Court, so what? All they need is Kavanaugh to back them. 

But, I think maybe there’s another way around this. Forget about impeaching Trump. Let’s take this new information about Kavanaugh and the FBI and impeach Kavanaugh. 

Here’s my thinking on this. Yes, impeaching Kavanaugh has the same problems as impeaching Trump. Even if the House convicts, there’s no way the GOP members of the Senate will flip, especially if it means implicating themselves in a scandal. And, yes, Barr will continue to obstruct the House in every way. 

Get enough information out to condemn Kavanaugh in the court of public opinion, though, and it may just be enough. I know, Dr. Ford’s testimony wasn’t enough before, but if you bring forth other witnesses, and also paint a picture that shows that the FBI made no effort to fully investigate the other accusers (and who ordered them not to), and then we may be on to something.

There’s no executive privilege to invoke, unless the House starts following the path of who prevented the FBI from investigating. Since it’s not Trump personally, he’ll grumble about it, but not as much. 

If the court of public opinion goes against Kavanaugh bigly, Trump will run like hell. Trump will start saying he “barely knew the guy”, etc. 

Then, you make Kavanaugh an issue in GOP Senate races, especially in ones that may be tight. 

Postpone the investigation until after the elections, but keep pushing it as an issue in GOP Senate races. 

The Democrats may still not win enough seats to get a super-majority in the Senate, but it could help them flip the Senate. 

And, if the Democrats win the White House and manage to finally get Trump out of there, they’ll remove Barr as well.

Then, finally, the House can begin a real impeachment hearing into Kavanaugh, who has no business being on the Court.

Maybe they don’t even need to move forward with anything until the election. If the Democrats were smart, they’d let the spectre of impeachment hang on Kavanaugh, and keep bringing up the fact that the FBI failed to do a complete investigation of all of Kavanaugh’s accusers and the possibility that Kavanaugh lied under oath. 

Trump is already screaming that Kavanaugh should sue the media for libel and have the DOJ back him up. Trump doesn’t realize that a libel suit (especially one backed by the DOJ) will just keep the media spotlight focused on Kavanaugh and his accusers. That’s exactly what Trump doesn’t want. 

Alas, all of this is wishful thinking. So far, the Democrats have shown that they are neither savvy or smart enough to build a strategy around such an idea. With Trump creating any number of new scandals every week, it would be nearly impossible to keep the media focused on Kavanaugh. 

Voting out Trump and impeaching Kavanaugh won’t completely undo the damage that the Trump administration has done (and continues to do) while in office, but, man, it would be a great start.

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Game of Thrones Recap S8:EP5 “The Bells” or “Let’s nuke the series from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure”

Ugh, Game of Thrones, for fuck’s sake…

WARNING: This is a spoiler-laden rant about Game of Thrones. If you have NOT watched the latest episode, DO NOT KEEP READING!!!

LAST CHANCE!

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!! YARRR!!!

Now, granted, there are some pretty great visuals in this episode of Game of Thrones, which you may or may not appreciate depending on how much you’re yelling at the screen over the horrid writing that came along with those visuals.

The episode opens with Daenerys locked away in Dragonstone. She’s not eating and not sleeping and refuses to see anyone. Naturally, Tyrion decides that he can cheer her up by revealing that someone has betrayed her. Daenerys, though, feels like everyone has betrayed her, including Jon. Tyrion reveals that it’s Varys. Dany already suspected as much, and quickly puts together the pieces that Varys is now on “Team Jon”. She knows the reason this is all happening is because Jon decided (for reasons) to reveal his true parentage to his sisters. Sansa told Tyrion, who then told Varys, who is now trying to tell anyone he can, which is exactly what Dany warned Jon would happen.

Jon opts to drop by to see how things are going. He’s arrived in time to watch Varys get barbecued, and he has another “chat” with Dany. By chat, I mean make out a bit before Jon pushes Dany away.

Mind you. I’m like 99% sure that NOBODY in the show has said anything about Dany being Jon’s aunt, and certainly these two HAVE NOT! Yes, I know, many fans may understand this, but I’d argue that casual viewers would not, especially since this is THE CORE OF THE FUCKING CONFLICT between them. It’s frustrating because one conversation between these two characters could lay out this conflict (Jon’s weirded out about being in love with Dany and being related to her, which is probably a big no-no in the North, where Dany is okay with it because she was raised as a Targaryen and Targaryens were fine with incest. The crux is that Dany wants Jon to embrace the incest part of his family heritage, but not his claim on the Iron Throne — should they win). Since nobody appears to love her in this kingdom, Dany decides she’s going to rule with fear.

Tyrion once again tries to convince Dany to not kill everyone in King’s Landing, and says if the bell towers are ringing, it means that the city has surrendered and they can stop the siege (of course, this is the first time we’ve heard anything about bells meaning any such thing, but whatever). Dany reluctantly agrees.

Jamie has been captured by Dany’s ground forces trying to return to King’s Landing, so Tyrion goes with Jon to perform a little treason of his own. He frees Jamie, then tells Jamie to get to Cersei, convince her to ring the bells and surrender the city, then escape through the same secret cove Tyrion did previously and be free to live out their days together. There’s a great, touching goodbye between the two brothers.

Then comes the morning of the attack. Although they capture Jamie, the Hound and Arya cruise on through Dany’s army with no problem. Jamie also slips into the city.

