Raya and the Last Dragon [2021] spoiler review

In a word - I thought it was okay. I felt like a good 80-90% of the acting and jokes was heavily geared towards kids so that wasn't really for me. Almost all of the jokes fell flat for me. I chuckled once or twice and smiled once. One of the characters says "butt-kickery", and the one kids behind me said, "he said butt" and was laughing so that may give you some indication of the level of humor. 

The animation was beautiful and the story was fairly straightforward. Thankfully you get a lot of title cards to remind you where you are in the story, but a little more map work might have helped. I got some Moana vibes and almost felt like an opening song was going to start as the plot was explained, but sadly there were no songs and very little music that I can recall. 

It definitely tugs at the heart strings, and I like a movie that moves me emotionally.  Upon leaving the theater, I think I personally connected more with the opening short "Us Again".

Netflix's The Queen's Gambit (Miniseries) spoiler review

Anya Taylor-Joy played the part fairly well.  You could track the evolution of her character from smart-naïve-innocent-yet-defiant young girl to intelligent-yet-still-defiant young woman.  She didn't let the era define her i.e. chess being a boys club and the idea that girls should join a social club, get pregnant, and start a family.  I also like that she didn't let anything stand in her way.  Of course, she got cocky and suffered for it, but she appeared to have learned her lesson and she was able to achieve her goal but more on that later.

As for Beth's relationship with her birth mother, I think it was fairly obvious what happened in the first episode when her mother's finals words were "Close your eyes."  When the reveal of the actual events happened in the final episode I wasn't surprised.  On the topic of mothers, I'm glad they expanded on Beth's relationship with her step mother and I like how their relationship grew with their openness and honesty with each other.  They were both lost souls that found and had each other.  I was genuinely sad when she died.

As for Beth's father figures, I really liked the janitor character and I would have liked more backstory about him.  I was hoping the series would revisit him but unfortunately it wasn't until after his death that the story went in that direction.  As for her birth father, they kept showing him, and I thought he may pop up or, at some point later, Beth would seek him out.  Her birth mother's suicide aside, I think the big reveal was that her father actually moved on and started a whole new family.  Sadly that event was the final nail in the coffin from her mother's POV.  So in retrospect, I'm glad neither sought out the other.

Plot-wise, the arc of season 1 felt fairly straightforward.  While it was mostly predictable, I still found it enjoyable.  

The only thing I didn't like is that the ending didn't feel earned.  Beth had spiraled down to the point where she was burning all her bridges with her friends, yet everyone came to her aid in the end to help her - why?  I would have liked to see Beth have a heart to heart with Beltik (Harry Melling) and apologize before going to Russia.  Then he could have been the one to get everyone together to help her.  It didn't make sense to me that Watts (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) did it without some outside catalyst to influence him.  It also didn't make sense that everyone traveled to New York when most of the people that helped were from/living in Kentucky.  Maybe Watts felt bad that he didn't go to Russia with Beth and this was his attempt to make it up to her.  I don't think he owed her anything, again, especially after the way she treated him.  

Regardless, I think the heart of the entire story can be found in her conversation with the young Russian boy.  After you achieve the rank of grandmaster, what happens next?  What do you do with the rest of your life?  I think if a season 2 is made it could explore that question and personally, I would be interested on how Beth would answer those questions.

Final Fantasy VII Remake [2020] spoiler review

FFVII Remake:  

• 4/14 - 5/20 First play through complete  
• Total time ~44 hours

Overall thoughts - major spoilers

With memories of the original in the back of my head, I definitely thought the highway part would be the end of the game.  Especially after this image in the link below hit the internet.  There was a part of me thinking that this would be the final shot of the game.  https://square-enix-games.com/en_GB/news/heroes-gather-new-final-fantasy-vii-remake-key-art  I was actually surprised to be wrong.  This shot isn't even in the game at all and it's a beautiful piece of art.

Concerning the Singularity, I can't say with a 100% certainty that everything made sense to me.  IMO, the purpose of the Whispers was they had a certain amount of control over fate and they had the power to change it, so if they are now destroyed in the final battle what does that mean moving forward?  Can future events be prevented or changed compared to what we know happens in the original?  Or now that they're gone, are we truly on our own?  Aerith mentions the future being a blank slate - is she correct?  Red XIII says something like these visions from the arbiters of fate are of the future if we fail.  Actually, the vision of him running through the canyon was after the group succeeded in saving Midgar and the planet, at least that's what I thought when we were shown the final shot of the original game that Midgar is covered in green plants and Shinra is no longer sucking up the life of the planet.

