Posts

Posted on

Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: You’ve Seen It All Before…

There’s not much to say about Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon — Part One, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it.

If you can stand to sit through the two-ish hour runtime, which, since it’s on Netflix, you can pause for more alcohol (and boy, is alcohol required for this one), you’ll spend most of the film going “Hmm… I know I’ve seen this before somewhere…”

If you’ve watched any science fiction movies, or westerns, but specifically: Star Wars, The Magnificent Seven, The Avengers: Infinity War, Battle Beyond the Stars, Seven Samurai, Harry Potter, or even A Bug’s Life, maybe read or played some Warhammer 40K, etc, then there’s a LOT about this film that will feel familiar.

The problem though, is that Rebel Moon feels like a copy of a copy of a copy, and none of it brings anything new to the table. You’d be better off watching one of the other films instead.

At its basic level, Rebel Moon is essentially Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven in space, and that’s not even fully realized because Snyder wants you to wait until April 2024 to see Part 2 and watch the rest of the story.

Or, if you’re truly dedicated, wait until March and watch the R-rated extended “Snyder cut” of Part 1. There’s an interview with Snyder where he admits that Netflix “forced” him to put out a PG-13 version of the film, so he had to cut some things out, but the “complete” vision of the film is his R-rated version.

Supposedly, Rebel Moon was originally pitched as a new Star Wars script to Disney/Lucasfilm, and it was so bad that even they wouldn’t touch it. And, considering the current state of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise, that’s saying a lot.

Yet, despite creating mega stinkers for movie studios, Zack Snyder has somehow cut a deal with the devil where studios/streaming services STILL continue to throw millions of dollars his way to do whatever he wants with it.

You’d think Netflix would have learned after he made that zombie stinker Army of the Dead, but, nope. They threw more money at him to make this “space franchise” that I’m sure he promised would be as big as Star Wars.

Honestly, I’m going to spoil the movie from here on out. If you are desperate to kill two and a half hours, then maybe watch Rebel Moon, but you’d get more enjoyment out of watching the 4K movie of a fireplace (yes, there really are fireplace vids on Netflix).

The movie is about a space empire that’s reigned for 1,000 generations having conquered the galaxy and have enjoyed a relatively long time of peace and prosperity. But, recently, the ruling family was assassinated, and now there’s a power vacuum. The main military leader decided to set himself up as regent, but that has not stopped some worlds from deciding maybe it’s time to strike out on their own. So, the new regent has sent his armies to the farthest edges of the realm to strike down anyone who dared to call themselves “rebels” — (roll credits)

Anyway, so out in BFE, we find a small farming community that is meant to be either Space Vikings or Space Amish. Their buildings looked like Viking buildings, and they liked using “old” tools, like horses and plows, to farm the land. They’re okay with electricity, though, so shrug

We are introduced to Kora, a “mystery girl” who has been in the community for a couple of seasons and is farming the land. There’s a big celebration that night in the main community building because two local hunters have killed a local beastie, so there’s a feast. Again, the whole community vibe is medieval/Viking/fantasy blah blah blah. We’re introduced to Gunnar, who Kora has “friend-zoned”, and just follows her around. The elderly man who took Kora in seems focused on getting Kora married off and out of his house, so she can “be part of the community.” But, Kora is a strong female character and “don’t need no man.”

The next day, the bad guys show up on a massive ship with the leader dressed in his best Space Nazi uniform. They need food for their troops. It’s not explained why a high-tech society that can build massive spaceships with “space-vagina” warp technology needs local farmers for crops, but whatever. We learn shortly before the bad guys arrived that whatever surplus the community had, Kora’s buddy Gunnar sold to the rebels. That may not go over well with the bad guys, who are looking for rebel factions, right?

But, the bad guys don’t know about any of this. They want food for the troops. But, the community leader lies about the surplus, so he’s murdered for it. Now, the bad guys are willing to wait for the next harvest, and then they’ll want most of it, leaving the community with not enough food to survive.

Oh, and for good measure, they leave a small garrison of troops behind to keep an eye on things.

The farmers decide they should just do what the soldiers want. Kora wants no part of it and decides to leave.

Before she gets a chance to leave though, the soldiers decide to get rapey with a young village girl (as soldiers do), so Kora reluctantly decides to stop them.

Kora is played by Sofia Boutella, who is 5’5″ and probably weighs less than 110 pounds. We know nothing about her background at this point, other than she’s not originally from here. We’re treated to a SLOOOOO-MOOOOOO extended fight sequence where the bad guys conveniently wait to fight her one at a time and where she easily handles 7-8 men twice her size without much effort.

SIDE NOTE: If you want to watch an action flick with a female protagonist with better fight choreography, check out Ballerina on Netflix. It’s a Korean film, and she’s probably even smaller than Boutella, but the fight sequences are much more “realistic” in that she has to struggle when fighting men twice her size. The plot’s not much better than Rebel Moon, but at least it’s entertaining.

Eventually, we learn that Kora was a soldier in the empire. The empire slaughtered everyone on her planet, including her parents, but the main military leader guy found her, spared her, and took her in (ala Thanos). She’s trained as a soldier, and because her adopted “father” is part of the elite and close to the royal family, she’s had a life of privilege. She even gets to become part of the royal guard and is assigned to protect the princess (more on her in a bit).

This is science fiction. They could have easily added something to Kora’s story to give her abilities to help explain why she’s such a capable fighter: genetic manipulation, cybernetics, something. It’s not Star Wars; this is a new Snyderverse, where he can do whatever. But, nope, she’s just a soldier with the same training as the other men.

Anyway, Kora has now put the village into a situation where they’ll have to fight the bad guys. Nobody seems to object to this one way or another, but Kora decides she’s going to fly off and try to find some people to help fight on behalf of the villagers, even though they can’t pay much (sound familiar?) She knows of a general who rebelled against the empire, and maybe he would be willing to train the villagers and lead them into battle.

They end up in the nearest spaceport town to find Gunnar’s rebel contact and arrive just in time to see him being carted off by the bad guys. So, they go into a nearby bar (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) and run into trouble. A smuggler helps them out. He conveniently has a spaceship, and he immediately decides to help fly them around the galaxy and recruit more people. If that seems suspicious, and that he might betray them if the right opportunity comes along, then — well, you’ve seen that story before, too. Even Gunnar wonders “Should we trust this guy?” but Kora’s decides “Nah, it’ll be fine.”

