BRIGHTON FRINGE REVIEWS 2022 - Part the Second

Unfortunately my fringing has been somewhat reduced due to both foreseen and unforeseen circumstances. I was very much looking forward to Christian Jegard's "Ol' Red Eyes" on reliable recommendation, but it was sadly cancelled due to health concerns. That one will have to go on the "see it when you can" list. However, the missus and I did get to take in one show which we have been meaning to catch for several Fringes.

THE GEEK SHALL INHERIT...

Hattie Snooks of Clap Back Club performs her one-woman show about the comforting joys of sci-fi and geekery. Definitely one for the slightly obsessive among us, this is packed with knowing references to Star Trek, Buffy, Doctor Who and more, as Hattie takes a sick day and dives head first into a sci-fi marathon. 

More than just a sci-fest, "The Geek Shall Inherit" is an honest and relatable look at anxiety and depression, and the pressures of life that lead us to take comfort in imaginary worlds. Plus it's a musical, packed with parody songs. My favourite was the technobabble song, but they're all awesome. 

A must for Reg Barclay fans. 

Last showing TONIGHT June 3rd at Sweet@The Poets (also bloody good food there), starts at 19.30. £12, £9 for concessions 

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DO THE THING: UP TO, BUT NOT EXCEEDING, TEN MUSICALS

If that doesn't suit you, I can also recommend Do the Thing in their latest show, which I have sadly been unable to attend this year. Based on previous shows, this will be a raucous and unpredictable comedy where the manic musicaleers Simon Plotkin and Tim Meredith do strange and unexpected things with audience suggestions. 

Previously limited to two improv musicals a night, the gents have played with the format to allow anything up to ten audience influenced performances of variable length. If previous shows are anything to go by, this should be hilarious. 

Not strictly part of the Fringe, Do the Thing is performing at The Electric Arcade on Madeira Drive. The last show is TONIGHT, June 3rd at 20.00 for £11

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Thoughts on Solo: A Star Wars Story

I've finally gotten round to watching Solo, the only Star Wars film since I'd not watched at the cinema since the original trilogy, and that's only because I hadn't been born in time. I even saw the Clone Wars movie on the big screen. I had no particular reason for not watching it at the cinema. There are always a lot of film on and I haven't the time or money to watch all of them, and we'd just had The Last Jedi, so I gave it a miss.

Also, while the trailers made it look like a fun sci-fi movie, it didn't look much like a Star Wars film. I got the Blu-Ray for my birthday and put it on the other night, and to be fair, I stick by that assessment, but it's actually to the film's benefit. I found the film a very pleasant surprise. I can't argue that the Han Solo's origin story was a necessary addition to the franchise, because it's not. Solo is a hell of a lot of fun, though, and it's honestly a nice break to have a Star Wars film that isn't tied up in the fate of the whole galaxy. I mean, there's some of that there, with the events tying into the very beginnings of the Rebellion, but it's mainly concerned with heists and getaways. The seedier side of the Star Wars Galaxy was always the most fun part.

It's cool to see Corellia at last, even if it is a bit of a shithole. There are plenty of fun locations, my favourite probably being the Lodge, Lando's regular on Vandor, which is the sort of cruddy but exotic dive that Star Wars has always excelled in showing. The film is absolutely gorgeous, and the action sequences, especially the Vandor train heist, are amazing. There's a slight case of CGI overload, but unlike many films of its type, I could follow what was happening onscreen at all times. Plus, there's a satisfying amount of puppetry, animatronics and good old men-in-suits to create the various aliens and monsters. "The foul Lady Proxima," a sort of gigantic vampire worm who runs a crime den on Corellia, is a strong contender for the new Jabba.

To begin with, I really couldn't see Alden Ehrenreich as Han, and to be fair to him, Harrison Ford has big shoes to fill. There was pretty much no way anyone was going to be able to live up to the part. By the end of the film, though, I'd totally bought that this was the same character, thanks to a strong performance peppered with some spot-on Ford-like moments. Other than actually going back in time and filming Ford in his early twenties, Ehrenreich is about as great as a young Han could be. I didn't much like how he got his name; it made sense, but I really think it was unnecessary. I absolutely loved his first meeting with Chewie, an Ehrenreich did what Ford always managed, in maintaining believable chemistry with a walking carpet.

