Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 5

What a great episode of "The Mandalorian" that was... Wait. What?

This episode kind of highlighted how aimless and flat "The Book of Boba Fett" has been--the most enjoyable episode all season has been the one in which the titular character never even appears.

It was a Mandalorian crossover.

It was a Halo crossover.

It was a Terminator 2: Judgement Day crossover.

The one thing it was not was an episode in a show that had anything to do with Boba Fett.

Also, prediction time: Grogu is going to escape the Knights of Ren by going full Frodo with a mithril I mean beskar undershirt.

I realize that sentence appears to be the work of a man suffering from a stroke, but you'll just have to trust me that it makes sense, 

Munich--The Edge of War

Yes I know after "Bodyguard" and now this, this blog's putative mission to discuss science fiction and fantasy now stands even more exposed as the hollow travesty of a lie that it is. Ah, but here's the thing, you see: Fuck you. Also historical fiction is kind of fantasyyy so there. 

This is one of those historical fictions that might as well not be. There's a fictional main character, played by whatsface from "1917" (I used to pretend to care and put the actor's names in brackets like this, but really, who am I kidding?) and a fictional counterpart on the German side (ditto), but they exist purely to provide an outside perspective on events and don't actually contribute much to the plot other than allow it to happen around them while they either look flabbergasted (1917 guy) or like they are biting down on seething rage (other dude).

The subject is the Munich agreement between Britain, France, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to hand over the Sudetenland. It's mildly revisionist, arguing that British PM Neville Chamberlain's (Jeremy Irons, the one man who has a decent role here to sink his teeth into) desire to keep Britain out of a war in 1938 was both principled--as a man who had witnessed the horrors of WW1--and the smart thing to do as the Empire was unready for war.

The main plot is a bit dull, really. The whole point is that attempts by the fictional British and German protagonists fail to achieve anything, and they never try especially hard, so the rest is sort of watching people toing and froing to little effect. The movie only comes to life when Jeremy Chamberlain is in it, and does his stuffy British best to play a man with a conscience trying to play a lousy hand.

As to whether or not Chamberlain deserves to be rehabilitated, I have my doubts. If the Empire was unready for war, then surely so was Germany, and allowing Hitler some easy wins probably not only cemented his popularity and hamstrung the opposition, but also gave him access to greater resources, such as Czechoslovakia's industrial base. For an amateur like me it's impossible to judge whether the "betrayal" of Chamberlain had any effect on British morale and determination to fight 

Still, as far as the narrative goes the movie makes its point and executes it well enough, though it could easily have done so without the useless fictional viewpoint characters.

Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 4

I’d like, if I may, to talk about structure. May I? Yes I may. The one advantage to screaming into the abyss online is that it’s an uncaring abyss. It doesn’t care, that’s its whole thing. Do whatever. Talk about the structure of a kid’s science fiction show to your heart’s content.

So I will.

Boba Fett has a two-track structure, a present-tense story where our protag tries to establish himself as the successor to Jabba the Hutt, and a past-tense series of flashbacks that show what happened to Babs in between “Return of the Jedi” and this show.

It doesn’t work. And I think I’ve figured out why.

Because the two stories are totally unrelated.

Now let’s imagine you’re a massive Star Wars nerd and enjoy arguing about nerd shit like this. Well actually, okay, first let’s imagine you exist. Congratulations. Happy birthday. Now let’s imagine you’re a nerd. Lol, fucking nerd. Right, now let’s imagine your objection:

“How can you claim they are unrelated? The flashbacks are filling in the backstory and showing how Bobbie Boo got to where he is in the present day.”

Sure, that’s exactly what they’re doing. The question is, WHY? Why is this show intercutting the present-day narrative with flashbacks to tell us the backstory and show us what Bobbity Babs was up to? Why are flashbacks the best way to do that? How does the flashback structure contribute to the story the show is trying to tell?

