Star Wars The Last Jedi

What do you need to know about this movie before going to see it? You hear some people hate it. You hear some people love it. How can you know who to listen to without spoiling the movie?

I'm trying to put into words WHY some people hate it and WHY some people love it. So here goes -

THEORY A

The Great Divide

Most of the people I know who hated the movie, happen to be about 10 years younger than me. (Prepare yourself for swooping generalizations!) What that means is they saw the Prequels when they were kids. They didn't grow up watching and loving the originals, and only the originals, as they were in the 70's-80's. They weren't completely annoyed at the digital remastered versions of the originals. They may not even understand the phrase, "Han shot first." And, you know what? They like, tolerate, or accept the prequels. They think "Yeah prequels! Woo! That's Star Wars to me! I like the part where Yoda fights what's-his-bucket, or the part where the little speeders speed around. There was some unfortunate dialogue, and we understand when some people hate Jar-Jar, but generally we totally dig these movies!"

**Shivers**

That was hard to write.

Anyway - so if you're a PL, (Prequel Lover,) then what you like about what you consider legitimate Star Wars, isn't found in Episode 8. 

That would pretty much be the end of my list of theories, except my brother didn't like Episode 8 either. (I should specify. I have three, Star Wars lovin' brothers. One liked it. One hasn't seen it. One didn't like it.) He's older than me. He's a hard-core original Star Wars fan who hates the dreaded prequels, and wants Lucas to serve time for creating them. (That part I made up.) So, we can speculate about why some Gen-Xers might not like The Last Jedi, and why don't we? It'll be fun.

THEORY B

Pros vs Cons

This movie wasn't perfect. I'd, personally, rank it after Episode 7, and probably even after Rogue One. I'm not sure about this ranking. It's WAY better, and doesn't even deserve to be compared to, the DP, (Dreaded Prequels.) It's also not as good as the originals. BUT IT HAS ITS MOMENTS. I love it for these moments, but they are spoilers, so let's bring out our warning.

SPOILERS

Chewbacca's Death

No. I'm kidding. He's fine. But one thing I do hear a lot of gripe about is Luke in general. "This isn't Luke!" Yes. This is most DEFINITELY Luke. He slipped for a split-second. THAT IS SO LUKE! How many times in the originals did he completely lose his cool and anger-fight Vader? All the friggin' time! HE WAS CONFLICTED! I enjoyed that they weren't afraid of their characters. They weren't afraid of giving Luke faults, and CHARACTER. This is something the prequels NEVER DID! Lucas was too scared to make his characters AT ALL INTERESTING. And instead we had lifeless mannequins posing in pretty costumes in front of pretty green-screens spouting dribble and doing nobody-knows-what. 

I'm almost tempted to make a list of everything I liked and everything I didn't, but oh gosh! Could you imagine if I did?!?!?! It would be soooooooo long and boring! 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway. That's gonna have to suffice for now. Did you like it? Tell me if my theories helped, were totally right, or were way off base and a little insulting. Thanks for stopping by! 

Can I just say... I didn't need to know where blue milk came from... and now... I can't ever go back to not knowing....

The Official Ranking of Star Wars

WORST STAR WARS MOVIE NOT COUNTING THAT LIFE DAY CRAP:

Shut up. This is happening.

Let's just get right into it.

Episode One: The Fartom Menace (I'm sorry. I have a four-year-old boy. I had to.)
I don't have to even explain this one. You know it to be true.


SECOND WORST SAME AS THE FIRST:
Episode Three: Revenge of the Sist
Oh. I'm sorry. Didn't see that coming; did'ja!? Well tough cookie! It SUCKS. It SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS! (I'm again sorry. Truly. My 4yo doesn't let me get away with this kind of language around the house so I'm getting it out of my system.) Would you like a more eloquent explanation? *sigh* Fine. My reasons for hating this movie are threefold.

1. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Really Darth Vader? It was a little... Frankensteiny.

2. She died of a broken heart. WORST. DEATH. EVER. Leia, for example, would never die of a broken heart. (Oh gosh. I hope that doesn't happen in Episode 8.)