With that, the rest of the movie is Kora going to different locations that look completely different from one another to find recruits for the cause. It’s so stark that it feels like they’re jumping into completely different video games each time they switch locations. I can’t say much about any of the recruits because the plot is the same: a brief introduction to the location and the person, one slo-mo action sequence involving the potential recruit (while everyone else stands and watches), Kora makes a 30-second pitch, and bam, they’re in.

We go to a barren world where they encounter a Conan-wannabe. He’s enslaved by a dude, but he’s willing to part with Conan (none of these idiots are the least bit memorable so I’m not bothering to look up their names) if he breaks in his pet hippogryph (as you do in sci-fi movies). After a slo-mo sequence, he’s in the gang.

Next, we go to a quasi-futuristic-Asian-Blade-Runner-looking world where we find another fighter with swords. We get to watch her in a sloooo-mo fight with a wicked-looking spider-woman who is kidnapping local kids. There’s a brief blah blah backstory about the environment that explains why spider-lady is doing what she’s doing, but it doesn’t matter.

Oh, and sword-lady has two swords that “ignite” with plasma? that looks not entirely unlike lightsabers (but totally not lightsabers — the second it happens – you can almost hear Snyder in a voiceover saying – no these are not lightsabers). They are physical swords that ignite somehow. They’re only there for one “cool” shot that Snyder puts in, and outside of that, they’re not any different from normal swords.

Then, we get to go to Gladiator-world, where we find the general, Titus? If you’ve seen the trailers, this is probably the character everyone wants to see because he’s played by Djimon Hounsou. We’re told he’s a “badass” and a “master strategist”, even though he also rebelled against the empire and got all of the troops who joined him slaughtered. So, you expect there to be some bad-ass slo-mo gladiator fight with Titus in it, right? WRONG. He’s just the local drunk.

Mind you, as an aside, it’s funny that our smuggler guy has no trouble finding where the general is. You’d think that the empire would be looking for him (and as it turns out, they were). Why any empire, government, etc., would face off against a rebellious general, defeat him, and then decide to let him go on his merry way makes no sense. If they didn’t outright murder him, you’d think he’d be locked up in a gulag somewhere where he can’t cause any more trouble. But, nope, he’s just free to do whatever he wants.

He gets a bath and a quick revenge speech from Kora, and Generalissimo is in. Maybe he gets to do more in part 2, but he gets to do almost nothing in this part. I don’t even remember if he got some bad-ass fight sequence in the finale. He did get to make a general-y speech about how the final fight is going to be super-important.

There’s also a brother/sister duo that are the leaders of the rebels. The sister passes on helping Kora, but the brother joins up and takes some of their troops with him.

It’s all a rush to get to the big, dumb slo-mo final battle. where Kora and her new “team” are betrayed by our smuggler guy (gasp!). It’s here we probably get the most exposition about all of these characters because they’re all “most-wanted” by the empire. Conan turns out to be a prince. Which prince? is he part of the royal family? Why didn’t Kora know who he was? Or is he just a prince in some random world? It’s never explained. Sword-lady is also wanted by the empire because she’s been taking out her revenge on them for killing her family. Of course, we have the super bad-ass rebel general Titus.

Then, there’s Kora. It’s finally revealed that she’s the daughter of the new regent, and daddy wants her back. Why? The film never tells us. There’s zero explanation for why Kora left, why the empire wants her back, or how she ended up on the backwater moon. However, smuggler guy considers her to be the “most valuable prize”.

Well, she’s the most valuable person next to the princess (who’s dead — or is she?). The princess is “magical” or something. Kora reveals at one point while guarding the princess that she saw the princess’ dog kill a bird, and the princess was able to bring it back to life. She’s also important to the robots, who somehow sensed her specialness and pledged to fight for her.

Anyway, Gunnar helps them escape and hilarity ensues. There’s a big slow-mo battle that is super dumb. The rebels have some small ships, but the bad general shows up in a capital ship. It’s a big ship. The dumbest part of the fight comes when the rebel dude grabs a shaft of metal and makes for a slo-mo jump to a gunner pod. The guns are killing his troops you see. The shot looks like something directly out of 300. The rebel dude sacrifices himself to kill the gunner guy. And, as it turns out, the gunner pod also conveniently has the steering controls of the massive ship, so as he dies he knocks the steering wheel over to the right causing the big ass ship to crash and be destroyed.

No, I’m not making that up.

We see a long drawn-out fight between Kora and the main bad guy of the film (general whatever). Plenty of SLOOOOO-MOOOOOOOO action to the point that you just wish one of them would finally die.

She appears to kill the bad guy, so they all decide to go back to the village to collect their reward. There’s a magnificent seven scene where we see them all on space horseback riding to the village, but the movie’s over, right? Why did they all go back? Why not pay them something on the world they were on previously, and then everyone could go their separate ways?

Well, no, of course not, because it’s only part 1, you see. The bad general guy isn’t completely dead, just mostly dead, and they’re able to retrieve him. He has a chat with the regent in a “holodeck”? and he tells the regent guy that Kora is alive. It’s not clear if the general guy is a guy or some sort of robot or construct or whatever. And, of course, the regent dude tells the general guy to use whatever means necessary to get Kora and her allies.

Roll credits. That’s the film.

Obviously, there’s going to be a part two. We’ve seen the other movies, so you know they’re going to help build up some defenses and train the villagers to fight, etc. Oh yeah, part one also shows us a scene where the bad guys’ big-ass ship has some big-ass guns where they can effectively destroy cities from orbit. So, yeah, how the villagers are going to stand up against that might? be interesting.

The whole thing is just dumb. At least the village in the other films served a purpose. There was a reason for the bad guys to want stuff? But here, if anything, Kora has stirred things up, and by rounding up this group of characters, she’s just given the empire even more of a reason to hunt them down and put the villagers in even greater peril.

I mean, the character with the most interesting story is the robot guy. He shows up at the beginning of the film. They were intelligent robots, and they used to be soldiers for the Empire. But, after the king/queen/princess were killed, they stopped fighting. For reasons, the soldiers keep them around? Anyway, he shows up long enough to be bullied by the soldiers, hangs out with a local girl to do an exposition dump about his back story, and then helps Kora briefly in the fight with the rapey soldiers. And then… he fucks off. He’s gone for the rest of the film until the very ending where he’s in one of the last shots standing in a field carrying a staff and wearing “antlers”.

I can’t blame any of the actors for being in this. I can’t argue whether Boutella has the presence to be a lead because there’s so little for her to work with. I don’t know if anyone else would have better luck. Then again, she has an acting range of two facial expressions.

Kora is another “strong female character”/Mary Sue, and I don’t know if that was Snyder’s intent as much as it was just lazy writing. For all of this so-called worldbuilding, Snyder couldn’t be bothered with giving Kora, or any of his protagonists, enough of a personality to make them interesting.

