The End of 2015

The year is coming to an end, and we got to see some family in Santa Monica this year.

Happy Holidays! Happy Old Year! Happy New Year!

Sometimes you just want a new headlining post...

Fourteen Hours of Star Wars

According to the internet this has been the thing to do: leading up to the release of "The Force Awakens," people have been subjecting themselves to all six of George Lucas' Star Wars space westerns in varying orders.

I didn't know about this until I went looking for images for this post earlier today, even though it is exactly how my wife and I spent December 22nd, 23rd, and the late morning of the 24th.

My family, while not being specifically religious, does adhere to regularly scheduled activities during the Decemberween times that could easily be considered "traditions". We have the crab feast on 12/24, the ocean swim on 12/25, and the movie theater trip on 12/26. This year, with both brothers coming down from Sac, I thought that should I be able to steer the movie-house trip to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," I should be prepared.

This was a conversation with Corrie as well, and actually she pushed for us to get it done. She doesn't remember well (or particularly care about) movies after a certain amount of time, and, in the event we saw something else on Boxing Day, we could see the newest episode soon after to make the ordeal of binge watching the first half-dozen not for naught.

Some of the wathcing orders I studied were by release date, (Episode Order: 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3), the machete (EO: 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6), or the altered machete (EO: 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, skipping Phantom Menace). All of these had their merits. And drawbacks.

We opted for chronological on the episodes, so we'd start with Phantom Menace and end with Return of the Jedi. We also tried to approach this exercise with total ignorance, like experiencing it all in a vacuum. This is not how I, as either a parent or a responsible adult trying to share artifacts from American culture with young people, would choose to initially experience these six movies, but mainly because I'm artistically minded, and the story about The Story is just as important to me and the point of view I'd be trying to impart on the youth. I'd probably go with release date order...

Anyway...

Ignorance. Six stories. Six movies. Here are some notes and observations.

I

The Phantom Menace

Ignorant POV: An uneven fantasy vehicle for Liam Neeson, with action elements. There are some extremely annoying moments with an animated air-breathing fish-biped. And, this fish creature along with the flying Cheech-mosquito and the Chinese invaders, exhibit embarrassing ethnic stereotypes.

There is a climactic race scene that concludes around minute 80 (of 130) that's meant to show off the abilities of a young boy Liam Neeson has discovered. The race scene is lovingly filmed and action packed. You get the feeling that it was a better idea in concept.

The boy has really high levels of what amount to anomalies in his blood, and these allow him to be a better pilot and racer. The anomalies give him special powers, the same special powers that both Liam Neeson and his trainee, Ewan McGregor, have. It turns out the boy's a slave and living this far away from the Galactic Republic means his blood anomalies weren't discovered in infancy. The Republic are to whom these two heroes, Neeson and McGregor, report. Neeson and McGregor are a mash up of monks, knights, cops, and diplomats.

The story is dense and convoluted, but not bad. There is a cool looking badguy, but he doesn't get enough screen time. Liam Neeson is dispatched, Ewan McGregor agrees to train the kid, Natalie Portman makes strange eyes at the kid, there's reluctance to training the kid...it ends...

There's a shadowy bad guy who runs both the cool looking badguy and the invasion force, an invasion force that uses robots.

Norant POV: So, this was way not as bad as I remember. It's certainly not great, and Jar-Jar is incredibly annoying, but that turns into a Star Wars theme (the annoying turd), and thankfully Jar-Jar isn't on screen for too long. When he is? (Sigh) And Watto? (Double sigh)

It's been said that the whole hexology of movies is Anakin's arc, from kid---since his mom claims he has no father, and there's talk that the midichlorians spontaneously formed his zygote, which makes him the chosen one---to young lover to turning to the darkside to his redemption.

It sure looks like it's actually Palpatine's hexology. I'll circle back to this later.

The race scene was fun and nice, but that's one of the things that makes this movie uneven: it has very little to do with the overall events of the film. Sure it shows the kid's abilities, but isn't there an invasion happening far, far away? Oh yeah, they can't get back because to make the repairs they need some gear from winning the race. WARNING: HACK CONTRIVANCE.