3. THAT'S how he becomes more man than machine?!?!?! You know what, Lucas? It would have been really cool if this was a long, drawn-out process. I mean, Smallville's Lex Luthor had more character development than Anakin Skywalker. (Let's let that sink in for a minute. I mean it! Don't read on until you've thought about that long and hard! Stop reading!)

4. Yeah. I couldn't stop at 3. There are so many infuriating things about this movie. But I feel like you know that, but for some reason... you keep liking this thing. So. Whatever. Let's continue.

THIRD WORST: (Yes. We're still on The Worsts.)
Episode Two: Attack of the Clones

This one was ALMOST enjoyable, and had such horrible dialogue that the movie was at least funny. It gave us the big insight into Anakin's character: he hates sand! Now we understand. We understand everything. We see him lose his mind over killing some Sandpeople. This is a guy I want to party with! We have that battle at the end where only Padme gets part of her shirt ripped off, even though she's wearing form-fitting clothes, not giant robes. I mean, you get it; right? Padme was almost killed by snakes... another woman was almost important.... Good times.

Okay. Next.

ROGUE ONE
I like Rogue One, but Rogue One is boring, and Darth Vader is Puns Vader. That ending though! Let's watch it again! (It's not THAT boring. I still very much like it!)


FOURTH BEST:
Say it with me now - Episode Seven: The Force Awakens
Thank you, Disney! Sheesh Louis! Was that so hard!?!?!?

THIRD PLACE AND SECOND LOSER:
Return of the Jedi.
I know. It's your favorite. It was my favorite once too, because I love the part where Luke and Vader are fighting at the end and Vader's like, "If you won't come to the Dark Side then perhaps she will." And Luke's like, "NO!" And the music gets all crazy, and the lights from the lightsabers look cool.... Ahem. But, that scene alone is not enough to beat out the other two movies.


SECOND PLACE AND FIRST LOSER:
Star Wars: A New Hope
It's hard to say this isn't the best one, because it started everything, and is a solid movie. But, whatever.

WINNER...

Empire.
Not even gonna explain it. You should just know.

ACK! FINE I'LL ARTICULATE IT! (But only a little!) So, this movie starts, and it doesn't rely on the last movie to build it's characters. It rebuilds them, and, guess what, they're still awesome! Han goes out into the snow to rescue Luke, his friend, and 3PO tells him "the odds," and that he won't survive, yadda, yadda, yadda, and Han's reply? "Then I'll see you in Hell!" Ahhhh yeah. This is a dude who shot first. (I wonder if Lucas tried to edit it to "I'll see you in H-E-double hockey sticks!" when making the butchered-up versions, but just couldn't get the editing right. Thank goodness, seriously, that Disney bought the rights so Lucas doesn't come back in a few years to re-edit them again.)

All right. That's it. Are you excited to see The Last Jedi? Boy, I am!

Hidden Figures

What I love about this movie is how frustrating it is. Watching these women jump these ridiculous hoops to be treated the way they would be if they were white males.... It's so frustrating.

We need more like it. It's entertaining, the characters are fantastic, and the story is gripping. Get it. Watch it. Everyone should watch it.

Coco and the Super Long Frozen Short

So, I took my four-year-old boy to see this movie. He loves Frozen. He loves Olaf. So he loved the short. (It was cute!) But it was long.

Coco, got a little bit scary after a few minutes, around the time we had been in the theater for an hour, and my four-year-old boy had decided he was done. The entire rest of the time he squirmed, complained, asked for water, etc. I had to keep telling him, (in-between bawling because of all the feelings from the movie!) that it was almost over and I wanted to see how it ended.

So, 37-year-old woman liked Coco. Four-year-old boy liked the Frozen short. (And I liked it because he liked it, and, hey, Olaf.)

Let's talk about Coco.

It's... pre-dict-a-ble. SIMI-SPOILER: They do that thing where they make you think it's one thing so of course it's not, it's obviously that one thing since that one thing now makes sense for it to be that one thing.

You know what I mean?

It asks the age-old question, can a movie be enjoyable and meaningful if you know the ending? Well. Yes. It CAN. It often ISN'T! But Coco is an enjoyable, although fairly dull, (PRETTY!) movie. The characters are loveable, but it's a whole heck of a lot like Corpse Bride. Except, instead of a jilted lover, it's a jilting lover.