Everyone else in the cast is just wasted. Maybe they get to do more in part 2, but the characters are never given any chance to bond or anything, so why would anyone be invested enough in these characters to see them in part 2? Sir Anthony Hopkins probably got the best deal since he just provides the voice of the robot and the opening narration that happens in place of a text crawl (totally not Star Wars).

Rebel Moon is just a hodgepodge of every movie that Zack Snyder has ever liked that he’s tried to jam together into a single incoherent mess of a film. I could show you individual scenes from each of the worlds they visit and you’d never guess that they were in the same film outside of the slo-mo and Snyder’s love for muted palettes.

I would like to think this would eventually end his career, or, at least, Zack Snyder’s going to run out of studios willing to piss away millions of dollars on his creations. He’s burned Warner Bros. Netflix will surely learn their lesson now.

Maybe Apple will be next?

Regardless, Rebel Moon isn’t worth the two-plus hours to watch, much less however long the “Snyder cut” might be. It certainly isn’t worth watching for part 2, which is the second half of the Magnificent Seven.

You’re probably better off watching one of those, or Star Wars, or hell, even Battle Beyond the Stars than wasting time on this.

Posted on

Danse Macabre: Duran Duran delivers a mixed bag of Halloween treats

Imagine showing up to a 1%er’s super big fun Halloween party, then discovering that they managed to hire Duran Duran to be the “house” band for the party. The band was asked to play a set of Halloween-themed music for the party. 

What if the band decided they enjoyed that Halloween set so much that they decided to make a “Halloween-themed” album? Enter Danse Macabre.

That’s not far from the truth, either.

The album was inspired by the band’s Halloween show in Las Vegas last year during their Future Past tour. The band decided to make the most of it, decorating the stage and appearing in costume, including, at one point, Simon LeBon dressed in drag (gasp!). Along with many of their usual set songs, they threw in a few unique covers, like Spellbound and Psycho Killer.

You can find several videos on YouTube of various numbers from the show. 

Anyway, borrowing some of the concepts from that show, their 16th studio album contains 13 tracks: three new songs, three (and a half) reimagined versions of existing songs, and the rest are covers. 

I know, I know. Many fans will cringe at the thought of another Duran cover album after 1995’s Thank You. Fortunately, most of that album has faded away, except for White Lines, which the guys have performed live on tours. 

I feel like this album was just kind of a “why the fuck not” project, aimed to provide a nice holiday treat to their fans. 

Although they can be dark and brooding musically, which would have made sense for a Halloween album, I think the band stuck more with the concept of a Halloween party direction, so the song choices are more things that you can dance to rather than providing a sense of atmosphere. 

It also doesn’t hurt that the guys are riding a new wave of popularity with both the recent new album and their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame giving them some long-overdue respect. 

Overall, it’s not the best Duran album, but it’s certainly not the worst. I would have preferred they leaned more into the “dark” and “moody”, but overall, most of the songs are fine.

Some nice things about the album: Roger is here. I know it seems weird to say that. They have a perfectly great drummer, so why not use him? But, there are times when it’s felt like Roger has been skipped over on parts of the last couple of albums in favor of machines, or just that the percussions were mixed into the background. Here, it feels like Roger is more front and center than he’s been in years. 

Also, the band has reconnected with Warren Cuccurullo and original guitarist Andy Taylor. Warren plays on a couple of tracks, while Andy is on most of the album.

On the new side, Black Moonlight is the catchiest of the bunch. Once again, they’ve partnered up with Nile Rodgers of Chic, and it feels like it’s almost effortless for this combo to crank out a funky dance track that echoes Duran’s past while still sounding fresh. 

Danse Macabre is kind of the Halloween jam of the album. Parts of it will bore into your brain, and again, much like Future Past, fans will pick up on echoes of past Duran Duran sounds mixed into the new. My only complaint is that it almost feels too long, so it starts to feel a little repetitive by the end. 

Confessions of the Afterlife is the most ethereal track that closes the album. It’s one of the slowest songs on the album; almost like it’s that “after-party” wind down. It’s full-on Duran Duran synths with echoes of the Arcadia days. It’s almost like a tradition anymore for the band to have these deep, even spiritual-sounding tracks at the end of the album. It’s a beautiful song, and Simon really pushes his vocals here. 

The covers:

Most of the covers are pretty good, and when Duran Duran stays in their wheelhouse of pop/funk, they sound great. Obviously,, for the most part, they play it safe with the songs, adding just enough to “Duranaize” the song without straying too far from the originals. Psycho Killer is probably the best of the bunch. Ghost Town and Spellbound are also well done.

Supernature is okay, but between its original sound and the Duranization of it, I had to Google to see if it wasn’t a lost Duran Duran song. It’s actually a cover of a 1978 disco hit, and the theme is appropriate because the lyrics talk about a future where mankind’s abuse of the environment causes the “creatures down below” the ground to rise up and seek revenge. 

Things start to go off the rails with Billie Eilish and The Rolling Stones. Musically, Paint It Black is a pretty solid cover, but Simon’s determination to not sound like Mick Jagger really hams it up and ends up sounding kind of lounge-singer-y. This is one where I really wish they’d been more experimental. 

Duran Duran really envelopes you with a wall of sound in their music, and Eilish’s minimalist style is the furthest thing from it. Bury A Friend sounds like someone trying really hard to transform the song into a dance track. The result is, well, different. For a Halloween-themed album, though, the original was much spookier, and the guys really suck the life out of it. I’m curious what other fans will think of it.

Then, there’s the Frankenstein track: Super Lonely Freak. The song starts out as a refreshed version of Lonely in Your Nightmare from the band’s Rio album. Perfectly fine, until… it makes a hard right turn into a partial cover of Rick James’ Super Freak. I’m pretty sure that the guys play this as part of their live set. They can definitely cover Rick James, it’s just a weird juxtaposition of the two. I’d really wish they just went full versions of both songs. 

The updated tracks:

Nightboat, an update to (Waiting for the) Nightboat from their debut album, is by far the best of the bunch. The band is using the song as their opening number for their live shows. The synths Nick brings into this track really give it a movie soundtrack vibe, even a James Bond-like sound. But, the new version sounds great while maintaining much of the original vibe of the track. 

Voudou is an uptempo version of Love Voodoo from the “Wedding Album” in the early 90s. It’s actually pretty good, but to me, the uptempo version takes away some of the spirit of the original. They’ve also covered this one live on occasion, and I really prefer either of them. Again, the other versions were “spookier.”