I watched IGN's explanation of the ending and I felt a little bit better as there is a lot of stuff left purposely vague for the sequel.  Specially the "7 seconds" tidbit is up for discussion/debate.  As the world opens up for this little branch of Avalanche in the sequel to this game, will they necessarily follow the same path as the original?  It doesn't feel like it and that's okay.  While I appreciate the backstory dump in Kalm post Midgar in the original, I think that could be done completely different in the next installment of the Remake and I hope it is.

As mentioned above, in the Remake, it felt like there was a lot more talk of Wutai, and a new element? of Avalanche HQ.  I don't remember HQ being mention in the original;  I definitely don't remember them being a presence in the original game for sure.  In the Remake, they are mentioned to be more extreme than Barret's group, but what's more extreme than blowing up a reactor?  Will we find out more about HQ?  Also, speaking of changes, Mayor Domino seems to play more of a role.  I wonder if he'll come back in the sequel.  Also, is Jesse the only person in the game that actually died?

The IGN video also mentioned a parallel universe where Zack is still alive.  I know a parallel timeline story arc was discussed when this game was first developed back in the 90s, but it was ultimately used in FF8 instead with Squall and his father IIRC.  Also, if there is a universe where Zack survives, how will that affect the main story, if at all?

At the end of the day, it was great being back in this universe.  It was fun to play and only slightly frustrating at times, but so was the original.  I died to Sephiroth twice when I was given Aerith and then Tifa in the final battle.  Out of frustration, I returned to the title screen, did all the arbiter stuff again, but then I got Tifa then Barret in the final battle and won.  So I don't know if there's an element of RNG or if I did something different that affected who I was given.  Either way, I look forward to revisiting some chapters now that I have that ability and maybe I'll dip into Hard mode over the long Memorial Day weekend.

The Unknown Journey Will Continue...hopefully in 2021 or 2022 at the latest [fingered crossed]!

Birds of Prey [2020] Spoiler Review

Things I appreciated

1)  For a good chunk of the movie, I felt it was trying to give us the narrative from the POV of being in Harley Quinn's head.  Here's the story, wait, let me go back 4 minutes, wait, now let me go back 1 week, wait, I'm getting slapped so now we're inside my head and I'm Marilyn Monroe.  While I could appreciate this approach, there are scenes in between that didn't match the tone, or we cut to a scene that was too serious, or one that didn't matter like Black Mask talking to Black Canary about his art collection.  Why did that matter?

2)  Most of the fight scenes had a good mix of choreography and feeling real world.  If there was any wire work, it wasn't obvious to my eye.  Compare these scenes to every-time Rey Palpatine leaves the ground in TROS -- it's blatantly obvious wire work, distracting, and pulls you out of the movie.  This was not the case in Birds.

3)  The title cards when a random character came out of nowhere who had a grievance with Harley was good, but again the contrasting tone with other scenes didn't match the overall tone making the "toned down" scenes boring or confusing.  Also Black Mask yelling at the random girl in his club to dance and strip.  What was that about?

As for the rest...

Why is this movie called Birds of Prey?  Black Canary is a bird, but what about Huntress and the cop?  Is birds in this case a use of the British slang for a woman?  

I feel this movie wanted to focus on Harley Quinn, because that's who people want to see, but unfortunately she had the least interesting storyline.

My only experience with Harley, other than Suicide Squad, was Batman The Animated Series.  If Joker kicked her out, I feel that she would do what she could to get back in his good graces.  Maybe capture Batman or Robin or Batgirl or something and present them as a present to Joker.  This would make the Joker happy and then they'd make up.  But this movie was committed to Harley going out on her own, so because of that she causes her own problems.

Then while she's dealing with her problems, we get mostly Black Canary who is pretty uninteresting.  Huntress randomly pops up here and there and she's also pretty uninteresting and one dimensional.  The pick pocket girl didn't add much either.  There was a lot of focus on the cop getting a raw deal but I didn't find myself caring about her either.

Back to the Animated Series, I appreciated Harley having a pet hyena.  I'm sure there were other Easter Eggs from the show that I missed.