There's an excellent cast all round here. Donald Glover is absolutely perfect as Lando, and I liked the little nods to his having a more complicated sexuality than we might assume. Emilia Clarke is pretty great, but the character Qi'ra doesn't give her a lot to work with. She's a pretty generic character, really, in spite of some attempts to give her hidden depths. Woody Harrelson is always good value, and I enjoyed his unscrupulous father figure character, although his relationship with Thandie Newton's character felt a bit forced, and she was underused in any case. Paul Bettany provides exactly what he was hired for: a sinister but charming arch-villain with a British accent, although as I understand the original conception and casting of Dryden Vos was very different.

I had somehow missed that Phoebe Waller-Bridge had been cast in the film, and jumped when I recognised the droid L3-37's voice. The droids often have the most personality of Star Wars' characters, but L3 is different to the droids we've had before, and seems to have stepped out a completely different movie to everyone else. It should be jarring, but it works, almost like a Red Dwarf character crashing a Star Wars movie.

Seeing Han acquire the Millennium Falcon is, of course, a wonderful thing, but I'm not sure the Falcon needed a hero's backstory itself (a frankly weird addition to the story, really). The revelation of the real mastermind behind everything was a nice surprise, although anyone who hasn't at least dipped into the spin-off animations is going to be confused by his sudden back-from-the-dead appearance. As an origin story, it works, with everything running a predictable but always entertaining course, although I feel that Han was perhaps a bit too heroic in the end. Perhaps he becomes more of a cynical bastard over the years between here and A New Hope, but I really feel he should have been shaded a darker grey.

Altogether, though, Solo is just tremendous fun, which is exactly what you want from a movie like this. I enjoyed it more than The Rise of Skywalker, which, although entertaining, I find I have very little to say about. Solo ended up barely making its money back, partly because it was ludicrously expensive to make, and this is a shame, but I feel it's one of those films I'll end up watching again and again as a nice bit of escapist fun. 

REVIEW: Archer: 1999

Almost ten years after its pilot episode "Mole Hunt" was aired, the great Archer (probably) comes to an end with Archer: 1999, its space-themed tenth season. Of all the genre-themed settings we've had over the last few years, this is the one I've been looking forward to the most. It's not how I'd have done an Archer sci-fi series - I'd have gone for a full-on Star Trek parody - but it's a great celebration of sci-fi tropes and beloved cliches of the genre. In spite of the name, there's not really any Space: 1999 elements in there (not even a single moon is blown out of orbit to become a gigantic wandering base). The main inspirations are clearly Alien - always a source of referential moments in Archer - and Star Wars, with a mix of long haul space capitalism and swashbuckling space adventure.

Not that there are no Trek elements, though. The gladiator battle in episode two could have fit in the original series with no trouble, while the alien critter in episode three, "The Leftovers," is absolutely a Cardassian vole from DS9. There are plenty of other little nudges and secret ingredients, too - there's a certain Firefly-esque flavour to a lot of the proceedings, not least in the retooling of Adam Reed's character Ray Gillette as a space courtesan. He's basically the male version of Inara, only with less poetry and more cake.

The series is set aboard the starship MV Seamus, a space freighter that is somehow both clapped out and tremendously well-equipped, co-captained by Archer and Lana after their marriage ended and they won half the ship each in the divorce. Interestingly, some of the core characters have been brought back to be closer to their "real" versions than previous iterations like Danger Island and Dreamland. While Archer's always basically the same, Lana's role has varied a fair bit the last few years, and Archer has always been pursuing her in his fantasies. Here, their relationship is very much like how it is in the series' reality. Cyril has also been brought back in line after two seasons as a villain, now in a sort-of relationship with Lana (although it gets very little attention) and acting as the ship's first mate and "space accountant."

Cheryl/Carol is basically the same as ever (down to the glue-eating) but is now the ship's crackshot laser gunner, a job which she finds incredibly boring because she's so good at it, while Pam, in her greatest transformation yet, is a huge alien rock monster of indeterminate gender, not that it's affected her personality much. The brilliant Lucky Yates has finished his stint voicing a parrot as Krieger is back, now an Ash-style synthetic human, full of android milk and just as questionably committed to mad science as he ever was in human guise.

Giving the name "Mother" and the early hints as to the Alien-esque setting, I expected Mallory to be a computer, but instead she's a sort of holographic sentience who can appear as either a ball of light or Mallory's recognisable human form. Mysteriously, she seems to be Archer's literal mother in this reality, suggesting she's a recreation of a real human rather than an AI like Krieger. She's still an alcoholic.