Secret Oktober 31st is a fan-favorite song. It was originally a B-side from the 1983 single for Union of the Snake. This is one where, although it sounds pretty good, it’s so overproduced that it really strays away from the original. Again, the original was “darker” and “moodier”. There’s a YouTube video of a slower, moodier live version that’s closer to 8 minutes long. The one change I like in this version is the beginning, where it sounds like someone winding a music box, and the melody starts off with those music box chimes.

Duran Duran can certainly do dark and moody, and I really thought that they’d lean into that for a “Halloween-themed” album. That’s probably where I’d say the album misses the most. Sure, the song subjects may be directly or indirectly related to the season, but really the overall mix feels more dance-like than anything. 

I say, why not both? They’re more than capable of creating “dark” sounding music while still being something you can tap your feet to. 

Overall, is it a bad album? It’s no Thank You, for sure. If anything, it demonstrates that Duran Duran is a perfectly great band that has found a consistent groove over the last several years, and in many ways, 40 years later, they’re at the top of their game. 

Most of the songs are fine, and a few are pretty great. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, and I don’t think that was ever the band’s intent. It’s meant to be a treat for their fans, and it’s up to the fans whether they love all of it, some of it, or none of it. If nothing else, it’s some newish Duran Duran content to enjoy until they eventually wander back into the studio for the next album.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

Posted on

The Last Beatles Song — Now And Then

For the last couple of years, there’s been a bit of a minor panic about the possibilities of what AI can do, specifically in creative fields, like music, art and film. 

The fear is that corporations, being the completely money-hungry entities that they are, would eventually leverage AI to generate all new content “in the style” of artists, musicians or film stars who have long since passed. 

It’s certainly possible. If you search around on YouTube now, you can already find cases where people have produced cover songs sung by AI versions of artists, like the Beatles singing Beach Boys songs. I found one of Johnny Cash singing “I’m a Barbie Girl” to the tune of “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Today, though, the world is being introduced to a song that’s not meant to be a cash grab (well, maybe just a bit of a self-promoting cash grab), but an example of where AI can actually help save a song that would have otherwise never been completed. 

Now And Then, released today by the Beatles, is promoted as the “last” new Beatles song, with contributions from all four members of the band. 

Considering two of them have been gone for decades (John in 1980, George in 2001), that’s pretty remarkable.

They’ve even produced a video explaining how this happened. 

Short Film about Now And Then

Basically, in the 90s, while the surviving three members of the bad were working on their Anthology collections, Yoko provided them with 3-4 audio recordings of songs that John had never released. The band liked them enough that they decided to actually produce new Beatles songs, using John’s demos as the core.

So, with the Anthology albums, they produced two new songs: Free as a Bird, and Real Love. Now and Then was meant to be the third song, but at the time, technology wouldn’t allow them to extract John’s vocals from the original cassette recording. The band did some initial work on the song, even recording parts (including George on guitar), but they ultimately scrapped it. 

But, then, a few years ago, Peter Jackson started working on the Get Back documentary, pouring through the old Beatles video recordings of the Let It Be sessions. While working on that project, Jackson hired sound engineers to develop an AI that would help them isolate the Beatles’ vocals and music from the videos so they could remix them in high definition. 

As a result, the band now had an AI programmed to recognize all of the Beatles voices. So, Paul, who has always wanted to finish Now and Then, had them run the demo of Now and Then through their system. 

Finally, they had a clean vocal of John. Luckily, they had also kept the sessions from the 90s, so they still had George’s guitar tracks. With Paul and Ringo, they put together what is effectively the last Beatles song with all four members contributing to the song. 

And, so, we now have a new Beatles song that’s, depending on where you count, at least 28 years in the making? (If you count from John’s demo in 1978, we’re talking over 40 years)


The Beatles: Now And Then Audio

So, how is it? 

It’s good. It’s scary good. With Free as a Bird, I think they weren’t able to get a truly clean version of John’s vocal from the original. So, they tweaked it and made it a bit ethereal. The net effect, intentionally or not, adds a wispy quality to his voice on the song, almost feeling like John is providing his voice from the afterlife. Which, technically, he kind of was. 

But, in Now and Then, John’s vocals are front and center. They fade in a couple of places, but there’s no ghostly feel like on the Anthology tracks. It almost sounds like John was in the room singing with his bandmates, which is scary and trippy in its own right. 

Interestingly, Paul’s backing vocals are mixed back a bit, which makes sense considering you have the 81-year-old McCartney singing alongside the 38-year-old voice of John. It sucks, but age is catching up with the “forever young” Beatle. Still, Paul’s allowing his old friend to have the spotlight.

Ringo adds the perfect drum parts, as always, and Paul contributes a lot: re-styling John’s piano track, adding bass, and playing a slide guitar solo in George’s style. 


I think the only disappointing aspect of the song is that George’s lead guitar bits get washed out in favor of the strings. I really wish they had swapped those two, or at least kept the strings to the chorus and the middle sections of the song. 

Still, it’s unmistakably Beatles. 

As much as Paul has wanted to finish the song, there is a bit of shameless self-promotion here. The group is re-releasing a new version of the “Red” and “Blue” albums – popular collections of their greatest hits. Although Now and Then can be purchased separately, it’s also on one of the collections. 

Still, as the last Beatles song, it’s a nice way to finish. 

At least, until, years from now, our AI overlords start generating completely “new” music  from the band. 

Posted on

Star Wars Ahsoka: Dave Filoni Came Not To Save Star Wars, But To Bury It

There’s a chance, a slim chance, that maybe Ahsoka will find a way to become a better show before the finale (the first two episodes of its eight episode season are out now), but based on the first couple of episodes, I seriously doubt it.

Much like the other Disney+ Star Wars shows, instead of coming up with an interesting and original adventure for a fan favorite character that maybe explores some new aspect of that character, Lucasfilm took the road they’ve taken with all of the Star Wars properties to date: the lazy road.

Ahsoka isn’t compelling at all; it’s a bland, boring show that strips all personality these characters had in their animated versions, leans heavily on the same tired tropes every other Disney Star Wars property has used, and seems more focused on recreating a live-action version of the Dave Filoni’s Rebels show than anything.

How bad is it? In one of the YouTube video reviews I watched after watching the episodes for myself, someone had another video playing in the background that displayed one-for-one live action sequences of scenes that were already in Rebels.

But, Dave Filoni is going to save Star Wars, you say?

Yeah, no. He’s not. Whatever creative spark he may had that worked in the Clone Wars and, to a lesser extent, the Rebels animated shows has long since run out of mojo.

