Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I'll try to make this spoiler-free, but it really depends on what you consider a spoiler.

Okay, let's get this out of the way right now:  This movie is fantastic.  It's everything we were hoping to get out of the prequels.  It's well-paced, action packed, creative, and visually stunning.  I can't remember being happier watching a movie.  At certain points I was actually stressed because I was afraid the movie would end soon.  If the movie had been four hours long, I'd still have come out saying, "Just five more minutes."  It's not perfect, but it's easily better than any of the prequels, and at least as good as the worst of the original trilogy.

That said, a lot of the scenes were rehashes of scenes from earlier movies.  There were many times when I found myself thinking, "This is just like that scene in A New Hope."  But that's okay, because everything that was redone, was redone much better.  The writing was better, the acting was better, and the visuals were much more crisp.  When I talk about visuals, I'm not just saying the special effects were better.  I mean the scenes were shot so much more dramatically, really pulling you into the movie.

I will say, a couple of the CGI characters were too cartoony.  One evil character in particular looked very much like a silly caricature of Gollum... and he was supposed to be scary.  We saw it in 3D, and it was excellent.  I bought 3D tickets by accident, and I was afraid I would regret it, but I'm very glad I did.  I do still plan to see it in 2D, but if you're on the fence, see it in 3D.

I like the new characters, though I was surprised there weren't more of them.  I was expecting to have to learn half a dozen new names, but I found I'd already subliminally memorized them from the toys and other media.

Anyway, there's not much else I can say without spoilers, and there's little point in this review anyway.  I can't imagine anyone reading this blog who isn't already a Star Wars fan, and I can't imagine any Star Wars fan skipping this movie.  But if you're worried about how Disney is going to handle the franchise, you can put your mind at rest.  I was skeptical, but I now have high hopes for the future of Star Wars.  It's in better hands than ever.

This is probably the vaguest blog I've ever written, but I wanted to get all that down before the negative nerf herders of the internet swoop down and pick the movie apart like a pack of womp rats.  I am officially declaring it right now, before they have a chance to go too far:   

If you don't like this movie, you aren't a true Star Wars fan.

(I don't really mean that... like what you want, and call yourself a fan if you want.  But I don't want to hear a lot of stupid complaints from people who consider themselves Star Wars fans.)

Super Mario Maker

Christmas of 1985, I got my Nintendo Entertainment System, along with Duck Hunt, Gyromite, and of course Super Mario Bros.  Within the next few months I expanded my collection.  Two of the games - Excitebike and Wrecking Crew - allowed you to create your own levels.  I loved designing my own levels, and wished more games had the feature.  Specifically, I always wished Super Mario Bros had a level edit mode.

So to put it simply, Super Mario Maker is the game I've been wanting since 1985.  I do wish it had come out closer to 1985 than to 2015, but better late than never, I suppose.  Let's face it, if it had come out earlier, it wouldn't have had nearly as many options.  SMM allows you to choose from four graphical modes, and you can share your levels online, neither of which would have been possible in 1985.

So, how does it measure up to my 30 years of expectations?  I love it!  It gives you a great selection of tools, lots of options, and some neat little Easter eggs.  It's like two games in one - it's fun to create your own levels, but it's also fun to play the levels others have made.

Just For Fun

Of course, Sturgeon's Law is in full effect here; you don't come across many truly great levels.  But that's all right.  It's easy to recognize bad levels right away and skip them.  I do wish it had more options for finding specific types of levels; maybe future updates will help on that front.

But the bottom line is that it's the near-perfect Mario game.  It's got the best elements of the four best Super Mario games, it's got an unlimited number of levels, and you can make your own stages.  I can't imagine any Mario fan not wanting to own this one.

On a personal note: My preordered copy arrived the same weekend my my wife went into the hospital.  (See my personal blog for more details on that.)  I considered trying to get a refund right away, because we needed to watch every cent.  But it was also my birthday present, and I had bought it online using reward points, so I kept it.

Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Goombas

It turned out to be the perfect game to have around while my wife recovered.  I took nearly a month off work, most of which I spent sitting near my wife, ready to cater to her needs.  The great thing about Super Mario Maker is that you can play it in short bursts.  As a maker, you can save your progress at any time if you need to do something.  As a player, you only play one level at a time, and most of the levels are relatively short.

There's no deep plot to hold your attention, and there's no drought between save points.  I could make involved levels while my wife napped, or play a few short levels when she was awake and might need something.  I'm glad it came out when it did.

If you have Super Mario Maker and want to follow me, my Miiverse ID is: Fury1958
My Super Mario Maker Bookmark page is here: Fury1958

Here's some YouTube videos of someone playing my levels:

My Reviewing Style

Now that I've sorted all my entertainment blogs here, I thought I'd babble a bit about my reviewing style. I'm hoping to get in the habit of posting more often, even if it's just a few sentences about the most recent movie I've seen.

I think I'm a generally optimistic reviewer, at least compared to the rest of the internet. People these days are overly critical, IMO, or maybe only the most jaded opinions are loud enough to be heard. For me, the worst thing a movie can be is boring. Beyond that, I don't get overly judgmental about hard-to-swallow plots, bad dialogue, or unrealistic science.

Also, some people demand every movie to be a blockbuster. TV shows can have filler episodes, but theatrical movies are expected to knock your socks off with every installment. I don't feel that way. Some movies are just meant to be enjoyable popcorn munchers. I'm fine with some movies being smart and subdued, while others are mindless and energetic. I like bad movies as much as good movies, as long as they're entertaining. And I've explained in previous blogs why I don't share society‘s disdain for remakes, reboots, and sequels.

Now... all that said, that doesn't mean all my posts are going to be glowing reviews. I might like ten movies for every one I hate, but sometimes only the bad one inspires me to write a blog about it. But only sometimes. Overall, I think my reviews have been pretty positive.

Reviled movies I Like

Just for fun, here's some movies other people hated that I liked.

Jurassic Park 3: Like I said above, not everything needs to be a blockbuster. JP3 is a perfectly fun action movie that takes place in the JP universe. It has an Excuse Plot that probably took ten minutes to write; all they had to do was think of a reason to drop these characters onto the island so they could try to escape. It doesn't move the series forward, and overall it feels less like a movie and more like an episode of "Jurassic Park The Series". And that's fine with me. It's never boring, it has good special effects (though maybe dated now), and let's face it, I'm just a sucker for dinosaurs.

Green Lantern: This wasn't a great movie, but it was good campy fun. An enjoyable outing that didn't deserve all the hate it got.

Fantastic Four (2005): Same as above. Fun and cheesy, and really captures the family dynamic the group is supposed to have. I don't WANT them to make a serious movie about characters with these goofy powers. That would miss the point entirely, and I think 2015's terrible reboot just might be proof of that.

Catwoman: Okay, this really wasn't very good, and I have no desire to see it again. But I did like it more than I thought I would. This is one of those movies that had more bad reviews than it actually had viewers, and that's just unfair. People already reviewed it in their minds before it even came out, when they first released photos of Halle Berry in her costume. And while it was not a great film by any means, it was not even remotely as bad as people wanted it to be.

Star Wars prequels and Special Editions: It feels a little odd to defend a franchise that made so much money, but Star Wars has been such a big part of my life that I hate to see it endure unfair criticism. Episode I was a bit boring in spots, Episodes 2 & 3 have Hayden's wooden acting and a bland love story, but all movies have flaws. I still think people are holding these movies up to impossible standards, and they would have been better received if not for the expectations that (used to) come with STAR WARS. Regarding the Special Editions, the updated scenes in the theatrical versions were a bit jarring, but once they remastered them for DVD they got much better.

Beloved movies I Hate

But just to show I have unpopular opinions in both directions, here's some movies a lot of people seem to love, but that I dislike:

Most Quentin Tarantino films: I'm not against violent films. But Tarantino's films (at least those that I've seen) are violent in a way that just doesn't hold my interest. It's all bad people doing bad things to other bad people, and it's just not the reason I watch movies.

