New Star Wars sucks Part 2

I explained why Star Wars - the Last Jedi sucked in my last post. But that focused on the trend of political correctness and feminism in movies and TV shows that's taking place in Hollywood right now. Meaning the female characters in most shows are the dominant characters and the men mostly weak. It's been prevalent in TV and Film for the last several years.

But there's another reason the last two (in particular) Star Wars have sucked. Oh, they don't suck if you ask any Star Wars fanatic, of which there are millions. And because there are, the producers don't care about anything original. And that's what I mean regarding why the last two Star Wars sucked. (Aside from the feminist thing, I mean.) They sucked because they were just carbon copies of the first two Star Wars movies. Or Episode IV and V, as they would have them called.

The first Disney Star Wars was nothing more than a retelling of Episode IV. Except, of course the Luke Skywalker character was now a girl. And the Darth Vader character was now Princess Leia's son, complete with black robes and full face helmet/mask.

And this new one, The Last Jedi was nothing more than the retelling of Episode V, complete with the traveling of the female Luke to a distant planet to be trained by Luke, instead of Yoda, and then we find out later that she's not even Luke's daughter, as was the only thing that might have made sense of it all. But no. We don't even get that.

I understand why Disney is rehashing the original trilogy. They paid four billion bucks for the rights to make these movies. They can't take any chances for their versions to flop. Meaning, they don't dare try something original. Meaning an original story, with original characters, and an original premise. Which would have been so much better. Sure it would be in the same universe. You know, the one long ago and far, far away. With references to the original characters who might have appeared in cameos and such.

But no. It had to be the same characters: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbaka, the two robots, a "Darth Vader" character, etc. And with the same story of a wayward character unaware of his, (now her) destiny, and the exact same premise: a rebellion against the same "evil" empire.

In a Science Fiction story, the concepts for stories are endless. Like in the original Star Trek show, almost every single episode had a completely different story, and almost all of them worked. Disney wanted to take no chances to get their 4 billion back. And they're not complaining. Because they are getting their money back. It's all they wanted. The bottom line. Money.

So expect more of the same. Disney will be happy with their money. The fans will be happy because they get to see Star Wars movies. But people who like original stories and a fresh new premise are disappointed. Doesn't matter to Disney. They still get their bank account filled. That's all.

Star Wars - The Last Jedi - It Sucked

With the exception of Justice League, I've been very disappointed with blockbuster movies of late. I hated Thor, and now I just saw Star Wars, the Last Jedi, and I hated that one too.

Sure, the Star Wars junkies love it. They'll love anything that has the Star Wars name on it regardless of story, plot, acting, and now political correctness. For the record, I did disagree with the original Star Wars lack of female characters. It only had one female character, that being Princess Leia. But since Disney took over the Star Wars franchise, (three movies now and counting) it's all about female characters. Meaning any character that's strong, brave, commanding, self assured, and plays the role of a leader, it's going to be female.

What's wrong with that picture? It goes back to what I've been saying before. Star Wars is about, um, I think, um, maybe, um... a WAR. And fighting wars has never been the role of a woman. Maybe different kind of wars, but not shooting wars where you get killed or maimed. And just why would a woman want any part of that? So they could look good in a movie maybe? Jumping, and running, and wielding a light saber, looking flashy and dashing?

That is all show of course. But a war is not flashy. Nor is a war dashing. It's not even a glorious thing like the 19th Century might have you believe. War is a horrible thing. It's a messy thing. It's painful, disastrous, tragic, and has nothing to do with looking good.

War is all about destruction and killing. And in war you get killed. You get maimed. And I've made the point before that any woman who wants to be a part of that is not right in the head. Women should be thankful they are not required to fight in wars. But for some reason some women, (those women who are not right in the head, I guess,) want to be required to fight in wars. 

So in Star Wars, we get women fighters, and of course, all the leaders are women. We get the general who's a woman. Then we get the next in command, the admiral, who's a woman. You get some little Vietnamese girl who has more gumption and know-how than the black guy. And of course, she has to save the guy's life because he's behaving foolishly on the battlefield, so yeah, that's what we're getting in the latest Star Wars movie.

Any male leaders in the show lead the bad guys. And that's the only male leaders we get. The evil ones. The disgusting ones. The ones audiences will root against. The girl leaders are the good guys, the ones we want to win. And of course they're the ones who do win. 

