RyansRebuid

Finally got a chance to see the movie on a discount day. In just the 4th week it's already quite difficult to find a showing where I live in a major east coast city. A bunch of theaters have already taken it out of the rotation. Seems like it's doing quite poorly money-wise. Scattered thoughts: I would say I enjoyed the movie. I think everyone at the screenings going, basically, "it's fun" is about correct. Low stakes are okay. It definitely does feel like a stitched-together TV special with a few episodes, although obviously Lucasfilm has denied that any of this was written for TV. On one occasion it felt like we were about to go to commercial. Mando being a one-man army is a bit uninteresting in some regards because it trivializes most combat situations, but I guess Mandalorians are supposed to be the coolest dudes. That arena fight has, like, 4 more monsters than it needs to. It's overwhelming to try and follow. Cool creature designs, though. Overall hugely respected how many creatures there were. Extreme commitment, in a good way, to showing Star Wars full of aliens. I hate celebrity voice-casting. Jeremy Allen White was actually okay, but a bunch of the others were not great. The best vocal performance in the movie is Zeb because he's voiced by an actual voice actor. Nice seeing Steve Blum's name in the opening credits for a big movie. Superb anime dub guy. The Anzellans rocked. The solo bit with Grogu is probably one of the strongest sequences and is one of the few times the movie took a breather. I think in a few years this will be considered an underrated film in the Star Wars canon. This is a decent movie that came out when Star Wars needed a great movie. Unvarnished hater take: Dave Filoni putting himself in this movie as "Trapper Wolf" is loser behavior, I'm sorry. The cut to him looking cool in his OC-megablocks outfit as they bring Janu Coin in is eye-rolling. Kathleen Kennedy may have had no plan, but at least she had the self-respect not to cast herself as Killer K le epic Imperial Hunter in Episodes 7-9.

I know it's not the same thing, but I couldn't help but crack up a bit when I noticed it. I am going to Barcelona this year to see the Sagrada Familia, and the flights + tour costs about as much as this set.

Jiggly is so bad that it almost wraps around to being good. I'm tempted to get it for the $15 because it's an absolutely hilarious toy.

Oh but how else will I find out what to do with my new battle droids from 2007 or 2008

SMART Play™: Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle costing $120 (USD) seems absolutely scandalous. The Jigglypuff one is extremely funny looking. I'm definitely going to try and work it in as an extremely specific reaction image. Honestly I'm a bit relieved that these have a kind of junky, for-kids look so far. I think I'd be extremely tempted by a Lego System line of Pokemon Play Sets. We'll see about that rumored Pokeball set.

"Making a joke about Grogu dying" being the hot social media trend of the moment seems like a bad indicator of sentiment around Star Wars ngl. Although it is extremely funny. https://defector.com/kill-grogu?giftLink=ab49aac2a42b82844a3d79dc36c0f92a

The Rotten Tomatoes website is totally busted these days, but sitting at 62% to start is not great and usually only gets worse. (Insert caveat about RT being an aggregator here, etc.) Even a lot of the positive reviews seem to say "fine, but nothing special."

Actually I was thinking the other day that arguably the "hottest" / most relevant actor to ever appear in a Star Wars movie is Emilia Clarke in Solo as Game of Thrones was ending. I do think Ryan Gosling is the maybe most relevant actor ever to star in a Star Wars movie? Liam Neeson and Samuel L were doing kind of whatever movies a few years before Episode 1 it looks to me? Liam Neeson has Schindler's List and Jackson has Pulp Fiction, but those are both further back from Episode 1 than Barbie is to Starfighter. I don't think either has a Project Hail Mary -tier hit right before Star Wars. When we look back on careers, it might be that Liam Neeson or Sam Jackson are "bigger" actors than Gosling. However, I agree that Gosling is a bigger / more relevant star than anyone I can think of at the time of the movie.

Quoth the raven nevermore.