I can’t imagine making the conscious decision to have my first impressions of the movie mediated by the internet, but you guys do you, I guess.
ComicBook.com is saying a tentative April 4 release date for the TROS blu-ray.
I remember seeing a listing a couple months ago on a reputable source (I forget which) claiming an “early 2020” release for a saga set. May the 4th tie-in, perhaps? Or do we think they’ll want to milk the TROS disc for longer than a month and hold off until September or the holidays?
When the FYC soundtrack leaked the other day, I listened to it in fits and starts in a browser window without an auto play function in the twitter app on my phone with one burnt-out earbud, and I didn’t love it. I’m listening again now to a mirror I found on reddit, on actual speakers in the comfort of my apartment, and I’m enjoying it a whole lot more. It’s a good stylistic mix of all three trilogies. Love those ANH timpani drums. There’s more than a little Indy in there, too. The lack of big new themes is disappointing, but I think this might have the best texture of the ST scores.
With The Mandalorian out in the world, I feel compelled to do this again and include the TV shows.
- Star Wars
- The Empire Strikes Back
- The Last Jedi
- The Force Awakens
- Return of the Jedi
- The Mandalorian
- Rogue One
- Star Wars: Rebels
- Solo
- The Clone Wars
- The Phantom Menace
- Attack of the Clones
- Revenge of the Sith
Rogue One has gone up and Solo has gone down for me. Solo might sink below TCW too once I get going on my rewatch before the new season drops; I honestly don’t remember it well enough to know for sure now. I’m also very close to switching AOTC and TPM. Clones has got some series low points, but Menace is just. so. boring. Not sure which is worth more in the grand scheme of things.
The Mandalorian has been slipping with me for the last few weeks, but today’s episode was an improvement, so I’m not sure what to do with it. If I’m not giving number ranks and instead sorting into tiers, my list looks something like this:
FIVE STARS:
Star Wars/A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
FOUR STARS:
The Force Awakens
The Last Jedi
THREE STARS:
Return of the Jedi
The Clone Wars
Star Wars: Rebels
Rogue One
Solo
The Mandalorian
TWO STARS
The Phantom Menace
ONE STAR
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
The top and bottom of the list is pretty stable, but that middle tier is in constant flux.
It’s a shame they went that route with her. I really like Natalia Tena in other stuff, but her and the Clancy Brown character in this reminded me of that awful Stranger Things episode when Eleven meets the punks in Chicago. Bill Burr and Richard Ayoade were great, though.
And once we got past the cringey character introductions and the story got moving, I really enjoyed the episode. I haven’t really been feeling it since the last time we saw Herzog, but now I’m firmly back on board.
While I was home for Thanksgiving I looked at some of ANH on the TV at my parents’ house, which is set up very well but only does HDR10 and not DolbyVision, And it was really dull-looking and dark and just all around underwhelming. It’s strange how drastic the difference was with the DolbyVision set in my apartment; there are plenty of other movies I’ve watched on both TVs and I’ve never experienced a drop-off in quality this extreme.
Someone on Reddit pointed out that there’s no blaster damage on Han’s side of the booth, which they took to be a Han Shot First thing. Could just as easily have been repaired, though.
Episode 5 thoughts:
-Tatooine!
-Cool to see some actual plates from ANH, but they might have overdone it.
-Amy Sedaris?!
-The other bounty hunter’s characterization was a bit much. I get that we’re not supposed to like him, but he was still enough of a dopey caricature that it took me out of it
-Did the Tusken Raiders look a little off to anyone else? I think they were too clean or something.
-Would have liked for Ming Na Wen to stick around longer, but alas. I honestly wish hers and Gina Carano’s roles were reversed.
-Are we supposed to think that might be Boba Fett at the very end? I didn’t get a great look at the shoes, but the spur sound effects certainly suggest it. With Filoni, a detail like that might be misdirection, but it’s certainly not coincidental.
On the whole, the same things that have been frustrating me all season continued to do so in this episode, but they were offset a fair bit by the fun of hanging out on Tatooine in live action for the first time in 14 years.
D.C. Fontana died yesterday. I might watch a couple of my favorites of her episodes tonight.
Badass, looks like they’re doing a Silence of the Lambs thing with Blofeld. Did they announce Waltz at some point and I missed it or did they manage to hide that until now? I remember hearing a year or two ago that he was definitely out and I hadn’t heard anything to the contrary since.
Shame me all you want but arguably if you’re introducing a SW fan to Trek, the best entry point is the 09 film. Depends on the person though, as always.
Oh sure, no arguments there. It’s what pulled me in, after all. Most of the people I’d ever attempt this with have seen the Kelvin movies, they just didn’t dig in any further. The thought experiment is really more “what’s the fastest route to a fully satisfying viewing of Khan for a newbie” than “what’s the best way to bring someone in in general.”