Archer: 1999 works as a tongue-in-cheek space adventure, happily sending up the genre while making it clear that Reed and his co-writers love sci-fi and space opera. Some elements that might have translated well to the setting are surprisingly altered. Barry is back, for example, and despite being a cyborg in the main reality and therefore an easy drop into this environment, he's now the fully robotic Barry-6, an IG-88-like killer droid. Although he's a recurring villain, he's significantly less threatening than his nightmarish Dreamland incarnation, and becomes a laughing stock by the end, which might suggest Archer's subconscious slowly moving past his hatred of his archenemy. (On the subject of cyborgs, Ray was basically one by the middle of the main Archer run, so it's kind of surprising he's completely human here.)

The series has the same pros and cons as the previous couple of seasons, only more so. Dreamland worked well by not massively altering the format from where it had been for the previous year, but playing up the setting. Danger Island through itself into the setting, making big changes to story style and worked as an adventure series, but the comedy suffered. Archer: 1999 continues this trend, with the space adventure working brilliantly and looking truly fantastic for the most part but easily being the least funny of the seasons so far. Not that there aren't laughs along the way; episode five, "Mr. Deadly Goes to Town," starring Matt Berry as a sentient weapon of mass destruction, is a solid sci-fi adventure and pretty hilarious. On the whole, though, the reliance on running gags is becoming tired and serves mostly to remind the audience of when earlier seasons did it better. It's hard to disagree when Barry-6 calls it "derivative."

The final challenge for season ten is to tie up the three-year-long Archer-in-a-coma storyline, which intrudes into the penultimate episode before taking up most of the final one. Logic pretty much goes out the window here in favour of weird visuals and call-backs. There's some exploration of the psychological cost of Archer's mental battle as he falls apart, but there's no consequence, as he simply wakes up to see Mallory in his hospital room. Still, it's a nice final scene and strangely moving, albeit equally disturbing in its oedipal way. If this is the final season of Archer as has been stated, then it's a pretty anticlimactic ending. However, Reed has suggested an eleventh season might happen, in which case a final, back-to-basics approach could help round the series off more satisfyingly. Assuming, of course, that Archer really did wake up...

REVIEW: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It's time for Dan and Suz's Star Wars review! No spoiler warnings – you've had a month to see the film now, it's long beyond time we got round to this and now it's here. If you haven't seen The Last Jedi, I'm sure you've seen the fans' reaction to it. Which is, to say the least, a bit divided.

There are to camps among Star Wars fandom when it comes to this, the eighth episode of the franchise. There are those who, largely along the lines of the critics' response, think it's one of the strongest in the series to date and love that it's doing something a little different with the mythology. And then there are those who are crying about it because it's profoundly and unapologetically feminist in its approach to this Boy's Own adventure. You see, The Last Jedi is a film that directly opposes the usual narrative of Star Wars. Fans have grown up on stories which saw a series of old men training up young men to use violence against violence and make grand gestures in the face of oppression. There's a bunch of memes going around comparing Luke's journey in A New Hope to the radicalisation of a young Muslim, and it's funny because it's absolutely right. The Force Awakens, in that it was a virtual remake of the original Star Wars, changed one major factor by making the new recruit to the Jedi way a young woman, but otherwise it was still full of dog fights in space and hand-to-hand battles.

The Last Jedi makes pains to point out that disobeying orders and going on unplanned incursions into enemy territory makes men heroes, but it doesn't, in the main, win wars. Poe Dameron's headstrong nature is explicitly condemned by the commanding officers of the Resistance, both of whom are women. Finn begins this episode trying to escape the oncoming First Order in a combination of desperation to find Rey and simple (and quite understandable) fear. Neither Poe nor Finn is ever portrayed as a baddie in this film, but they are openly shown to be flawed, childishly so. Finn because he is hugely inexperienced, and Poe because he's got bloody lucky in the past and hasn't yet got himself killed (a possible swipe at the previous film's barely credible rewrite which saw him come back from apparent death with little explanation).

It's the women who come out best throughout the movie. Carrie Fisher gets a great final send-off which allows her to use the Force in a way that shows yes, Leia is just as powerful as Luke and was massively underutilised in the original trilogy. Sure, surviving in the vacuum of space for that long strains credibility to the limit, but given that the Force is, quite simply, magic, it really doesn't bother either of us. Rey shows maturity when confronted with betrayal by the two men who mean the most to her (Luke and Kylo Ren, sorry Finn), and sticks to her principles throughout. Whether her principles are right is still questionable, since she remains convinced of the greatness of the Jedi, something that the film continually calls into question, but we'll come back to that.

