May your day be filled with fireworks, revelry, and delicious barbecued wieners.
Bookshelf Q. Battler here to kick the holiday off in style with a brief history of the American Revolution.
“Tax that tea so that I might purchase more elaborate coats!” – King George III
Frankly, kids these days, what with their addiction to the Interwebs and what not, have no idea how their country got started and it’s high time someone educated them.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
The colonials loved their tea. All day long, they’d sit around the hearth and say, “‘Ello guvna, I fancy a spot of tea I do!”
They found tea exceptionally delicious and drank that shit morning, noon and night. The only time when you’d never see a colonial with one tea cup in his hand is when he’d have two tea cups, one in each hand.
3.5 readers, today is the day we celebrate our independence from British tyranny (yes, we were so pissed those dirty limey pricks taxed our tea that we went and created a system that taxes a) our income b) our property c) our purchases and d) still charges fees for many basic government transactions.
That’ll learn ya, ya bucktoothed wankers!
Anyway, celebrate your country’s independence today, but all year long, you can celebrate your independence from shitty writing ideas by buying my big book of badass writing prompts. To do so, you’ll have to liberate 99 cents from your wallet, but really, can you put a price on freedom? I think not.
SPOILERS, although if you haven’t seen it yet, you don’t really care that much, do you?
As you 3.5 are aware, I really laid into The Last Jedi when it came out, calling it the stinkburger to end all stinkburgers. In particularly, it bugged me that the Force Awakens set us up for hopes of awesome Luke/Rey Jedi training montages and possibility Luke is Rey’s father. Instead, we got a bitter old Luke who just whines about all his problems to Rey. Our hero, who we assumed would go on to be a lifelong badass just gave up on life and stared at the ceiling of a cave for 30 years. Just didn’t seem like a good life for Star Wars’ most beloved hero.
But after watching it a second time and without the “WTF are they doing to Luke?” lens I watched it with the first time, I get it.
Two main points:
#1 – Lack of Communication and Assuming the Worst
There’s an ongoing subplot in which Poe challenges Admiral Holdo’s leadership. When he learns she is evacuating the ship, he is angry, telling her that the First Order will just blow the escape transports up and she’s a coward who refuses to fight.
SPOILER – as it turns out, Holdo had a plan. Once the ship was evacuated, she rammed the First Order ship at light speed, sacrificing herself but making a cool scene in the process.
A lack of communication is tearing us apart. When we hear disagreement, we immediately assume the disagreeing person is an enemy. We shut down attempts for the disagreeing party to explain their point of view. We assume the worst and we assume any explanations offered are really just attempts to mask evil intent.
Holdo might have told Poe to shut up and trust her and avoided a mutiny. Poe might have assumed his commanding officer had learned a thing or two in her movement up the ranks and trusted her.
In the real world, we see Democrats and Republicans assume the worst about each other every day when they could try to reach common ground and make some deals that might be beneficial to all.
#2 – We are Hopelessly Stuck in the Past and This is Ruining Our Future
Luke is stuck in the past. He is paralyzed by the Jedi’s past mistakes. The Jedi trained his father, Anakin, and in doing so, unleashed Darth Vader on the world. When Luke sees the same evil lurking in Ben Solo, he thinks about killing Ben to avoid repeating the mistake that was made with Vader. He doesn’t, but this display sets Ben down a bad path, turning him into Kylo Ren.
Was Luke wrong in not killing Ben? Perhaps he did not learn from the Jedi’s past mistake. Perhaps emotion made him avoid reason – i.e. ignoring the hard learned via Vader lesson that if evil is spotted in a Jedi trainee, said trainee should be sliced and diced with a lightsaber ASAP.
Or maybe Luke chose not to be beholden to the past. A past failure with Vader doesn’t mean a future failure with Ben. By being stuck in the past, Luke caved into past fears and raised his lightsaber toward Ben in anger. Ben had done nothing wrong and was pre-judged based on a past he didn’t live. Assuming the worst in people before they have even had a chance to become the worst might just turn them into the worst as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ben informs Rey she can drop her past, let it go and become stronger. Forget about her parents. There was nothing special about them. Stop clinging to a hope that they’ll swoop in and save her and offer an epic story of why they had to abandon her.