Most Westerns: I'm really not much into historical fiction in the first place, as I prefer settings with futuristic technology or magical fantasy lands. But Westerns in particular annoy me more than most other time periods. They're the essence of male fantasy, where all the men are macho, and the women are mostly MacGuffins. There have been a few Westerns I liked, but they're usually deconstructions of the genre.

The Bourne Identity series: I find this series so bland and repetitive, I just don't know how it got made into multiple movies.

Hated movies I Hate

And just to show that I don't always pick the opposite of whatever everybody else is doing, here's some movies most people hate that I also dislike:

Cool World: This one is significant to me, because it was one of the few times I've seen a movie in the theater by myself, and therefore formed an opinion with no chance of being influenced by those around me. Although there was one point late in the film when a young girl stood up and yelled, "This movie sucks!" (which was more entertaining than anything on the screen), but I can't call her influential because I'd already formed my opinion by then. I spent most of the movie thinking, ”They've got Street Fighter II in the lobby...”

Wayne's World 2: We walked out halfway through. 'nuff said.

Batman & Robin: Of course everyone blames this one for killing that series, but in some circles it's starting to make a comeback as a "so bad it's good" movie. I'll still watch it if it's on TV, and it's great fodder for Rifftrax. But good? No.

Alien 3: Alien is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Aliens is one of my favorite action movies of all time. Alien 3 is one of my least favorite movies of all time.  I could rant for hours on the reasons I hate Alien 3. Some other time maybe.

Polarizing movies

And for the heck of it, here's some movies that people love or hate:

Twister: I love this movie. It's terrible, but it's awesome. In my house it is quoted constantly.

Independence Day: Honestly I'm not even sure if this movie is popular. I know it made an impact on Hollywood, but I also hear a lot of people thought it was dumb.  Depending on who you ask, it's either a great homage to classic sci-fi, or it rips off a lot of classic sci-fi.  Actually, I've found that for most people, the difference between an homage and a rip-off is whether they enjoyed it. Like, Airplane! is a parody/homage to lots of classic disaster movies, but Disaster Movie is just a rip-off.  Anyway, I like ID4. 

Titanic: It made gazillions of dollars and got stellar reviews, and yet every time anyone speaks of it, it's to say how much they hated it. Though to be fair, it's mostly the hype they hated.  I try to avoid judging a movie on its hype.

Obscure movies

And last but not least, a bad movie I like that you've never heard of.

Undercover Blues: Sometimes people latch on to movies without even knowing why. Undercover Blues is a harmless, forgettable comedy about a married couple of semi-retired secret agents. For some reason my wife and I love this movie, we've watched it dozens of times, and we quote it every bit as much as the Princess Bride. We've yet to meet anyone else who has even heard of it. Note that this is not a recommendation; I'm serious when I say you'll probably find it forgettable. I try not to show this one to people because, well, it's kind of fun having a movie that's just ours.

Like, Ant-Man and Stuff

Ant-man was exactly as good as I thought it would be. Not a blockbuster, but more of a low-key entry into the MCU. It might have been better suited for an arc on Agents of SHIELD than for a theatrical movie. But that's okay. I think it's too much to expect that every marvel movie is going to just explode from the screen and knock our socks off. As long as they're not outright boring, I'll probably still enjoy them.

I liked that it was something of a "Superhero comedy", even if I didn't really connect with a lot of the film's humor. Too many super hero movies feel like the same movie with a different skin, so I like that they're playing with the formula. I hope they play with it even more. I don't like "Super Hero" being a genre in itself, and I think there's plenty of room for super hero movies that are also comedy, horror, romance, or whatever. Overall, the movie didn't do a lot for me. We'll still buy the blu-ray for our collection, but I doubt we'll watch it over and over like we did with some of the other Avengers movies.

There's been a few disappointments lately. I didn't bother seeing Fantastic Four or Pixels after all their reviews, which is too bad because both of them could have been really interesting with the right direction. we started to watch Jupiter Ascending on Netflix, but only made it through the first 45 minutes or so. The special effects were nice,'but it just wasn't giving us enough exposition fast enough, and we got bored. But I didn't have high hopes for that one anyway.