And then there's Laura Dern's character, Vice Admiral Holdo, is one of the few new additions to the main cast, and is a revelation. She's the seeming opposite of Leia, in her modern iteration. This is someone who we are told is a powerful commander, and then sashays in all glammed-up with purple hair and a pretty dress. She's an attractive older woman who doesn't apologise for her femininity and who immediately puts the male characters in their place. It's hard to overstate how important a character she is. Holdo is the sort of character who is normally revealed to be a villain in a film like this. Indeed, our expectations in this regard are deliberately played with by writer-director Rian Johnson. We've learned to trust Poe and Finn and to distrust women like Holdo, so we keep expecting them to be proven right and her wrong. Instead, they go and make an almighty hash of their unauthorised secret mission and Holdo is proven to be an intelligent commander with compassion and humility who, ultimately, saves a whole lot of lives.

On the other side of the spectrum is the other new character, Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran. A lowly technician (read: a very important member of a large and essential team), she has good reason to hate people like Poe who, after all, got her sister killed in his latest heroic mission. Yet she still sides with Poe and Finn in their mini-mutiny. Possibly it's down to her attraction to Finn, although as with all Finn's relationships (including Rey and Poe) it's unclear how much is romantic and how much is just friendship; but mostly it's down to inexperience. Indeed, it's Poe, who's experience has led to his arrogance, who Finn and Rose look to for guidance. They all redeem themselves, but none of them escape this initial flaw of acting without thinking, up to the moment that Rose nearly kills herself to stop the oncoming First Order attack on Crait and Finn nearly fouls up everything rescuing her. Heroics vs. strategy.

The Last Jedi is surely the most critical of Star Wars' essential premise of all the films in the franchise, and it's not as if George Lucas ever wrote the Jedi Order as anything other than massively flawed. Fans have also cried out against Luke's portrayal as an old, depressed and ineffective man who has retired from the Jedi life and hidden out on an island on some long forgotten planet, milking space walruses. This seems to be a strange thing to contest, given that his two mentors both went into hiding as soon as the Empire came to power. At least Obi-Wan tried to stay near to Luke and keep and eye on him, but Yoda went and sat in a swamp on his own for thirty years, becoming increasingly strange in the head. That's what Jedi do when things get tough. The film cleverly plays with this, though, by making it clear that yes, Luke is still pretty damned awesome. He needs Rey to stop looking for the mythologised version of the character and accept the imperfect man that he is. Then he can – in the greatest scene in the film – project his astral self to Crait and take on Kylo Ren what appears to be a display of macho badassery but turns out to be astonishing misdirection. And finally the phrase “more powerful than you can possibly imagine” means something more than wandering around as a ghost for years.

Ah, Kylo Ren. Adam Driver is almost too good for the role. The Force Awakens had already set up this new generation of villains as feeble wannabes with bigger guns than their daddies – Shadows of the Empire, if you will. Space Nazis are scary, but space neo-Nazis are scarier still. It's a perfect update for our time, and what's most frightening is that so many of this fanboys don't realise that they're the target of this satire. While Domnall Gleeson is brilliant here, and we have an unexpected and wonderful role from Adrian “Eddie Hitler” Edmonson, it's Driver's show. It's frankly embarrassing to watch Hayden Christensen try to play the same emotions in the prequels after seeing Driver so convincingly portray a young man tearing himself apart. What's so fascinating is that we genuinely don't know which way Ren will eventually go. This is someone who constructed his villain identity seemingly using an actual “what's your Star Wars name?” meme, who wears a stupid mask because his granddad needed one to help him breathe, and is still one of the most convincingly divided characters ever seen in the series.

Kylo's story is the backbone of the film, with the entire Luke-Rey plotline revolving around their relationship with him and the Resistance plotline extending from his actions. His obsessive hatred of Luke is about the only thing he's sure about. His and Rey's complex feelings for one another are the most believable romantic relationship Star Wars has given us, two hugely powerful characters linked by their uncertainty of how to use those powers. Ren's betrayal of Supreme Leader Snoke, lopping Snoke's head off as he tries to push Rey to the Dark Side, is of course a direct life from the Emperor-Vader-Luke scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, but one that serves to push Snoke completely out of the narrative. That's another thing that fans are wailing about: two years of wondering who Snoke really is and he's just killed off before we find out anything about him. Again, missing the point: Snoke's identity is spectacularly irrelevant. He's just a big scary baddie. (Of course, if he returns as a Force ghost for Episode IX and gives us his eulogy we'll eat our words.)