Perhaps the real world advice there on a personal level is to stop trying to make your parents happy and make yourself happy.
On a generational level, it might be that everyone needs to hug it out and get a long. Stop looking at each other as enemies just because our parents did. Stop repeating the mistakes made by past generations and stop carrying their biases and mistakes into the next generation.
There was a part where Rey had a chance to join Kylo Ren. Maybe the Resistance and the First Order are just two sides of the same coin – zealots who can’t let the past go, who are bent on carrying past grudges into the future forever, even if they must tear the galaxy apart forever.
I think it would have been a real coup if Rey and Ben had teamed up. It would have been a fabulous cliffhanger, though I don’t know what a Rey and Ren vs. the First Order and the Resistance film looks like.
In reality, we don’t have to hate each other because our parents did. We don’t have to repeat our parents’ mistakes because we fear change. We don’t have to be stuck in ruts forever because of mistakes we made in our personal lives.
Conclusion – Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water
Luke, and to my surprise, Ghost Yoda, decide that the Jedi should go the way of the dodo because of mistakes they made. This seems rather Draconian and ignores all the good the Jedi did…and it also assumes that it is possible for any organization to exist with a perfect track record and that organizations should only exist if they only never, ever, ever make a mistake. The second a mistake is made, the organization must disband.
Yes, the Jedi made Vader but they also defeated Vader. Rey points this out so maybe in a way she is a voice of reason.
Real world application? There seems to be a disturbing sentiment out there that because of America’s bad history, it can never have any kind of a good future. Slavery. The killing of Native Americans. The list goes on and on.
Do we wish that equal rights for all had been established on Day One? Yes. But luckily, the mechanisms needed to bring about change via various legal and governmental process. Today, we aren’t perfect, but surely we’ve come along way, even in the past 50 years.
America isn’t perfect but like an imperfect body, wounds heal. The develop scars to remind us of past mistakes, scars which serve as reminders to not repeat past errors and to keep on a path that doesn’t open up new wounds.
America and Jedi have both made mistakes but to get rid of either because of past mistakes is to assume any and all replacements of America and/or Jedi will offer complete 100 percent perfection.
Plus, I just don’t think anyone wants to see a Star Wars movie with Jedi. If the Jedi are gone altogether or are renamed the Knights of Gawooby Dooby or something, I think that will be the point where Star Wars jumps the shark.
Your old pal BQB here. Just an FYI, I haven’t been posting much lately because I am hard at working finishing up Toilet Gator, which is the best novel ever written about toilets, gators, or toilet gators.
As a nerd, I give a resounding yes. The name is awesome and sounds like it comes from a sci-fi movie. However, I think I can read Trump’s mind. I think his idea is that thousands of years from now, contact will be made between humans and aliens. If a U.S. Space Force is started, that will likely be the organization that contacts the aliens. Ergo, Trump wants to reserve a spot in the history books as the creator of the Space Force that eventually made contact with aliens.
My two cents on what he is up to anyway. Either that, or he’ll push for a Mars expedition with the hope of building a structure that might get the name “Trump” slapped on it, which you might laugh at, but JFK’s support for the space program led to the creation of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
I don’t know. Love or hate Trump, but I like this idea. Sign me up for the Space Force.
Come to think of it, our POTUS does like pussy. (What’s not to like?) Maybe he is hoping the Space Force might be able to find and bring back some green space bitches with multiple pussies to grab. Ugh, nice in theory but in reality, way too much work to please all that pussy.
I wouldn’t mind finding some space bitches with three titties though. That’s just three times the fun.
In all seriousness, life surely exists in the vast reaches of space. It would be amazing to make contact, though whether or not that contact would yield good or bad results for humanity remains to be seen. Due to our curious natures, we’ll always keep trying to make that contact, even though the safe bet is to stick to our own corner of the galaxy, so we might as well keep on trying and see what happens. Hopefully, whatever happens is a good thing.