Star Wars is dead, but that’s not going to stop Disney and Kathleen Kennedy from picking up the body that they murdered in the first place and pulling a “Weekend at Bernie’s” to convince fans there’s still some life in that decaying body.

Sure, it looks like a Star Wars show. They at least had a decent production budget, unlike some of the other series (Obi-Wan, Boba Fett, etc). But there’s just this feeling that something’s… off.

It’s not as bad as Obi-Wan or Boba Fett – which tie for the worst shite Disney Star Wars has cranked out, but it’s not all that great, either.

Part of the problem is that Ahsoka assumes the viewer has seen both the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series. Like, I’m pretty sure that Lucasfilm actually posted a thing on social media with a complete breakdown of what you should have watched/read before starting Ahsoka.

And yet, even that’s not entirely useful because I believe this show takes place several years after the end of Rebels. You can kind of put together some aspect of the relationships (Ahsoka is a Jedi because she has lightsabers. She and Hera and Sabine all clearly have some sort of history, etc). There are hints of things that have happened between characters in between that time, but it’s barely even mentioned.

They could have done a live-action recap of the Rebels show – including showing the entire Rebels cast, what happened to Kanan and Ezra and Thrawn’s role in that show, and where the show basically ended. At least, then, there would have been some introduction to these characters and their history.

If you haven’t seen any of the animated shows, Filoni’s not going to bother to introduce these characters to you. Ahsoka just comes off as “stoic” — she’s supposed to because she’s a Jedi. You can plainly see that because she has lightsabers. But, Ahsoka is NOT a Jedi, and the show doesn’t bother to clarify any of this. Adult Ahsoka is also completely devoid of any personality that she had in the animated shows or even from the Mandalorian.

Hera is general in the New Republic, but you’d never guess that by looking at her. Or else, the New Republic is super casual about their leaders wearing uniforms because she’s wearing the same outfit, complete with the goofy head googles, from the animated show. It’s like Filoni thought the audience would be confused if the one green alien from the show changed her clothes, even though everyone addresses her by name. Okay, they do use her last name a lot “General Sindoula” — (I probably spelled that wrong and I don’t care) — but “real” fans would know her last name.

Actually dressing like a Republic general and flying around in a Republic ship instead of the Ghost (and she doesn’t even fly the Ghost — it’s the little shuttle — oh yeah, the Ghost is the ship that the cast of Rebels flew around in) might have made a difference. In the second episode, she tries to throw her weight around in a scene when the locals tell her some info is classified. When she declares she’s a general in the New Republic, you almost expect the guy she’s talking to, to roll his eyes and respond that if she’s a general, he’s a grand admiral (which actually would have been funnier than what happened next).

Then there’s Sabine. Even though the show is called ‘Ahsoka’ you could easily argue that Sabine is the star of the show. We’re introduced to Sabine in the first episode on Lothal, where most of Rebels took place. The main city is having a big ceremony to honor the end of the war and the rebel leaders who helped make it happen, including Sabine. And, she’s there, at the ceremony, up until they want her to give a speech. At that point, she bails.

The mayor? has to get the new senator to say a few words in her place, then he sends a couple of troops in ships to bring her back. That seems kind of extreme, but whatever. There probably should have been a scene where she made it clear she didn’t want to give a speech, or just not have Sabine at the ceremony at all. Anyway, the “cops” go flying after her as she cruises down the highway to nowhere on a speeder bike, order her to stop and even park a ship to block her way. She refuses, pulls a maneuver to slide under the ship and keeps going. The “cops” decide that this makes her cool, decide to give her a nod and just ignore their orders.

It’s all meant to make Sabine look cool because she doesn’t put up with “the man”, but it really just makes her look like an asshole. It also doesn’t help that Filoni decided that Sabine should look the same way she did in Rebels, so he cast a woman who could easily pass for 15-16. That would be fine if they were doing a live action version of Rebels from the start where I think Sabine was meant to be about 16, and then her behavior could be chalked up to being a teenage brat. But, Ahsoka takes place several years after the end of Rebels where Sabine was probably supposed to be 19 or 20, putting her current age somewhere in her mid to late 20s. Later, she even defies Ahsoka’s orders, because she can, and it’s just not a good look.

Another aspect of it is just this weird juxtaposition of integrating the Rebels show into the “real” Star Wars universe. Sure, it could work, but for reasons, Filoni decided that the animated elements of the show should look no different than their live-action versions. When we get to Lothal, the city looks like a cartoon city even complete with it’s weird “highway” — a single four lane road leading out of the city that’s technically a road to nowhere. There’s a “lothcat” that’s cgi but really doesn’t look any different than it’s animated version.

None of the three main leads are written particularly well, and all of them appear to be told to act with zero emotions. Lucasfilm can’t have these women getting all emotional in Star Wars for “reasons”, even when it’s clear that the topic/moment requires there to be some emotion.

Seriously, the only two characters who even show a hint of emotion are the two droids who are with the main characters, and that’s just sad.

Ray Stevenson makes a pretty imposing bad guy, but he’s only in the show for a couple of scenes. Even then, he’s not even the main baddie. The main baddie is a “Nightsister” – a witch – who wants to find a lost Imperial leader. The sisters are another batch of characters that were either introduced in a novel and/or the Clone Wars cartoon. Stevenson (I’m calling him by his real name because I don’t care enough to look up his character name), also has a female padawan, but she barely has more than a couple of lines of dialogue.

The plot is pretty straightforward up to this point. The bad guys are looking for a map to figure out where the Empire’s last Grand Admiral was banished/sent to? It’s not clear why he was sent off to the ass end of the galaxy, but now that there’s no Vader and no Emperor, the bad guys want to find him so he can rally the fragmented remnants of the Empire and usurp the New Republic before they can establish themselves.

Who’s Thrawn? Thrawn is a fan favorite villain from a series of books published in the 90s by Timothy Zahn. The Heir to the Empire series depicted the rebels trying to organize a new system of government  while the fragments of the Empire tried to rebuild with Han, Leia, Luke and the others in the middle of it all. Disney dumped all of this into the “Extended Universe” with all of the other materials after their acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012.

At least, until Dave Filoni needed a villain for his animated show Star Wars: Rebels. Then, he pilfered the character for use in his own series. The rumor for Ahsoka is that they’re effectively going to “borrow” most of the plot from the Heir to the Empire books and recycle it in the show, replacing the original Star Wars characters with the Rebels cast.

Of course, whenever there’s a character that needs to be found in Disney Star Wars, there’s a map. And, of course, the map’s not just anywhere. You can’t just look it up or go ask Bob for it. The map has to be hidden in some ancient ruin in some equally ancient artifact that is also locked and can’t simply be opened. Naturally, both the good guys and the bad guys are looking for the map.