So, if you want a feminist Star Wars, you got it. You've been getting it for the last three Star Wars now. And it's looking like every Star Wars movie from now on will be a feminist movie. The women will be the assertive ones. Women will be the brave ones. Women will be the strong protagonists and the heroes. Women will be the leaders, the generals, the admirals, and any other commanding role. 

The Star Wars men from now on will be the weak ones, the rash ones, the foolish ones, and the secondary characters, playing second fiddle to the female characters. They'll be the bad guys, the evil ones, and the idiots. 

Bottom line is this: if you want the female characters to be strong and dominant, while at the same time the male characters are weak, tentative, and submissive, you'll love the new Star Wars movies. It's as if the producers have laid the ground rules to be no more strong male characters in Star Wars movies. Only weak ones. And the women only strong.

To be clear, I do approve of strong women characters. I know damn well women are strong characters. Women are strong characters in all of the books I've written. (Five and counting.) And I plan on keeping the female characters in my stories strong and brave characters. But they don't fight in wars. They never have as a matter of course. (I know there's exceptions, which is why I said as a matter of course.) And I believe they never should have to. Don't you?

Good News, Bad News

Yes, there is both. Good and bad news. Let's start with the good news. It's not all that monumental, but good news is still good news. And that is The Vase is better than ever. I've always said that rewriting makes a book better. And The Vase sure is better. And that's because I've been rewriting it for the past couple of months big time.

Yes I sent the first hundred pages to Macmillan Australia. And I've even rewritten some of those pages as well. I've got a couple months under the belt now with that submission. That leaves four more months to wait as they said it takes about six months to get back to you.

So in the meantime I've just been rewriting the prose of the story. Certainly the story is the same. But with the prose so much better, that can only help my cause. Fingers crossed.

Now the bad news. And that is yet another of my publishers is going out of business. Or in their (her) words it's "closing." That would be KRP, AKA Knox Robinson Publishing. I got the word a few days ago. Yes it is sad. I thought KRP had a lot of potential, not just for my books, but for all their books. I thought they were going nowhere but up. And with two of my books on their list, Second Chance and John Dunn, I was glad for that.

But not to be. But this bad news carries with it a silver lining. And that is the same silver lining that the closing of Penumbra Publishing had. Which is now I have another chance to rewrite those two books also. And I certainly will. Not that the writing actually needs to be improved. I've already pointed out that no matter how good the writing is, it will always get better with rewrites.

I'm focused on The Vase right now. And then I'll get back to John Dunn and Second Chance. And once the rights to those two books are reverted back to me, I'll start submitting them again for publication. It's a chance to crack the Big Five again. I will take that chance and I'll make the most of it. Which is exactly why I'm considering the closing of KRP a silver lining. Like Penumbra and The Vase, the books will be a lot better, and the chance to crack the Big Five will be highly improved.

So, really, I can't wait for it all to happen. I'm so thrilled with how good the writing is in The Vase, and I'll have the same thrill for John Dunn and Second Chance. As for Macmillan Australia? Like I said. Fingers crossed. The New Year has a lot to look forward to.

Assassin's Creed the movie - Not Good

I saw Assassin's Creed recently on TV and it was ridiculously bad. The acting was fine, the production values were fine, meaning the special effects were fine, but even so, Assassin's Creed was so bad I couldn't believe it. I like the actor Michael Fassbender, and he did a good job of acting, but the premise of the movie was nothing but ridiculous. And the plot wasn't any better. The movie had the Knights Templar as the heavies, and they wanted to control the world.

How? By obtaining the "Apple of Eden." What? Well, we're supposed to believe that the apple is some kind of alien device that was used to give people free will back in the day. So by acquiring it, you can take away said free will.

Really? So it's not really an apple then. They call it an apple, I suppose, because it's about the size of an apple. It's clearly metallic and not edible, but the thing is they never explain just how a metallic apple is supposed to give or take away anyone's free will, let alone the entire population of a planet. They do say the seeds of the apple can take away people's free will. But wait. We know that the apple is not really an apple. I suppose that's a good thing because if it was and it's been around since the days of the Garden of Eden, then it would be an awfully rotten apple.