BQB here with a review of the long awaited sequel to “The Incredibles.”
Wow. How quickly fourteen years go by. When I saw the original film in 2004, I was young, full of hopes and dreams and now, all these years later I realize that being the humble proprietor of a blog that’s only read by 3.5 people is the best my life will ever get.
SPOILER ALERT – before the film, the cast, i.e. Craig T. Nelson (Mr. Incredible), Holly Hunter (Elastigirl) and Samuel L. Jackson (Frozone) come out to apologize for taking so long to make a sequel, and then in a fun way, explain how long it takes to make an animated movie, from coming up with a story idea, refining it, drawing it out on paper, getting it into computerized animation, etc. It’s all so complicated you are amazed animated movies, or really, any movies, get made at all.
As it turns out, 14 years was worth the wait. This is a rare sequel that is good as the original, and perhaps even surpasses it in some ways.
The story picks up right after the end of the last film. Superheroes continue to be hated by the public and the government, thought of as jerks who just get in the way and cause more damage to the city while fighting villains that the world would be better off just letting the villains take whatever they want.
However, Winston and Evelyn Deavor (Bob Odenkirk and Catherine Keener) don’t share this view. Wealthy telecom company owners, this brother-sister duo believe that superheroes are the future and are willing to put up their money and public communication skills on the line to rehabilitate public perception of superheroes, all in the hope of changing anti-super hero laws.
SIDENOTE: I’ve always felt that the anti-hero laws of this world reflect the real world. All too often, we bitch at people who are trying to solve problems because it’s easier than, say, actually rolling up our sleeves and trying to solve the problems ourselves.
Back to the review. The Deavors become the Incredible family’s benefactor, putting them up in swanky digs and funding missions for Elastigirl. That’s right. It’s Mr. Incredible’s turn to stay home and play Mr. Mom, helping super fast son Dash with his homework, invisible girl Violet with her teenage angst, and, to hilarious effect, corralling baby Jack-Jack, whose budding super powers have no bounds as the little guy is all emotion with no ability to control himself.
Meanwhile, Elastigirl dazzles in a particularly awesome scene with a special motorcycle that can separate apart as she needs it to. Remember, she’s like a big rubber band, so as the action happens, her butt can be twenty feet away and the back half of the bike will detach and stick with her butt as needed. Sounds silly, yet awesome on the big screen and kudos to the writer who thought of that.
There are many great action scenes like this, showing that Disney knows super heroes, Pixar knows animation, so more animated super hero flicks might definitely pan out. As I recall, Disney’s other animated super hero flick, “Big Hero 6,” was further proof of this phenomenon.
It all culminates in taking on “The Screenslaver,” the villain who is able to control the minds of anyone who watches one of his hacked screens, with an underlying message that perhaps we could all use a little less screen time.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Lesson? Take your time with sequels, Hollywood. Resist the cash grab urge. I know you’re in a money making business but put sequels on the back burner while you work other projects, and then when those sequels have simmered enough, move them to the front burner where they can satisfy our appetites with gourmet precision rather than fast-food speed. The extra time taken here paid off big time.
Not to keep knocking “Star Wars” but keep in mind that absence makes the heart grow fonder and maybe even makes the movie maker’s mind sharper. Maybe 14 years is a long time but a sequel, say, once every 5 years is like getting together with an old, long lost friend, whereas a sequel once a year is like that house guest who sets up shop in your living room and refuses to leave. Sure, it was fun for a week but now you’d like to be able to watch your TV and sit on your couch in peace.
Other lesson – more animated super hero movies or, barring that, more animated any kind of adventure movies. Live action hero movies are great, but animated films can really stretch boundaries and give adults something to actually enjoy while captivating the kids.
PRO: Making people pay for their farts might motivate them to fart less and this may lead to less air pollution. Maybe people will at least try to eat less fart inducing foods and this will be beneficial to their health.
