Star Wars Rogue One - Milking that Cow

So I liked Star Wars: Rogue One, but I sort of don't like the fact that I did.

I can start by saying with certainly that it's better than the Force Awakens. It's pretty clear from watching it that Gareth Edwards gives much more of a shit about being true to the setting than Franchise Necromancer J.J. Abrams ever did. In this film, the X-Wings (fighters) cover Y-Wings (bombers) and no Tie Fighters are arbitrarily given a life support system when one of the named characters steps inside. So that's great. It's nice to see someone giving a fuck about things like that, even if you're going to fuck the continuity in the process (see end of this post).

But still, ultimately this is as much of a cash-in as our last Star Wars outing. Disney's clear intention with these things is to milk the series dry, and it's clear that there's quite a lot of milk to be had. Say what you will about the prequel trilogy (and there is quite a lot to say), but I never got the impression that Mr. Lucas was primarily concerned with making money. In a sad sort of way, it really felt like the stupid hack thought that these were stories that somehow needed to be told. Even though those three movies are utter cinematic vomit, there's a certain earnestness to the movie spinning the line 'this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause' as if it was some kind of poignant political commentary.

These Disney films though, with all of their fan service and nostalgia injections, have the reek of money about them. It seems that behind (almost) every creative decision is someone saying: "We paid 4 fucking billion dollars for this fucking franchise and we're going to squeeze every fucking dollar out of it." The movies ultimately are doing their earnest best to please, to placate and never to challenge. The creators are just saying to give the viewer their nostalgia trip, along with a few more figurines and bits of merchandise to add to their collection, and then call it a day.

Bringing it back to Rogue One, we get a movie that is essentially "what we want", where 'we' is essentially the adult male ex-Star Wars fan. This is prole-feed that's explicitly directed at people like me, who can tell a Tie Fighter from a Tie Interceptor by their silhouette. and I think that's an important thing to recognize.

In any case, with that now done, let's talk about the film in some detail.

1) Star Wars: Rogue One is a superfluous film. 

The whole thing tells the story of the epic struggle that took place before Episode 4 to get a copy of the Death Star's plans to the Rebel Alliance. But the thing is, we pretty much already know how much of a struggle that was. Take a look:

This is a simple and effective way to tell the viewer a story. Rebel ship - small and scrappy . Imperial ship - big and authoritative. From this one image we can already gleam what happened before the movie begins and just how tough it must have been to get those Death Star plans. An extensive flashback to explain it is thus completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the overall story.

(Huh what do you know, that's just like the other prequels)

Still, this is Star Wars and Star Wars fans love nothing more than going through things in excruciating detail. Previous to Necromancer Abrams resurrecting this dead franchise, there was quite the burgeoning novel industry surrounding it with the whole "Extended Universe" deal, which gave us entire novels and books of short stories dedicated to subjects like the identities and backstories of those other four Bounty Hunters who lined up with Boba Fett in the Empire Strikes Back.  Do we need to know who those guys are? No. Does knowing about it make the original story better? Not at all. But are people going to want to spend money finding out about it anyway? Hell yes.

And that's essentially what this movie is. It's clear now that, even though the first thing Necromancer Abrams did when he got this thing was scrap the Extended Universe's place in the canon, Disney's intention with these Star Wars films is to essentially apply the Extended Universe's logic to the films and just start churning these fuckers out and letting that money flow on in.

So we're going to get a film in 2018 about Han Solo and how he became such a scoundrel and met Chewbacca or whatever. I imagine by 2022 we'll start getting ones about Wedge Antilles, Lando and Mon Mothma.

2) Star Wars: Rogue One is a (relatively) dark film.

Never before have the films tilted in this direction of moral nuance. What I mean by that is that in every other Star Wars film you're going to be a morally upstanding Rebellion/Republic dude, a bad Sith/Empire guy, a Smuggler or some kind of ultimately-irrelevant alien. And I guess you could also be someone in the process of transitioning from one category to other.

In this though you had Saw Gerrera, an insane rebel whose ethics were clearly quite questionable. You also had the rebels conducting daylight raids against Imperial soldiers that are shown to result in civilian casualties. This all is forgotten by the third act, but it's new ground for the Star Wars films certainly.

The big battle at the end is a thrillingly filmed affair, with named characters dying left and right. Normally in Star Wars a named Rebel character is only allowed to die in order to be part of someone else's character development, but here the director clearly went out of his way to apply some grittiness and even perhaps realism to Star Wars.

Going back to my primary thesis though: This is what a segment of Star Wars fans have always wanted. I can name about a dozen video games that put the player in the role of  the 'ordinary Rebel trooper' trying to overcome the odds against the Empire, and there are plenty of stories in those games (and the old EU novels) about Rebels who go too far.

It would thus be incorrect to say that this is a bold new direction for Star Wars. I characterize it more as tapping into an audience that had already been cultivated.

3) There's a weird pro-Jihad vibe in the film. 