The original premise of the films and indeed, the Jedi culture, is that we need both light and dark to achieve balance. With one side intent on winning out over each other, this balance can never be achieved. This seemed to be lost somewhere along the way with light and dark vying to have dominion over the other. Perhaps the only one who can see the balance is Kylo Ren, who understands the need to cease the fighting and work together, accepting both light and dark as part of the same parcel and endeavour to find balance. But Ray is too brainwashed by her interpretation of the ancient Jedi religion to see this for what it is; an olive branch and a chance of peace.

Wars will never end if people cant forgive or at least stop the fighting and focus on the future.

Kylo then takes it to the logical next level, if people cant forgive what has passed, and want to continue the fighting, then these warring factions need to be removed in order to make way for peace. A clean slate is a clean slate!

One thing that both of us have been saying for years is that the focus on the Light Side and Dark Side is the big failing of the Jedi and the Sith. Rey's burgeoning Force abilities see her calling on both sides, something that initially frightens Luke as much as Kylo did, but at least he's slowly learned his lesson and doesn't completely drive her away. It's no wonder Kylo turned to the Dark Side – at least Snoke is consistent in his messages – but he gets that the divide is exactly what's led to decades of battling between successive regimes. Suz has more sympathy for Kylo than Dan does – exterminating the entire galactic civilisation and starting over is perhaps a bit far to go for a new ideology – but he is essentially right. The final scene of the film – a young slave boy at Canto Bight uses the Force to shift his broom, looking wistfully up at the stars – is probably intended to be inspiring and hopeful. However, Suz points out that all it really implies is that the fighting is going to carry on for another generation. Particularly off the back of Ray's refusal to take Kylo up on his offer to forget the war. Indeed, it's essentially a callback to how Darth Vader started out, something that led to a complete collapse of galactic order and decades of war.

Star Wars has always had some excellent location work, and The Last Jedi is no exception. The casino city of Canto Bight has taken some flack from critics and fans, but we love it. It's a new environment after The Force Awakens added to the series of desert planets and forest planets and city planets. As well as providing us with the always welcome hive of scum and villainy, it's a glitzy and weird futuristic world with a lot of visual interest. It also adds more to the overall criticism of the light/dark divide, pointing out that there are plenty of terrible people who don't care who buys their weapons or how they make their money, and who couldn't give a damn who runs the Galaxy as long as they're still in their comfy little world. Benicio del Toro's wonderfully twitchy and completely amoral character DJ is the only major character in the film who isn't beholden to the debate and divide between good and evil. Crait is perhaps the most visually arresting location. Deliberately indicative of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, the decision to film at the salt flats Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is a brilliant one, utilising one of the most remarkable locations on Earth as a backdrop for the climactic battle of the film.

As always, there are plenty of fun creatures to enjoy – Suz's favourites are the llama-like steeds on Canto, while Dan likes the crystal critters on Crait. For all that The Last Jedi finally takes things in a somewhat different direction for the franchise, it's still very much a Star Wars movie with all the expected trappings. Yoda turns up (as a puppet, pleasingly) and Chewie still gets all the best lines. It occupies the same position in its trilogy as The Empire Strikes Back, and like Empire, ends in pretty crushing defeat for the heroes. Also like Empire, it's a strong contender for the best film in the franchise. The direction, writing and acting are all among the best we've seen in Star Wars. The crying fanboys are just a bonus.

JEDI'S CODE

Here's an impressive and rather fun short film to help tide you over till The Last Jedi comes out next week. It's only eight minutes long and looks incredible. Clearly filmed on the southern coast, it really has that Star Wars feel to it. It was written by Lorenzo Fantini and directed by Carlos Boellinger, with an excellent original score from Two Twenty Two. It stars Omri Rose, Paula Rodriguez and the amazing Veronica Jean Trickett who you may recognise from As We Are or other awesome things.

It's the Dark Times between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and the Jedi are almost extinct...


https://www.tincowboys.com/starwars

REVIEW: Rogue One - A Star Wars Story

Right, we've all seen this now, yes?

The Force Awakens was a thoroughly enjoyable new episode, it was inarguably derivative of the original Star Wars. Rogue One, on the other hand, while being literally derived from A New Hope's backstory, feels considerably fresher. Although a prequel, it's far more its own thing than The Force Awakens managed to be.