The Jedi are cops? Diplomats? Sword-wielding enforcers of republic will? They show up to talk and are promptly attempted to be killed. There will be no discussion with the Chinese-ish baddies.

Then they try to help thwart the invasion, then they take off with an elected queen, while slightly creepy Senator Palpatine tries to stave off the senate's attempt to legitimize the invasion.

They end up even able to find Anakin Skywalker by trying to get away from the Chinese-ish droid-mongers. Anakin's piloting skills also come in handy near the end, after the race and before Neeson is killed. Er, sent to Jedi ghost-gig land.

This is a far more political story than fans were expecting. In defense of storytelling, if you have a bad-ass cliche-inspiring Evil Empire and are trying to tell their back story, it's going to have to be pretty political if you want it to make sense.

Fans, starved for new Star Wars material, starved for the first look at how someone could become DARTH VADER, took in this political/fantasy/actioner and couldn't believe their eyes. The hate came from the soured well of desire to love a thing. It remains lustily loathed. The nitpicking is easy: Darth Maul looks really cool but is on screen for less than three-hundred seconds. Watto's a fluttering Cheech Marin mosquito-lizard. Jar-Jar is every sad minstrel's worst Jamaican-fueled nightmare and his slapstickery is even worse. Is this a movie about DARTH VADER (as we were lead to believe) or an interplanetary political thriller mixed with sci-fi/fantasy elements starring Liam Neeson?

II

Attack of the Clones

Ignorant POV: So the pilot/pod racing kid from the first movie has turned into a whiny bitch. The scenes with this guy and his weird rat tail---incidentally the same look and outfit that McGregor wore last movie as the trainee---and Natalie Portman are crushingly boring, sickly trite, and drawn out to the point you feel like fast forwarding. He whines so much! This is so much worse than the last one.

A grander story is taking form, though. It looks like someone many years before has ordered an army of clones. It looks like the elected queen from the first movie has shifted over to elected senator, and the senator has shifted over to Chancellor of the Republic (rather than Senator of the planet Naboo). Throughout the course of the movie he maneuvers himself into a position where he can unleash the clone army on the hostile droid-mongering trade federation Chinese-looking badguys.

Those trade federation baddies, the same ones that invaded the planet in the first scene of the first movie, answer to the same hooded "master" as they did before. There's a wheezy droid villain, General Grievous, who's part critter, part robot. And Christopher Lee plays a bad guy named Count Dooku. 

Seriously. Count Dooku...but I can't remember why I should care about him. He also answers to the hooded master. The whining scenes changed my entire appetite for this crud.

The clones fight the droids at the end, and Sir Whines-a-lot and the un-aging babe get married, but I stopped caring.

Norant POV: My goodness, this one was way worse than I remember. I remember thinking "at least it has to be better than Phantom Menace," but...eh. I did like it back then, but after thinking about it, it dawned on me that the only times I'd seen it was once in the theater---and Corrie and I were late because we'd been finishing drinks at the bar---and again in 2013 in upstate New York during some down time staying with family. And no other times...

Other observations: 

• The droid-mongering bad guys all have spherical ships.
• Palpatine, as chancellor, gains a human army specifically because of a conflict he's instigating as the hooded "master." 
• Grievous gives us the framework for how to keep an injured person alive using robotics, paving the path to Vader later.
• The darkside is far more powerful than the light side of the force.
• Your badass violent soon-to-be-historical-cliche evil villain-for-all-times probably shouldn't be a whiny punk called "Annie."

III

Revenge of the Sith

Ignorant POV: No fucking around here. This one starts with a huge action set piece, a large scale space dog-fight scene with Anakin and Obi-wan starring. Anakin is the superior pilot, again. This movie has the seduction of Anakin by the big reveal: the Power of the Darkside! Well, that, and the creepy senator from Naboo in the first movie who became chancellor last movie reveals he's Darth Sidious and and starts styling himself an emperor.

He convinces Anakin that in order to serve the Republic best, he needs to stop the Jedi from opposing the reforms Chancellor Palpatine is trying to enact. This means, apparently, making sure all the Jedi are dead. Since Palpatine/Sidious are now controlling both sides of a war zone, he calls off the droids, sends the clones the order to kill all Jedi, starts calling himself Emperor Palpatine and the Republic becomes the Empire.

