So I wrapped up Daniel Jose Older’s Last Shot this weekend just in time to go see Solo in the theaters this past Sunday.
My thoughts…
Once I heard that Rogue One was officially announced I was very giddy about the Star Wars “one-shots” that Disney was planning on developing. I think it was a great move to put a one-shot in between each of movies in the final trilogy of the Skywalker Saga. Rogue One had me off the bat after seeing the first trailer. I thought that the story was going to be compelling and I didn’t remember anything from Legends that touched on it very deeply.
I remember exiting the theater after seeing Rogue One and honestly was torn about it. I felt that the story was strong and I loved the visual mood of the movie. My only pet peeves were Tarken, who I thought looked awful (note: my wife didn’t even realize it was CGI) and I didn’t feel like Jyn’s background matched where she was in the present situation. What I did enjoy were the side characters. New characters like Baze and Chirrut where exactly what I wanted to see in a new SW movie that was not directly* related to a Skywalker.
After watching Rogue One a few more times, it grew on me and pretty much became my favorite Star Wars movie since the Original Trilogy. I enjoyed both TFA and TLJ, but I think that because I read a lot of SW books/comics the continuation of the Skywalker story has had its time and I am just along for the ride for that narrative arc. However, with these one-shots (and the subsequent Benioff/Weiss and the Favreau series) I feel like I am going to REALLY enjoy some of the stories we are going to see not directly related to that arc.
So about Last Shot and Solo…
** I mean it, really really spoiler filled from here on out***
As for Last Shot…
Last Shot was decent. I enjoyed the story. It made sense and introduced a few new contexts in the universe that have been hinted at before but had not been brought into canon. I also liked seeing what I consider a darker (horror?) story coming out of the new Solo context material.
Loved the back and forth of Lando & Han and how neither will tell each other the full story but as the reader, you get to see it unfold as they unfold and become closer.
Baby Ben’s inclusion was meh. If only that coffee bot…
Ewok slicer sounded very interesting on the outset. The fact Peekpa couldn’t communicate with half the crew seemed odd seeing that her focus was information gathering. (yes, I know we see it with Chewie all the time).
I liked Lando questioning settling down and his place in the world.
The She/He/Them with Taka felt added to let people think Disney is forging a new path in literature and breaking barriers but I kept trying to figure out if I read something wrong in thinking he was human or if he was some dual being entity and I just missed them talking about it.
As for Solo the movie…
I loved Solo. I unabashedly loved this movie. It was everything I wanted in a Disney Star Wars movie - amazingly fun, action-packed and some new storylines introduced and some added to. That being said I look at it as a completely different type of movie than Rogue One.
Rogue One was a background story that we were filling in, but Solo felt a lot less restrained, and the main concept of the movie (how did Han get to be Han?) had a lot fewer rails than Rogue One which I think worked in its favor considering its faster story pace.
More brief thoughts:
I didn’t like L3 in the movie. I loved the idea of a self-built droid who had scruples and in Last Shot, an overall mission. The L3 in Last Shot had a purpose and not only aided Lando (similar to Vuffi Raa) but also wanted to progress what she felt were causes important to her. That fell short in the movie. She felt over contrived and almost a liability in most scenes she was in. The belief in those causes was there, however, how they played out seemed comedic and almost annoying sometimes.
Again I loved the back and forth between Lando and Han. The conversation right after they land at Savareen might be my favorite conversation between the two in any SW story.
Three big action sequences - the movie felt like a summer blockbuster and just kept moving forward. Near constant action and I think that was exactly what Han’s one-off needed.
but…I felt like that was at the expense of character development we got a few shallow side characters. I was bummed when Val only had 10 min of screen time total. In that 10 min, she was amazing; I would have loved to hear more about her and Rio and how they ended up with Beckett. Instead, they were both gone in what seemed like a flash.
I loved the “hey guess what, Maul’s still here for all you people that don’t watch our TV shows.” I did not expect Maul in any way to be in this movie until the mention of Teras Kasi. At that point, I started putting two and two together about what would be going on with the Shadow Collective at about this time. Once Qi’ra picked up the ring I was on the edge of my seat to see if Disney would have the guts to put Maul in there after 90% of the people that go to this movie believe him to be killed by Obi-Wan. Some are going to call it fan service, I am going to call it excellent and glad Disney took some chances with it.