The structure doesn’t work because it doesn’t answer any of these questions. The two stories are disconnected. Oh sure, at the most basic level it shows the ‘what happened’, but guess what—that is exactly what a traditional linear story does. And a linear story is much easier for our linear brains with their linear perception of time to understand. If you just want to show what happens to a guy, then a flashback structure is most definitely and emphatically not the best way to do it. At all. If that’s all you want to do, just show us what happened, in the order it happened.

Here’s our structure so far, with flashbacks in italics:

Boba gets sassed by the Mayor’s representative—he escapes the Sarlacc and is captured by Tuskens—he is ambushed by assassins—he saves the Tusken child and is accepted into the tribe—he interrogates the assassin—he witnesses the Tuskens being attacked by train guards—he confronts the Hutts—he leads the attack on the train—he recruits the Mods—the Tuskens are killed by bikers—the Mods save him from Krrrsantan—he rescues Fennec, tells her he wants to be a crime boss because he is tired of taking orders, gets his ship and kills the bikers—he holds failed talks with the other gangs.

Now here it is again, in chronological order:

Boba escapes the Sarlacc and is captured by Tuskens—he saves the Tusken child and is accepted into the tribe—he witnesses the Tuskens being attacked by train guards—he leads the attack on the train—the Tuskens are killed—he rescues Fennec, tells her he wants to be a crime boss because he is tired of taking orders, gets his ship and kills the bikers— he gets sassed by the Mayor’s representative—he is ambushed by assassins—he interrogates the assassin—he confronts the Hutts—he recruits the Mods—the Mods save him from Krrrsantan—he holds failed talks with the other gangs.

Here’s the question: Does your understanding of the story change in any way whatsoever with the linear version?

Nope. Not a jot. There’s no “EUREKA!” moment. No insight. If anything, it’s a helluva lot easier to follow. That’s because the flashbacks are being used just to deliver plot, but the plot points are totally disconnected from the present-day story.

Even as a standard, boring old mystery-box approach to withholding information from the audience in an attempt to get them to keep watching, this approach fails, because the answers the flashbacks are revealing aren’t the questions the audience is asking. When you tell us Boba Fett is now a mild-mannered, gentle man who wants to raise a family, our first question is not 'where did he get his gaffi stick?'.

There is no reason for the flashbacks.

Movies and TV shows and books should have a reason for what they do. A reason for their structure. A reason for shots and angles and edits. A reason for background music. A reason for dialog and why characters say what they say. There should be a reason.

“1917” should have a reason for its single-take cinematography. “Game of Thrones” should have a reason for killing off its characters. “Use of Weapons” should have a reason for telling half the story in reverse chronological order.

“1917” is a tense story and a single take heightens the tension. You are right there with these two soldiers through every agonizing, nail-biting step across the mud and barbed wire and rotting corpses of No Man’s Land. They can’t escape and neither can you.

“Game of Thrones” is a revisionist high fantasy that aims at psychological realism and kills of characters to drive home its theme: “In real life being a goody-two-shoes would just get the hero killed—See? SEE?”

“Use of Weapons” splits its narrative so that both the reader and the characters discover the key revelation about the protagonist’s past at the same time, at the end of the book. You and the other characters both get that sudden rush of EUREKA at the same moment.

While I’m on a roll, let’s take another example I saw recently: “King Arthur Innit Mate?” or whatever the title of the Guy Ritchie Arthurian movie was. So bonkers I won’t bother reviewing it, only to mention the premise is Arthur grows up on the streets of London rather than as the ward of Sir Ector and Sir Kay. So there’s an early scene where he’s being interrogated by Roose Bolton from Game of Thrones that is composed of a series of lightning flashbacks—"Where were you yestiddy lad?” “Aw, oi dindu naffin’ guv.”—Cut to: Young Arthur beating the shit out of some Vikings. It works because it has a point. It reveals Arthur’s character, eye ee the fact that he’s grown up to be a street thug, at the point of the movie where that is relevant information, eye ee he’s being interrogated by a guard about his activities.

It works (although the movie itself gloriously and weirdly doesn’t) because it has a point.

There could be a point to the flashbacks in Boba Fett, if, and this is a big IF, if they were related to the present-day story either in terms of revealing character, motivation or theme.