Star Trek: The Triple Timeline Theory
Honestly, this is all but true by this point. The notion that TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, & STD all take place in the same universe, albeit through a glass darkly, just doesn’t hold water.
Just watched this. I like the way it fixes the chronology of events in ENT and DIS, but I suspect the idea that the Kelvin timeline spun off of the First Contact timeline instead of the Prime one is going to be debunked pretty thoroughly by Picard. Which I’m fine with; I’ve always been perfectly satisfied to take the Doylist view and leave it at that as far as aesthetic differences between series are concerned.
“The Galileo Seven” is a great choice! It really sets up the Spock/Bones dynamic in a way that will enhance the movies. I think that’ll be my fifth if I ever get the chance to actually do this - I’ve got a couple friends back home who might be interested, so maybe around the holidays.
“The Doomsday Machine” has a lot of cool parallels with TMP (not to mention Decker’s dad), so that would be a good one if you’re including the movie in your marathon; just don’t put them back to back or else it might get a little monotonous.
In addition to Sarek, I think “Journey to Babel” contains a lot of the background about how unusual it was for Spock to leave Vulcan and join Starfleet, which might provide some context for the Kolinahr stuff in TMP and some of the other Vulcan bits in SFS and the beginning of TVH. The character dynamics are much more important than background info at this stage, though, so I don’t think it’s essential if you’d rather show something else.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the best way to introduce a new viewer to Trek, particularly TOS. I think if you’re coming from Star Wars fandom, the most accessible way into the series in terms of tone is the trilogy of Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and Voyage Home, but the emotional stakes of those movies are so much more extreme if you go into them already invested in and with some sense of the history between the characters. To that end, I’ve wanted to come up with a list of five TOS episodes to use as a primer for the film trilogy. “Space Seed” and “Journey to Babel” seem obvious because they introduce Khan and Sarek. “Amok Time” is good because it sets up some of the Vulcan culture stuff that comes up in SfS. “The City on the Edge of Forever” deserves a spot just because it’s an absolute series highpoint. What about the fifth? My first thought was “Balance of Terror” just because it’s a personal favorite, but then it occurred to me that Mark Lenard showing up again as a Romulan might muddy the waters for a new viewer. What do you folks think?
I read the first two a couple years ago and liked them, but got diverted by other things I wanted to read/life in general before getting any further. I’d like to go back and read the rest of them when I’m done with grad school and have the time for 1000-page epics again.
If you like Malazan, you should check out R. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse books. I haven’t finished those either, but the ones I did get through had some similar themes. They’re set in a much more grounded world with subtler magic and kind of a Homeric/Hellenistic vibe, but they scratch a lot of the same itches.
I’ve been getting really frustrated with how little this show is offering by way of a serialized plot, and it occurred to me that this has never been an issue for me at all with Star Trek. I started thinking about why that is, and I realized it’s because even though most Trek is episodic, it still tends to follow half a dozen regular characters with evolving relationships. The Mandalorian just cruises around in silence with his non-verbal baby, interacting with allies-of-the-week who never stick around long enough to become invested in. It’s really trying my patience.
Stravinsky, rather.
As far as the assumed Filoni Search for Ezra show goes, I just want them to delve into all that Unknown Regions weirdness they’ve been hyping since the EU reboot. I’m sure they’ve been building to something with all that, and I assumed they’d deal with it in the movies, but since that’s apparently not the case, I want to see Dave do it on TV rather than relegating it to a book series.
I fully expect Filoni to do something about Ahsoka and Sabine searching for Ezra around the same time as The Mandalorian (and I think it would rule if those characters showed up on Mando when that other hypothetical show/miniseries/movie/whatever gets going, a la that one TNG 2-parter where they went to DS9). As for whether or not Dave is a reasonable or probable pick to replace Kennedy at some point, I kind of feel like he’s too much of a writer for that gig. Does that sort of job typically go to a creative?
With The Mandalorian out in the world, I feel compelled to do this again and include the TV shows.
Rogue One has gone up and Solo has gone down for me. Solo might sink below TCW too once I get going on my rewatch before the new season drops; I honestly don’t remember it well enough to know for sure now. I’m also very close to switching AOTC and TPM. Clones has got some series low points, but Menace is just. so. boring. Not sure which is worth more in the grand scheme of things.
I liked his novel Before the Fall an awful lot, too.
Is there any news of the Disney+ releases being available on UHD bluray soon?
Nothing through official channels as far as I know, but it seems like it’s kind of an open secret that there’ll be a saga boxed set around the time TROS hits home video.
I’ve never had a ton of patience with the Filoni/Favreau mandos. The proud warrior race thing just isn’t my cup of tea. The less time spent in that enclave the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Kelvin film #4 is on, to be written and directed by Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) with Pine likely back on board:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-trek-fargo-creator-noah-hawley-direct-next-film-1256352
I mean, poison was Pedro Pascal’s signature move on Game of Thrones. Perhaps it’s a nod to that.