Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

 What is a movie that's so bad, it's good? For many, there are some movies that are just so awful, so dreadful, so pathetic that the reaction paradoxically is joy and laughter. The most common example tends to be The Room, the Tommy Wiseau...I don't even know what to call it. Drama, I guess? Sure, drama. The Room became so trashed that its ridicule helped lead it to cult status, raucous midnight showings, and even a Hollywood film about its creation.

Many have argued that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, the 1964 sci-fi family film often regarded as one of cinema's worst ever, is one such film that's so bad, it's good. I disagree. It's just bad. I didn't like The Room, but I understand that it's likely because I watched it by myself. What's the fun in that? But even with a large, participatory, stoned audience to join me, I can't imagine liking Santa Claus Conquers the Martians any more than I did. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is basically what you would expect it to be: one of the most bizarre movies you can watch in the public domain (or any domain, for that matter), more 1960s than if an episode of The Monkees and an episode of Batman had a baby that was addicted to dropping acid and wore bell-bottom jeans.

The film opens with a catchy yet awfully annoying song titled "Hurray for Santy Claus!", written by Milton DeLugg, who at one point was the musical director for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. After the credits and song finish, we're on Mars, where two Martian children in green clothes and green face paint sit fixated on their TV sets. Kimar, the king of the Martians played by Leonard Hicks, notices that all the children of Mars are glued to the TV sets watching "Earth programs," unable to express love and act as children (or at least Earth children; how very speciesist of the film). After seeking the counsel of the wise, 800-year-old sage Chochem (Carl Donn), Kimar becomes convinced that the Martians must journey to Earth and take Santa (played by veteran actor John Call) back to Mars to bring happiness to all the young Martians.

The best-laid plans of green men often go awry, and things quickly do as soon as they take orbit. Comic relief characters like Dropo (Bill McCutcheon) and the villainous, hawkish Voldor (Vincent Beck) often get in Kimar's way, as do two young Earth children named Billy and Betty (Victor Stiles and Donna Conforti). Kimar calmly explains to the kids that they're from Mars and they're looking for Santa, and Billy calmly replies that they can find him at the North Pole. That should be the end of that, until Voldor convinces Kimar that they must take the two of them back with them before they "alert the authorities." Along with Santa, the children are imprisoned and taken to Mars.

As you can tell, it's unlikely that most of those involved took this too seriously (though Beck and Hicks really commit more than they should). However, Paul L. Jacobson, who produced the film and wrote its atrocious script, could have at least tried a little harder. There are odd, topical (at the time) jokes (Santa confuses Blitzen with Nixon, for example) and copious amounts of uncomfortable laughing from literally every character, making everything seem even stranger. Admittedly, it is a bit humorous when the Martians finally reach Earth and see thousands of Santas on the city streets, and they're not sure which one is the real deal. I think that was the only part I liked.

Since being rediscovered for an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the early 1990s, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians sometimes appears in movie trivia. For example, the movie marks the film debut of singer and actress Pia Zadora, seventeen years before the Golden Globes controversy, when some allege her millionaire husband at the time essentially bought her win for New Star of the Year Award for the panned erotic crime drama Butterfly (the same role in which she won Worst Actress at the Raspberry Awards). Additionally, believe it or not, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians features the very first on-screen portrayal of Mrs. Claus (played here by Doris Rich), just three weeks before the character appeared in the much more famous and respected animated program Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on NBC. Finally, the film shares some of the same stock footage as Dr. Strangelove, so that's something.   

But those interesting bits of trivia cannot save this film. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is the rare movie I watch and just have no idea what I'm watching. It may seem like I'm kicking a movie while it's down, or that perhaps I shouldn't pick on such a movie that had no intention of being taken too seriously, but what I've written is not unfair. Apparently, Jacobson really, truly thought he was on to something here and that he knew how to make a great flick for kids. He did not. It's not clear what people thought of it at the time because there were not many reviews of it when it premiered. One, though, from Howard Thompson of the New York Times, actually more or less praises the film. "Adults may find it square-cut as cheese," he wrote. "But let's face it. From now till you-know-when, the youngsters are all that matter." That may be true, but surely they deserve better than Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

This review originally appeared at the Public Domain Film Review on December 25, 2020.  

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Prey

"The animals who play with the most abandon are the predators."

"But surely prey are almost never safe enough to play."

-Brenda Cooper, Edge of Dark 

All Native peoples have legends and stories about the sky, according to Lee Grayson, and in some groups, "children moving into adulthood go into nature to look at the sky for life-changing visions." But what if what a youth saw in the sky wasn't simply a vision serving as an impetus for her hero's journey but also a sign that something unearthly and dangerous was about to come for her? Such a danger has been featured several times before: with Navy SEAL Arnold Schwarzenegger and crew in Central America, with L.A. detective Danny Glover, and two (or four, if you count the Alien vs. Predator movies) more films, all featuring that omnipresent clicking noise of the Predator. 

Prey, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, is the latest Predator movie. The last one was the Shane Black-directed film The Predator, but with reshoots, mixed reviews, and a MeToo controversy, it might have been the last time we would see the towering menace and its thirst for human trophies. However, the creature returns in a prequel surprisingly set in the Northern Great Plains in 1719, and for many, surprisingly or not, Prey has been the best. This time, one of the Predators is up against not Arnold and his SEALs or Detective Glover (or Adrien Brody or Boyd Holbrook and on and on) but a Comanche tribe, specifically a young woman named Naru, played by Amber Midthunder. 

Predictably, everyone around Naru wants her to be domestic, yet she yearns for traditionally masculine roles, such as being a hunter like her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), a leader in her tribe. Her brother can be supportive, but not fully; ultimately, he decides she is not ready to go out and hunt whatever it is that she claims to see in the sky. Yet she and her dog Sarii (played by Coco) secretly follow her brother and the other men to rescue one of their members who was attacked by a mountain lion. Along the way, however, Naru sees troubling signs of a creature far worse. There are warning signs all around her: a dead snake, gigantic footprints, and that disturbance in the sky she mistakes for a sign that she is ready to begin her trial. 

Naru and her tribe are in danger due to both kinds of aliens: one from outside their world and one from across the ocean. The latter are French fur traders, and the usual beats are there: They slaughter the buffalo the Comanche rely on, Sarii's tail gets trapped in one of their foothold traps, and they capture one of the Comanche men and torture him. The film uses the horrid behavior of the fur trappers to potently remind audiences what happened on this continent. The film makes clear that the real predators were Europeans. 

I'd like to quote Jon T. Coleman's book Vicious: Wolves and Men in America to help understand Naru as a character in relation to the Predator. According to Coleman, "Vulnerability—not hunger, not anger, and certainly not spite—is the key to predator-prey relationships. The skill and viciousness of the hunter matters less than the size, speed, strength, health, and ferocity of the hunted...Predators eat the mild and weak because those are the animals they can catch and kill." This is not to suggest that Naru is always invulnerable throughout the story. At different times, she is in profound danger. She even makes mistakes. But she also possesses the driving force of her own ambition to prove herself that helps keep her alive. The scorn she receives from male members of her tribe and the skepticism and frustration from her mother (Michelle Thrush) only augment her drive. True, she might use vengeance against other humans occupying her space, but against her nonhuman hunter, she will also weaponize her size, speed, and strength. Along the way, it certainly helps that she knows medicine and can help the injured. In essence, she is one of the most badass characters we've seen on the screen in a while. 