The last scene with the Falcon coming over to Han seemed… rushed? I don’t know; it just didn’t seem to flow very well. It had to be done, so I don’t think it’s inclusion was wrong it just that the scene felt “tacked on.”
Finally I loved the Cloud Riders being the Rebellion in infancy, it gave the film some weight that it was missing and made it feel like part of the bigger story and not just about Han. I don’t know how I feel about seeing Han flip to their side so quickly. They lined that scene up with Qi’ra talking about Han being a “good man”, so that lends itself to him flipping to Enfys band so quickly - but I think the quickness with which he did it in the movie was odd.
Finally, Enfys Nest (and crew) were very cool characters. Neat seeing TPM’s Warwick show up in the Rebellion and one of Saul’s two Twotubes characters (not sure which it was) also being part of her group in infancy.
At first I thought Enfys’ helmet removal scene felt like it was supposed to wow the audience into knowing who she was but sitting in the theater I couldn’t think of anyone (maybe Sana?) that she could be, later on I realized that the “wow” of it was for the audience to recognize that she was young and that the rebellion was young and these people had a fighting spirit and that youth could attract youth to grow the rebellion. Raise your fist but also raise your children.
In conclusion and other stories…
I picked up pretty much all the books around Solo. Pablo’sOfficial Guides are pretty much always must-reads for me, and I love going through the “Art of” books for each new release. Both are excellent, and I highly recommend.
Overall I am quite happy with this year’s movie/books, and movie novels release around Solo. I picked up Most Wanted and will probably read it after I get done with these three Lando Legends books. So I may talk about Most Wanted at some point also. My SW queue looks like this at the moment:
with the Beckett one shot also in the queue when it hits.
If you are still reading this and haven’t seen Solo (I hope you didn’t spoil it, I gave ample warning) do go see it. Totally worth it to see on the big screen.
A few months ago we decided to join the 764,000 other people who finally cut the cable cord in Q1 of 2017. We dropped our $160 a month DirectTV bill and decided to go with the following combo:
SlingTV w/ Sports Add On
Basic Comcast cable (comes with our internet package)
Netflix
Amazon Prime
I honestly don’t watch TV much other than sports. My wife watches a lot of TV dramas that she records on DVR, and my kids usually have Disney or Nick turned on while they do something else in our playroom.
So far it has gone pretty well and other than adapting to the hardware needed now (Apple TV/Roku/Xbox One) we have moved on past cable companies for the most part. We also have moved past “time window viewing” (that’s just what I am calling it) so that 90% of the time the show we are watching has been time shifted with few exceptions (looking at you Jon Snow).
As I mentioned above, I don’t watch much TV to begin with, but over the last few months, I have found myself usually coding, researching, or general futzing around on the internet until about an hour before I go to bed. At that point, I usually make me an ‘Uncle Pappy’s Cough Syrup’ and head to the couch to chill and watch an episode of something on Netflix. Currently, my loves are Castlevania and all the seasons of Archer I have missed the last few years. After I watch an episode of something on Netflix, I have found myself turning to YouTube and watching videos for about a half hour. I have always used YouTube before we cut the cable to watch videos, but it was usually in a way to reference methods for something I needed to do. What I mean by that is that I would have some question about how to do something (for example install base cabinets) and I would watch a video or two on how to do it. I never really used YouTube for entertainment per se.
Now I find myself browsing and watching about 10-12 channels nightly. The amazing thing is that this is almost 50%+ of my “tv” viewing now. Most of these creators are making high quality stuff and putting a lot of time into the finished work. Since this is about half of my lazy sitting on the couch entertainment, I felt like I should contribute financially to these creators. Subscribing is good and creates more popularity for the channel, but I felt that donating to these shows monthly (and in some cases per video) was a better option to help the host more directly.
Here is my current list of who I give to via Patreon. I highly recommend all these shows.