But I liked it. You might like it. It's not funny. There's ZERO comedic characters. Dante the dog is probably supposed to be our comedy release but... mostly I just felt sorry for him.... So it's "cute" and not "funny." But, like we talked about in our Thor post, some people don't like humor. This one's for you, dudes!

I think it's about time we had a movie like this. 

Murder on the Orient Express

Normally, a movie PACKED with stars makes me trepidatious. BUT, normally, movies directed by Kenneth Branagh, or starring Kenneth Branagh, or movies Kenneth Branagh breathed on, make me want to see them. (Blog spoiler: I did.)

Now... Boonie doesn't get out to the movies all that often anymore. We've discussed this a lot lately. I pretty much only leave my home for super hero movies, comedies, or Star Wars movies. So today I let the comfort of my hearth for a movie unlike my usual genre. And I couldn't have been happier I did!

I haven't read the book. I haven't seen the original. But, I knew a LOT about it going in. I knew who was in it. (Yay! Great cast!) I knew who made it. (See above.) And I knew who the guilty party was. (If you don't know who it is, I won't tell you here, but I imagine you'll think, "OH! Okay. That's what all those things spoof.") Yes, friends. This classic's been around for a while. (Side note... this movie was so good, I'm gonna have to get my hands on everything related.)

Ahem. But can we talk about REMAKES? Oi.

MOST remakes are visionless piles and piles and piles of... some sort of gross substance. They're remaking for the buck-taking. And it sucks. But you can't just... NOT go see the new movie that's remade from that old one you loved so much growing up! And generally... there's something fun or cute about the new one. (Thank you, Luke Evans and Josh Gad for that fabulous rendition of "Gaston." Speaking of Josh Gad... he's TOTALLY IN THIS! Not Luke Evans though. Sorry.)

And while remakes generally should be called "suck-makes," this one should be called "Oh-my-gosh-I-want-to-kiss-this-movie-because-it-is-so-brilliant-and-beautiful."

It starts and I am HOOKED. I have NO IDEA what's going on, but I know it's been 2 minutes and already the big KB (Kenneth Branagh) should be getting more awards for his acting. (Like, it should be raining awards.)

And you know what? I'm done. I've said enough. I don't want to ruin it for you. I just want to express to you how hopeful I am that you see it, so that you can love it and be happy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Side note: I ugly-cried at one point, and then I pretty-cried shortly after.

Double side note: I'm waiting for the sequel: Murder on the Polar Express.

Thor Ragnarok or Ragnanorak or Whatever

THOR and the Weird Title Nobody Knows How to Pronounce Until The First Few Minute of the Movie - Thank You, Surtur.

So, the movie starts with our recently dumped blonde god of thunder in prisoned by Surtur. Never heard of Surtur? Well, he looks like a Balrog, except he doesn't sound too scary, which is probably why Thor had a hard time taking him seriously... despite how absolutely terrifying he looked.

(I mean, seriously. They look exactly the same. Check it out.)

You tell me which is which.

Anyhoo, so the movie continues, awesome fight scenes happen, jokes happen, tragedy happens, etc. Great! Now let's talk about the number one complaint I hear about this movie: humor.

Seriously.

People are complaining that the movie is too funny.

I know guys. I don't get it either.

Let me tell you a little bit about humor. It's everywhere. It's constant. If a movie doesn't include a hefty element of humor, it doesn't seem realistic, or it seems super depressing. The Dark Knight was funny, and all movies should aspire to be like unto The Dark Knight. Nuff said, but I'll continue.

Here's what I look to get out of a night at the movies - enter-freaking-tainment. I started this blog when I first got married and Hub-hubs and I went and saw every non-rated-R movie that came out. Yeppers! Each one! I got sick of seeing movies. No. I got more selective. I started needing certain things from movies and what I didn't need, I didn't want to waste my time with. Two kids later, and I don't see nearly as many movies, but that selectiveness has only increased because if I'm hiring a babysitter that movie better accomplish what I need it to.

So what are my movie-going-needs? Oh wait. I already told you. ENTERTAINMENT. (Only I didn't say freaking... that time.) Make me love the characters, and I will love your movie. Oh hey, know what's an easy way to make me love your characters? Make them funny.