Revealing Character

A lot of people have commented that the Boba of this show is not the Boba of the movies. The man who had to be specifically told not to disintegrate people now prattles on about respect and keeps letting his enemies go or else hiring them. So the question is, “What happened?” and the show has now, four episodes in, told us that living among the Tuskens changed him.

In that case, the present-day narrative needs to center around this change. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Other characters should be commenting, questioning or challenging Boba on his new direction and the flashback scenes need to focus on the catalyst for the change in Boba’s character, not acts of derring-do as he kills monsters and boards trains. (Why does he save the child Tusken? Unclear! What aspects of Tusken society does he admire and why? We’ll get back to you on that one!)

Revealing Motivation

Another big question the show raises is why Boba even wants to be a crime lord in the first place. The last we saw him on the screen, the man was a ruthless mercenary, a lone gun, an outsider. What made him decide being a crime boss would be a good idea?

Once again, halfway through the season we’ve finally been given an answer: Because he claims he is tired of taking orders from incompetent bosses who almost got him killed.

Again, that’s not the struggle that has been dramatized. Yeah, working with Jabba nearly gets him digested by the Sarlacc right at the start of episode 1, but we’ve had no indication that this has sparked any crisis of faith until Boba just blurts out his motivation over a campfire.

If that’s the point, THEN MAKE IT THE POINT. Use flashbacks to show all the other jobs that went sour because of idiot orders from incompetent bosses. In the present day, make that his key appeal to the underlings of other gangs—for example, have him recruit Black Krrrsantan based on the fact the Wookie was sent on a suicide mission to try to kill Boba (instead of just saying, “Hey man, do you want a job?”).  

Revealing Theme

I left this one for last, because it’s the hardest as honestly there hasn’t been much of a theme to the show yet, other than maybe “everybody needs a family” or something along those lines. But again, if that’s the point then the editing between the two timeframes has to highlight the juxtaposition of the past (Boba as loner) and present (Boba as trying to create a family), or contrast the character of Boba (loyal to friends) against the antagonists (backstab each other). Focus on the focus.

The Hutts abandoning the Wookie when the assassination attempt fails fits this theme, but there needs to be more of that, really zero in on it, because right now the scene just comes off as strange and out of place, rushed storytelling, a sudden writing out of two characters only just introduced. Just spitballing here, but have the assassin start singing as soon as he is captured, have the train guards immediately turn on each other, trying to point fingers at one another for attacking the Tuskens (it was his idea—no it was HIS idea), dramatize for us the difference between their approach and Boba’s.

All I’m asking is that writers and producers of stories think about why they’re doing what they’re doing. Why is this the best way to do it?

Is, for example, a 1700-word blog post the best way to talk about this subject? Well obviously fucking not, it’s never the best way to do anything, ever.

But.

Still.

Ah, fuck.

Eternals

I’ll admit I watched this, as opposed to say, “Shang Chi”, precisely because of the critical drubbing it received (47% on Rotten Tomatoes, 52 on Metacritic). Just naturally contrarian that way I suppose.

It’s definitely the least Marvel-y Marvel movie, though I’m not sure that makes it actually good. The differences are kind of refreshing. The heroes do not spend the whole movie trading quips back and forth to ironically comment on the action. The final battle is not fought against a faceless army of CGI monsters. More to the point, the movie is easily at its weakest when it tries to do all the typical Marvel things—the action sequences are kind of rote and uninspiring CGI fests shot in near-darkness, the humor mostly falls flat, and attempts to tie it into the greater MCU feel incredibly forced.

Whatever the talents of Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao (haven’t seen her other movies, to be honest), a Marvel movie was not the best fit. There’s some genuinely intriguing and original dynamics going on between the characters and some beautiful cinematography, but it all feels squeezed into the straitjacket of the superhero action genre.

It is overstuffed, even at two and a half hours long. We’re introduced to a team of 10 superheroes called the “Eternals”, or rather, we’re introduced to three superheroes, and then another one, and then another two, and then another and then and so on and so on.