Also Anakin gets the girl knocked up, kills a bunch of kids, and almost gets killed by McGregor and lava. He ends up in a cool looking and sounding suit. Full of action, and there are less scenes of whiny Annie and the Natalie Portman character, who herself dies in childbirth. Saving her from the childbirth death was the motivating factor for Anakin's darkside venture. It didn't exactly work, but what can you do? Who would have done something different given all the factors?

Norant POV: See? Anakin's not such a bad dude. He had tough decisions to make, and because of what Yoda called his desire for vengeance and underlying fear, he made some wrong ones. But for it's worth, it looks like he considered them. He felt he was being true to the Republic (before it became the Empire) and to democracy itself. He even says as much.

Anyway, the baby twins are sent to differing zones, and there are only Yoda and Obi-wan left. The only Jedi that we know for sure survived are Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda! JUST TWO.

Also, it turns out that Chewbacca held some major positions in the Republic's military force, and he ages very well---as in not at all.

So, Palpatine has gone from senator, to chancellor, to emperor. The droid-monger douches he used to invade his own planet (at the direction of his hooded Sidious persona) have been planning the work on a spherical space station. This sets up both the cloned stormtroopers (cloned from Jengo Fett) and the Death Star.

IV

(retconned) A New Hope

Ignorant POV: Wow, Vader is pretty cruel to his daughter. Since he could foretell his wife's death during childbirth, couldn't he feel, with those high midichlorian levels, that this girl, who's home planet he destroys, is actually his daughter? Also, time on the sand planet Tatooine has not been kind to Obi-wan.

Very deliberate pace, less action than previous episodes, the score seems more soaring and manipulative, and the story is more simplistic. Good guys, bad guys, rogues, Evil-ness. Not bad for the newer, now in decline, galactic collection of outposts and Empire-titled places.

Norant POV: I wrote at length about watching these three again back at the end of 2012.You can read all about it here. Pacing clinic. Manipulative score. Iconic beyond comprehension. Moving on...

Holiday Special

Just kidding. This was not in our fourteen hour marathon. Check out my thoughts here if you're feeling up to it. (That "review" has some spicy language that was likely fueled by gin.) The first appearance of Boba Fett (besides Episode II's look at him as a kid). Bea Arthur singing. Carrie Fisher singing the Kashyyk holiday diddy "Life Day" to the John Williams score. Whoa.

Back to it...

V

The Empire Strikes Back

Ignorant POV: Okay then! They pretty handily nearly destroyed the entire universe we care about. Luke doesn't know he and Leia are siblings yet, but he knows Vader and Anakin are the same, and they're his dad. Daring and dark. Luke loses his hand, a puppet plays a major role, and Han is captured and sent off with someone named Boba Fett.

Norant POV: Ditto.

VI

Return of the Jedi

Ignorant POV: By now it's hard to maintain a semblance of ignorance. You can see the writing on the wall from hours out. Will Vader turn back to the good? This plays out in a very direct conflict where he gets to choose, and he chooses light-side.

Also there are a bunch of teddy bears running around and a giant gangster slug-critter that get's dealt with in the opening act. Luke and Leia learn of their twinsity, Leia and Han are free to go have babies, the gold robot is still holding the whiny bitch flame, and Luke is now the lone remaining Jedi. All stories have met their consummation. 

Probably the best of these first six films.

Norant POV: Easily the one I've seen the most, especially as a kid watching the VHS cassettes. Also, my favorite from the same time span. Leia as a slave wearing the metal bikini-top warped many a young kid like myself in likely detrimental ways in the enlightened-view-of-lady-folk areas of social development.

VII

The Force Awakens

I think we, as a movie watching world, were ignorant in this. By the time we got to the theater I felt like I'd had quite enough Star Wars for a while. The royal "we"---the hopeful audience---were confident: JJ Abrams makes pretty good movies, he cast women and black guys to prominent roles, he respects the material, and "it couldn't be as bad as Phantom Menace, right?" I heard that a lot leading up to it, and I wouldn't say that anymore having just watched it.