There are exciting moments throughout the film involving a variety of other predator-and-prey creatures (snakes, mountain lions, wolves, rabbits, deer, and even a bear), all set against the backdrop of gorgeous locations in Calgary. Our protagonist will find herself in at least some of these trials and tribulations, and she faces them with wide-eyed grit. While watching, though, you might forget that you're not simply viewing a period piece involving a Comanche young woman, but you're also watching the latest installment in a thirty-five-year franchise. The Predator, as most of us have seen, is a tall, incredibly robust creature with technology far more advanced than everything humans have been able to throw at it. In Predator back in 1987, he was played by the seven-foot-tall Kevin Peter Hall, and with hours of Stan Winston-created makeup effects featuring terrifying mandibles, Hall as the Predator made for a formidable foe against Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and others. Here, an ancestor of that first monster is played by actor and former basketball player Dane DiLiegro. The technology DiLiegro's Predator uses may be more primitive than that used in films that take place centuries later, but it is still more potent and deadly than anything his opponents have. 

Despite how exciting and thrilling this sci-fi/action/horror/thriller can be, it's a little surprising and even fascinating that 20th Century Studios, Disney, and the others involved with the production would agree to try something like this: to take a franchise that got off to a great start way back in the Eighties (and then featured mediocre-at-best attempts to recreate the magic) but now make something totally familiar yet fresh. I imagine director Dan Trachtenberg, screenwriter Patrick Aison, and others might have faced a skeptical audience as they tried to persuade the powers that be that this would be a worthwhile project and worth the risk. Fortunately for them, the risk paid off: Prey is currently ranked among the ten best films of 2022 on Rotten Tomatoes, and it became Hulu's biggest premiere ever.  

It's not too surprising that the franchise took a big swing by making the film a prequel and setting it three hundred years ago. It's not surprising because Trachtenberg has a track record of taking such risks, like when he verged away from the found-footage monster horror of Cloverfield to make its sequel (10 Cloverfield Lane) a human-based thriller set entirely in a bunker. What is more surprising is that this well-known commodity features a mostly indigenous cast. Prey comes at a time of greater indigenous representation in the U.S., with Deb Haaland's appointment as the first Native American cabinet secretary in history and the FX teen comedy-drama series Reservation Dogs gaining rave reviews being notable examples. Yet these examples exist in the backdrop of disappointing but unsurprising statistics: According to Reclaim Native Truth, Native American characters make up no more than 0.4 percent of characters in film and television.

Prey, whose production team took steps to make sure what was on screen was historically accurate (including the tooth-brushing scene and horses, for example), even features a dubbed version in Comanche. I first watched Prey when it was released last summer. When I rewatched it, I did so with the version that was dubbed into Comanche, and I was happy that the dubbing was not as distracting as I thought it would be. It's least distracting in Midthunder's scenes. Speaking of Midthunder, she's the best part. Her acting is top-notch, and whether it involves her going toe-to-toe with the Predator, standing up to the men in her tribe, or constantly running, she's great. It seems unlikely (though possible) that we will see her Naru again; if anything, the owners of this franchise will likely do what has always been done: try something new. But there are hints that a sequel could be hidden throughout the film (including a neat Easter egg). I don't think there should be a direct sequel involving these characters, but if there is, I look forward to seeing Naru and her trusty dog companion once again.   

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After Yang

For centuries, I'm sure many have looked at their pets or their babies and let out a sigh of stress, wondering what was going on in their brains. In the case of After Yang, I found myself asking the same thing, but in this case it was an android. What is really going on inside his brain? What is he really thinking about? The titular character Yang (Justin H. Min) is a technosapien whom a couple named Jake and Kyra (played by Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith, respectively) bought secondhand from a certified reseller called Second Siblings. Second Siblings is a company that specializes in selling robotic children that can serve as Chinese siblings to adoptees who were born in China. This is great for their daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), who has grown up with an older brother who never bullies her and instead plays with her and offers her "Chinese fun facts" to help her appreciate her Chinese heritage. She calls him gēge (older brother), and he calls her mèimei (younger sister). All is well until Yang suddenly malfunctions and doesn't operate anymore. Mika is devastated, and Jake struggles to get him fixed. 

Almost immediately, a variety of ethical puzzles might be bouncing around your head as you watch the film. For example, could someone really know what Yang or any other android is thinking? For one, he has an awful hairstyle that I hope never catches on in the future. Does he like it? The film hints that he has feelings and even ambitions. In one scene, he even says "I wish." So, is he programmed to desire things? Additionally, I thought about things like the ethics of "owning" a synthetic android and the over-reliance of some parents on technology to keep their children occupied. I also thought about what the enormous costs of having such a robot would be, but this issue isn't really addressed. Jake is a small business owner selling tea (his life passion), and Kyra works in some kind of corporate job, so they're probably at least upper middle class. The year in which the film takes place is never mentioned, but maybe inflation really takes off in the future. 

One other topic that inevitably weighed on my mind as I watched it, particularly the beginning as we really see Mika miss her brother, is the issue of adopting a child from a different culture, ethnicity, or race. Over a quarter of a million Chinese children have been adopted out of China since the 1990s, many of them into families in the U.S. I was surprised the film suddenly dropped this element of the story in favor of particularly less interesting topics, like Jake stressing over how to fix Yang and searching through all his memories. After Yang is a neat film, but there are better sources to understand the experiences of Chinese adoptees. All of them are documentaries: Wo Ai Ni, Mommy, the 2010 documentary about a family in New York who adopted a girl from China; Meet Me on the Bridge, a BBC short about a young woman's journey back to China to meet her birth parents; and One Child Nation, about the effects of the one-child policy on China.

Sci-fi fans will likely be thinking of previous stories they've seen on the screen, like the 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence or the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Measure of a Man," both of which explore the rights and emotional well-being of androids. In other ways, After Yang might remind some of the Black Mirror episode titled "Be Right Back" from 2013, the one in which a woman played by Hayley Atwell dates a synthetic recreation of her deceased boyfriend played by Domhnall Gleeson. All of these are probably a bit more memorable than After Yang. 

The best part of the film is its acting, especially Min as Yang. One of his principal tasks is to present for the audience a performance of an android unlike any they've seen before, especially because there are no other stories in which the android is an adopted son meant to keep his adopted sister close to her culture in a way her adoptive parents will be unable to. 