About three-quarters of the movie is spent on scenes of people standing in a rough V formation somewhere with austere natural beauty, and then explaining the rest of the movie to whichever character they’ve just met. This doesn’t leave much room for the villains, of which there are two, just to further compound the problem.

The premise is that these Eternals have been sent to the Earth by a “Celestial” super-being called Arishem, supposedly to protect humanity from alien predators called the Deviants. In flashback we see the Eternals killed the last Deviant sometime around the year 1500 and then they… just kind of hang out for a bit. Jump to the present day, when Deviants start to reappear and the Eternals have to get the crew back together again. One. Person. At. A. Time. By standing in a rough V somewhere with austere natural beauty.

It turns out though that the whole mission is a cover story, and their real job has been to ensure Earth reaches a big enough population for a new Celestial to be born out of the planet’s core, a process which is going destroy the Earth and kill everyone living on it. Celestials, in turn, are responsible for birthing new stars, which leads to the creation of new planets and new life. The circle of life etc. thank you Lion King. In theory the dilemma facing the Eternals is whether it is better to sacrifice humanity so that other worlds and other species may get a chance at life, or to save the Earth at the cost of the unborn godling.

The trouble with this, as in all of Marvel’s high stakes “save the universe” stories, is that as part of a franchise the result is a foregone conclusion, so the dilemma never feels like much of one. Oh, two or three characters voice reservations, but human-genocide is too extreme to make us feel it’s a real option and the majority of the team is just instantly and immediately on board the “save the humans” train without a second thought, so we never really explore the question in any detail.

It’s just one way the movie raises interesting questions or ideas, then immediately discards them.

The concept of a superhero movie where the superheroes discover they are not, in fact, heroic at all is an intriguing one, but like I say the instant they discover the truth (after Arishem just blurts it out) they immediately start behaving heroically. In some ways it does feel like a rehash of the concept from Captain Marvel, but there at least her immediate switch to hero mode made sense, whereas with the Eternals it’s just baffling—if they were created-slash-programmed by the Celestials, why lie to them about their mission? Why not program obedience into them?

Another casualty of the obfuscation of the plot is the Deviants themselves, which are revealed to be another creation of the Celestials, originally designed as a kind of predator-extermination device to ensure humanity has enough ecological space to evolve, but which escaped the Celestial’s control and ran amok. The parallels between Eternals and Deviants are kind of toyed with, but ultimately the only narrative purpose of this thread is to act as a red herring to distract you from the big twist/reveal. 

Along the way the movie also raises and then skips over things like the dementia of Thena (Angelina Jolie), the loss and (almost immediate) recovery of faith by the group’s tech whiz Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), and the philosophy of telepath/mind control guy Druig (Barry Keoghan) who thinks humanity would be better off if he was allowed to force us all to be nice.

One or two characters say the word “family” a couple of times as if that was the movie’s theme, though I think it works better as a tale about duty versus emotion or empathy.

Cut the number of characters in half and focus more on the dynamic between the putative leader, Sersi (Gemma Chan) and not-Superman-but-c’mon Ikaris (Richard Madden) and I think you would’ve had a decent flick. Madden in particular is the best thing here, with a juicy role and a character torn between duty and affection (the romance with Chan lacks on-screen chemistry though, especially compared with the instant and easy affection of Keoghan and Lauren Ridloff, who plays yet another hero I haven’t had time to introduce yet).

The conclusion, mid- and post-credit stingers are all typical Marvel fare, setups for future sequels and introductions of some character you’re supposed to know from the comics. Two people who were quite happy to see humanity exterminated are suddenly friends with the family again. Someone hugs another character who quite literally stabbed them in the literal back with a literal dagger literally two scenes ago. Ha ha, no hard feelings. Some dude shows up and after a dramatic pause says, “Hi, I’m Gleepwurp.”

For all that, I do feel a lot of affection for this movie. A lot of it is just seeing guys like Richard Madden and Kit Harington again. I kind of feel bad for them the way Game of Thrones ended, so seeing them in other roles is like seeing an old high school friend doing okay. Like, I was delighted to see Madden in his little part in ‘1917”. Good for you Rich, don’t let that show get you down, keep on doing your thing. Same for you Kit. I have this irrational urge to give them a hug and tell them it will all be okay. Dad’s here, buddy, dad’s here. I got you.