So the first shot of the Death Star is at a 'holy city' called Jedha, pronounced 'Jed-ha'. That name is clearly taken from the city of Jedda, which is an ancient city in Arabia. Inside Jedha you also apparently have 'Kyber crystals', with Kyber being pronounced exactly like one says 'Khyber Pass', which is the Afghan/Pakistan border. And to drill the point home, the city and indeed many of the rebels have an Arab/Ottoman motif.

The director of the film apparently said:

"If you believe in the Jedi and you believe in the Force, it feels like Jedha is somewhere you should visit in your lifetime."

... meaning that it's apparently Jedi Mecca or something?

So you've got yourself a holy place that the Director explicitly wants to attach to Islamic holy places. Said holy place is under attack by an outside Empire that massacres the population. The surviving warriors then band together to bring down said Empire and liberate the lands from the invading infidel.

Do you see where there might be uh... certain parallels?

So uhhh... real world analogies and Star Wars usually don't work very well. I think Colbert said it best when he said that every side thinks they're the Rebellion. But the movie's racialization of that group of rebels is making an explicit connection between the Rebel Alliance with Jihadist Radicals and the Empire with Americans.

Now uh I don't necessarily disagree with that last bit, but why the fuck is a profit-hungry Star Wars movie doing that?

If anyone wants to explain it to me then go ahead. My best theory is that this is an inadvertent consequence of the effort to give the Rebellion shades of grey. "Not all Rebels are good, some Rebels can even be ARABS" is perhaps what the Director was saying without fully considering the consequences of that assertion.

Though of course the other possibility that Gareth Edwards has secretly given his bayat to Baghdadi.

I report you decide.

4) I felt more for the humanity of the Storm Troopers in this than I ever did in Force Awakens. 

How many of these fuckers die just trying to ask people for their papers? It's not their job to set the rules about ID card protocol, you know. And shouldn't spies carry forged documents before they infiltrate enemy cities? What kind of spy doesn't have that?

Just once I'd like to see this:

Storm Trooper: Hey, let's see some identification.
Person: Here you are.
Storm Trooper: Thanks for your cooperation.
Person: Have a good day.
Storm Trooper: Stay safe.

5) The ending scene with Vader shits all over continuity. 

Let's just look at it:

Princess Leia Organa: Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you've attacked a diplomatic...
Darth Vader: Don't act so surprised, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.
Princess Leia Organa: I don't know what you're talking about. I am a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan...
Darth Vader: You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!

#1 - If her Correlean Corvette was literally launched as an escape pod out of a fleet battle with the Imperial fleet with a floppy disc as Vader watched, then he should not be saying 'several transmissions were beamed to this ship'. He should be saying 'I saw that asshole with the floppy disc get on this ship, where is it now?'
#2  - Leia's cover mission also makes no sense. You were on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan? Really? After they literally just saw this ship escaping a giant fleet confrontation?

But well I guess you'd have to be a nerd to care about shit like that. 

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

So this takes me back.

(I last blogged about Cursed Child a few months back when the decision to cast Hermione as a black lady was announced. Let me quickly address that: My objection to that was that no script was being released and switching mediums like this was breaking my mental image of who Hermione was because there was no script being released and so the play was the only authoritative version being presented. A week after I wrote that up, it was announced that the script was actually being released, and so I ended up with egg on my face. But oh well, that closed off that discussion as far as I'm concerned.)

Anyway, let's talk about this then. First without spoilers:

1) The plot and characters are good.

I actually came into this prepared to not like it. Expectations are high for an 8th Harry Potter book and one never knows what an author is going to produce after taking a break from a text for a good decade. But it is a perfectly good Harry Potter text that is a completely valid entry into the canon. It skirts the edges at times, often getting its plot tied into knots with unexpected twists leading to more and more twists. And the fan service element does get a bit extreme after a time and there are moments when Harry's son Albus is irritating and whiny. But while it touches those edges, it doesn't jump right off.

Again, it's good. Often, it's even great. So no worries there.

2) The play would really be better off as a novel.

That's for a pretty basic reason... When new characters step onto the stage, how was I supposed to know what they were supposed to look like? At first I thought that it'd be a good idea to just google image search so I could see what the actor/actress they had cast for that part. But that of course resulted in a plot point being spoiled for me. Fuck.

So you know... a simple cursory description of what a character might look like could have been good, you know?

3) The play really reads more like a movie script.

It's got a frickin' montage for crying out loud. What play has a montage? Do you know how hard it would be to do a montage on stage? Reading through it, I have to say that I think this is probably the most high-budget and staggeringly expensive/difficult to produce plays in human history. I can get how you can do certain parts, but the amount of back-and-forth scene switching, special effects and pyrotechnics this thing would require... well, it'd be staggering.

I'm sure they're managing that over in London of course. If there's ever been a play with a bottomless budget, it's this one. But you won't be seeing productions of this at the local community theatre.