After Yang is a multilayered story, but one gets the impression that if writer/director Kogonada had focused on one of its layers, the film would have been more effective. It's a family drama, a work of science fiction predicting the future, an exercise in ethics, a story of adoption, a debate about data storage. It's all of these things. But it shifts in an unpolished manner from one to the other in a way that is distracting. The family drama, for example, isn't allowed to be interesting, and it doesn't care if its audience cares or not. It tries to be all of these things at once, and it doesn't balance them well. See After Yang for its acting, and try to ignore the fact that you may have already seen similar stories that are more noteworthy. 

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

All things must end, even a mega-successful film series that started forty-two years ago. The sci-fi powerhouse that has produced about a dozen on-screen films, several television shows, and countless other novels and games is finally coming to an end (sort of). The Rise of Skywalker is the ninth and final episode of the so-called "Skywalker Saga" of Star Wars that detailed Luke Skywalker and friends defeating the Empire in the original trilogy, Anakin Skywalker being corrupted by the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader in the prequel trilogy, and now Rey and friends fighting the First Order in this sequel trilogy. Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, who directed The Force Awakens as well, it is not as bad as most critics have claimed, but it also feels like, despite a successful payoff in the film's final act, there are a lot of dull movements one is required to sit through to get there.

This one is a bit more convoluted than its two predecessors. "The dead speak!" the film proclaims. Palpatine, the emperor of the Galactic Empire who first appeared in Return of the Jedi and whose rise to power was chronicled in the prequel trilogy, apparently is still alive despite being thrown off a bridge by Darth Vader. Palpatine is again played by Ian McDiarmid. To prevent this mysterious return of the Dark Lord of the Sith, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) searches the galaxy to find Palpatine and eliminate the threat to his power. At the same time, Rey (Daisy Ridley, the star of this trilogy) continues her Jedi training under General Leia Organa (the late, great Carrie Fisher in her final role), who hopes to conclude what her brother Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) started. When the Resistance finds out that Palpatine has returned, they too seek him out to destroy him once and for all. So Rey takes a hiatus from her training to join Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac), along with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels, the only actor appearing in all nine episodes), and BB-8 (the most adorable Star Wars character until Baby Yoda took that over this year) to find the location of Palpatine while avoid being hunted by Ren and his knights.

Joining the cast are Keri Russell (who worked with Abrams on Felicity) as Zorii Bliss, an old acquaintance of Poe's; Dominic Monaghan (who worked with Abrams on Lost) as a Resistance fighter named Beaumont Kin; and Naomie Ackie as Jannah, a former Stormtrooper who now fights against the First Order. But the biggest return besides McDiarmid is Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, who (despite appearing several times as the character through voice work) has not appeared on screen as his most famous role since 1983's Return of the Jedi. Also returning from previous films are Lupita Nyong'o, Kelly Marie Tran, and others. But while the cast can seem a bit overcrowded, it is a joy to watch the delectable performance of Richard E. Grant as Allegiant General Pryde, a loyalist who is suspicious of General Hux (the returning Domhnall Gleeson), at ease following the orders of the Supreme Leader, and ever faithful to Emperor Palpatine. It's a role that might not be as complex or interesting as Grant's previous work in films like Can You Ever Forgive Me? (which earned him an Oscar nomination earlier this year) or Withnail and I, but it's one of the most enjoyable on the screen; he looks like he's relishing every moment.

I do, though, wish the film had given Russell, Nyong'o, Tran, and Ackie something as interesting to do as it had for Grant. Tran, the victim of vicious attacks from trolls after The Last Jedi was released, does not have a major presence in this film. Co-writer Chris Terrio has defended this by explaining that some of the problems with making her scenes look believable with Fisher and the CGI were why they were cut. Audience members can make of that what they will. Some will undoubtedly not believe Terrio and conclude that the trolls have won.

Let me try to be as clear as I can: I liked The Rise of Skywalker. I found that it has some noticeable problems (more on that later), but I wouldn't call it a bad film. I appreciated that we finally get to see Rey, Finn, and Poe all together in a way we used to see Luke, Leia, and Han. I like that C-3PO is utilized more. And while it can drag, it does not do so in a way that feels too taxing. It does not drip with unfeasible visuals like the prequel trilogy did, but it does not possess those unforgettable moments of The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, or the standalone film Rogue One. As a result, it can sometimes (or often) feel like a bit of a bore. It is the only time I can remember looking at my watch during a Star Wars film.

Just as the two previous films fell into the trap of copying various moments and emotions of the original trilogy, so too does The Rise of Skywalker. It is great seeing McDiarmid again in his most famous role, and it's not necessarily a bad (if implausible) idea bringing back this character one more time. But unlike in the prequel trilogy, where the actor was given a variety of moments to really shine, with this film it does not feel that way. Sure, the character looks and feels different, more like a ghoul than an emperor, but it's not enough to justify his presence. And while at times The Rise of Skywalker is surprisingly quite unpredictable, it also keeps hitting the same notes one would expect. By this point in the trilogy, it seems many fans and nearly a majority of film critics have had enough. I don't blame them, and perhaps it's best that Disney and Lucasfilm have decided to put a pause (hopefully a permanent one) on the films and instead focus on television.

One thing though that the team does seem to succeed in is finding a way to conclude such a grand, multi-generation story arc in a way that is sure to satisfy many fans. Kathleen Kennedy, the producer and president of Lucasfilms, has not been given nearly enough credit for this. Sure, there have been bumps along the way (Solo), but just look at the success of this trilogy and of the new Disney+ show The Mandalorian. Yes, critical response to The Rise of Skywalker has been so-so or negative, but again, many fans will come away likely enjoying this film. As I left the theater, I overheard a young boy talking with a man I assume was his grandfather. The boy asked the man if it was his most favorite film. Politely dodging, he responded that he really enjoyed the film, and began explaining that he saw the original Star Wars film way back in 1977. He later joked with the other members of the family that the boy had joined the Dark Side as he began misbehaving. This sci-fi fantasy is a permanent part of our culture, and an unsuccessful new trilogy would have made that less likely.

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Solo

Solo (I refuse to use the subtitle because I think it's stupid), the fourth film in the famous franchise since Lucasfilm started its reboots in 2015, is the Star Wars movie nobody wanted. Neither, for that matter, was Rogue One, the first standalone movie Lucasfilm released the following year. But that film was a commercial and critical surprise (if that's the right word), becoming the second-highest grossing movie 2016 and the twenty-fifth overall. Solo, on the other hand, is one of the most expensive films ever made, and the estimated loss to Disney could be up to eighty million dollars. We all knew Star Wars fatigue was upon us; we just didn't know it would arrive so soon.

