Tag: star wars

Direct beam comms #4

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Is it just me, or is the Netflix series Jessica Jones just a hard-drinking darker version of Veronica Mars (2004–2007)?

 

I was recently able to catch up on the Starz series Ash vs Evil Dead and am happy to say that it’s GREAT. Horror comedies like Ash vs Evil Dead must be hard to pull off since there sure aren’t many of them. Let’s see, there’s the Evil Dead series, What We Do in the Shadows and Shaun of the Dead movies, parts of Tucker and Dale vs Evil and … well, that’s about it.

And Ash vs Evil Dead isn’t JUST horror/comedy either, it’s got a lot of heart too which surprised me.

The one thing is that I’m not quite sure how Ash vs Evil Dead fits with the Evil Dead cannon as a whole? It’s almost like in the Ash vs Evil Dead universe The Evil Dead (1981) didn’t happen but Evil Dead II (1987) did. And either they’re ignoring Army of Darkness (1992) or they just haven’t gotten to the part where Ash is, “Trapped in time, surrounded by evil and low on gas,” yet.

Movies

Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Force Awakens: I was really excited about this one when I saw the first trailer. It seemed that Disney and J.J. Abrams were taking what made the original trilogy great and and molding this into a new film series. After seeing The Force Awakens, I thought the movie was really good but my two complaints are that a lot happens in the film that’s pure coincidence and The Force Awakens is essentially a remake of Star Wars: A New Hope with a dash of The Empire Strikes Back but with everything being BIGGER and more bombastic than before. Most of the beats from A New Hope are present in The Force Awakens which is fine, but I just wish Abrams had gone and done more of his own thing than making a “greatest hits” movie like he did here. B+

Ex Machina: It took me a while to see this one even though several friends highly recommended it to me the last few months. Writer/director Alex Garland is one of the best voices in realistic sci-fi/horror like with 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Dredd and he continues his winning streak with Ex Machina, about the creation of the first artificially intelligent being that might be a little too intelligent for mankind to contain. B

Fantastic Four (2015): Do we really need any more superhero origin movies? Not that we don’t need origin stories for superheroes, just that is there really a need anymore to devote an entire movie to origin when there’s plenty of more interesting ways to do that? Like Iron Man is an origin story but is told in such a way that much of the origin is covered in the first half of the movie and the more recent Ant Man handles his origin by having it be something that’s slowly uncovered over the course of an adventure rather than devoting an entire film to it which Fantastic Four does.

In fact, the actual Four don’t get together until nearly the end of the movie. It’s the film that’s essentially an advertisement to the forthcoming sequel that looks kind’a interesting that’s never going to happen since the first movie didn’t do well enough at the box office.

Fantastic Four isn’t a bad movie, it’s just that in an era of great superhero movies it doesn’t stand out in any substantial way. C

Books

I got the books Sketching from the Imagination: An Insight into Creative Drawing and Art of He Man and the Masters of the Universe this year for Christmas. Sketching from the Imagination is a look at the sorts of techniques different artists use when sketching for fun or work while Art of He Man is a visual history of all the art generated behind the scenes when coming up with a toylike then maintaining it over the years with new toys and playsets.

The Star Wars pop-culture desert

CategoriesFeature, ToysPosted on

lrg-packaged-frontStar Wars spans nearly 40 years of history. From the first movie that opened in 1977 to the five that would follow, many TV series, a line of books and comics and hundreds if not thousands of toys and even now inexplicably a line of COVERGIRL makeup there’s very few places that the Star Wars phenomenon hasn’t seeped into.

I’ve been getting Star Wars memorabilia since the first movie premiered and have been a collector on and off ever since. I’ve bought the movies on VHS then DVD and then Blu-ray, have loads of Star Wars comics and quite a few toys too. In fact, I’ve got toys from the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s and now ‘10s too with the new movie.

But what’s most striking about the latest toy releases is that alongside toys for characters from the latest film there’s also toys for characters who’ve had dozens and dozens of variations of toys out there already like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. And I’d wager that as more toys for the new movie are released we’ll see other familiar characters get new toys of their own as well.

bacdb037-9fe8-4006-884e-f83197cfa830Which made me think; how much of Star Wars product marketing is getting people to buy (nearly) the same thing over and over again?

I’m not immune to this. A quick look at my Star Wars action figure shelf, yes, there is a “shelf” of Star Wars figures in my office, shows that I have four different Storm Trooper figures and EIGHT Boba Fett figures. A good estimate here with these two characters is that I’ve spend more than $80 essentially buying the same thing over and over again since I had my own money to spend.

The question is; are these re-release figures meant for me, the middle-aged collector? Or, instead, are they really for new collectors who don’t already have loads of Storm Troopers and Boba Fetts?

