A short blog series about what I enjoy and also what I hate. Hopefully will give you all a better, or worse, impression of me.
Film
Love:
Star Wars.
I absolutely adore Star Wars. It is my favourite franchise next to Pokemon, so much so that if I had to choose between becoming a Pokemon Trainer or a Jedi I don’t think I could manage it. I watch the movies religiously, can quote them off by heart, play the video games, read the books and comics, get the action figures, the lot. There is something about this fantastic world and characters that George Lucas has created that is so genuinely appealing, enrapturing and enjoyable.
If I had to choose my absolute favourite, I don’t think I would give you the same answer each time you asked. Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are clearly the best, but the one I enjoy watching the most is actually Revenge of the Sith. Possibly the memes helped, but I would like to think I found them all funny before the internet did. It is cheesy, over the top and laughably bad at some points. It is fun if you don’t take it too seriously. Also, I think the thing that carries it is Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan and Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine, who is so delightfully evil on a ridiculous level that I can’t help but smile at every evil head turn. Give the prequels a chance, they deserve some love. On the other hand...
Loathe:
Star Wars Stories: Rogue One and Solo.*
As just mentioned in my Love section, Star Wars is my favourite franchise. However, Rogue One and Solo taught me that more Star Wars is not always a good thing.
Both Rogue One and Solo suffer from a bad plot, bad acting, bad CGI and an overall unnecessary-ness. Did we need to know how the plans of the Death Star got stolen? Did we need to know how Han Solo got all his classic character traits in the space of about a week?** I feel the answer is a resounding ‘No’. Or as Darth Vader would put it:
Rogue One suffers from a bad cast, featuring so many unnecessary characters that I don’t understand why they didn’t combine some together. Considering their lack of depth and character growth, it feels like the only reason they included them as separate characters was to sell more toys. I am the kind of person who memorises all Star Wars character names. I could tell you the difference between Bib Fortuna and Boles Roor or point out a Womp Rat at 20,000 paces, but I still do not know all the names of Rogue One’s cast. Jyn Erso, Director Krennik and Chirrut Imwe are the only ones I know, and that is just because they are useful characters in the Star Wars App: Galaxy of Heroes. Speaking of Jyn, I found her to be particularly poorly acted. Daisy Ridley, portraying Rey in Force Awakes, does a fantastic job as the hero, but Felicity is unable to act anything other that baffled, with her constant slightly open mouth. When the most emotion you get is from the Robot character, you know something is wrong.
Solo suffers similarly, though to a slightly lesser extent. Earlier I said that we didn’t need to know who Han was. You just got who Han Solo was through Harrison Ford’s incredible portrayal of this rough scoundrel in New Hope. You felt like you already knew what he had been through, that him and Chewie have always been friends. But no, Solo needs to spell out each individual important event in his life, and somehow manages to make a story about Han Solo boring. Nothing of importance happens in the film, and you don’t feel any tension because you know Han and Chewie will survive. There is a specific scene when the two are on a train and Chewie nearly falls off before Han grabs his hand to rescue him. You know Chewie will get out of this fine, so this dramatic scene falls flat. This is a curse of a prequel, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be handled well. You know that in Revenge of the Sith that Anakin eventually becomes Darth Vader, but that is a crucial moment in the Star Wars universe and something that was left to be explored. You know Obi-Wan doesn’t die, but you can still feel the pain he has after seeing his figurative brother fall to the dark side.
But there was one thing that entirely ruined Solo for me, and that was Lando’s robot. This robot entirely dragged me out of the film firstly by not even sounding like a robot, but also for pushing this extreme droid agenda which was the most unsubtle symbolism for feminism. You can support feminism in a much more dignified and delicate manner than a robot screaming directly at the audience and effectively winking every time she used the word ‘droid’. It felt out of place and very forced, and it led to her being my most hated Star Wars character. Jar-Jar has nothing on her.
*(You were expecting Force Awakens and Last Jedi, huh? Well yes I do not enjoy Last Jedi and it is a blight on the franchise, and Force Awakens isn’t too bad despite it being almost a carbon copy of New Hope, but they do not illicit such rage as the Star Wars Stories Films).
**(Here is your name, here is your gun, here is your wookie, here is your ship, here are those dice that I guess are important now? It is ridiculous. We didn’t need to know all that!)
Books
Love:
Mort, by Terry Pratchett.
I would say that Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, and out of all his many, many Discworld novels I like Mort the best. Death is so consistently funny throughout all the Discworld books, no matter how small his cameos are. Whenever I see capitalised text I know I’m in for a treat, and what more of a treat is there than a whole book dedicated to this incredible character. Laugh out loud funny at times, it has memorable characters and a simple yet effective story. Mort is about a character called, well, Mort and how he is to become Death’s apprentice. Hilarity ensues. This book was so good that it inspired me to start writing myself, and my current work in progress draws a small amount from Mort.
Loathe:
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss.
I keep hearing good things about this book; that it is one of the greatest fantasy books ever written. All my friends recommended it, so I picked up a copy. As you probably worked out due to it being under ‘Loathe’, I did not enjoy it. I tried my best but alas I never finished it. It was not holding my attention in the slightest. My biggest gripe was the main character, Kvothe. While everyone and their mother seems to think he is the greatest character of all time, to me he just seems like some fanfiction’s overpowered original character. Everything he does he can do amazingly and instantaneously, with no difficulty or time needed to master. He seems to be able to do anything and everything, so you never feel he is in a difficult situation because he can cockily just Kvothe his way out of any situation. Overpowered Mary Sue characters are not interesting and are unbelievable, as everyone should have some kind of fault. Kvothe’s biggest fault is that he is faultless.
Video Games
Love:
Chrono Trigger.
The greatest JRPG, or japanese role-playing game of all time, and my favourite game. The characters are all unique, memorable and interesting, the world is developed and extensive, the music is phenomenal*, and the battle system is engaging. It is also one of the few times that Time-Travel works for me, where like in Films and TV shows the use of time travel leads to multiple plot-holes**, this one shows the effects that altering the past has on the future. There are multiple endings, enticing you to play through several times, but it doesn’t fell like a chore as you can choose new characters to have in your party and thus changing the way you play. I would highly recommend if you like any kind of role-playing game, it has aged very well and extremely playable still.
*(please check out this remix of one of the tracks, it is incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Ebt4q5ipU)
**(not looking at any recent superhero films in general... that’s another ‘Loathe’ to come)
Loathe:
Yooka Laylee.
Kickstarter funded games have been very hit and miss. Sometimes you get something astounding from it, such as Shovel Knight or Hollow Knight. But for every success there comes a failure; Mighty Number 9 and Yooka Laylee. I believe the key difference between the two successes and failures are the teams that make them. Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight were inspired from games in the past, such as retro platforming games, but brought a refreshing, modern take on them. Mighty Number 9 and Yooka Laylee however were made by the old teams of old studios and therefore had not moved on. They were not ‘inspired by’ but instead were carbon copies. Yooka Laylee is just Banjo Kazooie, a game from 1998, and it feels like Yooka Laylee came from the same decade. Back in the day, 3D games were in their fledgling stages and were still working out how to use a camera and new controls properly. Games nowadays have no excuse, so why does Yooka still have the 90’s camera and character controls? I felt like the biggest boss fight was the camera itself, always going the wrong way or focusing on the wrong thing. I have heard that these gripes have now been ironed out through updates, but the game has already left its negative mark on me so I won’t be giving it another shot for the foreseeable future.