I’m trying to hold on to a filler posting for more than a few days. The point of having a buffer is to actually buffer. Trying to get my schedule on track without taking a week off (which hasn’t worked as I’ll get sick or otherwise distracted) has not been successful. So let’s see how long this one, typed up on Feb 4, lasts. I’m betting you’re seeing this on Feb 5 given my luck. (Nope. Made it to February 11.) I hope I at least got to work on something.
So…Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The first story in the Disney era of Star Wars is not exactly looked back upon as favorably as when it first came out. From JJ Abrams rehashing the same story beats in an attempt to prove they were moving away from the political climate of the prequels to questions without answers (aka Abrams’ beloved “mystery box”), there were a lot of problems with the movie. My own initial review was fairly positive, but that’s before the problems of the two sequels and all of the live-action and animated shows pointed out more of the flaws that we didn’t think about at the time. Like with The Phantom Menace we were just happy to see Star Wars back with new official stories, as the canon of the novels, comics, and games were up for debate.
We would soon realize that the people involve really weren’t interested in the saga. They liked the Brand, because it was popular and they assumed they could remake it in their image and still make tons of money, ego trumping the desires of the fans. Subverting expectations is fine if done right, but subverting fan desire for the long-awaited return of the franchise will hurt you every time.
For the anniversary of The Force Awakens, Gary Buchler of Nerdrotic finally did a review of a movie he wasn’t able to when it came out. Turns out I’ve been doing this longer than he has. In the following video he goes over why the movie actually should have been a prediction of what was to come. Then I’ll have a few thoughts of my own.