The whole map silliness echoes both of the Macguffins from the sequel trilogy (one to find Luke, and then another to find the Emperor). So far, at least it hasn’t completely devolved into the cast finding a thing that requires them to find another thing that leads to yet another thing to unlock the first thing. Not yet, anyway…

That’s basically the plot. The bad guys need to find a dude. To find the dude, they need a map. But, the good guys get the map first. Bad guys take the map from the good guys before they can decipher where the dude’s location is, and now the bad guys know the location and can go get the dude. The good guys want to stop the bad guys from finding the dude, and so off they go.

That’s it. That’s the story. The trailers have already shown glimpses of Thrawn, so he’s going to at least make an appearance.

It also doesn’t help that the episodes are painfully slow. The first episode is nearly an hour long, and it makes you feel every moment of it. Conversations between the main characters take too long. Not because they have a lot to say, but because each time someone says something, they take a long time to say it, and then there’s a long pause before the other person responds.

There are more than a couple of moments where Sabine and Ahsoka are just looking at each other, to the point that you start to wonder if the writers are trying to hint that they were a couple, which was never in any of the shows.

Not surprisingly, as much as Filoni seems obsessed with recreating every visual aspect of Rebels as he can, he doesn’t seem to give a damn about preserving the lore from his own shows.

There’s a LOT of slowly walking to a place. Even the lightsaber fights are tedious. One fight is dragged out because they’re trying to build suspense of hoping that help will arrive (and how the character even knows that the other person is in trouble in the first place makes no sense).

And don’t get me started about lightsabers. Back in my day, if you got stabbed with a lightsaber, you didn’t get back up. That’s all I’m saying.

Even with all of that, there will be plenty of scenes that will immediately remind you of something that you’ve seen before and, more than likely, was done better in other Star Wars films.

Here’s another strange thing. There are several shots that seem to linger on Sabine’s butt. At first, you think, okay, why are there gratuitous butt shots in a Star Wars show. But, then, you realize, it’s not that. They’re doing it because they’re simply too lazy to have a second camera switch to another point of view. Maybe they didn’t want to show Sabine staring off into space, only, she does plenty of that as it is.

Later, after watching some YouTube videos, I learned that at least two of the shots are like that simply because they’re recreating an animated sequence straight out of Rebels.

Another big problem with this show is what’s NOT in the show.

“He Who Must Not Be Named”

Technically, this takes place at some point after the destruction of the second Death Star, Vader and the Emperor. So, at this point in time, the original Star Wars characters are very much alive and kicking. Don’t expect there to be a single mention of them, and especially Luke, hero of the Republic and the last true remaining Jedi. I would also expect the Republic in general to be left out of this, even though technically the return of the last Imperial Grand Admiral could represent an existential threat to the New Republic. Instead, I expect the trio of main characters to go chasing the bad guys on their own.

Die hard Rebels fans and/or Dave Filoni fanboys will probably love every minute of the show. Filoni throws plenty of elements from the animated shows in here. Even so, I can’t imagine even those fans would be all that excited to see their favorite Rebels characters completely neutered from their animated counterparts.

If you never watched the animated series, though, I’m not sure you’ll find much here. There might be something in the later episodes if you’re a fan of the prequels. There are rumors that there may be a couple of flashbacks between Ahsoka and Anakin (oh yeah, spoiler — Ahsoka was Anakin’s padawan during the Clone Wars).

Filoni desperately wants the show to be taken seriously, but at the same time, it clings to its animated roots so much that you can’t take the show seriously at all. It’s certainly no “adult” Star Wars; Filoni doesn’t have the writing chops that Andor creator Tony Gilroy does.

In fact, if you want to see an original take on Star Wars, skip Ahsoka and go watch Andor (who was Andor? Remember Rogue One? Remember that guy with the cool robot sidekick? That’s him. Don’t watch it for him — the larger story is way better).

Or, if you want to learn about Thrawn, skip all of Disney Star Wars and go pick up Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire series. It’s way better than anything Lucasfilm has cranked out in the last decade since Disney took over.

But, if you simply want to watch more bland, boring shite with the Disney Star Wars name attached to it, Ahsoka can fill up a few hours of your time while you reminisce about the good old days when Star Wars was actually good.

Posted on

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning mostly hits the mark

(Mostly spoiler free version)

Compared to the other recent summer “blockbusters” this summer: another transforming robots film, another  super-hero story, and a sequel to a legacy action series with an octogenarian that nobody asked for (ask me how I really feel about Dial of Destiny), Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning largely succeeds. There’s plenty of action, and while most actors his age would have moved on from big action blockbusters, Tom Cruise shows why he’s one of the few bankable movie stars left.

The story opens with a secret Russian submarine prowling the Bering Sea testing a new technology that helps render the vessel undetectable. The tech involves an AI, which goes “rogue” while testing, and, since it controls all of the ship’s electronics, tricks the crew into firing a torpedo at a phantom American sub. Before they realize what’s happened, the AI redirects the torpedo at the Russian sub and sinks it. Why? That’s not entirely clear.

On the sub, there are two keys that combine into a cruciform key that can theoretically unlock the AI core, and whoever controls the core can control the AI. Through a number of conveniences, the keys have somehow miraculously been recovered without revealing the location of the sunken sub.

We know how things go at this point. Cue the Mission Impossible theme: Dun dun duh dun…

Enter Ethan Hunt, who is apparently in hiding for reasons, receives a new mission. The CIA wants the key, and as it so happens, his old “friend” Ilsa happens to have “acquired” one half of the key. The CIA decides to put a bounty on her head, forcing her into hiding, but the agency knows where she is, and they want Ethan to retrieve the key. What he does with Ilsa is “up to him.”

Hunt retrieves one half of the key, but he’s not happy with the agency’s tactics. So, he infiltrates the CIA to have a word with his boss Kittridge about what the hell is going on. There’s a long exposition scene that explains that the real threat is an AI developed by the U.S. The AI has become sentient, and for reasons, they embedded part of its code on that Russian submarine. The AI has gone rogue, which the CIA now calls The Entity, and it’s infiltrating all major intelligence, defense and financial systems around the world.

Naturally, the CIA, along with every major government in the world, would like to regain control of the AI, because whoever controls the AI also has access to all of those systems. Theoretically, the only way to gain control of it is via the key, and they’d like Ethan to get both halves and return them to the CIA.

Hunt, of course, has seen every science fiction movie involving sentient AI’s and decides the best course of action is to destroy it, which makes his bosses none too happy.