Euron is out in the bay with dozens of ships armed with the spiffy scorpions. The Golden Company marches outside the gates, ready to go toe-to-toe with Jon’s ground forces of Unsullied, Dothraki and Northmen.

And here’s where things go horribly wrong. Among the scenes of Lannister and Greyjoy men prepping for the coming battle, we’re shown shots of the scorpions – specifically that the magic easy-loading, rapid-firing that can easily be armed and fired by one man are gone. Each machine takes a crew of men to painstakingly load and arm the scorpions, which matches what we saw with Bronn in Season 7, but NOT what we saw in the previous episode. (You know, where they could hit a moving dragon at long range with precision and fire at will) So, something is clearly amiss.

Dany decides to attack by diving at the ships with the sun at her back, making her hard to spot until it’s too late. For this battle, the scorpions also returned to having plot-convenient stormtrooper-like accuracy, so, combined with their now slow-reload times, Dany and Drogon make short work of the Iron Fleet and fly off unscathed. She quickly moves on to the walls of King’s Landing, where she easily decimates the scorpions on the walls.

Dany’s signal to the ground troops to attack? It’s when Drogon explodes through the gate behind the Golden Company, raining fire and debris on the sellswords. (See? Cool visual!) She and Drogon roast most of the Golden Company, leaving her ground troops with an easy march into the city.

And, at that point, the battle is basically over. There’s some fighting in the streets, but it’s not long before the Lannister troops realize they’re outmatched. There are cries in the streets to “ring the bells” – because apparently everyone in the city knows about this bell ringing thing. Dany lands Drogon on a parapet while they wait for the bells.

Jamie hasn’t been able to reach Cersei, though, and as he opts to try get to her through the cove, he runs into Euron, who has a) survived and b) arrived at the exact same spot at the exact same time as Jamie has because of course he does.

Jamie and Euron duel for Cersei? And, Jamie wins, but not without getting very fatal blows from Euron, yet he can still stumbles on into the castle.

Someone eventually rings the bells. Jon sighs, thinking the job is done. Everyone stands down.

Except…

Dany, who has won the day, glares angrily at the Red Keep. After a minute or so, she decides “fuck it” and takes off with Drogon. Then, she proceeds to lay waste to the entire city of King’s Landing and everyone in it. After watching Dany fly off, Grey Worm decides to “fuck it” as well and he and the ground troops begin killing everyone on the ground.

This is the moment that is already causing huge debates online. I’m on the side that even with the hints that Daenerys could be brutal, I think they’ve taken too many shortcuts in this season. Her “descent” into becoming the “Mad Queen” isn’t shown to us, especially after spending so much time trying to turn her into someone more heroic.

Because the show’s creators are entirely focused on hitting all of the plot beats they’ve planned for the last episodes, they’ve completely ignored the characters in the story. So, much like Dany, characters are making bonkers decisions that run completely against their typical behavior, and it ruins the overall effect. Daenerys’ fall is just the most egregious example (so far).

Jon, of course, mostly stands around doing nothing, as he gawks in shock as Dany and his own troops decide it’s a killing free-for-all. He eventually kills one of his own men trying to rape an innocent woman. Eventually, he realizes that Dany may have forgotten she has men in the city and is just as likely to kill all of them, so he orders everyone to fall back.

Instead of seeing a final conflict between the two queens, Jamie and Cersei wind up trapped underneath the Red Keep. They’re trying to escape, but find that the exits are sealed, and wind up dying together as the Red Keep falls on top of them.

Oh sure, there’s a Cleganebowl, which was fine, but there’s no final confrontation between the two Queens, which was really disappointing. Qyburn dies as well, and I imagine a lot of people cheered at that (I did).

And Arya… there’s a good, what, 15 minutes of watching Arya try to escape the city? After entering the keep, the Hound convinces Arya to turn back; don’t let her quest for revenge consume her as it has for him. Go and find a way to live (and maybe murder fewer people?)

So, Arya leaves, but now, she’s on the ground scrambling with everyone else trying to escape Dany’s wrath as she continues to rain fire and destruction down on King’s Landing. After so many close calls it almost becomes laughable, Arya conveniently finds a “pale horse” in the aftermath and rides out of the city.

And. That’s it. Daenerys wins! The Game of Thrones is over! Right?

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?

No. Not really.

The most frustrating thing is that so many of the character missteps could have been fixed. The creators are so focused on just getting through their plot beats that not once did they take a step or two back and think: “Whoa, hold on. Why is character X doing Y?” A couple of scenes here, a few lines of dialog there; it might not fix everything, but it would have helped connect some of the dots.

One day, maybe, we’ll get a chance to finally read how George R. R. Martin would have ended the series, and it’ll (hopefully) be a more satisfactory conclusion. That’s assuming GRRM gets around to finishing the series.

But, so far, this season has been a pretty mixed bag. There have been some great moments, but overall, the story is simply flying through the plot beats to get to the finale.

There’s no right way to fix it either. Should HBO have stuck to their guns and kept the show running? Let Benioff and Weiss leave the show and hand it off to someone else? Pushed them into doing two full seasons? There’s no guarantee a new team would have finished the show any better, and more likely, things could have gone a lot worse. If the shows creators are burned out, forcing them to produce more episodes would have also likely created a few more “stinker” episodes just to meet the commitment.

It’s just a shame to see a really great show finish up this way.