Anyway, this movie delivered. It was action-packed, humorous without the slapstickery, and had enough markers for weirdos like us who subjected ourselves to the marathon in preparation, while being independent enough to be seen first with no back story knowledge needed. 

That was the tricky part that Abrams, I think, pulled off: He made it possible for this to be a fan's first Star Wars movie, for it to be enjoyable in that regard, and for there to be building excitement for the next episode, all without any knowledge of twelve hours of movie before. But, he also made it enjoyable for fans who knew the entire backstory, especially for those of us who know Chewbacca's son's name (Lumpy is he's called).

I would never claim to be a super-fan, cosplaying it up at festivals and the like. But after measured conversation, I, along with my gracious wife, sat down on 12/22 and watched The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. We got up the next day, 12/23, and while doing some housework, watched Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back. On 12/24, before leaving for my auntie's place in Santa Monica, watched Return of the Jedi. Ugh.

On the the night of 12/23, John Williams' score for the Imperial March was playing on a constant loop in my dreams. It was too much.

On 12/26 we finished the now-heptology of American cultural mythology. I liked The Force Awakens. I didn't think it was as fantastic as some reports I've been reading, but it did everything it set out to do. It filled the gaps between the end of Return of the Jedi and the opening scroll of this one, it introduced important players, it wasn't too bogged down in exposition or whiny bitches, it had plenty of action, and it had some mystery (which a video game spoiled).

I definitely enjoyed it. Is it better than Return of the Jedi? Probably not...

Palpatine: In Episode I he, as Sidious, launches the attack on his own planet, Naboo. He knows this will lead to him gaining extra powers, and that those powers will eventually lead him to come into control of an army of human clones. That's the darkside for you. How much more powerful is the darkside? The Jedi, possibly too busy policing the Galactic Republic, are ignorant to his disciple invoicing an entire army of clones decades before? 

Anyway, he's in control of both sides and the one source of antagonism he may face is with the Jedi, so he takes control of one of their most powerful members, flips him to the darkside, and the rest is history. He miscalculates just once, when he thinks the remnants of Anakin are so far gone that he'd kill his own son. Those first six movies are really about him, not Anakin.

Note: I argued with my brother Dan all throughout Decemberween as to whether Empire Strikes Back is better than Return of the Jedi (my position), not because I particularly believed it, but because it was my brother and I like being contrarian and messing with him. While I maintain that Empire... is one of the greatest sequels in the history of American cinema, I think the consummation and completion of the arc in Return... makes it a better movie. How does that work exactly?

Who knows...

You were right, Dan.

Literary Mystery

I heard recently about a novel that was released to little fanfare back in April. It was titled Cow Country and has "Adrian Jones Pearson" listed as the author. A literary critic writing for Harper's floated his theory about Pearson, and this theory garnered some extra attention for the book, and now the book is causing a buzz in the cranky circles of the literary fiction fans.

Art Winslow, the Harper's writer, theorizes that since Pearson is admittedly a pseudonym, the quotes from "Pearson" were very anti-writing-establishment in substance, and the content was similar stylistically, that "Adrian Jones Pearson" is really Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon being my favorite author, this caught my attention. Penguin, the publisher of Pynchon's work, contends that they are the publishers of Thomas Pynchon's work and that this book, Cow Country, is not TP's work.

That's what you'd expect from them, right?

Anyway, as the mysteries fly, it sounds like the jury is still out, but many feel like this author is not Pynchon in disguise. It seems like the view is that it is actually another writer in the post-modern tradition, Jacob Appel.

I have it on the way to the house, and will report out on my own thoughts as I read through it.

I sat to write a post a few nights ago. I sat and stared. My brain was awash in numbers and articles and stories and warm-ups and other daily detritus. I stared. So many things I thought I had to say.

Some random stuff may be on the way...

Overeating, Catalytic Converters, and Other Thanksgiving Weirdness

)))The Holiday Season(((

The "holiday season" in the US is the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's quartet.

Of these Thanksgiving has usually been my favorite. This dates back to the relative recent past of living in San Luis Obispo when none of the five of us living at Oceanaire could either leave town or get off work.

