The Miscalculations of the Star Wars Prequels

Huzzah, the first installment of the new Star Wars trilogy, The Force Awakens, is (as of this writing) just around the corner. And I thought I'd commemorate this occasion by......beating a dead horse and going on about the Prequel Trilogy.

Yeah, yeah, I know...pretty much everyone and their mother has critiqued the Star Wars prequels. We've now reached a point where most think-pieces on them fall into one of two categories: "The prequels really weren't THAT bad," or, "No, the prequels really did suck."

Personally, I'm in the camp that the prequels were not particularly good. So if you're expecting a defense of them here, you're out of luck—a lot of what I'm going to write here are my thoughts on why the prequels don't work.
However, don't expect cries of raped childhood or parroting of Red Letter Media either. I'm not interested in repeating the obvious complaints of too many special effects or poor dialogue or wooden acting. It's been done.

Overall, when I think of the prequels, what I see more than anything are creative miscalculations by George Lucas—hence the title. Because one thing I've noticed when people discuss the prequels is the question: have we any right to question George Lucas's vision, and was it ultimately impossible for him to meet the fans expectations?

Halloween: The Shape, Michael Myers, & Cthulhu

Full disclosure...I would be very hesitant to call myself a fan of the Halloween series.

That isn't to say I have no appreciation for them. I definitely recognize and respect the original for being such a ground-breaking film. As a fan of Friday the 13th, I certainly know those movies wouldn't exist without Halloween. And whenever the Halloween season comes, and AMC or some other channel has its inevitable marathon, I usually end up watching most or all of them.

Except Resurrection. Fuck that movie.

But of the big slasher icons—as I've mentioned in previous posts—I've always been a Jason guy.
Even back when I was young enough to actually be scared of these movies, Michael Myers just never hit me.

A lot of that can be chalked up to personal taste. I just found the atmosphere and background music of Friday—especially the earlier ones—scarier than that of Halloween. For whatever reason, I thought Jason's hockey mask more intimating than Michael's Captain Kirk.
Different strokes and all that.

But I think the biggest thing that always kept me from really getting into the Halloween movies and Michael Myers as a characters was, frankly, I just didn't buy him.

Top Nostalgic Movie Villains

And now for something a little different...from me anyway. A lot of people do "Top whatever" lists—I just haven't until now.

Everyone loves villains. Everybody loves a good "bad guy." There's that old adage: "A hero is only as good as their villain."
I wanted to do a top ten list of villains, but that's far too broad, so I decided to narrow it down to the villains that stand out from my childhood watching movies. I'm not going to pretend this is objective in any way, but these are the characters that, when I think of them, push that personal nostalgia button and take me back to my youth.

So let's bring on the bad guys...

Movies, Doomsday, & Salt

Heyyooo...figured I'd get some thoughts out about recent developments in the land of Wonder Woman. No real united theme or point, just catching up on recent stuff and news.

So let's get rambling...

The Movies

I suppose the appropriate place to start would be on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, what with the San Diego Comic-Con and I haven't touched on the subject since they cast Gal Gadot.

First...how she'll look in the movie. Quite a few months ago, we got the first official image of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman:

Defying Gravity

Hey, it's been a while since I've prattled on about Wonder Woman.

Looking back, for all I've written about her, one topic which tends to divide fans—and jackasses who don't know anything about Wonder Woman but seem to think they know how she "should" be portrayed—that I've kind of overlooked is her ability to fly.

There's just no end to controversial Wonder Woman topics, is there?

Kitana Retrospective - Part V: Closure

And now we come at last to the final part of my retrospective on Mortal Kombat's Kitana. Who'da thunk I could write so much about a video game character? Hell, I originally planned this to only be three parts—yet here we are.
I chronicled her humble beginnings in MKII and her development into a major character. I looked at her downward spiral into mediocrity and finally bottoming out in MK9.

When we last left Kitana, she'd been retconned into oblivion, reduced to a victim, and stuffed in the proverbial fridge. A sad, sorry end to what had once been an engaging protagonist and strong hero.
That, among many other things, led me to give up on Mortal Kombat as a whole. The story, as far as I was concerned, was dead. There was nothing to look forward to, and I was left with a strong bitterness about the whole thing.

But Mortal Kombat 9, lousy story aside, was a major success. From what I understand, it had probably the best core gameplay in the series' history. I can't comment on that—didn't buy it or play it. And although the story itself was lousy, one couldn't argue the quality presentation.
So of course the franchise machine rolled on. After a diversion with Injustice: Gods Among Us, the developers began moving forward with Mortal Kombat X.

And it's here, shockingly, we might find a happy ending.


Oh...and since MKX is still fairly new as of this writing, SPOILERS ahead for those concerned.

Kitana Retrospective - Part IV: Rock Bottom

And so we come to the penultimate part of our look back on Mortal Kombat's resident assassin-turned-princess, Kitana. In Parts one and two, I've chronicled her rise, growing into a well-developed and strong protagonist, and in Part three, her fall, sliding down a slippery slope that would reduce her to a two-bit damsel-in-distress.

Is there any hope for our heroic assassin princess?
The aftermath of Armageddon promised a whole new era in the story, and with the purchase of Mortal Kombat by Warner Bros. there was a great deal of anticipation for what Mortal Kombat 9 would end up being. Would we see Kitana reclaim her rightful place as one of the franchise's best and most compelling characters or—at the very least—end on a good note?

As the old saying goes: it's always darkest before the dawn.