And why shouldn't it with this one? From the get-go, Solo looked like perhaps the most puzzling of the choices for a standalone film. A story about Rebel spies stealing the plans to the Death Star? Perhaps. An Obi-Wan Kenobi tale with Ewan McGregor returning to the role? Definitely. A story about a young Han Solo meeting a young (well, almost 200-year-old) Chewbacca? Nope. There was as much hype over this movie as there was for a standalone Yoda film (which to my knowledge is not happening). Given all the problems leading up to the release (original directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord were fired, and Michael Kenneth Williams, who played the villain, was unable to return for re-shoots, so the character was re-cast), it might be considered a miracle that the film was even released. Ron Howard, who of course was directed by George Lucas in the 1973 film American Graffiti (also starring Harrison Ford), was brought in to finish the movie. Despite succeeding in getting the job done under difficult circumstances, for an Oscar-winning American treasure who has given us some of the biggest films of all time and has the weight of Lucasfilm and Disney behind him, I expected a lot more.

Solo just doesn't work, but not for the reasons you might expect. Han Solo has always been a favorite character among fans, and to see someone besides Harrison Ford in the role was a risky gambit. Here, the young pirate is played by Alden Ehrenreich, who is perhaps the least known of the cast that includes veteran actors Woody Harrelson, Paul Bettany, and Thandie Newton. It does take some getting used to, but he actually does a pretty effective job. He has that required charm and sarcasm and whit, but he is arguably overshadowed by Donald Glover, who is essentially the Renaissance Man of the year due to his appearance here, the popular music video for his song "This Is America", and the second season of Atlanta, the show that earned him an Emmy. Glover plays the younger version of Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams in the original trilogy for the four people in the universe who haven't seen them), and he's delightful in every scene he's in.

Written by veteran Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasden and his son Jonathan, and originally developed by George Lucas before he sold his company, Solo shows us the future smuggler escaping his home planet of Corellia and losing the love of his life, Qi'ra (played by Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame). Determined to return to his home planet and find her, he joins the Imperial Navy with ambitions of being a great pilot (and yeah, rescuing the girl). While in a fierce battle (that as far as I could tell wasn't really explained, but I doubt anyone would really care), he meets, as expected, his soon-to-be lifelong Wookie friend Chewbacca (played by Joonas Suotamo, who also plays the character in the other newer films). Then the two of them meet a smuggler named Beckett (Harrelson) who hires them to help steal some kind of chemical that I also did not care one bit about. Their first main test features a train sequence that actually is the least exciting train sequence since last year's adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. 

Beckett and his crew have a series of hiccups along the way, but eventually they are ordered to deliver boring chemical weapon thing to a crime lord named Dryden Vos, played by frequent Howard collaborator Paul Bettany. Vos is not as menacing as Darth Vader or as merciless as Emperor Palpatine, but he sure likes stabbing people with those light-knife things, and the scars on his face that change with his mood heighten the tension. While Bettany is mostly interesting to watch, the character is rather lame compared to other newer villains like Kylo Ren or Orson Krennic. (But his hair and snobbish attitude could make him a contender for being the grandfather of General Hux.) Other actors who appear are frequent Star Wars actor Warwick Davis (who was directed by Howard in Willow), Clint Howard (Ron's brother, who often appears in the movies he directs), Phoebe Walter-Bridge as a droid with a passion for liberation, and Jon Favreau as an alien member of Beckett's team. Finally, there is a cameo that is...interesting (and full of potential); I shall say no more.

There are some moments here that do work. Han shoots first here, so that will likely make fans happy. There are a few meta jokes about how Lando (or at least Billy Dee Williams' version of him) apparently couldn't pronounce Han's name. And the movie occasionally has a Western feel that allows it to shine. But for the most part, Solo feels boring and uninspired. Death scenes have no impact, and most of the twists are either puzzling or predictable. Unlike the previous three entries, there is no humor and no heart. Apparently one of the main reasons why Lord and Miller were fired is because they kept veering the film off into comedy territory, and if the bad jokes throughout are their fault, then they probably deserved to be fired.

Remember how angry everyone was over all the nostalgia in The Force Awakens? You might be surprised to hear that basically the only good parts of Solo deal with nostalgia, like Powell's use of the TIE fighter battle music right before using the asteroid music. Unlike most of the other main original characters, Han never had his own theme, until now that is. John Williams composed a theme to be used with John Powell's score, but you won't remember either as you leave the theater. And the cinematography by Bradford Young is so dim you will think there is a problem with the screen.

But perhaps my biggest complaint is of the characters: none of the new ones are interesting. Byond that, there is no exploration of how Han Solo came to be the way we know him. There is an explanation of things no one has ever cared about, like how he met Chewie and some information about his name. Some things that might have been interesting to explore are not, and part of the mythology of the character (like the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs) are forgettable. Creating a visualization of something we've known about our favorite characters for decades is possible (J.J. Abrams and crew gave us a captivating look at how James T. Kirk cheated the Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek), but Howard et al are unsuccessful at it.

Is Solo the worst in the long reign of Star Wars? No. It's weaker than Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens but better than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones (and certainly better than the live-action made-for-TV movies of the 1970s and 1980s). There are still plenty more of these movies to come, whether we want them or not. Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and her team must proceed with caution, because moving forward I have a bad feeling about this.

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Annihilation

The directorial debut of writer Alex Garland, whose most famous novel is The Beach and whose screenplays include 28 Days Later (and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later), Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, and Dredd, was Ex Machina from three years ago. It was a bold yet subtly eerie look at AI; not quite dystopian, but bordering on it. In his follow-up, Garland has adopted the novel by Jeff VanderMeer called Annihilation. In this story, there again is a "not-good place", called "the Shimmer", a quarantined expanse where creatures mutate, and yet this film is grander and features a lot more big swings. One of them is that Garland is not going to give a lot of answers, and while that may still work fifty years on with something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it doesn't work here.

It's not as if Annihilation doesn't try. It does often look like Annihilation takes inspiration from the avant-garde 2001 (along with Alien, Jurassic Park, and a touch of Pan's Labyrinth), certainly in terms of visuals. But pretty images do not make up for a lack of story and character development, and they certainly don't, on their own, inspire and excite viewers, or at the very least wake those who are bored out of their mind. Such is the problem with Annihilation.

The movie starts in an ominous way. A character named Lena sits answering questions, not sure of much, especially the whereabouts of her colleagues. She wears white medical clothing, quarantined, being questioned by a character played by Benedict Wong, and she seems totally dazed and confused, unable to recall anything of her nearly four months in the Shimmer. We can deduce that she is the sole survivor. Lena is a cancer professor and former soldier going through grief after the death of her partner, Kane (played by Oscar Isaac), a soldier who has died in a mission she knows little about.

This would certainly make Kane walking into her home even more surprising to her, but that he does. Still, something is certainly off about it. He doesn't feel well, and he is rushed to a hospital after falling into a seizure. Here, Lena meets Dr. Ventress (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who tells Lena about the Shimmer, how the scientists have "many theories, few facts" regarding the mysterious entity. Is it religious in nature? Extra-terrestrial? No one knows. Kane was part of team that tried to find out; they failed. He's in good company, as everyone and everything they have sent in to try and discover answers has never returned. Perhaps the environment kills them, or perhaps they go crazy and kill each other. Lena, determined to find an answer to what ails her lover, joins Ventress and other scientists: Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), and Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson). She pointedly does not tell them about her connection to Kane, fearing it would "complicate" things.     