We would hang out, Marc not heading back to upstate New York, Corrie not heading to Oklahoma, Tony and Ryan and I all not heading north...Tony and I usually had to work as well, as are the sad days working in the food industry.

We would make an obscene amount of food for those of us who stayed behind. One year we had a 37 pound turkey and two trays of Tony's lasagna. The next year Ryan bought all the fixings for a turducken, and Corrie and I built it.

It's not about candy or dressing up. It's not about consumerist exchanges of goods. It's celebrating what the earth gives you and not the turning of an arbitrary day.

Lately we've been heading to my mom's in Scottsdale and doing it up there. I like turkey (they, not so much), hanging out with my mother, and it offers an opportunity to see my grandfather.

It's the overlooked middle holiday that I like the best, the underdog of the season.

)))One Hand Holding the Door Shut, One Hand Stuffing a Mouth Full(((

Syrian refugees are being turned away at the gate. Right? Is this an accurate statement? I'm off living under a rock, trying to help the youth of this country get on the proper road to being a productive adult, so current news events usually zoom over my head. 

We don't watch the news, no longer receive the newspaper, and don't roam Twitter for anything. I listen to NPR occasionally, to and from school, but I never get long passages of news events. 

The impression I've been getting is that the Syrian conflict has created millions of orphans and single-moms---always two of the scariest things to republicans---that have few places to go. Can't come here, because...why again? I was told recently it was because they were all Muslim and that the Qur'an teaches them to kill Christians. This was not a television, but an actual republican.

I told them that since I wasn't a Christian I'd be safe. They didn't think that was as funny as I did.

Anyway, as a country America celebrates Thanksgiving, a holiday that has as a large portion of its basis the traditional pagan harvest feast, where we as the people are given gifts from the earth. In the recent past, as in the turn of the 21st century, the celebration has become about gluttony.

I know that we're not turning away Syrian refugees (who're starving to death because there isn't enough grass-soup to go around) because of lack of food. This entire country goes ballistic for a major feast, we eat so much food we begin to feel sick, and then we have too much leftover to be able to eat it all before it goes bad.

And I'm not even talking about "them," you know, other people in the country---I'm talking about myself. Corrie and I tried to reign in the copious amounts of food this year: small turkey, no dressing, twice-roasted new potatoes, green salad, no rolls, no cooked greens, one type of pie. Still, there was plenty left over, and I was uncomfortably full more than once.

I understand that the issue of refugees and what to do with them is more complicated than people want to admit, but I can't see how this posturing is a good look.

How do we convince young people the value of compassion when they're regularly exposed to wild hypocrisies like these?

)))Special Forces(((

I found myself listening to the Old Man. We were having conversations like two fellas, and I think he was enjoying himself. He seemed like he was. I surely was.

This Old Man is my grandfather, the mythical Grandpa Tom from my youth, and his presence has loomed over my family for generations. My mother's father even had, at one point, my own father working for him. In one of many former lives, my grandfather had been a lobbyist for the trucking industry.

Those are some facts. The stories that surround those facts are the clouds and breezes that define the myth and the legend. Separating the facts from the stories, or vice versa, has been the cause of enjoyable moments by my maternal family members, always outside the presence of the man himself.

On this particular trip, I found myself just rapping with him as he told stories. Some of his opinions bled into the stories, and they are what you'd expect from an 88 year old republican living on the outskirts of Phoenix. Of course I almost never agreed, but I never took the bait and we just kept rapping.

Sometimes I see myself as reinforcements, swooping in from Southern California to come to my mom's rescue. I deflect the attention. I generally enjoy myself, and this trip was more fun than most. I like ordering beer with lunch, especially with my elder grandfather. This year I taught him about micheladas. He didn't try mine---the acidity of the tomato juice gets his acid reflux up.

One story during our conversation was about his time in the military. Having grown up on a ranch, or in the country at least, he was pretty handy with a rifle. At one point during his service, he'd made a wager with his commanding officer attesting to his prowess as a sharpshooter. "They didn't have 'snipers' back then like today," he explained.

