My Thoughts on The Force Awakes - WITH SPOILERS

Before you start reading this you should know something:  this discussion of the new Star Wars movie contains spoilers, some of them of the mega spoiler variety.  It is intended for people who have either seen the movie or will never, ever, see the movie because movies or the Star Wars franchise itself is odious to them. 

Yes, you may find it hard to believe, but there are few people out there who really hate Star Wars.  Not many, I’ll grant, not many.  Most people prefer Star Trek or at least kind of ambivalent about Star Wars, but I know one man who went to see Episode IV in 1977 and walked out of the theatre after 10 minutes, and he will still contend with you that Star Wars ruined American cinema.  Ruined it. 

I won’t bore you with a summary of the plot, because I am now assuming that if you have gotten this far you have already seen the film or you simply don’t care.  But here are my thoughts, in the form of a short catechism:

Overall, what did you think?  It was extremely enjoyable and quite good.  And it was fun!  I think the CNN reviewer said that this feels more like an Indiana Jones movie than a past George Lucas film, and I’d have to agree with him (or her).  There are more quips and one-liners intended to draw a laugh, and from me they got a smile.  I thought overall the dialogue was good, and I thought the actors all did really quite well within the limits set for them.  The John Williams score tied it all together.   Felt like getting back together with an old friend, who has been gone for a long time and has come back at long last.

Oh, and Stormtroopers are people again, reversing what I thought was one of the most damnable things about Episodes I-III.  The First Order seems to have settled on armies of indoctrinated soldiers, perhaps a mix of volunteers and people pressed into service.  They do seem to shoot a little better. 

Was it the greatest movie in the world?  No. 

Was it great in proportion to its marketing?  I don’t think so, no. 

An “overwhelming experience”, as the initial reviews suggested?  Nah.  But it put a smile on my face, and that ain’t easy to do.  I enjoyed it.  It gets a solid A in my book, though it doesn’t quite make it to an A+ level (which is really hard to do – I don’t like movies very much).  Go and see it.

What surprised you the most?  I was actually surprised at how central the role of the old characters was.  I thought that we’d kind of see them, they’d say “hey kids, how’s it going?” and they would kind of slip away.  A passing of the torch to a new generation.  Not so.  Han Solo had a huge role in this film.  Princess Leia less so, but she still figured in an important way.  And Luke?  We don’t see him till the end when Rey has found him and is holding his lightsaber out to him (I TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE SPOILERS!!!!) and it’s clear that he will figure greatly in any future film.  He has to. 

Luke Skywalker really fucked things up, didn’t he?  Seems so.   It’s a shame Episodes I-III were so lousy, for if they had been better they may have seen wider release and maybe he’d know that bad things happen when Jedi Knights fall in love.  The movie doesn’t really say so, but I THINK that Rey is his daughter, and for that to happen he had to have fallen in love or at least, as my wife so charmingly says, “boinked” somebody.  Clearly she was British, because Rey has a beautiful accent. 

Oh Luke….I know it’s so hard to keep the old wibbly wobbly in the Hackensack when the gin and bubble is all apples and bears, but for the good of the galaxy couldn’t you have taken the bishop up to Exeter on the 5:11?  For the good of the galaxy.  Now look what you have done. 

Captain Phasma?

One real disappointment out of two for the movie.  The galaxy is a more diverse place, and that is definitely for the better.  Women are now allowed to pilot X-wing fighter craft and, apparently, be the commander of the First Order’s Stormtroopers.  But we never see her face, never hear her story, and she is the one who, at gun point, lowers the shields that allow the resistance fighters to attack “The Weapon”, which is just a very, very large Death Star that has actually been built into a Planet.  The First Order is a fanatical regime, they feel kind of like Nazis, and I imagine that any one that fanatical would rather have died then live with the shame of both being captured and lowering the shields.  It’s the one part of the movie where I was like “Come on!”  Equally inexplicably Finn and company don’t kill her after she has lowered the shields.  A friend called Captain Phasma a wasted character, and I’d have to agree with her. 

She at least LOOKS important.  Look!  The Stormtroopers have formed Square!

Disappointment the Second?

I don’t honestly think much of Kylo Ren – yet.  We live in age of television and film where there are no real heroes and no real villains, everyone has shades of light and dark.  That may be realistic, but it’s disappointing here in a world where giant furry things converse effortlessly with Droids.  I like my villains to be pure evil.  Best villain ever?  Jason Isaacs portrayal of Colonel Tavington in “The Patriot”, which is on the 5^th watching a really horrible film but Colonel Tavington is an equally horrible person, down to his core, and he is played ever so well by Isaacs.  Only thing that makes the movie still worth watching.