The Shimmer is like a macabre version of Neverland, a state park with a lush, green forest surrounded by a transparent layer that looks similar to oil mixing with water. Flowers have mutated into gorgeous new species. But almost immediately, the characters start to lose their memories. They've been there for days, and yet they can remember almost nothing. Adding to the Neverland quality is giant crocodiles, but these ones happen to have teeth similar to sharks.

It's a real, real shame that a film with such intriguing female roles for great female actors has turned out so dull. In Ex Machina, women also had a majority of the roles, but it felt exploitative at times. Not so here. Thompson is a real marvel in the movie. Her performance is so unlike her recent work in films like Creed and Thor: Ragnorok. She transforms into this character, a shy but clever individual, not in an ostentatious way, and the subtle choices she's made make her almost unrecognizable. I was a little more disappointed in the performances of Leigh and Rodriguez, who both overdo things, mostly in different ways. Portman is mostly fine, yet her being cast is another example of whitewashing in Hollywood, as the character in the original book series is described as Asian. (Additionally, Leigh's character is described as half-Native American.)

Annihilation certainly requires a lot more patience than Ex Machine does. It's a lot sillier, too. The motivation of Lena's character to go on such a mission is too difficult to believe. Like Sam Neill or Jeff Goldblum before her, it is not plausible for her to accept. This movie is more Prometheus than Alien, and yet it thinks the reverse is true. The characters certainly seem like they're straight out of the former, as they don't feel they need protective masks when walking around the Shimmer. Garland and team try the whole less-is-more approach, and yet it often does not pay off. There are horror moments that are not frightening in the slightest, action scenes that aren't thrilling in the slightest, and the whole thing feels like it would work better as a spooky short story written by someone in middle school.

Is Annihilation pretentious? Most likely. Boring? Definitely. Ultimately, there is not a single exciting or interesting moment throughout this film. Annihilation might challenge you to think, but who would be inspired to engage in such inquiry about a movie like this?

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All the Star Wars Movies Ranked

You probably have seen all or most of the major theatrically released Star Wars movies, but with an animated film, made-for-TV productions, who knows how many stand-alone films, and an infamous holiday special, there are many more out there than just the eight episodes. Some are good, some are bad, and some are uglier than Jabba himself. Below is my official ranking of all of the Star Wars films released so far:

14. The Star Wars Holiday Special
You have not lived until you've seen The Star Wars Holiday Special. I almost simply want to leave it at that. Why was there a desire to turn the hit 1977 blockbuster into a Christmas special one year later on TV? Money, I guess. Money, and the fact that people often like movies that are so bad, they're good. This "holiday special" opens with Han and Chewie being chased by a Star Destroyer, some mumbo-jumbo about a Christmas-like holiday called Life Day, and then a bizarre introduction of the cast. The regulars are all there--how they were convinced to do a TV holiday special, we'll never know--but we also have Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman. And an animated portion. And it's a musical. And Carrie Fisher was high. And George Lucas has supposedly said that if he could destroy ever boot-legged copy, he would. Watch this mess of a movie, and then watch Harrison Ford's reaction to it.

13. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
Released a year after Return of the Jedi, which (love it or hate it) featured lots of furry little teddy bear-like Ewoks who stage guerrilla warfare to help take down the Empire, Lucasfilm's TV movie Caravan of Courage took the Ewoks from cute to ugly and annoying. Instead of wanting to cook and eat the humans of Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks (including Wicket, played by Warwick Davis) find two young kids abandoned in the forests of Endor and take them in, even learning a bit of English along the way. (It takes place before Return of the Jedi, so why don't the Ewoks want to eat the humans?)

"We...help...you," one of them says. The little girl is sick, but of course the Ewoks have all-natural herbal miracles to save the day--hurrah! Star Wars isn't exactly known for its Olivier-esque acting and Shakespearean dialogue, but it's quite embarrassing here. We get a lot of Ewoks talking to each other and Burl Ives (of all people) doing his best to narrate our way to some sort of meaning. Despite what should have been a hefty budget, the production features cheesy-looking puppetry and animatronics. It's all tremendously boring as well, with a lame villain (the Gorax monster) and dull, flat action sequences.

Why was this movie made?

If you couldn't stand some of the prequels, just watch this, and it will make any scene involving Gungas feel like Citizen Kane.

12. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
The sequel to Caravan of Courage, this one is an improvement, but only slightly. In it, the adorable Aubree Miller returns as Cindel, whose father, mother, and brother are immediately killed by marauders during an attack on the Ewok village. She and Wicket (Warwick Davis) escape and meet a grouchy hermit named Noa, played by Walter Brimley.

One of the improvements is that the villains, while being essentially something out of Power Rangers, are for more enjoyable than any Gorax monster, and the Ewoks, as annoying as they were in the previous made-for-TV movie, are reduced to just Wicket. Brimley is surprisingly enjoyable to watch as well; he provides an ounce of humor and humanity in a movie that for the most part lacks it. This movie is still by no means good, with visual effects looking more like something out of The Giant Claw than something out of Star Wars, and this movie feels more like Willow or Labyrinth, which, depending on whom you ask, is a good or bad quality.

11. The Clone Wars
The animated film from 2008 that spawned the equally difficult-to-watch animated show, this is one of the most pointless films in the entire franchise. With lame animation and boring sequences, this is an entry that should undoubtedly be skipped. The powerful voice of Christopher Lee could not save this movie from clunky action and cringe-worthy stereotypes that make Jar Jar Binks seem politically correct.

10. Attack of the Clones
I remember initially being excited in 2002 at how much (I thought) this movie was an improvement over the previous episode, The Phantom Menace. I've since watched it again (and again) and saw just how wrong I was. Truth be told, there's not much of a difference between Episode I and Episode II. There's less Jar Jar Binks here, so that's a good start. And Christopher Lee adds a great deal of respectability here as the villain. We see Samuel L. Jackson fight with his BAMF purple lightsaber, and there's an epic climactic battle that's part Gladiator, part Braveheart. And who can forget that MTV Best Fight-winning duel between Yoda and Count Dooku? I haven't even mentioned Ewan McGregor's hair.

Still, this movie is bad, plain and simple. Lucas' dialogue for a very horny Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is among his worst. The chemistry between Christensen and Natalie Portman is forced and awkward. (Portman is an Oscar-winning actress and among the best there is, and even she couldn't effectively deliver the dreadful dialogue in a believable way.) There are far fewer sets here; instead there's the ubiquitous green screen. Attack of the Clones is probably the worst of the major live-action Star Wars releases.

9. The Phantom Menace 
Episode I, the most anticipated film of the 20th century, was also one of cinema's great disappointments. Much ink has already been spilled about what did not work with this movie: Jake Lloyd's performance as a young Anakin Skywalker, Jar Jar Binks, and a whole host of issues. Fans over the years have tried to "fix" the mistakes in this movie, with the first being cleverly called "The Phantom Edit," but even those are bad.