It was because of the force with which he made his point---he was indeed an excellent marksman---that they pushed him along into the Special Forces unit.

He even collected the $20 from his CO.

"Damn!" I marveled, eyes wide, "I bet you bought drinks for everybody that night!"

I could easily check the veracity of such claims, but that's not what buddies do. I understand that this person is my grandfather and not a buddy, but on that afternoon we were just buddies swapping stories, and buddies bullshit each other. And, of course, grandpas bullshit their grandbabies.

But, mortal coils being what they are and with that edge is approaching faster than ever before, I've decided to shuffle along with the beat...a couple of bullshitting buddies...

)))Comic Hiatus and Relevance to Current Narrative(((

I am a book guy. I maintain a pretty serious library and have multiple blogs dedicated to books and writers. I try to celebrate books in all forms with all people. Comic books included.

I've found myself excited about the recent resurrection of a comic book universe with Valiant. Back in the '90s, when I was younger and into comics, Valiant was the only independent universe, complete with a stable of interesting characters and connections and conflicts. This was the first real rival to DC and Marvel. Two of the hottest selling copies on the market were consecutive issues of one of their most popular characters, Bloodshot. This guy is part Wolverine, part JCVD from Universal Soldier. A man with amnesia wakes up to find himself a trained killing machine with microscopic robot-nanites infecting his blood, making him mostly indestructible. At that time the two books were Bloodshot #6:

And  #7:

Because Valiant was small at the time, both issues had small print runs, and because the company was highly regarded by readers, the books came into high demand. Reason? Issue 6 had the first appearance of Colin King, Valiant's new ultra-cool James Bond/Bruce Wayne ninja spy-assassin. This was the Sonic the Hedgehog of the early 90's comics, seemingly conceived in a boardroom out of coolness molecules. Issue 7 saw for the first time King in costume as Ninjak.

He would eventually star in one of the greatest comic covers in history:

For some reason I was deep in a rabbit hole on eBay when I came across #s 6 and 7 of Valiant's original run of Bloodshot. I am a fan of Ninjak, and the opportunity to own Bloodshot 6 and 7 for that price was irresistible. I bid, sure I would never win, not for fear of being outbid, rather that the minimum bid would never be reached.

But I won the bid and they've since arrived. The winning of the bid with its accompanying emails and texts transpired while I was in Scottsdale, and it was all very surreal. Two comics that were legendary from my youth but could never get my hands on, two comics I hadn't really thought about in decades, were suddenly on their way to my house. And now in my shelf. Awesome.

In related news, Sony has paid actual BUCKS to Valiant in a move to join Warner Brothers with DC and Disney with Marvel as getting into the business of making cohesive comic book movie universes.

Both Bloodshot and Ninjak are back in comics. Bloodshot is the first planned movie from Sony, so we'll how that turns out.

Ninjak doesn't have any planned movies yet, but...come on:

)))Catalytic Converter Blows with 160 Miles To Go(((

Zooming along I-10, the high-speed roam home, Corrie keeping Trixie---her blue VW wagon---aimed at LA at a hundred miles an hour, we heard a sound. Then the Check Engine light started blinking. Blinking.

We'd seen this before, on a trip to a local brewery. The manual says that the blinking check engine light means the catalytic converter could have blown. The car will still run, just with reduced performance, and that you should get it looked at ASAP, but you should still be able to get places.

That last time, listening to the car go from regular sounding and feeling to lawn-mower sound combined with busted out diesel rattle, was scary. We were only in Wilmington, which is a few miles away from home. We turned around, went home, switched cars and went about our day.

This time, we'd been in California for only a few minutes, with a few hours to go.

We switched drivers around Morongo Casino, hit traffic, and unfortunately I wasn't able to guide Trixie at the century mark very often.

It turned out it wasn't the catalytic converter, but instead an engine coil. I know what an engine is, and what a coil is, but I have no idea what an engine coil is. Oh well, she's back to normal, and for less money that the catalytic converter costs, so...victory?

This begs the question: Should travelers in their mid-thirties be driving an 11 year old car with 180k+ miles at speeds nearing a hundred miles an hour for extended time periods?