So, that kicks off the newest Mission Impossible adventure as Ethan and his team pursue both halves of the key and try to learn what / where the key can be used while evading capture from the CIA and (in theory) every other major intelligence agency.

To make things even more challenging, the Entity has its own real world agents stirring things up as well as the Entity itself which can manipulate things in the real world from the virtual one.

Making AI the story’s main antagonist is a great choice, considering there are a lot of conversations happening now about what impact AI may have on our society in the near future. They had to provide physical agents as well, so Ethan has somebody to punch.

Dead Reckoning delivers on everything you’d expect a major blockbuster action film to do. There are some big, tightly choreographed chase sequences, there’s a car chase every bit as real as anything from the Bourne series; and of course, there’s that “big stunt” — the newest, craziest thing that Tom Cruise wanted to shoot for real and integrate into the film.

The usual gang is here: Benji, Luther and Ilsa, although in abbreviated roles. There are some new characters as well. Hayley Atwell stars as Grace, who is a charming and brilliant thief recruited to try steal half of the key. She’s in it for a big payday, but she has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.

There’s Gabriel, played by Esai Morales, who we learn is working for the Entity and also has a connection to Ethan’s past. It’s great to see Pom Klementieff outside of the MCU, playing Paris, another one of the Entity’s followers. Vanessa Kirby also returns as the White Widow.

There are a pair of CIA? intelligence agents who are fun to watch as they manage to stay a couple of steps behind Hunt and the others. It’s not clear who they’re working for, just that they’re out to stop Hunt.

But, Dead Reckoning is far from perfect.

With a 2:43 runtime, it’s easily about 30 minutes too long, and it shows as at least two of the big action set pieces drag on for way longer than they should. I found myself checking my watch during both scenes. There are some tightly choreographed fight scenes, but at the same time, there are at least two, particularly involving Gabriel, that feel kind of half-assed.

And, of course. we see Tom Cruise running. A lot.

But there’s just something a bit off about the overall story. Early on, it’s suggested that every major agency has learned about this AI and is going to be looking for the key. But, outside of Ilsa’s involvement (which we learn she was recruited by MI:6), we really only see the guys from the CIA, the bad guys, and Ethan’s team pursuing the keys. You don’t get that sense of Ethan and his team against the world like we’ve seen in the John Wick films.

That would have been fine if the film hadn’t told us at the beginning to expect it. But, it did. Where’s MI:6? Where’s Mossad? Interpol?

Maybe a lot of that had to do with the fact that a chunk of this film was shot during COVID, and the cast and crew were locked down and could only shoot with a smaller team. At that point, though, I think they should have re-worked the story so it would have made more sense with a smaller group of characters involved.

There’s a very specific couple of dramatic scenes I can’t get into without spoiling the film, but again, the writing makes both of those scenes fall flat. It’s mainly because this film seems more focused on moving to the next big action sequence that it’s forgetting about fleshing out the story. There’s no time to stop and breathe and let these characters develop their relationships, and it really kills the dramatic punch they were aiming for.

I think another part of if it is just: we’ve seen it all before. The rogue AI, while a fresh aspect for the MI films, isn’t exactly new. Ethan Hunt going rogue is so common at this point even the CIA jokes about it in a meeting at the beginning. Sure, they need the IMF to do a thing, and while they may get results, they also know its agents, and Hunt specifically, don’t exactly follow orders.

Even the action sequences we’ve seen elsewhere, including in other Mission Impossible films. The car chase is great, but we’ve seen these before. The White Widow hosts a party (again) that’s lit very much like something out of a John Wick film. The finale has echos of things we’ve also seen elsewhere. For what was originally a spy thriller, there’s very little spycraft going on in the film anymore.

One of my friends was annoyed with Grace because the film seems to be setting things up where she could potentially replace Hunt as the star of the Mission Impossible series. The idea of simply gender swapping a series lead has been the thing to do in Hollywood (I’m looking at you Marvel/Lucasfilm). I’ve seen a couple of reviews that have compared Dead Reckoning to the Dial of Destiny where an aging star is working together with a younger female counterpart who is also intended to replace the original star.

I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, at 60, you’d think Tom Cruise would start thinking he might finally be getting too old for this shit. But, you can also see him stubbornly going on for at least another decade.

That said, the women in the Mission Impossible series, including Grace, are very well written characters with both skills and flaws. They’re not Mary Sues. They work together with their male counterparts equally rather than overshadowing them. Of any modern franchise, if Tom Cruise did finally decide to retire Ethan Hunt, I think he and the other MI folks would find a way to create a compelling film for a female lead, be it Atwell or someone else.

Obviously, this is only the first half of a total story, so it’s hard to say how the second part will conclude. Even though Dead Reckoning has its flaws, and isn’t the best film of the series, the overall track record of the series has been stellar. It’ll be worth catching part two when it comes out.

Even with its flaws, and especially given its competition this summer, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning hits the mark for big summer blockbuster action and is definitely worth seeing. At least for now, but I think, like many of these franchises, moviegoers are starting to get fatigued by the sequels and would love nothing more than to see something original.

Posted on

Place Your Bets! Who’s Gonna Die in The Mandalorian?

If you’ve been watching Season Three of the Mandalorian, you’ve probably noticed that things are a bit — off about the show this season. In fact, even though episode 7 felt like the best episode, it was also a massive exposition dump. It was if the show’s creators filmed six episodes, got to seven and realized, oh shit, we should probably come up with a story for the season. Then, they dumped everything into one episode so they can quickly resolve everything in the finale.

There’s so much that’s wrong about this show and the Star Wars universe in general right now that it can’t be covered in a single post. More to come on that point later.

Instead, the internet has been abuzz the last couple of days because supposedly Dave Filoni, one of the Mandalorian’s co-creators, dropped a hint that the season finale will be “heart-wrenching.”

And, you know what that means? Someone’s gonna kick the bucket! And, it’s likely going to be someone the audience cares about, i.e. a major character.

So, let’s join in a death watch (not that Death Watch), and place some bets on who might die in the season three finale of the Mandalorian.

NOTE: I’m not going to be shy about spoilers, so if you’re not up to date with the Mandalorian, you should probably stop reading now. This is your one and only warning!!!

Grogu: 0%

Let’s start with the obvious one. Disney is not about to let their little money making machine die when there’s still plenty of money to squeeze out of the green cash cow. After this last episode, we now have Grogu in a new IG-12 suit?, body?, armor? Whatever, it means all new toys for the House of Mouse. Basically, everyone else on the show could die before Grogu would. Even if the show ended, Disney would probably make him a “Disney Princess” or something to keep the money rolling in.