Margot Robbie can definitely carry a movie, unfortunately her emancipation alone could not fill an almost 2 hour movie, so they need to add other "stuff".  The stuff they decided to add concerning the Birds didn't get me to the point of caring about the overall story and once they were finally together, they tried for some more comedy amid the chaos where some landed and some didn't.  I wish this "girl power" movie had had more power.

In summary, it felt like it was trying to and wanted to be "Deadpool" and I wish it was, but it never got there.  I was very bored at times and comparing this to Suicide Squad - I had more fun during Suicide Squad.  Most of my blame on why I didn't enjoy this movie would be on direction and tone, so I mostly blame Cathy Yan.

Star Wars Resistance [2018-2020] - Series Finale Review

Regarding the Star Wars Resistance series finale - The Escape - and the show as a whole, there's definitely two ways to look at it -- worth it OR waste of time.

#1) The show was about being part of a team/family. Let's race together and be competitive, but at the end of the day, we're still friends. We all live on the Colossus and we need to come together as a community to support each other. Team Aces, Team Fireball, Team whatever -- you were part of a family.

Losing Tam to the First Order as the end of Season 1 was huge and we were emotionally invested in her story because we could sympathize with her. We wanted to see the person that had fallen / made a bad choice to be saved/redeemed. That's Star Wars 101. And in the end, we got what we wanted, and some of the best episodes of the second season dealt with Tam's decisions on when to betray and not betray her friends. You could see she was torn. You could see the conflict. It was rewarding and heartwarming to see her finally make the right decision for herself and for the Colossus. So from this POV, maybe you feel it was all worth it.

#2) The journey of this season was roughly 7 hours of content. And it's quite evident that a lot of threads that were started were probably going to be addressed in future seasons. With the station now mobile, it was the writers opportunity to world build. Although, the overarching goal, the thing that kept us coming back each week was (a) was the Colossus going to survive being chased by the First Order? and (b) what was going to happen with Tam? We got to meet some interesting characters along the way that unfortunately didn't bear any fruit this season. Our only hope is that we get to see them in a future stories along with others that didn't get to shine in TROS. So from this POV, maybe you feel it was all a waste of time.

Personally, I love that we keep getting more animated Star Wars. I'd love to see the Poe Dameron comics in animated form. I enjoyed the art style and the designs and expressions of the characters.

Unfortunately, the story was very much lacking and I really don't see myself revisiting or recommending these series. I'm glad to have gotten a book-ended ending and I look forward to better stories (The Clone Wars - Final Season, The Mandalorian Season 2) in the future.

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker [2019] Spoiler Review

Personally, the first time I saw the movie was 12/19/2019.  My second viewing was exactly one month apart on 01/19/2020.  My initial thoughts that I shared with friends was that I didn't like it.  After letting it digest and upon second viewing my main problem was "the mission".

Before I get into that, what I did like was (1) Rey calling Leia - Master, (2) Babu Frik, and (3) Young Luke and Leia lightsaber flashback training.  That's about it unfortunately.  I wanted to like it more, but I couldn't as "the mission" is the essentially the plot.

Upon my second viewing, the thing that stood out the most was the repeated line about the mission failing.
(1) Leia says "This mission is everything. We cannot fail."
(2) Poe, then (3) Rey and then finally (4) C3P0 all say, "If this mission fails, it’s all been for nothing. All we’ve done, all this time."

It's repeated 4 times up until the "big" moment - C3P0's brain wipe and Sith translation - on Kijimi. We're constantly reminded that the mission is the most important thing - the plot is the most important thing.

Unfortunately, the mission isn't 100% clear at this point.

What we're told is that Palpatine is back and he has a giant fleet thanks to the mole in the First Order. So they trust the mole completely and believe it's not a trap ever? Yep. Got it. Sure.
So what's the plan? What's the mission? Rey needs to get to Exegol to face the Emperor and the only clue they have to finding and getting to Exegol is a mission that Luke started with Lando years ago but never finished. So they're essentially putting all their faith in winning the war and beating Palpatine by sending Rey/Poe/Finn/Chewie/BB8/C3P0 to Pasana to HOPEFULLY succeed where Luke and Lando failed. So far, this mission does NOT sound promising.

So how do they succeed in their mission? They don't. They constantly fail which is why the need to keep repeating the line above. We can't fail! Remember? It's in the script. We just can't.

