Clone Wars -- "A Test of Strength" (Ep. 5.6)

-- The young are often underestimated.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

It's important to remember that Hondo is a pirate. Of course, he's a pirate in the same vein as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian: a charming rogue. It makes it easy to be taken in by him, characters and viewers alike. But, then, he does something every so often to remind us he really is just a pirate. It doesn't matter how "presidential" he sounds during his not-the-state-of-the-union address, he's still gonna cut your throat for profit if he thinks he's going to make some from doing it. There is no, and there never was, doing the right thing. He just fools you into thinking that when he's making money by being nice to you. But it all comes down to, "We all know how much I like to be rich, don't we?"

In the end, it makes Hondo no better, and possibly worse, than Anakin during and after his fall.

And this is how bad it is:
During the conflict when Hondo is obviously and blatantly trying to kill Ahsoka and those under her charge, Ahsoka says to him, "I don't want to hurt you." And she doesn't. Do you know why? She likes Hondo, just like we do, because why? Because he's a charming rogue, and you can't help yourself. Even while he's trying to slit your throat. Hondo's response? "I know." That's not a direct quote, but it's the spirit of it, and it gives Hondo the edge.

Oh, yeah, Honda is in this episode.

And David Tennant, my second favorite Doctor. Oh, no, not him, just his voice, but that's good, too.

Yes, we're still in the same arc started last episode. Let's just say it doesn't end well. You should probably just watch it.


"The lightsaber is a Jedi's only true ally."

Star Wars: A Discussion (Episode IV)

I suppose we're up to the place where we finally start talking about The Force Awakens, but this still isn't a review. Not, yet, anyway.

If you've read the previous posts in this series, it will come as no surprise to you that the lead up to The Force Awakens was a big deal in my household. We had our tickets not long after they started pre-selling them, so something like a month in advance. My oldest son, who is working on a suit of stormtrooper armor so that he can join the 501st, spent the last year pouring over every tiny little detail released about the movie and engaging in all kinds of theories about it.

I pretty much constantly had to tell him not to tell me the stuff he was finding out online, because I wanted to go into the movie with as little knowledge as possible about it. I already knew more than I wanted to know about the general premise of the story because of all of the Star Wars lore I accumulated back in the 90s before Lucas announced that he was going to make the prequels.

My younger son fell somewhere in between us. He wasn't searching out information, but he wasn't opposed to being told things, either.

It's an interesting thing watching an event draw closer for someone who has been highly anticipating it. See, although my oldest son saw all of the prequels in the theater, he didn't really remember doing that. He was only three for Phantom Menace and, although he was old enough to remember going to see Revenge at the theater, all he really remembered of that was all of the people in costume while we were waiting in line to get in. His memories were all about the movies themselves because he'd seen them so many times on DVD; he had no real memories of the experience of going to see them.

That's not like me, I remember the experience of going to see A New Hope the first time I went to see it. I remember everything about it, including how badly I needed to go to the bathroom and being unwilling to do that because I was so enraptured by the movie. But, then, it was a full year before I got to see it again, so I really had to hold onto that one memory very tightly. And I did, too.

Yes, those were the years before, even, VHS players.

But it hasn't been like that with my kids. Their lives have been full of Star Wars pretty much from the start, so all three of them were very much looking forward to going to see a new Star Wars movie while being old enough to be able to remember the experience of going to do that, my oldest son most of all. You could see the tension growing in him as we got closer, especially in that last week. He was both excited and scared, scared that it wouldn't be as good as he hoped.

He's the reason I saw it twice on "opening" night, Thursday, December 17. We already had our tickets for the 7:00 show, but, back at the end of the summer, he picked up a job at a movie theater. They were doing an actual midnight showing for the employees, and he could bring two people: that was me and his brother. Let me just say: Midnight is not a kind time when you got up at 5:00am. Even for Star Wars.

So... We all went to the 7:00 show, and we all really liked it, but... Okay, so, my wife and my daughter just straight up liked the movie. Enough for them to want to see it a second time (which we did, making my third) and for my daughter to want, now, to go see it again. Neither of them are much into re-watching movies. After coming out of the first showing, my sons and I all felt like we needed to see it again before being able to properly evaluate it. Which is not to say that there were any doubts about likability. But the movie is fast. It's really non-stop action, like a roller coaster, which I'm sure is what Disney was striving for, and there's no time during the movie to ever stop and think about what you're seeing.

That was actually what I said to my wife when we came out of the theater, my only mark against it on that initial viewing: It was too fast. That one thing distracted from the Star Wars-ness of the film, much like the new Doctor Who series is also too fast. Don't get me wrong, I really like the new Doctor Who series and David Tennant comes in at second on my favorite Doctor list (though Capaldi is really excellent, too, and has the potential to hit #2), but, sometimes (frequently), I miss the thoughtfulness of the older shows. I miss that problems were solved by thinking, not by running around (the running is a big deal in the new series). [Part of what I like about Capaldi is that he has brought back some of the thoughtfulness.]

There is a lot of running in The Force Awakens.

Okay, so, what I'm going to say right now is that I like the movie. A lot. But it still only comes in at 4 of 7 of the Star Wars movies, maybe 5 of 7. One of the top 3 is one of the prequels. Next post, we'll talk about why.