Bo-Katan: 40%

If you have been paying attention, ol’ Din (aka the Mandalorian or Mando) has been taking a back seat on his own show to a newer character. If you haven’t watched the Star Wars animated shows, Bo-Katan was a princess of Mandalore before the Empire took over the planet. She even ruled it for a short time, uniting some of the clans with the Darksaber, before (as we learned) the Empire laid waste to the planet in the “Night of a Thousand Tears.” She has longed to regain the Darksaber and try to unite the various Mandalorian factions again in order to try re-take her homeworld.

As we’ve seen this season, she’s basically gotten everything she’s ever wanted. Din Djarin’s mission for this season inexplicably became let’s re-take Mandalore, even though he’d never been there and wasn’t raised there. But, Bo-Katan was, and so, over the course of this season, we’ve quickly seen Din and Bo-Katan rally the group of Mandalorians that Din came from, then unite with the remnants of Bo-Katan’s group. Bo-Katan also, via a very lazy means, got the Darksaber back. And, now, in episode 7, we’ve seen all of these Mandalorians return to their homeworld in search of the Great Forge (for reasons). Bo-Katan has effectively become the main character, sidelining Din and Grogu in the process.

So, why kill her? Because, things have been going her way all season. She’s getting everything she’s ever wanted. She now has a chance to seek revenge against Moff Gideon, who has escaped the New Republic and we learn has set up a base on Mandalore, and re-take her planet. However, the Mandalorians may also attempt to rescue Din Djarin, who was captured by Gideon, so it makes sense that maybe Bo-Katan has to sacrifice herself to save him. Plus, narratively, it leads to an interesting set up for season 4. Who will lead the Mandalorians if they’ve lost their newly re-established leader, and the one who was most likely most qualified to do exactly that? Would they follow Din Djarin? Would the Mandalorians simply fracture again and scatter?

On the other hand, if you’ve also been paying attention to Disney Star Wars, you’re also well aware of Kathleen Kennedy and her “the Force is female” agenda. She has long been set on setting up strong female characters as the primary characters of the Star Wars universe (But, you ask, there are already strong female characters in Star Wars — I know, right?) — but Kennedy also is dead set on destroying the legacy of the male characters that fans have loved for decades. It’s a whole thing, worthy of a discussion of it’s own.

Needless to say, Kennedy would absolutely lose her shit if Bo-Katan died, especially if it meant some man might take over that leadership role. So, she’s probably safe on that alone.

Din Djarin: 66.6666%

Let’s face it, the showrunners have had no clue what to do with their main character this season. Din had a pretty strong arc for both of the previous seasons. But, the season two finale really resolved his story. Din finally found a Jedi (none other than Luke friggin Skywalker) that could train Grogu in the ways of the Force as well as protect him. Din was basically free to go back to being a bounty hunter or whatever he wanted.

Of course, if you’ve seen all of the Disney Star Wars shows, you’re aware that Disney undid this, and Grogu chose to leave his training and return to Din. If you didn’t, then you probably had questions at the beginning of season three.

Initially, it looked like Din was going on an arc to bathe in the waters of Mandalore to redeem himself in the eyes of his faction for the sin of removing his helmet. He also wanted to restore IG-11, but I forget why (I think it was related to Mandalore). Anyway, that was quickly resolved, so Din was left without a mission. So, the show had him hop on the Bo-Katan bus and help her return the Mandalorians to their home.

As I’ve mentioned, over the episodes, Bo-Katan has slowly been taking over screen time on the show and has really become the main character. In episode 6, she even had Grogu sitting in her lap while she piloted the ship. With a whole bunch of Mandalorians to follow, except for his connection to Grogu, Din has become pretty redundant.

There have also been some outside factors at work. Lucasfilm leadership has been dropping hints recently that “The Mandalorian” title isn’t just about a single character, but about all Mandalorians. There have long been rumors of actor Pedro Pascal being unhappy with the show, and frustrated that he’s simply doing voiceover work for much of the show. Supposedly, outside of a couple of episodes, he’s not even in the suit. (There are now rumors that the original rumors were sort of true, but have since been resolved).

Narratively, though, Din’s arc has been complete. You could argue that he should be the one to train Grogu in “the way” of the Mandalorian. Only, as I’ve said, there’s a whole bunch of them now, and arguably, Bo-Katan’s crew – true Mandalorians – are really better suited to teach him about their culture.

So, much like Bo-Katan’s story, they could go on a mission to save Din, but Din ultimately chooses to sacrifice himself to protect Bo-Katan or even Grogu from Moff Gideon. We would have a gut-wrenching moment where Din removes his helmet one final time so he can look upon the face of his son (hmm, where have we seen that before?)

So, yes, if anyone’s going to kick the bucket, Din is the most likely to go.

Nobody: 30%

Yeah, there’s also the big old fake-out option, too. Disney hasn’t pulled this card yet, but they could easily do it. The “heart-wrenching” comment could be a ploy to simply lure fans into watching the finale.

OR — They could pull a “Walking Not-Dead-Yet” fake-out. One of the above characters could not have a death scene, but instead, merely “appear” to be dead or left for dead. Then, they’d miraculously recover in the first episode of season four, and then there could be an episode or two of them trying to make their way back to the others, who believe that they’re dead. This would be great for the writers, because it means they have something to do in season four and they can keep fan interest around at least for a couple of episodes.

As lazy as the writing has been for season three, I can totally see this happening.

OR — In order to avoid angering their fans (Sorry — had to pause to stop laughing at that thought — Disney Star Wars caring about their fans), everybody has a couple of “close calls” but, in the end, everyone makes it out more or less okay. If fans get mad at Filoni, he’d simply say the “heart-wrenching” moments were the close calls — person X “almost” died, after all.

Let’s not forget that Filoni has a Star Wars movie to make with all of these characters, so he may simply wait and not kill anyone off until the BIG BIG finale of the film. Besides, the odds of any of this year’s Star Wars movie announcements actually making it into a theater are probably worth a separate post.

And… that’s it. Sure, someone else could die, but there’s really nobody else that I’d argue is a main character of the show at this point. Maybe the Armorer? dies, or Greef Karga dies. Maybe there are a couple of huge Moff Gideon fans who would be upset if he goes?

Obviously, this is a time-sensitive post and isn’t going to age well (since we have — what — maybe 72 hours — before the finale is released on Disney+?), but those are my thoughts on someone dying in the Mandalorian’s season finale.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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
byu/dreffen inwow

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. 

Posted on

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.