But how does a metallic machine have seeds? And how can seeds give or take away free will? It was never explained. Nor hinted at. So the assassins are the guardians of this apple. And we get to see the ancestor of Michael Fassbender and his girlfriend kill more Spanish soldiers in this movie than Luke Skywalker and Han Solo kill Stormtroopers in all of the Star Wars movies combined.

At least the old time assassins do get killed fighting for and hiding the apple, which all takes place in the year 1492. Well that's a familiar date. It brings to mind the ocean blue and images of Christopher Columbus (who was NOT in the movie, btw.)

So using a machine that looks like a fancy bungee jumper machine makes the modern Michael Fassbender relive his ancestor's actions from back then, which allows the bad guys the opportunity to learn what his ancestors did with this "apple." And speaking of Columbus, although the man wasn't in the movie, his final resting place was, and that's where they find this "apple" which is handed over to the bad guys by whoever was the caretaker of the place.

There were so many holes in this plot it would take me too long to list them, but you get the idea that with a premise and plot like this there will be holes all over the place and there were.

I still don't get just how an ancient apple-sized machine takes everyone's free will away. And the reason why the Templar Knights want everyone's free will taken away, (they say) is to stop all violence and war. Hmmnn... Good luck with that. Like I said. the premise was ridiculous.

Needless to say, at the movie's conclusion the modern Michael Fassbender decides to assume the assassin responsibility of his ancestor and retrieves the apple from the bad guys, and he's the new guardian of the apple, or alien device, or whatever it is. They never even revealed if anyone actually knew how to work the darn thing. It did shine some when the bad guys were reveling in their acquisition of it. But heck, light bulbs shine too. So what?

None of that worked for me. I'd need to see or at least learn something from the dialogue just how a shining machine the size of an apple can give or take away anyone's free will, and then allow a secret society to control the world by preventing violence and wars from happening anywhere on the planet.

Look, I know the whole thing was a video game for little kids. I never played it. But then again, I don't play any video games. My sons do. They play Madden, and sometimes COD, but never Assassin's Creed. I think Assassins Creed came for free in one of the video-game-player boxes, but my kids never played it as far as I know.

All in all, Assassins Creed allowed for some good action sequences, special effects, and choreography, but the plot and premise were bad from the start. I mean the very start. You know how some movies will start out with some text to explain the premise? That's what this one did, and from that point I was thinking, it didn't t make any sense. Well it didn't. And it never did.

Justice League Tops Thor Big Time

I saw Justice League the other day with my son, and we both agreed. It was way better than the Thor movie that just came out. I had already described what was wrong with the Thor movie. It was slapstick comedy. Like the Three Stooges. Or Inspector Clouseau. But since when is Thor a stooge? Since never. At least not until this latest Thor movie.

But Justice League was not like that. It was serious drama. Gritty, determined drama. Which isn't to say it didn't have a lighter moment here and there. And that's fine. But turning what should be a serious movie into a slapstick comedy only ruins a movie. Like what Marvel did with Thor.

DC did not do that. It stayed serious and gritty. Particular gritty was the emergence of Superman from the grave. They explained well enough how that was possible, so okay. You can't have Superman die, so you know he has to come back. Normally I don't agree with bringing the dead back to life, but since it was Superman, well... It really would have been better if he had never died.

What was good was how they portrayed an angry Superman. If you think about it, you don't want Superman to be angry with you. And that's where Bat Man found himself. The target of Superman's anger that is. Superman's besting of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash was well done, too. It would have completely ruined it for me if Wonder Woman fought Superman toe to toe. She didn't. It was clearly portrayed that she was no match for Superman. As it should have been.

As for the storyline and plot, well, okay. It centered on a Wonder Woman backstory, and somewhat crossed over into Aquaman's, but you had to have a story in there somewhere.

My main and only complaint was making the Flash into a dork. I guess the explanation was that he was in the beginning of his "superhero" career. Whatever. And making Cyborg's robotics malfunction was timely so as to justify Superman's attack on them, which was a reaction to Cyborg's malfunctioning system attacking Superman. Again, whatever.

Bottom line, what I appreciate is that the producers/writers/directors of Justice League did not make an effort to turn it into a comedy, like the movie Thor. I don't know why movie people seem to think that stories from comics have got to be comic. Not that all are that way. It's the one's that aren't are the ones worth seeing.