That being said, this movie is at least better than Attack of the Clones, regardless of what most people say. Why? For one, there's the climactic duel between the Sith lord Darth Maul (Ray Park) and the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jin (Liam Neeson), set the tune of John Williams' perfect "Duel of Fates" theme. Yoda is still a puppet (until he was changed in later Blu-Ray editions for some reason to CGI). There are sets, too, and you'd be surprised at how much that matters.

Fans morphed into bullies when they treated Lloyd, then a young boy, as if he had utterly ruined their lives. The Daily Beast's article on Jake Lloyd's fall is one of the most depressing articles on Hollywood and fame I have ever read.

8. Spark of Rebellion
The 2014 44-minute animated television movie was the start of the animated series called Rebels. With its opening line ("The Jedi knights are all but destroyed..."), it starts with the pessimism of Revenge of the Sith but quickly shifts to the adventurous and optimistic feeling of A New Hope. And who says that opening line? None other than Darth Vader, and the audience is lucky enough to be able to hear James Earl Jones' voice again in his most famous role. He warns a nefarious-looking individual identified as the Inquisitor about the "children of the Force," and that if they do not join the Empire, they are to be destroyed. It's not the best cameo ever, but it is nevertheless fantastic to hear his voice again.

Speaking of voices, from here, much of the villains are predictably voiced by Brits, lecturing subjects of the "Em-piyah" and ordering them about. With animation, this goofy dialogue and exaggerated physical movement is more tolerable than in the live-action films. We meet a young boy named Ezra (voiced by Taylor Gray) who is sort of a hybrid of Luke and Han, an orphan strong with the Force but also an arrogant "street rat" and unfortunately one of the most annoying, bland characters in the series.

The characteristics are enough to remind audiences that the franchise often likes to recycle, as is also the case here with speed race chases, TIE Fighter fights, and goofy dialogue about light speed. Spark of Rebellion has its humorous moments, but at times is just as implausible as any other Star Wars movie, with a villain who cheats death way too often, Stormtroopers who can't shoot straight, and heroes who are way too lucky. Still, the animation is impressive, and it's nice to see other elements of the Expanded Universe. Starting a series that would also feature voice performances from Freddie Prinze, Jr., Jason Isaacs, David Oyelowo, and Star Wars alumni Frank Oz, Billy Dee Williams, and Anthony Daniels, it's a recommendable and fun short film.

7. Revenge of the Sith
In my original review of The Force Awakens, I wrote that Revenge of the Sith was the superior of the two. I was wrong. Revenge of the Sith, the darkest of the films, was a step in the right direction after two missteps, utilizing a necessary bleakness to a set of stories that often are overly happy. This also features the best acting of the prequel trilogy. Hayden Christensen is not exactly Marlon Brando, but he improved enough in time. Portman also gives her best performance of the three movies, even if her dialogue is atrocious. Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine gives a tremendous (if not over-the-top) performance, seducing young Anakin to the Dark Side. Jackson gives a good send-off, and McGregor is fantastic as always.

But especially compared to The Force Awakens, Revenge of the Sith often is a CGI mess, covered with awful humor that falls flat. Many times it's boring, much more boring than the following films. The villains (aside from Palpatine) are also disappointing. Christopher Lee's Count Dooku is killed off early in the film. General Grieveous is probably the dullest of all the bad guys. And instead of seeing Darth Vader as we know him for much of the movie, he doesn't appear until the end in one of cinema's most disappointing cameos.

Still, this is one of the most powerful and disturbing of the franchise. The scenes of Anakin and the clones' betrayal of the Jedi is masterfully captured by Lucas and crew. Anakin's murder of younglings is especially heartbreaking, as it is reminiscent of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Dark, yes, but this was surely the best of the prequel trilogy.

6. The Force Awakens
Yes, there are legitimate complaints against this film: it has numerous plot holes, it is filled with nostalgia problems, and it is almost painfully unoriginal. I think I actually enjoyed watching the three trailers more than this much-anticipated film. The characters are awesome, but here too there are problems: It's nice that there is a tough-as-nails female protagonist, but J.J. Abrams et al made her too flawless--she not only is as good a pilot as Han Solo, but can also defeat a Jedi trained not only by Luke Skywalker but also Snoke.

But The Force Awakens also reignited in me my childhood fascination with this franchise and made me want to revisit all the novels, video games, and comic books of my youth. John Williams' score, particularly Rey's theme, is his best in years. There is also a bit of thought behind it: the depressing reality of getting up right after the events of Return of the Jedi to fight a permanent war, or that Kylo Ren represents the bigotry prevalent still in many Millennials for example. Smart stuff, actually.

The Force Awakens was given a pass by many critics and fans who were thrilled that it wasn't a repeat of some of the prequel movies. But ultimately, it was still a very enjoyable film.

5. Rogue One

Rogue One is the Star Wars movie that could. The first in the series' anthology stories, this was the tale nobody cared about, and yet was much better than the highly hyped Force Awakens. The special effects are spectacular, the tension is real, and this is practically the only Star Wars movie that recognizes that the second word in the franchise's title has important weight to it. There's true delight in not only seeing familiar faces from the original trilogy (like Vader and, somewhat controversially, Grand Moff Tarkin), but also the prequel trilogy (like Jimmy Smitts as Bail Organa). Its most notable flaw, however, is the lack of character development. While Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Director Krennic hits just about every note right, and Alan Tudyk as K2SO provides plentiful comic relief, there is not much depth to many of the other characters. Perhaps there didn't need to be, as this was only a standalone film with no planned sequel.

4. The Last Jedi
Screw the fans! This is the best one Lucasfilm has made in a long time. This movie, as many have said, doesn't care about your Snoke theory, or your brilliant ideas about who Rey's parents are. It does its own thing. There is respect for what has come before it, but there's also a sense of urgency in trying to avoid letting the series become stale. Rian Johnson, who will direct a new Star Wars trilogy that will likely feature entirely new characters, has been taking a beating for writing and directing what apparently is one of the most controversial in the series. Why? I still don't quite know. Maybe, as some have speculated, it's because people (by people I mean racist, sexist people) are opposed to how these newer films are more diverse. Maybe it's because people have thought Johnson deviated too much from the established canon and precedents. Maybe it's because they really hate porgs. I don't know.

Like The Force Awakens before it, there are problems: Some things are tied up too quickly, there's too much dues ex machina, and some segments drag on too long and are too unnecessary. Nothing is perfect. But Luke Skywalker has come full circle and is now the Obi-Wan character, and Mark Hamill is great to watch. Carrie Fisher gives a fantastic final performance. Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8, and Kylo Ren are terrific, Kylo in particular. Here's how Alison Willmore at Buzzfeed describes the character: "Vader was an epic villain. Kylo was a kid who started idolizing his infamous grandfather because his parents were too busy to pay him enough attention, and even as a man he holds onto to Vader's burnt-out helmet like a teenage outcast hoarding Axis memorabilia left behind by the generation no one talks about at family reunions." Like The Force Awakens, there often is a lot of intelligent symbolism here.