Kylo Ren is just a kid.  How he has he been given so much power by this Lord Snook person who looks kind of like Voldemort with a nose (and, for my money, Kylo Ren with the mask off sort of looks like a young professor Snape) I do not know.   He is not master of his own emotions, his anger explodes in violent outbursts, and he is an extremely conflicted young person.  All you maybe need to get him on the side of good is a couple sessions of good therapy and maybe a 20ml dose of anti-depressants.  The Weapon is on a cold and dark planet – maybe he has Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly abbreviated as SAD).  Maybe a move to a nicer planet would bring about positive change.  I read some reviews that thought his mercurial character could be exploited in interesting ways in the future; I on the other hand would rather him get his shit together and be the villain I want him to be.

And granted – Darth Vader of Episodes IV-VI also showed conflict, but these were little pinpricks of light against darkness.  Love eventually overcame hate in the man’s stoic heart, and it was a Romantic triumph of the spirit over the power of darkness.  By contrast, it’s hard to say what is going to come out of the angst-ridden soup of Kylo-Ren’s soul.   Could be anything, and in some ways I think that makes his own conflict less meaningful, at least as a movie character.  It certainly would make any victory of good will less impressive.

Final Thoughts?

Love BB-8.  Wouldn’t mind seeing the last of C-3P0.  Looking forward to the next installment.  

The Oatmeal's Black Cat Analogy

I saw this on facebook about a week ago.  The Oatmeal may not have come up with the "Black Cat Analogy" but they did make it cute.

Of course, most people quoting the analogy omit the curseword at the end, but it does give a further emphasis on the perceived superiority of science to these other modes of seeking the truth, and how dumb it is to pursue different understandings of the world.  It seems to say that we have the tools to learn the truth about the world around us if you would only get of the couch, get out of your Church, grab a flashlight, and go.  To insert the word "fucking" in there makes Science the final straw.

What an incredibly limited view of reality that is.

Okay, so I grabbed my flashlight, I went into the dark room, and I found a Cat.  Scientific inquiry has just proven to me that there is a Cat in this dark room.  That's great, that's wonderful, we shouldn't discount that in anyway.  It is the true.  

Now what do I do with it?

Science has very little more to offer on the subject.  I may ask "How did it get here?" Maybe I do some more scientific inquiry with my flashlight and find that the window into the room was left open, and the cat must have crawled inside.  There had better be something -- if there are no windows and doors, then I am left asking how the cat got there in the first place, and Science may not have a great answer for me.

Then I am left asking what should I do with the cat?  Do I keep it?  Do I turn it over to the SPCA?  Do I just throw it back out of the house?  These are questions that have no scientific answer, it's all ethics and values. Those tend to come from somewhere else.  You can bring as much science as you want into the decision making, but in the end you have to make a choice as to what you are going to do with the cat, and some form of ethical decision making is required.

Philosophy can help with that (ethics). Theology perhaps can as well, as it points to a being that we need to respond to and that being may have some thoughts on what should be done.  And if the cat just suddenly appeared in a room without windows and doors where before there was none;  well, my friend, it seems maybe we need a little metaphysics in our life after all.  Not a lot, but a little.

This happens a lot in our national debates over this issue or that issue.  Science tells us that the world is getting warmer, and probably that humans are the cause.  What do we do about it?  Science has allowed us to create clones and examine the genome, perhaps modify the primordial soup of our very beings so we can be...well, better.  What do we do with that information?

Putting your faith blindly in science and assuming it has all the answers is, in my opinion, just as intellectually bankrupt as assuming that one's religion is infallible.  Scientists, philosophers, theologians, and even maybe a few metaphysics guys, all need to be working together to paint a larger picture of the reality that surrounds us and how best it is that we move through it.

Oh, and The Oatmeal.  Normally quite funny, if a little "wrrrrpppp???".  I have seldom been disappointed with a visit to their site.  I just think here they are wrong.

And why am I linking to them?  They are huge!  You can like buy stuff from them and shit.  They certainly don't need my help.  If anything they should be linking to me, a little nobles oblige.

Mourinho's Waterloo

I was at work today when Chelsea played Leicester City in the EPL.  I obviously couldn't watch the game at work, but I was able to follow it by checking in on the Guardian's minute by minute blog coverage, which is sometimes just as good...it's what I imagine it was like getting dispatches in baseball games via telegraph ages ago, everyone hanging on for news of their favorite team playing miles away...

As the news came in over the wires it was not good for Chelsea.  Jamie Vardy scored in the 34th minute and Mahrez made it 2-0 right after the break.  

Mourinho, seemingly out of options, made a final substitution of Fabregas on for Terry.  Chelsea would finish the game in a 3-5-2.  

It seemed to me a desperate last gamble in the context of the season, as if finally Mourinho had no other options, and I found myself thinking of Napoleon sending in the Old Guard at Waterloo in one final attempt to break Wellington's line.  The attack wavered and was repulsed, sealing the allied victory over their French nemesis.  

Here Fabregas made a difference, and Chelsea mounted pressure and earned a goal.   But Lecister wouldn't break, they closed down the game's final moments,  and in the end Chelsea picked up their ninth loss, another twist in the most shambolic and perplexing title defense in many, many years.

This was Mourinho's Waterloo moment.  It feels like this is the end of something at Chelsea even if Mourinho hangs on to his job for the rest of the season.  