Even before we cut the cable, I was donating to the Nerdwriter (aka Evan Puschak). Well researched essays + great editing of each video makes this a channel that I love seeing pop up on my feed. Usually, there are 2-3 videos a month that discuss mostly cinema but also other types of pop art including music, politics, etc.
Always entertaining and always not too long. The hosts get to the meat of a subject pretty quickly and each show usually initiates with a question to draw the viewer into the show. All the hosts seem very knowledgeable about the show’s subject regardless of host and the info provided is usually sourced well.
I have been a new canon geek since Disney made the purchase and love getting my monthly comic delivery in. I read most of the new canon books and try to keep up with all the different aspects of the Star Wars Disney juggernaut. This series is very well written/edited and comes out almost daily. Never too long and dragging, it gets right to the point. It is a bonus that they are from here locally in Atlanta. Great show.
Oliver Babish has been a watch for a few months now. Always on the cusp of pop culture knowledge and then mixing with a fantastic recipe. I watch cooking episodes a lot on YouTube, and this guy is an amazing chef in his own right. Adding in the show/movie references just makes it even better. I also enjoy how sometimes he branches/splits the recipes and gives a full version and a shortcut version. My only complaint may be that if I were following along at home, there would be a ton of pauses because sometimes the show moves very quickly in what I think is stuff that is very easy for him but hard for us laymen cooks. +1 for being a beer guy also though.
Kurzgesagt is a very original style of YouTube channel. I started watching after someone sent me a link to the CRISPR show. There are a few imitators out there (doesn’t mean they don’t produce good info videos) but these guys seem like the original. I love not only the stylistic decisions made in the videos but also the info they present is excellent and seems well researched. I also have a small drinking game for when the presenter says “there you have it”.
I tried and failed to find newspapers and wire services who would purchase my photos. But the soldiers had fed me and given me a seat in their Humvees, and the refugees had tolerated my presence on some of the worst days of their lives. They very rightly expected that I would tell their story.
This album has been on my ‘to take to a desert island’ lists since it came out. (Holy shit 20 years ago). Palo Alto will always be my image of the valley.
The human race, West says, has been saved by innovation and innovation thrives in cities. Unlike countries, companies and humans, cities seem to be immortal. In the last century cities have been de-industrialised, starved and some have even been attacked with nuclear bombs. And yet they always seem to survive. Ten years ago humanity passed the point by which those who lived in cities outnumbered those who didn’t. Every day a million more people move into cities, and this shouldn’t worry us.
The cities will save us all. Good read on the pace of change and why groups of people slammed together are needed for minds to create and build upon each other.
Use of Wolfram Alpha is difficult to trace, and in the hands of ambitious students, its perfect solutions are having unexpected consequences. It works by breaking down the pieces of a question, whether a mathematical problem or something like “What is the center of the United States?”, and then cross-referencing those pieces against an enormous library of datasets that is constantly being expanded. These datasets include information on geodesic schemes, chemical compounds, human genes, historical weather measurements, and thousands of other topics that, when brought together, can be used to provide answers.
I bought Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science about 10 years ago and it still sits on my shelf. Huge tome. Never read. Neat to see his ideas starting to come together with enough data.
If you want to talk about the history of immigration in America, or urbanization or the expansion of transportation networks, really any subject that you want to explore, you can talk about it through beer
If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would’ve come off the whole enterprise, I’d say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened–rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before–free time.
And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.
Interesting take on how the industrial revolution produced, frankly, a ton of alcoholics. We, as a society, had to come up with more formalized entertainment structures to keep people from binging, and over time we moved into spending a lot of our cognitive surplus by watching sitcoms.
The accelerators all brag about the total valuation of all their bets. Hey, companies we gracefully allowed to sign our deal are now worth $100 billion!! Rarely do they brag about the distribution of outcomes, and never do they dwell on whether the individuals who went through the sausage factory liked the smell.
“What we are finding it’s much easier to use social engineering to trick people into installing malware than to exploit a vulnerability,” said Proofpoint’s Wheeler. “What attackers have done is replaced the automated exploit with (socially engineered) ploys to get people to click.”
Good read on the changing landscape of exploit delivery.