So I will repeat: this is the best Star Wars movie in a long time.

3. Return of the Jedi
What can I say? I like Ewoks (at least the ones that appear here and not on television). Like The Empire Strikes Back before it, while it has a boring second act, this entry, the final in the original trilogy, introduces us to iconic characters (e.g. Jabba the Hutt, Emperor Palpatine) while adding depth to the characters we've fallen in love with. In Darth Vader, audiences witness the final stage in a six-part story arc that offered the best example of a tragic hero's rise and downfall (and redemption). Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine is (as with Revenge of the Sith) occasionally over the top but also terrifying. And Denis Lawson finally gets to use his own voice as Wedge Antilles, one of fans' favorite minor characters. (Lawson is also the uncle of Ewan McGregor, who played the younger Obi-Wan Kenobi.)

This is about as good a conclusion to a trilogy as there has been, though my only advice is to do yourself a favor and find a copy of the original 1983 ending, not the nauseating changed edition from the late 90s.

2. The Empire Strikes Back
This is the film that famously elevated the franchise away from simply a hugely entertaining blockbuster and into some serious stuff. Whether it's the introduction of Yoda, the powerful brass of John Williams' "Imperial March" theme, or that immortal twist, this film is a classic. It's not, however, as perfect as everyone says it is. Of the original three, it arguably moves at the slowest pace, and in a post-Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo world, watching Han basically sexually assault Leia and then Lando's creepy advances toward her are really awful to watch. And Leia kisses her Luke...only for us to find out in Return of the Jedi that they're siblings.

If you can get past all that, you'll love The Empire Strikes Back. There's an exciting battle in snow in the first act, a daring chase through an asteroid field, Boba Fett (everyone's favorite secondary character), possibly the best lightsaber duel, and iconic lines throughout. I don't blame people for saying this is the one they like the most, I just don't agree with them. For I think the best Star Wars movie is...

1. Star Wars (aka A New Hope)
I don't care what anyone says; nothing beats the original. A New Hope is better than The Empire Strikes Back. This one has far more wonder and magic than any after it. It's true that the dialogue is at its most wooden, with whiny lines about power converters and fast ships. But there's just something there that the others don't have.

This is a motion picture unlike any before or since. Its mixture of mythology, science fiction, groundbreaking special effects, history, politics, that awesome musical score, and old-fashioned fun must have felt like a breath of fresh air in the cynical late 70s. That opening scrawl, C-3PO and R2D2 lost in the desert, the introduction of the Jedi and the Force, Vader and that iconic voice by James Earl Jones (and thank goodness not the original), Han and Chewbacca, Peter Cushing as Tarkin, Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and all those unforgettable lines (like "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope").

George Lucas nearly got himself killed making his passion project. After a more mature science fiction flick called THX-1138 and a successful nostalgia picture called American Graffiti, he could have played it safe and direct films more similar to those of his mentor, Francis Ford Coppola or his buddies Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, both of whom didn't understand the movie when he screened it for them. (But who did? Steven Spielberg, who predicted it would be the most successful movie of all time.) Exhausted, Lucas fired his editors when the space battles weren't fast enough. He took chance after chance about a story that featured basically a dog that walks on two legs and wizards with laser swords.

And the final product has so much energy that it is not surprising in the slightest that the franchise has lasted forty years. Should it last for forty more? Probably not. Star Wars is not SNL, it's not Marvel. But for the time being, Lucasfilm can keep 'em coming. 

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the eighth part of the nine episodes in the series, is as operatic as this fantastic franchise has ever been. In the hands of a new writer and director, Rian Johnson, this is a film that enjoys embracing the formulas that have made these films so endearing for so long while also taking risks unlike any of its predecessors did. It is possibly one of the reasons why fans reportedly have been more turned off by this film than critics, even though the reverse is usually true for blockbusters. Despite this, listen to the critics. They're definitely right this time.

Why are they right? The movie looks fantastic, the actors are having fun, the dialogue ain't perfect but there is no crying about how coarse sand is. There are a variety of surprises throughout -- most good, some not. This is a franchise that has been around for forty years. It's about time they start spicing things up.

The Last Jedi starts immediately after the events of The Force Awakens, in which the First Order (the remnants of the Galactic Empire defeated in the original trilogy) took a few mighty strikes against the Resistance, a militarized offshoot of the Republic, which practically was destroyed in the last film. While the Resistance and the First Order engage in a fierce battle among the stars, Rey (Daisy Ridley) seeks out the assistance of Jedi legend Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who has forced himself into exile on a remote island far away from anyone. Even after having the stakes explained to him, Luke is not interested in the slightest. His guilt over training Ben Solo (Adam Driver), his nephew who turned to the Dark Side and became Kylo Ren, has led him to believe that the Jedi must end. Luke may no longer be a whiny teenager bellowing about power converters, but now he's an cagey old man complaining about youth culture.

Rey will not give up in her pleading with him to help. Meanwhile, the First Order is chasing down the final ships of the Resistance, picking them off one by one. The sibling rivalry between General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Ren continues, and they have a tough father figure in the form of the Supreme Leader, Snoke, to please. Snoke is played in yet another motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis, whose voice is menacing. Hux and his fleet hunt down the Resistance while Kylo Ren searches for Rey and Skywalker.

These actors and the characters they play are as enjoyable to watch as they've ever been. Some have become more interesting, even if that also means they've become more problematic. Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), for example, the hotshot pilot for the Resistance is more three dimensional here than he was last time around, probably because in the last film's script he initially was meant to die, which is why he just sort of disappeared for the second act. Here, he's charming and adventurous, but also stupid. It's hard to like him while he does a lot of mansplaining to his superior, Admiral Holdo, played magnificently by Laura Dern. Only several years ago, a studio would have set up this dynamic to get the audience to sympathize with the male; now, it's impossible to do that, and for good reason. Holdo is a calm, reasonable, and brave presence on the ship as the First Order chases them, and yet Poe, a cowboy who demands action, is too short-sighted. Poe thinks he's Indiana Jones in space; Holdo knows that "bitches get things done." But often throughout their confrontations, Dern displays a persona that expresses a lifetime of having had to listen to men push their way into battles and risk everything. There's a reason the Rebel Alliance, the Republic, and the Resistance are led by women like Mon Mothma, Holdo, and General Leia Organa.

The villains are all much more enthralling to watch this time around. If you were disappointed in the wasted opportunity in how little screen time Gwendolyn Christie got last time, well, you'll still be disappointed by her short time in this film, but not by what she does with it. Driver plays Kylo Ren as a sociopath, and yet like most sociopaths, he contains at least a tiny of drop of qualities that make him at least somewhat sympathetic. In this case it's his very apparent behavior, temper, and anger issues, and the fact that he's bullied by his teacher and leader Snoke doesn't help. (In the reverse, teachers disappointing their students is a common theme throughout.) Gleeson as General Hux double-hams it up with that ridiculously fake accent, which you'll either love or hate. Benicio Del Toro also joins the cast, and he looks like he's having as good a time as he did when he was in The Usual Suspects and Guardians of the Galaxy, though it's so similar to those performances that it might disappoint you. The addition of Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico helps make The Last Jedi feel like it's the most diverse Star Wars movie ever; even the First Order is more diverse. Tran, the daughter of refugee migrants from Vietnam, plays Rose as a tough fighter in the Resistance. The death of her sister only gives her further motivation to take them down.