It's easy to be sniffy when it comes to the now expanding roster of Star Wars productions, with this the first of what promises to be many "Star Wars Stories." Of course Disney are going to milk the property for all its worth, but really, is that a bad thing? The original trilogy is one of the most beloved film series of all time, and while the prequel trilogy has left many fans fearful of tainting it, there is so much scope for further exploration. It's a whole galaxy, after all, and the films and TV series so far have only scratched the surface of that.

The triumph of Rogue One lies in its embracing of new characters who are not linked to the Skywalker-Solo dynasty that has dominated each of the main episodes. While there are some remarkable characters, they nonetheless come across as relatively ordinary people, pushed to extremes by the terrifying situation they find themselves in. Luke was destined to become the first in a new generation of Jedi, while Leia was already a princess and an interstellar ambassador ebfore getting involved in the Rebellion. Sure, Han Solo was just some scruffy nerf herder, but even he had a mythic quality, one that has led to his character holding legendary status come Episode VII. The closest Rogue One has to this is Donnie Yen's character, Imwe, a Guardian of the Wills; sort of a wannabe Jedi who wields the Force but is apart from the eternal Jedi/Sith battle. The remaining characters all just want to get on with their lives, drawn into the Rebel-Empire conflict with varying degrees of unwillingness.

Jyn Erso is a case in point. Felicity Jones has rather a tough time convincing us who her character is supposed to be, but this, I feel, is more due to the last minute rewrites and reshoots which saw the film change quite considerably before its final release. Early trailers for the film included a number of now-excised shots, and portrayed Erso very much as a reluctant hero, fighting for the Rebellion purely from necessity. In the finished product, she transitions from the reluctant fighter to the hero of the Rebellion with jarring suddenness. Not that this unbelievable, but it could have been portrayed more fluidly. Nonetheless, Jones portrays Erso with charisma and resolve from her almost-broken beginnings to her heroic ending, and it's a pity we'll not get to see her in the role again. It's unlikely she'll ever reach the legendary status of the quite similar Han Solo.

Diego Luna is equally watchable and heroic as Cassian Andor, the captain of Rogue One and the secondary hero of the film. Unlike The Force Awakens, which presented Rey and Finn as dual leads, equally as important, Rogue One is very much Erso's film, with Andor as her support, something that the more aggressively masculine corners of the internet couldn't accept. Some of these actually argue that a woman in space is unrealistic, somehow ignoring the numerous actual women who have completed missions in space, as wellas the fact that this is a series about warrior-wizards with magic ruddy swords. I hope the next Story they announce is a lesbian romance with no male characters except Jabba the Hutt.

The central trio is completed by K-2SO, brought to sardonic life by Alan Tudyk, and undoubtedly my favourite character of the film. Frankly, this reprogrammed Imperial troop who cannot keep his trap shut is far more entertaining than C-3PO or R2-D2 ever were (although the old droids do turn up in Rogue One, since they are obligatory for every Star Wars film). Bring him back. Save his personality chip. Reprogramme another one, I don't mind.

The secret hero of the film is Galen Erso, Jyn's father and the mastermind behind the Death Star. Played by the mesmeric Mads Mikkelsen, who finally gets to portray someone other than an out-and-out villain, he's one of the most interesting characters in the film. His presence also clears up one of the most annoying elements of the original Star Wars, which is to say, the great big hole in the Deatn Star that's perfect for firing torpedoes directly into the engine core. By simply making this a deliberately engineered weakness, designed to stick two fingers up to the Empire, Galen Erso makes the original film a more coherent story in retrospect.

Disney's new Star Wars universe shucks off the gigantic Expanded Universe of supplementary material that it had accrued over the years, which has upset some fans and galvanised others. I've never been into Star Wars enough to be invested in the expanded material (it's always been Trek and Who for me), but it's surely a good thing to have the universe opened up like this for exploration. There is still, of course, plenty of canonical material to be mined. I'm sure to notice lots of little winks once I finally get round to watching Rebels, while I didn't realise the significance of Saw Gerrera, and just wondwered why Forest Whitaker had so little screentime compared to what the trailers suggested. I enjoyed the many nods to the earlier films, although quite how those two alien ne'erdowells found their way from Jedha to Tatooine without getting blown up, in time to meet Obi-Wan and Luke, what, a week later? But then, we have Darth Vader, voiced once again by James Earl Jones. He's used with commendable restraint, which maximise the impact of his scenes, although he really should realise that if he wants to destroy something on a spaceship, shooting the ship down and blowing up would probably work better than boarding said ship and stalking malevolently through it.