I grew up in a house where our motto was, as my sister termed it, "If you can't say anything funny, don't say anything at all." Humor is necessary to life. Without it... we'd be a horrible and a wretched people. So here's my main point - CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS MOVIE WITHOUT IT? I'm bored just thinking about it... almost as bored as I was watching that last Avengers movie.

It's a good time. Go have fun.

In response to this...

There's an IMDb list of 40 Young Adult novels-turned-movies, ranked by teenagers and it does not speak favorably of said teens.

I wonder if they had to watch all these films before they rated them. Somehow I doubt it, since not even Oscar judges have to watch all the films they judge.

Point being, teenagers are stupid. (I'm kidding. Naturally not all teenagers are stupid... just these.)

Spider-men

Hello all you beautiful people in blog land!

It's been too long.

I have kids now. Kids = expensive movies. Going to the movies is CRAZY with kids now. So not only am I way behind on movies, I'm also way behind on slang. Did you see how I wrote "crazy" and not "cray-cray"? Did you see how I wrote "cray-cray" even though people have already shortened it to "cray"? Yeah. I'm so out of it!!!

Which leads me to something I am not out of, and that is my endless supply of Spider-man movies. (YAY!!! Boo. Meh. YAY!!!!) Oh. That was just me reacting to the different movies chronologically. Don't mind me.

"Oh Boonie, whatever do you mean?"

Well, I'll tell ya. Some Spider-man movies suck. I had to go back and read my blog about The Amazing Spider-man II to see how I felt about it, because I forgot... everything about it. But, that didn't stop me from knowing EXACTLY where it fits in...


(Wait for it)












(Do people still say "wait for it"?)










(Totally out of it.)










WHICH SPIDER-MAN WINS THE BEST SPIDER-MAN EVER SPIDER-MAN SPIDER-SHOW-CASE SHOW-SPIDER-DOWN!

Ahh yeah. Let's do this.

First we had this upside-down-kissing Tobey dude. The trilogy was directed by the awesome Sam Raimi, who also brought us such classics as The Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and Xena Warrior Princess. FINALLY we had a Spider-man movie. This was way over due, folks, for those of you who don't remember life without Spider-man movies. Oh the bleakness! This movie was funny. This movie was awesome.

THEN its sequel came out, and it was even better. I refer to it, lovingly, as Spider-man the Comedy, because I laughed the entire time.

But alas, it could not last. The third movie in the series, the crapquel, as it were, was so awful. Is there a person among you who enjoyed Spider-man III? Show me a person who loved Spider-man III and I will show you a person who is making stuff up.

Then we went two seconds and got a Spider-man re-boot. (We were not to live too long in a world without current Spider-man movies.) This one had the Social Network kid in it. (Not that one.) This one had Emma Stone in it. She's awesome. We love Emma Stone. And I saw it once... maybe twice, 'cause it was dull.

The second one was more so.

Ten seconds later we got another re-boot! Kind of. We got a surprise during a Captain America movie! THEN we got another re-boot. This time we got an MJ who's not MJ. We got a "WHAT THE!?!!?!?!?!" (Which is always fun.) We got BATMAN "returning" (Get it? Because he was in Batman Returns?) as a villain! (We love Michael Keaton!) We got a really funny best friend. (We love the guy in the chair.) We got cameos from Captain America, Iron Man, Happy Hogan, and we also got to see Gwyneth Paltrow in her best role ever. (We're so happy she's not faking English accents anymore. We love you Pepper Potts. [Wrote "Pepper Poots" first. Whoops.])

"Whatever, Boonie. Rate the effing movies already."

Sure. Fine. But I think you guys can guess.

WORST:
Spider-man III

LESS WORST:
The Amazing Spider-men (You decide which comes first. I don't care.)

NOT WORST: Spider-man Homecoming

MORE NOT WORST:
Spider-man

BESTEST:
Spider-man II


YAY!!!! Cheers! Open that bottle of Coke! Time to celebrate the winner! Oooh! Let's go watch it now! Only, just don't watch that third one. **shudders**

Thanks for stopping by! See you never! (Because that would be creepy, unless I know you. If I do know you, hi! How's it going? What are you up to? See any good movies lately?)