Hm. Guess it did turn out to be about family after all.

Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 3

It’s either feast or famine with these streaming services and we were stuffed for Disney content last Wednesday with both Eternals and Book of Boba Fett. Though nobody has The Green Knight yet as part of their standard service yet. Come on you bastards, I want to see the movie, just not enough to expend any effort to do so.

Anyway, back to Babs. I’ll do Eternals next.

A bit of a filler ep this week...

The fight with the Wookie was fun to watch but maaan is Boba the worst crime boss in the universe. Has maybe three guys in his gang until he hires the punks. Posts no guards on his palace. Is totally unaware that the water merchant is overcharging, or that the city's economy is depressed.

Hope that isn't the last we've seen of Black Krampusatan or whatever, though he has now downgraded Boba to the fourth-coolest guy in his own show.

Idk about the punk gang. "Cyberpunk Long, Long Ago" feels like the wrong aesthetic for Star Wars. Droid tech in Star Wars is very retro-future, with metal robots that look like metal robots, you know? Thought the chase sequence was quite badly done too: Looked like it took place at a brisk walking pace.

Saving the best for last: DANNY MF TREJO! The whole rancors are lovers, not fighter shtick is just the right kind of absurd, though I really feel bad for the old rancor keeper in Return of the Jedi now.

This will all make zero sense if you haven't watched the show.

Mother/Android

Another Netflix original, starring the girl from Kick Ass and a guy who isn't Will Smith. 

It's kind of the baby plot from Children of Men but with zombies only they're robots.

I thought it was above average for a Netflix op, 7/10, like a pretty good B movie y'know. It's kind of a mishmash of familiar elements, but Ms Ass is a fine actor who carries the movie and the pregnancy outfit the whole movie.

Although the geography makes zero sense: They want to escape to Boston so they can take a boat to Korea and have any of these people ever looked at a map before. In any case, the Korean lady wears a bearskin hat which is cinema language for Communist so the whole plan is pretty sus tbh.

I think the point, and the title, is that one dude says humans are soft and emotional that's why we'll lose the robot apocalypse, but Kick Ass keeps doing the ruthless, cold blooded, rational thing to save her baby, right to the end. So she was just as biologically programmed as the robots were? Maybe.

Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 2

Dances with Banthas

Having done 50s SF serials in the main trilogy movies, the streaming incarnation of Star Wars has now moved on to remakes of 90s Westerns.

There’s more space-western fun with Boba Tea (Tapioca Morrison) this week as he helps his newfound Tuskerindian buddies defeat the Iron Horse crossing their lands. You see, there’s this hover train that goes whooshing by the Tusken encampment, and the guards on the train take the opportunity to use the not-Bison-but-Banthas for target practice.

Quite why the mobile, nomadic Tuskens sit there and allow themselves to be shot at by people on the train instead of nomading the fuck out of there is unclear, but anyway, Tem who isn’t a white savior because he’s part Maori so that makes it okay organizes a raid to take out the train and run the settlers off their lands.

The action scenes here are serviceable rather than spectacular, but they do establish one gaffi-stick-jutsu Tusken as the breakout star of the series. I bet you a one-way trip to Alderaan it turns out to be a lady Tusken in the Big Reveal before he leaves their camp to go and guest star in “The Mandalorian”. As we watch from the outside, the badass masked and grunting one takes out a whole carriage full of baddies, their progress being marked by screaming and flailing henchmen being hurled out of windows. It’s great fun to watch, though this does mean that Boba is now only the third-coolest guy in his own show.

We also get a disjointed dream sequence where, to reward Bobby for his bravery, the Tuskens stick a lizard up his nose and let him wander out into the desert, where he finds and brings back a large stick, like the galaxy’s derpiest husky. It’s touching to realize that the Tusken initiation ceremony is basically a big game of fetch. I think finding the branch in the desert means at one point there were forests and oceans on Tatooine, maybe. Subtle climate change reference?