The most contentious aspect of the film is, undoubtedly, the use of CGI actors to recreate characters from A New Hope. It's a open question whether it's respectful to recreate a deceased actor, but in terms of its effectiveness, I think the CGI Peter Cushing/Grand Moff Tarkin worked astonishingly well. Yes, you can see he's CG, but only just. It's remarkably life-like, and Guy Henry provides a very good vocal performance. The story wouldn't work anywhere near as well without Tarkin's involvement, and his rivalry with Krennic (a great performance by Ben Mendelsohn) adds a lot of flavour to the Imperial scenes. I did feel that Tarkin came across as more moodily vindictive than his original, coldly monstrous self. This is the only guy who ever told Vader to stand down. You shouldn't see a flicker on that face.

The ending of the film is powerful, bravely going down thn the Blakes 7 "everybody dies" route. It is a war movie, after all, and the sacrifices of the characters hammer home the significance of the battle they've fought. Finally, the film segues directly into A New Hope, ending immediatley before the original's first scene. I can't wait to get this on disc and watch them back-to-back. The last thing we see is Leia, CGI'd the same way as Tarkin. Somehow, she's not quite as convincing (probably because a gaunt, wrinkly face hides the joins better than a smooth, youthful), but her appearance is fleeting, so it works. It's heartbreaking, though, to watch it now, after the incredibly sad loss of both Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. (We can take some comfort from the fact that Fisher has already shot her scenes for Episode VIII, but still.)

Controversial matters aside, Rogue One works, striking out in a somewhat new direction for the franchise while still feeling 100% Star Wars. A triumph.

The Force Awakens - Questions

SPOILERS, OBVS.

Carry on below the break.

REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Force Awakens opens with a truly beautifully directed scene, in which the villains' credentials are set out with a brutal massacre, and a single stoomtrooper stands among the carnage, unable to act. We can't see his face, he is completely indistinguishable from his fellows save for the blood smeared on his faceshield by his dying comrade. You can tell exactly what the trooper is thinking at every moment. It's a masterful example of silent acting combined with excellent direction.


Yes, The Force Awakens is derivative, so similar to its predecessors, particularly the original Star Wars, that it's practically a remake. The script is straightforward, some of the performances are very broad, and it trades in nostalgia over originality. Still, I don't know about you, but that's exactly what I was after. Like Terminator 5 and Jurassic World, the seventh episode of Star Wars is made for people who want to experience their favourite worlds again, reliving the classic movies. None of these franchises can afford to simply do this again, and need to go in new directions with their upcoming sequels, but for now, this works. The Force Awakens is a perfect reproduction of what made the original Star Wars so enjoyable, with just a little added to make it more palatable for modern audiences.


It's a wonderful step forward to have the main protagonists in the year's biggest blockbuster be a black man and a woman, and for them to be supported by a middle-aged couple. John Boyega is excellent in the role of Finn, the stoomtrooper who overcomes years of conditioning and abandons the First Order, the Nazi-esque successor to the Galactic Empire. He's a likeable hero with a strong development from terrified deserter to true hero, but he is overshadowed once the final act is set up and the white people dominate the scenes. So, a big step forward, but not without its flaws. The only other major role for an actor of colour is Lupita Nyong'o, who provides the voice of the venerable alien Maz Kanata. She's excellent in the role, but I question the wisdom of hiding the one other prominent black face (not to mention one of the most beautiful faces in the world) behind a CGI reptile.


Daisy Ridley shoulders some of the more perfunctory dialogue, but again, is a hugely likeable and believable hero. Yes, her story deliberately parallels Luke Skywalker's, but it's refreshing to have the hero of the piece, and the most impressive character, be a young woman, and this adds a new angle to the story. It's not only going to be little white boys who can see themselves in the heroes on screen. After all, even though Carrie Fisher was impressive in the original trilogy, she was nonetheless sat down out of the way while Luke saved the Galaxy. Rey gets to be the most powerful potential Jedi in the series, almost absurdly so, displaying incredible Force ability without a bit of training. Staggeringly, there are people out there who find this the hardest thing to believe in a film about magic space knights – obviously it's impossible that a woman could be the best in swordfight.