It's not a perfect analogy;  John Terry represents the CFC old guard if anyone does, and Fabregas has been in wretched form whereas the Imperial Guard had never been beaten prior to being tossed into battle at Waterloo.  But nevertheless, both were a gamble not quite enough, and I think this is one of those results that we will remember, when its repercussions reverberates through the next several seasons.

This one, for some reason, just feels important. 

Donald Trump is....Not Good.

It is amazing to me....just amazing....that a man who sights as his inspiration two of the darkest chapters in American history, the internment of Japanese Citizens during World War II and Operation Wetback, is still leading the polls for the GOP nomination.  It's astounding.  Just astounding.  

And there are really no other words.  Volumes and volumes have been written and will be written about this political cycle where one man has broken every rule of presidential electoral politics and thus far remained seemingly invincible to his own vacuity.  

But I'll tell you this Donald J. Trump:  I will never, ever vote for you.  

And my vote is cheap!  I was willing to give it away to Romney for a couple dozen fresh (not fundraiser) Krispy Kreme donuts.  But for you?  No amount of donuts will do.  Not three dozen, not five dozen.  Not ten.  You could even up the quality, fly them in special from New York, get your own personal chef to guild them with gold flake in the shape of little boats and geese and get Katy Perry and Anne Hathaway to serve them to me in a palatial Mansion by the sea and I still would proudly, proudly say "No!"

No, Donald Trump!  No.  I won't do it.   

So that's what I think of Donald Trump.  It's on record, it's out in the ether, and I needn't discuss this again.

Books You May Not Like: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Listen:  Henry de Tamble has become unstuck in time.

No, not like Billy Pilgrim.  This is different.  Henry has some kind of disease where his entire body and soul suddenly gets transported to a different time.  He'll be sitting there drinking coffee with you, suddenly complain that he will feel nauseous, and POOF!  he's gone.  Only his body goes.  Anything foreign (clothes, shoes, fillings, contacts, glasses) gets left behind.  So you are sitting there drinking coffee with a pile of clothes.  

If you are Clare de Tamble, you may merely shrug.  This is something your used to.  Henry has been a part of your life since you were 6, when you met Henry for the first time in a clearing.  As he kept traveling back in time, you fell in love.  Then you met Henry in the present where he works in Chicago in some high-falutin laboratory, and you got married.  It was weird -- you knew him very well, but the Henry you met in the present did not know who you were.  The Henry you have met before is a little older, a little wiser, a little less of a douche.  

Where did Henry go?  More likely than not in the past, and more likely than not to a place near his own past. He tends to stick to his own continuum.  He revisits traumatic events in his past quite often.  Very rarely does he go into the future.

Can he control it?  No.  It happens, and he's gone.  He has no say as to where he goes.  He does not know how long he'll be gone.  He winds up naked and with nothing in whatever place he ends up, and he steals what he needs to survive. Henry has some kind of disease, you see, that allows him to time travel...

When will he back?  Who knows.  Could be a few minutes, hours, days.  One thing is for sure...time seems to elapse slower in the present.  If he is gone for spends a few hours in the past it will be minutes in the present.  Days are like weeks.

What is it like to live with a guy who keeps disappearing all the time?  It's hard.  It's been hard to have a child (but after two dreadful miscarriages you finally had one, and she is afflicted with the same....affliction.  damn.).  Plus, Henry knows how and when he will die.  And when it happens...wow.  It's sad.  

So its a sad book.  Kind of about living with dignity against our own finiteness.  That seems to be how Henry grows.  When we meet him, as I said, he's a real douche.  He sleeps around, he has stupid 90's hair, he's kind of an asshole.  Being with Clare kind of helps him lose some of that assholery, and as he approaches the end there are moments where he behaves with real human dignity.  He gives his father, who grieves over the horrific death of his mother by taking to alcohol, a chance as well to redeem himself when he tells him that he will teach his daughter to play the violin.

Is it a good book?  Sort of.  I think its a wonderful, wonderful idea.  What a great premise.  And Niffenegger writes with great power, at times approaching a syntax that is almost poetic.  She laces this book with a wide range of emotions, from the beautiful to the nauseating to the downright tragic.  And that is impressive.

The one problem I have with the book is that Clare's character seems to be a bit too autobiographical.  This is probably because we get a long description of her red air, and if you look at the dust jacket of the book you see that that is a trait Niffenegger shares with her protagonist.  There are other things as well (they both live in Chicago, they both are artists). 

And I don't know....when you read of Clare "courting" Henry in early 1990's Chicago, it just feels like the author has packed a lot of her own experience into the book.  You'd expect that - everyone writes from their own experience, and its a first novel so you'd expect it even more so.  But the intimacy and the length of the section just make me feel like we are a little too close to the author here, and for some reason I found it to be uncomfortable.  

If Clare had had brown hair, maybe things would have been different. 

But at any rate, an enjoyable work.  I have a feeling I will try Niffenegger again.  She has a name, for sure, that is impossible to forget.