Mark Hamill, returning as Luke Skywalker, his most famous character, is actually kind of funny here, as Harrison Ford's Han Solo was before him in The Force Awakens. But be warned, apparently fans are angry that there are a few laughs in this film. (People who do not like The Last Jedi do not like laughing.) And then there's Carrie Fisher. Her character, Leia, the princess who became a warrior, is war weary; she remembers how many they've lost, and that was basically how we felt upon learning that she was the latest celebrity in 2016 to pass away (and only a day before her mother, Debbie Reynolds, also died). What else can be written about the acting legend that hasn't already? In her long career, her final performance is one of her truly best, and it is awfully unfortunate that the world will not get one more performance by her as Leia, for Lucasfilm had planned on her having a larger role in the final part of the trilogy.

As a director, Johnson is amazingly talented at shooting fight scenes. The other well-known features in which he helms (Brick, Looper, and several episodes of Breaking Bad) do not have this kind of staccato action; indeed, these scenes here are filmed in a way different from those directed by George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, and others. In fact, the entire pacing of this movie is different. Whereas The Force Awakens started off quite strongly, it fizzled out as it got closer and closer to the end (a common problem in movies directed by Abrams). Here, there's a big bang in the beginning, but other than a far-fetched and dull sequence involving a casino, this movie never lets our interest wane. With few exceptions, The Last Jedi gets better with each passing minute. When The Last Jedi starts, it is evident that it will probably be a better ride than The Force Awakens, but half-way through it is more than obvious it will.

As a writer, Johnson is pretty good, too, and there are two or three scenes in The Last Jedi he and his team came up with that ideally would be worth writing about, but it's virtually impossible to do so without spoiling them. Spoil I shall not. At first, I thought I could simply use a noun to get the idea across, but even that would be revealing too much. Perhaps an adjective could be used instead, and the one used would simply be: wonderful. Still, another adjective that could be used for another scene would be "ridiculous"; it comes early in the film and involves floating (or flying, or something like that). It's stupidly written and while containing a certain meta quality, looks goofy. Additionally, Johnson includes a few shout-outs to the original three films, and many of these are unnecessary, but it doesn't seem as if the film is oozing with nostalgia like The Force Awakens did. Finally, to address one of the largest concerns fans had going into this movie, let me say that if you like the porgs, these adorable owl-penguin hybrids won't disappoint you. If you hate them, rest assured they're hardly in it.

Sure, this film is not without its problems. Isaac and Gleeson starred in a sci-fi movie two years ago called Ex Machina, and yet that old-fashioned devise is employed so liberally here that it feels like it would be a better title than The Last Jedi. This is the longest Star Wars movie, and while for the most part it doesn't seem too long, there are scenes that could have been scrapped (mainly the casino part). Needless to say, I feel happy after watching this movie that Johnson will write and direct a new Star Wars trilogy that apparently won't have anything to do with the previous movies Lucasfilm has made. Fans will run out of patience with this franchise eventually. Star Wars is not Marvel; it cannot last forever. But for the time being, after the immense success of The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi, why stop now?

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Inception

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a film about characters who perchance to dream. There is something deeply philosophical and fascinating about man's ability to dream, to analyze and reflect on one's own dreams, one's own nightmares, that offers women and men the ability to command such creative power that would make everyone a Dante or Shakespeare, as H.F. Hedge put it, and Nolan capitalizes on this.

There seems to be a genuine dissonance between man's rationality of being awake and the insanity of dreaming, where all absurdity and surrealism is finally available. This is the case with Nolan's film, a film which almost entirely creates a perfect equilibrium between intellectualism and entertainment.

The story is likely inspired by the science and psychology of lucid dreams, that is when a dreamer recognizes and acknowledges that he or she is in a dream. Many characters have such moments in "Inception." The film toys with our own recognition of dreams in that it is difficult to recollect them; we in essence quickly forget what dreams we dreamed. Another aspect is dream incubation, or the placing of a seed in the brain, or inception.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a dream extractor who leads teams to steal secrets from people's dreams. But in this case, for a complicated and quickly-described reason, Cobb and his team are not extracting but creating an idea in someone's mind. Dreams within dreams are created, totems are used to detect whether or not the person is in a dream, and the subjects (those whom the idea is created or stolen from) possess subconscious protections against the extractors. The more dreams-within-dreams that are created, the more risk there is; usually "death" in a dream returns the dreamer to reality, but with heavy sedation (as is the case on the team's special assignment), being killed could result in actual death. To die is truly to sleep for these characters.

Like in Scorsese's "Shutter Island" from earlier this year, DiCaprio's character is a man struggling with deep guilt and alienation. It is as if he exists in a prison when he is awake, and dreaming provides him the perfect escapism. The dreams allow him to take enormous risks, regardless of the potential consequences to him and his team members.

Another wonderful aspect is the fact that Nolan has largely avoided shortchanging his actors. Aside from Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite who both have small roles, this is an ensemble piece, with DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and Tom Berenger all having important roles.

With Nolan, there is a special attention to detail, and when there are elaborate and expensive CGI images, one gets the sense that Nolan, unlike so many other directions, has not forgotten that the onus is on him to make the audience believe that these images are real. Cities fold onto themselves and characters fly like acrobats in a gravity-less corridor. There are nightmares--Cotillard's near-perfect moments as practically a ghost tormenting Cobb's guilt--filled with sudden horrifying glances, a look that could kill. And then a firm grip with a broken glass, and a powerful charge. And there is the wonder of subtext with regards to psychology and even architecture, all culminating in a film inspired by obvious previous science fiction films.

But this is a film with flaws. While there certainly is a sense of wonder here, that wonder unfortunately often does not go far enough. At times it feels as if there is nothing really new here, unlike other films that have dealt with similar subjects, as varied as Wilcox's "Forbidden Planet" to Hitchcock's "Spellbound," to Kurosawa's "Dreams." This film has been called a Kubrickian masterpiece; it is not. Part of the reason is that Nolan already is one of the best directors around, so the bar is just so high every time, but that does not mean one should not see "Inception." If you can tolerate the intensity, confusion, rapid speed at which the plot is explained, the lack of details to the plot, the real-or-not jargon about our dreams, the non-stop gun fights, etc., then it is a film worth seeing. There are many reasons to see this movie: its thrills, its acting, its cinematography, its ideas and especially its visuals.

You probably have heard about the ending. I won't mention much, other than it will probably make you smile (or groan if you are less patient or intellectually curious), and it would be best not to dwell too much time on it.

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