Well, Kylo finds them on Pasana and he is on his way with his (useless) Knights. The FO patrol that happens to be on Pasana finds our heroes in the meantime while we wait for Kylo. Again, the heroes fail a speeder chase, but this time they fail upward by finding the exact spot where they need to sink into the ground to find the item they need to move the plot forward - the dagger.

Then the mission takes another set back when they think they lose Chewie when Rey accidentally kills him. So at this point, what is the "all we've done"?
They found a dagger which they don't need now (or they don't think they do, but they will) because they have C3P0's memory. So as it pertains to the mission, they only thing they've acquired is information that they can't access. It's like a bad Mission Impossible movie. We've acquired the laptop. Anyone know how to crack the password? So in the grand scheme of the movie, they haven't really done anything yet. They have a beer with no bottle opener.

So let's take a pause. Maybe the "All we've done, all this time" is meant to reference the past movies. So what have they done? They destroyed Starkiller Base which resulted in the thinning out of the Resistance to the point of extinction with no one coming to help. The FO still reigns AND on top of it all, Palpatine is back with another giant fleet. So what did they do since The Rise of Skywalker mission? They dropped a cup of coffee in the ocean.

Then the final insult to add to the injury, and we haven't even got to the final act yet, is that this SUPER IMPORTANT MISSION that CAN NOT FAIL - Rey decides, ya know what? - I quit. She burns Kylo's ship she stole from Kef Bir (good thing Kylo had two ships, one that was destroyed on Pasana and the one he had on Kef Bir) and decides that she's just going to stay on Ahch-To. She doesn't want to end up on the throne as a Sith and that's okay because Palpatine and the FO are just going to destroy whatever planets they want and that's that. Maybe she doesn't know what happened to Kijimi, but if she's super strong in the Force, she probably should have felt it, like when Obi-wan felt Alderaan.

The final kicker is that I haven't even touched on Palpatine's contradictory plan and how it makes very little sense and very little is explained. I digress.

Galaxy's Edge review

My wife and I had the opportunity to visit Batuu on Sunday, October 28th (in WDW in Orlando).

First and foremost, I've seen a lot of click bait articles and YouTube videos saying "Galaxy's Edge is empty and here's why" and in my experience, those articles are simply not true.  It was a Sunday morning in Hollywood Studios and there was a steady stream of people walking towards Black Spire Outpost and it was constantly busy during the hours I was there.  The only quiet time was at night, but let's start at the beginning.

If you've unfamiliar, here's a map of the area.  We entered via the Grand Avenue side, which is where the Resistance area is located.  You can see where the new ride will be as there were a few cast members "standing guard".  There was also an X-wing and an A-wing.  They were cool to see, but I found them to be cooler looking and sounding at night, but more on that later.

We walked past the market area on the left and stayed more towards the right so we passed between Ronto Roasters and then the Droid Depot and hung a left.  (If you hang a right, you head towards Toy Story Land.)  There is a little courtyard-ish area where there are the refreshers (bathrooms), and a little bit of a bottleneck of people, but right after that we found the Milk Stand.

Re:  Blue milk, in a word, fantastic.  

It was a little odd at first, but then it was super addicting.  My wife and I shared one, and then later got another one.  We didn't try the green, nor did we try either with alcohol.  Something for next time.

Next to the Milk Stand is the First Order Cargo with the giant First Order ship.  I don't know what it's called, but we saw some Storm Troopers who saw my wife's BB-8 ears (from Etsy), and they told her that her “allegiance may be questioned".

We passed Oga's Cantina and made our way to Smugglers Run.  It was only a 55-minute wait, and it went surprisingly quick.  When we finally got to Hondo, we made our way up near the front of the stagging area and scored jobs at Pilots.  I controlled left and right; my wife controlled up and down.  We made it back with 31% power back.  I'm glad we didn't die/fail the mission.  We were able to get one vial of coaxium.

Afterwards, we walked past Docking Bay 7 and went through the "market" area to check that our briefly.  We had a FP for the Indiana Jones show, but we didn't make it in time, so I think we checked out Toy Story Land to potentially do Slinky Dog Dash before our 1 PM reservation at Oga's for "lunch".  

Re:  Oga's.  

I feel like it's something you'll want to experience, but unfortunately it wasn't the best experience.