Speaking of Netflix, we finally got around to binge-watching Daredevil. That was totally worth it. It's a bit on the bloody side, so you'll be covering your eyes a lot if you're as squeamish as KJ. But it's well written and does a good job of making you want to see what happens next.

I'm anxiously awaiting all the new super hero movies and TV shows, but I am worried that they're overdoing it. Eventually people will get sick of them, or there will be enough bad ones that it makes the whole genre look bad, and the market for super heros will crash. But I'm going to enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Reorganization

I'm reorganizing my blog a little bit.  From now on, blogs about movies, books, video games, and other entertainment will go here:
http://1958fury.blogspot.com/

Blogs about GLBT issues, politics, and other serious matters will go here:
http://1958-fury.blogspot.com/

Some older blog entries may appear on both pages for a while, but going forward I'm keeping the fluffy stuff away from the serious stuff.

My blog about Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs remains here:
http://1958fury-campaignjournal.blogspot.com/

Jurassic World

I saw Jurassic World twice yesterday.  Once regular, and once in IMAX 3D.

I'd have to say it's the best movie I've seen in a long time.  No, it's not a Shakespearean masterpiece, but as a fun action movie / SFX showcase, it's top-notch.  There's no point where you're going to say, "wow, I didn't see that plot twist coming."  You'll guess pretty early which characters are going to die (hint: it's not the two kids).  And the bad guy's motivations are a bit floopy here and there, to the point where it felt like he was just the "designated evil dude".

So no, it's not going to win awards for the script.  The plot is forwarded by egotistical people making obviously bad decisions over and over again.  The occasional dramatic interludes felt like they were added as an obligation, so the writers didn't have to admit the whole movie was a tech demo.  And you know what?  I don't care.  It's okay if some movies are more like rides than serious stories.  And Jurassic World is definitely a ride.

The special effects have come a long way since the first one (or even the third one).  Watching the original Jurassic Park (which has been playing on TV non-stop) and JW in the same weekend has shown me just how much better CGI is now.  Back in 1993 JP had mind-blowing effects, and some of those shots make me cringe now. 

If you're wondering whether to see it in 2D or 3D, I would suggest 3D.  Trust me, I don't always like 3D.  I'm not an anti-3D snob like some people (*cough* Marty *cough*), but there are definitely some movies where it works better than others.  We saw Avengers: Age of Ultron in both 2D and 3D, and the 3D version frankly sucked.  But Jurassic World's 3D is crisp and well done.  Jurassic World begs for 3D.  It demands 3D.  It slaps its behind while moaning THREEEE DEEEE ME BABY!  ...or something.

It's funny, both the original Jurassic Park and Jurassic World both have a strong theme of "Don't play God."  In the first movie that meant, "Don't make dinosaurs."  But in the years between JP and JW, people have gotten used to dinos, and accepted them as just animals.  So now  "playing God" means designing brand new dinosaurs.  I guess in the next one, "playing God" will mean "don't give raptors jet packs and laser turrets."

(POTENTIAL SPOILERS)
Which makes me wonder where the next film will go.    Not to go into detail on the ending, but I doubt the next film will take place in the theme park.  Which is too bad.  I know they can't make the same movie over and over, but I love the Jurassic World setting.  Honestly, I would have been perfectly happy watching a movie where people visit the JW park and everything goes right.  I'd love it if the JW park was simply used as a background setting for movies in another genre.  A romantic comedy that happens to be set in Jurassic World?  I'm there.  I mean, 50 First Dates would have been 20% better if Adam Sandler had worked at Jurassic World instead of a marine park.

But given the military aspect of JW's plot, I have a theory that the next movie will be called something like "Jurassic War", and involve using dinos as weapons.  I'm not sure I want it to go in that direction, and if that happens I'll protest by only seeing it twice on opening weekend.

Anyway, to sum up:  I really liked Jurassic World, and I want a pet velociraptor.