But first we have to sit through half an episode of “present day” Boba attempting to set up an underworld empire with, near as I can tell, all of four guys, including himself. He goes to confront the Mayor, then goes back to a casino we saw in part 1, where he bumps into two CGI Hutts looking considerably less realistic than Jabba’s 40-year-old practical effects, and a glowering Wookie with a machine gun.

It’s all a bit plodding and dull which leaves you time to wonder things like, why is the keyboardist in the casino band the same blue elephant dude that was at Jabba’s place in 1983? (Fun fact: The genre of music he plays is canonically referred to as “Jizz” and I will never be too old to find that not funny).

Did he escape from the detonation of the sail barge in Return of the Jedi through some miracle (“Use the Jizz, Max!”)? Or is this some unrelated blue elephant keyboardist we have not met before? Maybe it’s an extreme example of species specialization, just like all Jawas are junk dealers or all Gamorreans are guards, all blue elephants play keyboards in shitty dive bar bands. A necessary ecological niche.

Also, why is the word for criminal kingpin in the Star Wars universe “Daimyo”? The greatest thing about Star Wars is that every corporation’s product-naming committee is evidently staffed by overexcited 10-year-olds (“Death Star”, “Turbo Laser”, “Speeder Bike”) so it’s jarring to suddenly have a Japanese word thrown in the mix, particularly one that refers to the Japanese equivalent of a feudal warlord, since I’d assumed that neither feudalism nor Japan existed in the Star Wars universe.

Guess that means Japan is part of the Star Wars universe. And you know what THAT means?

Yep.

Space hentai is CANON.

Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 1

The Book of Bacta

At this point in the Star Wars universe, probably the most interesting story you could tell about Boba Fett is how he escapes being digested in the sand pit tentacle monster's stomach after the end of "Return of the Jedi" (I am a big enough nerd to know it's called the "Sarlaac" but not big enough to know if I spelled it with the correct number of A's and C's or not just now).

At last, this story can now be told! In the first two minutes of the episode.

It's an early warning sign this show's storytelling instincts are in the wrong place. You've got a tense, life-or-death situation for the protagonist: He's trapped inside the acidic guts of a man-eating monster, running out of air, totally in the dark, hopeless, alone. Oh boy it's going to be tough for him to get out of this one! So let's ... immediately cut to him crawling out of a hole.

The rest of the episode is split between two stories, neither of which has a terribly compelling reason to exist. There's a flashback story that continues from Bobby Fett escaping from the belly of the beast only to be captured by quasi-Native American Tusken Raiders, and a "present day" story where Bubba Fett and sidekick Fennec Shand try to take over the criminal organization of Jabba the Hutt. 

We already know how the flashback turns out, and it's not clear why Babs wants to take over the underworld, other than "because." Which doesn't leave much to get engaged in the story. There's no mystery about Bobby's identity, or cute Baby Yoda sidekick, it's just Mandalorian without all the things that made that show popular.

The Book of Tatooine Rooftops Specifically Designed to Provide an Ideal Parkour Course

If the narrative is dull, the production design, editing and direction are just. Not good. Bad. Very bad  

There's a pivotal fight scene shot incredibly slowly and stiffly and awkwardly as if the people involved have never seen an action movie, complete with William Shatner on a slow day punches that clearly land nowhere near the opponent, followed by a rooftop chase which is blatantly a parkour obstacle course.

The sand wastes of Tatooine are very sound stage, people told to dig in the sand just kind of brush a handful around, Twi'lek aliens people with bits of plastic glued to their heads, Tusken raider props look plastic, the whole thing just looks and feels cheap and slapped together.

The Book of Visual Effects from the First Clash of the Titans Movie (1981)

The big moment in the flashback story, meanwhile, involves easily the worst CGI in recent memory and the four armed kraken from the 80s Clash of the Titans. It is distractingly bad. Stunningly bad.

The scene also steals the choke with chain bit from RoJ so perhaps the whole thing is an homage?