CON: If people fart less, the gas will be trapped in their bodies for longer periods, causing gaseous internal damage. People are so strapped for cash already that if they have to pay a fart tax, they will just hold the farts in until they spontaneously combust. You’ll be sitting at your cubicle and the guy next to you will just, all of a sudden, be consumed in a fire and then people will be like, “Well, I guess Stanley had a chili cheese corn dog and an extra-large Coke for lunch and couldn’t afford the fart tax due to his child support payments.”
Let’s just get this review over with. SPOILERS ABOUND.
The biggest spoiler is that it sucks, though maybe we should have realized this ahead of time as this is the fifth movie in a franchise based on an early 1990s film the success of which was good writing and acting paired with the first example of how CGI, if done well, can enhance a film.
Alas, the lesson was not learned that films cannot live by CGI dinosaurs alone. While the actors do their best, the plot is like a 500 pound T-Rex turd – mildly interesting from afar, but big, smelly and useless up close.
At first, it feels like a bait and switch. Our heroes, Claire and Owen (Bryce Howard and Chris Pratt) are recruited to save the dinosaurs left on the island from the previous film, from an impending volcano eruption. I expected 2 hours of our adventurers running around with dinos in a race against time whilst avoiding incoming hot lava and am willing to ignore how our heroes did not learn from the previous film that Mother Nature decided long ago that man and dinos don’t mix and that the dinos should be left to be cooked because they can never be controlled.
Indeed, the first 20 minutes where this happens make up the most interesting part of the film, but from there it struggles. I don’t want to accuse the film of a bait and switch because on a second glance of the plot, the trailer is honest about what the film is about and I suppose it’s my fault that I only watched the first part of the trailer.
At any rate, the hot lava island chase idea is cut short early and we are transported to the mansion of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), the never yet mentioned former business partner of Hammond from the original film. Lockwood, Clare and Owen have been double crossed by Lockwood’s business associate Eli (Rafe Spall) and a merc (Ted Levine, who, as we all know, once famously asked a lady to put the lotion in the basket in “Silence of the Lambs.”) His presence in the film is cool and creepy but doesn’t save it.
Blah, blah, blah the villains have brought the dinos to the mansion to be auctioned off to the world’s wealthiest reprobates. Owen and Clare are left to escape the dino infested estate, and a dino fight in the bedroom of Lockwood’s granddaughter seems surreal.
It all culminates (BIG SPOILER) in dinos being released into the world and although that’s scary, it seems unlikely, as the number of dinos released is relatively small and surely the Army could have taken them out before they get too far and take over.
It ends (SPOILER) with Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Dr. Malcolm, testifying before some kind of committee about the dangers of dinos and/or man’s hubris in thinking he can control the uncontrollable. I felt cheated as I assumed Goldblum was going to be running around on the lava filled island, firing off quips to our plucky band of younger heroes. Alas, his presence is just a quick cameo.
From “Star Wars” to this film, this “We’re bringing the old timers back!” only to have them move on and off the screen quickly seems lame. Although Harrison Ford’s part in “The Force Awakens” is big, Luke and Leia were underutilized. Here, I’m not sure why Goldblum isn’t given a bigger role as he seems to still be physically capable and his mind seems sharp so…beats me. Money? Who knows.
Hollywood, take a cue from Dr. Malcolm. Just because you CAN clone dinos doesn’t mean you should. Therefore, just because you CAN make a fifth sequel a very original, yet to be surpassed dino film doesn’t mean you should.
Yes, man was blessed with the ability to do a number of things, but he was also blessed with the ability to consider whether he should do these things and when it comes to dino movies…please, unless you come up with an original plot, very doubtful at this point, just take the cash you would have given to a sixth cash grab and green light something else instead.
The wisest among the characters in the series know the dinos should die yet the Hollywood suits, like their corporate dino company counterparts, just don’t get the point.
STATUS: Not shelf-worthy!!! Oh, it pains me to say that.
“Tax that tea so that I might purchase more elaborate coats!” – King George III 
Bookshelf Battle 