1. There is a line of people waiting outside to get in.  Even if you have a reservation, you are asked to stand in line to get "checked in".  Once you get checked in, and your spot becomes available, a cast member yells your name as they walk down the line looking for you.  They take you to the entrance/exit where there is only one way in and out as other cast members "guard" that spot.
2. The bar area and entire experience is 95% standing, so there are no seats around the bar.  The bigger alcoves and tables go to the larger groups, so if you're a group of two like my wife and I, you're mostly likely getting put at the bar.
3. We got placed at the very end of the bar on the far-right side which was near an area where only cast members were allowed.  It's a blind corner so throughout the entire "experience" cast members were constantly yelling “corner” to avoid a collision.
4. We were greeted by an older gentleman who welcomed us and placed some coasters down and took our drink order.  I guess this is on me, but I THOUGHT they served food at Oga's.  They do NOT.  They have some sort of snacky thing (Batuu Bits) and a meat/cheese plate thing that wasn't on the menu.  I was kind of disappointed and annoyed as I was hungry.  I later learned that even though they serve breakfast, they don't serve lunch or dinner.  
5. Located at the edge of the bar was a young man making drinks.  3 or more tickets would print, and he'd make the drinks.  He wasn't our bartender, and spoke to us once, but was just kind of going through the motions.  He got us our second round as the initial older bartender didn't check on us when our drinks were finished.
6. Drink-wise, my wife got the Jedi Mind Trick and I got the Bespin Fizz.  The Fizz had a cool presentation and tasted good.  For our second drink, my wife got a Bespin Fizz, and then I      got a Yub Nub.  You can get it without paying for the mug, which costs $15 which they still make it in the Ewok mug.  I did later decide to purchase the Ewok mug ($30), which they give you a clean one in a box when you leave/pay.  Four drinks (plus mug) and the snack was over $100 without the tip.
7. From where we were standing, we could NOT see DJ Rex.  We did hear him talking and playing music the whole time, which was okay.  The original cantina song did play which was nice I guess.  I didn't really know what to expect music wise.
8. Before leaving, we wanted to walk around to see the entire bar to realize how tiny it was.  Also, the opposite side of the bar was a mirror image of the other.  
9. Lastly, we were initially told that the experience was 45 minutes which I think is about the time we stayed.  No one forced us out and I had a feeling that if we kept ordering drinks that we would have been able to stay.

We headed to Toy Story Land to get some lunch quick.  We did mobile ordering somewhere and just split a sandwich.  I was kind of in a bad mood after Oga's and my wife wanted to go to Magic Kingdom, so we did that.

We came back to Batuu at night, which I alluded to earlier.  You can really hear the ambient sounds of the forest/jungle area at night, and the sounds of the ships and the droids were lit up.

Since I missed Dok's earlier, we made it a point to check that out after riding Smugglers Run again.  This time it was only a 20 minute wait and we were both gunners.  We only had one engineer.  If you don't have a sixth person, that vacant job gets put on "auto pilot” per the cast member.  We did slightly better with 39% power left on the Falcon and we got 2 vials of coaxium.

Re:  Disney Play app.

Earlier in the day, during Smugglers Run, I was able to enhance my experience with the app while waiting in line.  As I mentioned earlier, the line kind of moved fast, so I didn't have a lot of time to “play”, but what I did get to experience was cool.  I scanned a container that held a droid arm that was going to Lothal.

I was also able to hack a communications tower near the refreshers and got some information about a Wookiee (not Chewy) that was shot or something.  I think I needed to hack the other towers to get the whole story.

Overall:

Even though I spent ~6 hours total in the land (~4.5 hours during the day and ~1.5 hours at night), I didn't really feel immersed in the world.  It was a neat experience to be sure, but I would want to go back and spend more time there, but at the same time I want to have fun (and ride rides), so spending $100+ on a park ticket just to experience a subset of the entirety of Hollywood Studios seems like a waste of money and of my time.

Side notes:

1. The Void at Disney Springs – highly recommended the Star Wars “Secrets of the Empire” experience.  It’s definitely worth the cost, and probably best with four friends.
2. Star Tours – was fun and I’m glad we did it before going into Batuu.  I’m looking forward to them adding TROS stuff to it later this December.
3. Pandora’s Flight of Passage – was probably the highlight of the trip as I think on it.  It hits 4 of your 5 senses.  The wait time of 90 minutes sucked, but the 4.5 minute ride was fantastic.