As a triumphant moment for our hero it falls flat because, like I said, we already had him escape a situation 10 times worse in the opening two minutes.

I've gotten used to the idea that Star Wars is now the playground of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni to nerd out over Star Wars lore, but at least the Mandalorian was fluffy fun and had a clear narrative direction. Exploring Bobas backstory is all well and good, but you need to put something interesting and unique in there. Not just dodgy CGI and an Indiana Jones 5 fight scene.

Don't Look Up

Professional comedians always tell you to throw away the first idea that comes into your head. Keep digging, that's when you get to the really funny stuff.

Don't Look Up is a movie composed almost entirely of first ideas.

It is a collection of the easiest, most obvious, laziest takes on all the targets of its satire: politicians are corrupt, TV is shallow entertainment, boomers are racist, tech bro superheroes never benefit anyone but themselves, science deniers are dummies. It's satire written by the top comments on Reddit. A collection of viral Tweets. 

The premise is that astronomers Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio discover a massive comet on a collision course with the Earth and try to warn people so we can do something about it. The Trumpish president (Meryl Streep) and her Don-Junior frat-boy son (Jonah Hill) find science boring and care more about the midterms, and blow them off. The two astronomers go on TV, where they get second billing to a pop star's (Ariana Grande) break-up, finally galvanize the nation into launching an attempt to knock the comet off-course, only to have it aborted by a weirdo Gates-Jobs-Musk tech giant (Mark Rylance) who wants to mine it for minerals needed to build smartphones. Their grassroots campaign to get people to look at the visibly approaching comet is met by a campaign with the rallying cry "Don't Look Up!" The tech giant's plan goes horribly wrong, of course, but not before he escapes on a spaceship. Then everybody dies.

It's a heavy-handed metaphor for global warming, or the COVID-19 pandemic, or any major social issue really, the cynical take that our society is by nature incapable of fixing any of its mistakes, and we're all doomed.

There are flashes of biting satire here and there--such as Jennifer Lawrence being confronted by her parents, who demand that she not bring "politics" (i.e. the fact that there's a giant fucking meteor headed for the Earth) into their house.

Most of it doesn't bite, because it's just the most toothless and banal restatement of the most common complaints about modern society. It doesn't satirize its targets, it just repeats them, without adding anything new or original. 

The movie also doesn't have a good grip on its tone, I think; the satire sometimes inclines to dry, black comedy, but then veers to silly over-the-top farce, like Ron Perlman's foul-mouthed geriatric astronaut using his pre-mission announcement to thank "the gays".

There's also just a lot of junk, though. The movie is about 30-45 minutes longer than it has any right to be. Scenes that either have no purpose in the story, or go on and on and on, like Ariana Grande singing an impending meteor song for five minutes, or DiCaprio's blowup with his wife who proceeds to throw all his medication at him, one by one, after announcing what each one does. A lot of scenes feel ad-libbed, in that the actors are kind of just talking without aim or purpose, just kind of rambling in the hopes that the scene will turn out OK.

I bet the movie was an absolute blast to make. Looks like the actors were having just the best time ever. As a consequence though, it does feel like the director, writer and actors are laughing at the audience, slightly smug and condescending. There's a crack about politicians being too stupid to be as evil as we think they are--thus putting the writers above both politicians and the general audience. 

Are they right though, are we doomed? It modern society congenitally incapable of taking action on any major issues or threats it faces? This movie won't convince you either way, being far too safe in its criticisms and repeating hot takes that have been around on social media for the last decade. 

For what it's worth, all of the criticisms ring true, if not especially insightful. Is the world going to hell in a handbasket? Yeah, does look that way. Is it too late to do anything about it? Probably. 

This movie won't change that, just make certain people feel better for being right. 

The Witcher: Season 2

The Witcher: Season 2

I didn’t think it was a bad season, really, but then I also don’t think it was an especially good one. It seems to have tried to fix things that were never broken, while nursing along all the broken things from the first season.