One thing in the prequels' favour was a sense of scale sometimes missing from the originals. The Force Awakens has that scale, without ever crossing the line to CGI overload. There are hectic space battles and tons of monsters, but it's never incoherent or hard to follow. I understand that much of what has transpired between Return of the Jedi and this movie is very similar to developments in the old expanded universe books and comics, but like the majority of the film's vast audience I know little about that. I can say that I like that things have clearly not been easy since the Battle of Endor, and that the Empire didn't just miraculously vanish overnight without consequence. The First Order is clearly a powerful organisation, the New Republic is worryingly weak, and their relationship with the Resistance uncertain. Leia is now a General, Han is once again living on the edge of the law, and life is still shitty for most people in this Galaxy. It's still an old, broken, dangerous world, populated by bizarre creatures, just as it should be.


Some of it is, perhaps, too familiar. Rey is drawn into the Rebellion Resistance after an attack on her home, the desert planet Tatooine Jekku. Han and Chewie take time away from their smuggling to help take the fight to the Death Star giant planet that eats suns. There's a critical confrontation over a huge crevasse. I don't think anyone loses an arm, though. But this just feels like Star Wars through and through, and while some dislike a certain familial relationship between characters being revealed, I feel that it's a confident inversion of the classic films' set-up. There's a deliberate sense of history repeating. Adam Driver's character, the villainous Kylo Ren, is a deliberately weak despot, trying hard to live up to the example of his idol, the long dead Darth Vader. The character works because of his weakness, not in spite of it. Equally good is Domhnall Gleeson, whose General Hux is the young, modern equivalent of Grand Moff Tarkin, with extra scenery chewing. Of course, the First Order recruits its officers from the best schools in England. There are little hints of life in this twisted order; for example, the revelation that the stormtroopers are made up of clones, recruits and children brought up as soldiers, with disagreement between officers which is the best method.



There are flaws, of course. Gwendolyn Christie is wasted as super-trooper Captain Phasma. Oscar Isaac's character, Poe Dameron, is written out early on, before randomly reappearing later in a lazy rewrite. But this is exciting, nostalgic fun, surprisingly funny, and if you do somehow manage to get bored, you can play “spot the cameo.” And BB-8 really is the cutest robot ever.

It's what you do with it that counts

Dirk Loechel has finished his ultimate update to his gigantic starship comparison chart (that's a gigantic chart of gigantic starships). He's not the only person to produce these charts, but his are the best and most exhaustive. This is massive, so click on the image to be taken to DeviantArt where you can see a larger image and download the full-sized one. As Dirk states in his FEQ, things like the Death Star, V'Ger and other super-enormous structures are just too large for this chart, without losing everything else due to resolution limits. The TARDIS is on there, but it is both far too small to see at this scale, and infinitely large so impossible to resolve on the screen.

Intergalactic Art

Saddened to read that Ralph McQuarrie has died. A great artist, he made a huge contribution to the look and feel of so many classic science fiction movies. Most famously, he was the chief production illustrator on Star Wars, but he also worked on a number of other productions, such as Coccoon, *batteries not included and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That elaborate illustration of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark? That was McQuarrie. You can see a great deal of his designs and illustrations on his website, albeit as some pretty tiny image files. There's some bigger files of his Star Wars work here. I've always thought of him as a spaceships and vistas sort of artist, but he did a lot of work on aliens and creatures too. Learnt from his website that he did some designs for ET. I personally can't stand ET, but it's still interesting to see the possible alternative designs for the little weirdie.

(As a trivial aside: as noted on the gallery page, ET was described as being 'three million light years from home,' on the initial poster campaign. Now, many years later, The Phantom Menace showed an impressive Galactic Senate scene with all sorts of alien species, including delegates from ET's people. Now, they were loads of in-jokes in the film, but these guys were clearly visible. Most fans seem happy with the idea that ET originated in the Star Wars Galaxy. Which means that galaxy is 3 Mly away. Maps of the Star Wars Galaxy show that it's a spiral galaxy like our own, and it's usually described as being of similar size (i.e about 100,000 ly across). Now, the best match to those estimates is M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, which is around 2.5 to 3.0 Mly away (depending which side you're measuring from). It's a bit smaller, probably only around 50,000 ly, but it's still a better match than M31 in Andromeda, the only other possible candidate, which is much larger and also closer. So, the Star Wars Galaxy is M33. I reckon.)

So, McQuarrie is something of a legend. They even made an action figure of him. Plus, he worked on Star Trek, which makes me love him even more, although it's a shame little of his work ever made much of an impact on what reached the screen. A StarWars-y Enterprise would have been cool.

On the subject of Star Trek art, check out this gallery. Loads of behind the scenes images from classic Trek thanks to the 'birdofthegalaxy.' Be assured that some of these will show up in future CAPTAIN'S BLOGS.