I get the feeling that over the long term the Star Wars movies are less about telling a story and more about creating new characters for upcoming toy lines and video games and theme park attractions too.

91ymwv-55gl._sl1500__5b1_5d_30733cf0-1621-4055-8e3c-42710cde8854Which I suppose is all right. There was about a decade from the mid-‘80s to the mid–90s that Star Wars was a non-entity. The original movies played a few times a year on cable and that was about it for the franchise. The public had moved on to new things.

But slowly, from Lucas “enhancing” the special effects in the original trilogy and re-releasing those films to him doing a whole new trilogy from ’99-’05 Star Wars came back into pop-culture preeminence with new toys, TV series and video games too.

But after the new movies ended much like with Star Wars slipping from view in the ‘80s happened again over the last decade. To be sure this wasn’t as bad as things were from the ‘80s to ‘90s when Star Wars was a non-entity since this time there were still animated TV series, video games and a few toys out there. But in terms of popularity over the last decade I doubt Star Wars was at the top of mind of anyone but the most ardent fans.

But with the upcoming release of the new film and all the excitement that it’s bringing, Star Wars has once again become a preeminent pop-culture touchstone for many people out there and the fans are once again excited about all things Star Wars.

And I suppose if that means that there’s more Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker toys to buy again alongside the new characters and if the original films that were available on VHS and Betamax and LaserDisc and DVD and Blu-ray and now digital download…well, to me that’s better than revisiting the Star Wars pop-culture desert we’ve been living in the last decade.

Other kid’s Star Wars toys

CategoriesFeature, Toys, UncategorizedPosted on

From as far back as I can remember I’ve always had Star Wars toys. I don’t remember which ones I had first, I was two when Star Wars was released and tidal wave of merchandise that followed, but I have photos of myself getting the Death Star playset which was released in ’78 so that must’ve been one of the first. And I remember having lots of toys like Han Solo and Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and more that I got when I was still too young to remember getting them.

Bert Star Wars Death Star
Me and my Death Star playset

I had everything from the X-Wing, the Millennium Falcon, the Land and Snow Speeders, the Cloud Car, the AT-ST, the Speeder Bike, dozens of figures and on and on and on. And I have one definite memory of getting Slave I Christmas of ’80.

Unfortunately, other than a handful of figures that I still have, my Star Wars toys that would be worth many thousands of dollars today in mint condition was thrown out when they were broken one too many times or left behind in a move.

The weird thing is that I can remember the Star Wars things my friends had almost as much as the ones I did.

Return of the Jedi StorybookI remember my friend Chris’ older brother in elementary school had a Return of the Jedi storybook. And since I had a “making of” book the brother let me read the storybook while he checked out my book at recess one day. I remember around that time being interested in just what the new Scout Trooper would be up to in the film and learning of his name via Chris’ brother’s book.

My neighbor friend Jeremy was cool because he had a pool at his house AND he and his little brother had turned their bedroom into a miniature Ewok village. I was much more into all the various characters from Return of the Jedi than just the Ewoks, but Jeremy had some sort of laser focus and had most of the different Ewok figures along with the corresponding playsets too. I remember being particularly intrigued over how neither Jeremy nor his brother never have to put their toys away when they were done playing with them as their room was setup all Ewok all the time.

Which is something my brother and myself would adopt the next summer as we’d turn out rooms into toy “bases” in order that we could have all our toys out all the time too.

PJ was the friend with a plan. He was a few years older than me and had a closet full of Star Wars toys. And if Jeremy’s toys were always out ready to be played with PJ’s were always put away and secure. In fact, other than a few times I don’t ever remember seeing his Star Wars toys out. EVER.

AT-AtPJ was the one kid I knew who had the colossal AT-AT vehicle. Really more of a playset than a toy, the AT-AT was bigger than anything else Star Wars and I only ever remember him having it out one time and him letting me try the legs and turn the head. Otherwise I suppose it resided in the closet with the rest of the collection as I never saw it again.

Which was, and still is, maddening for a Star Wars toy fiend like myself.

And PJ’s plan for his toys? He wanted to keep them nice and as new as possible because he figured that when he was an adult these toys would be valuable and therefor hard to get. And that if he wanted any future children of his to be able to play with Star Wars toys in the future they’d have be his toys from when he was a kid and he wanted to keep them as nice as possible for them.

Meanwhile, I played with my toys hard, would eventually break every vehicle I ever had and as I got older used some of my collection a fireworks fodder when I was a teen looking for fun on the 4th of July.

Though we’ve lost touch over the years I’ve always wondered if PJ’s kids ever ended up with his toys, though somehow I doubt it.