Before I complain though, I’ll be nice. I thought Jaskier (Joey Batey) was miles better this season, maybe because the overall tone was a bit darker, so the comic relief was more of a relief, maybe because the writing was better, less dependent on one-liners and more character-based.

At one point he shares a look and a smile with a bearded dwarf lady, barely lasts an instant, but it’s screamingly funny precisely because they don’t beat you over the head with it, just trust you to know the character and know what the look means.

There’s another bit shortly after where he and Geralt (an obscenely muscular Henry Cavill) are doing a walk and talk and he does a pitch-perfect imitation of Geralt. Again, nice little moment, building off our familiarity with the characters.

Then there’s a big, long scene where a dock worker complains he didn’t realize one of Jaskier’s songs took place in two timelines, ha ha, meta joke about the first season. Well, we’ll fix that with a purely linear narrative in season 2, hurrah for making stories more generic and predictable.

Which leads me to the point about trying to fix things that were fine.

The narrative invention is gone, and instead the suspense and drama are interrupted every two minutes to check and see what’s happening in the five other story lines (spoiler: Not much).

It’s also far less monster-of-the-week, more tired old “chosen one who might save or destroy the world” and you’ll be forgiven for checking if you’re accidentally watching Wheel of Time or not. Instead of twisted fairy tales, we get people possessed by demons being told to “fight against it!” and other staples of the genre.

The first episode is probably the best, and lo and behold, that’s the only one this season that has a monster-of-the-week setup. It’s a twisted take on “Beauty and the Beast” that dares to wonder what kind of woman would be attracted to a lion-boar-man living in a haunted mansion, and if such a person might not be the scarier of the two.

The rest is a fairly muddled and muddy tale about “destiny” which—and this is the killer—absolutely refuses to tell you what the friggin’ destiny in question actually is in anything but the vaguest terms imaginable. Something about the end of the world and the “Wild Hunt” and the “Conjunction of the Spheres” and “Elder blood” – the last of which seems to mean being part elf, but since there are whole tribes of elves running around it’s not clear why being marginally related to them is relevant. There’s also something called “Ithlinne’s Prophecy” but don’t worry, the show never bothers to explain what that is.

The other main story arc is about some ancient demon thing which, death stroke number two, absolutely refuses to tell you what it is friggin’ attempting to do in anything but the vaguest terms imaginable. “It feeds on pain” or something to that effect, which is great, just kind of generically evil without any goals then. “It wants to do bad stuff.” Very exciting.

So, we have a demon thingy which wants to do something, not clear what, and this may or may not have something to do with someone’s destiny, not clear what that is either. It’s the writerly urge to obfuscate and misdirect striking again, and it’s death to any kind of dramatic clarity or tension.

The dialog is pretty ropey, filled with lots of ponderous pronouncements which I think are meant to sound deep and meaningful, but are almost invariably just straight up baffling nonsense, like bullshit buzzwords spouted by a Lexus car commercial. “Fear is an illness, if you leave it untreated it can consume you” … “It’s not a question of price; it’s a matter of cost” … “True luxury should be compassionate, engaging and deeply personal.”

People keep saying these things but there’s no weight to them, nothing in the story to actually back them up.

“She's tougher than she looks,” says Geralt of Ciri (Freya Allan), his adopted daughter who he has known for all of half an episode. How the fuck would you know, Gerry? She’s ridden around on your horse for a day or two. Not exactly an Olympian display of fortitude.

The production design, directing and cinematography of the show are all kind of off-kilter, really. To examine a dead tree-monster thing (kind of like an evil Ent), Geralt rips random bits out of it with his bare hands. He goes to meet a kind of high priestess person, who o-VER e-NUN-see-AY-tes eh-VERY sy-LA-ble. There’s a wizard whose beard looks like painted-on asphalt. Telekinetic spells that blow people backwards ALWAYS do it in slow motion. There’s a bit of a Marvel-style reveal at the end of the last episode of … some woman, idk, she’s kind of there but gets no introduction or explanation.

Just so many bizarre choices.

I’m not sure I’m adequately conveying the atmosphere here. The bottom line is these people do not talk or act like human beings. It’s all just slightly off.