I feel that it's inevitable that this thing is going to be a movie (perhaps even two movies). I'd give it two or three years perhaps. I honestly can't help but feel that it being a play is some sort of grandiose gesture on JK Rowling's part. Her way of trying to breathe some life into an increasingly niche medium perhaps? And you know, that strikes me as a tad bourgeoisie.  As Jim Hacker once argued, the reason the common man in the streets isn't going to see plays is because they're inaccessible and bloody expensive. Charging 500+ dollars per seat isn't going to do much to change that.

But well, we can't really change that sort of decision, can we? So for now I'll just say I look forward to the movie version.

Anyhow, let's proceed now with the nitty-gritty.

Spoilers ahead!

While I did enjoy it, I do feel that the 8th Harry Potter story is the weakest entry of the eight Harry Potter stories.

Let's talk about why that is.

1) Time Turners.

Patrick Rothfuss once remarked that the problem with introducing Time Turners into a fictional world was that one would have to examine the consequences of their existence beyond Hermione being able to take some extra classes. And you know, Mr. Rothfuss sort of has Rowling there. If you can travel back in time reliably, then why don't you do that? Why didn't someone just hit the Time Turner the moment Snape killed Dumbledore or what have you? And if there are big anti-time travel laws in place by the Ministry, why the hell did they make an exception for a 14 year old girl?

I always had Time Turners down as a Prisoner of Azkaban-only gimmick. Something cute for that book only that you weren't meant to think about too much. So it was much to my surprise to find them featuring centrally in Cursed Child. And let's be honest here: Time Turners cause way too many plot holes.

Let's take a point from the end. There's the whole thing with Albus and Scorpius being stuck in the past while Harry and company have a Time Turner but don't know what date to point it to. Everyone's tense and trying to figure something out, until we get the nice sentimental moment where Harry finds the secret message from Albus on Lily's pillow... the whole audience is in tears as the message from son to father carries through the legacy of a dead mother, until one stray thought comes into your mind...

Why don't they go back in time to the hour before Albus and Scorpius broke into the Ministry to steal the first Time Turner and beat the everloving shit out of both the goddamn brats?

Yep. I know. It stings.

Look, I get it. I've seen those episodes of Star Trek too and know you're just supposed to ignore that kind of reasoning. But Time Turners are more than just a gimmick to save the day in this story, as they were in Prisoner of Azkaban. You didn't need to care about Time Turners in PoA until after the great scenes with Sirius were already done. But in this, well... the spotlight is on these things throughout. And when you have such a damn silly thing driving your plot, you're bound to hit that wall.

2) Ass pulling.

There are two elements in the ending that felt both rushed and awkward.

First, you've got the aforementioned mommy's blanket with its secret message. If a tincture of demiguise reacts with a love potion, it will burn. Burn in such a way as to not start a fire, but rather form perfectly neat letters. And some of said tincture just so happens to be in the house over here. Also the demiguise will keep for forty years and Harry will never think to wash the blanket or accidentally spill mustard all over it.

Harry Potter is a series with literal magic solutions to everything, but with the umpteen million ways that you can send secret messages in this world, THAT is what Rowling came up with? Come on, Ms. Rowling, you can watch better Star Trek episodes than that.

Second, there's Draco's second Time Turner.

We now know that Lucius Malfoy had a perfect time travel device in his back pocket. So when Dobby was freed, he could have just gone back in time and... no wait, let's not go down that road again.

What we do know now is that Draco apparently had a game changing magical item in his possession that he chose to simply leave in a trunk somewhere until the most dramatically appropriate moment. If there were at least a hint that Draco had one of those before that moment, I would be alright with it. But there wasn't. The plot required him to have it at that moment and so he had it.

3) Delphi.

It's strange that the most fascinating thing about the play is also the aspect I found to be most disappointing.

The daughter of Voldemort plays a really cool role in the first two thirds of the play. A manipulator/instigator who never gets her hands dirty... she's presented as a love interest for Albus, or even as the Hermione to Albus and Severus' Harry and Ron. But she came across as being perfectly likable and her mysteriously being kept away from Hogwarts gave her a certain foreign and intense quality.

And so when at the end she just started flying around being evil, I couldn't help but feel let down. The fact that she is presented as acting out of a weird form of love for her absent father is not really well examined and as she gets beaten up and sent off to Azkaban, her potential feel thoroughly squandered.

As a villain, her biggest play is trying to bring back the last big bad, an action that thoroughly consigns her to a tier 2 position. As a character, her arc seems to just sort of sputter out at the end there as the good characters beat her down. Albus' attraction to her gets laughed off and that's that. Maybe JKR will make another of these things and she'll come back for a second go at it, but as it stands Delphi leaves the play looking like a weak character that tried to resurrect a dead idea and got the shit kicked out of her for doing it.

Now, does all this mean that the play was bad? By all means no. It had faults certainly, but I enjoyed reading it and reflecting upon it. But ultimately, the play does not measure up to the first seven books.

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