A more-than-worthy successor to the first film, full of fun, drama, and spectacle.
I won’t talk specifics, but this is a sequel that is at least an equal of the first film, possibly its superior.
By having a commitment to a third film, the creative team could lean into richness of characterization, and creating a cast with depth and texture. Presumably the production was all of a continuum (the third film comes out next year), and that allowed some powerful development to be teed up and fulfilled.
Visually, the film is stunning, playing with color, texture, medium, style, focus and orientation. The animation is amazing in its variety and quality, truly cinematic in everything from quiet dialogue scenes to crazy four-dimensional action sequences.
Writing-wise, the story arguably more complex than Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — again, leaning into having two films to follow up from that first film. But the through-lines are strong — growth, autonomy, destiny, truth, lies, identity. All the primary characters (and there are several) face challenges and conflicts, sometimes with each other. The dive into Spider-Man lore and creating a meta-narrative out of is brilliant.
At the same time, as serious as things get (and they do get damned serious), there is also a tremendous amount of fun, playing with a vast array of Spider-folk (many from canon, many invented for the purpose), as well as others people and places. That contrast between fun and wonder and gut-wrenching drama makes this a pretty special movie, even without its merits as animation or as a super-hero tale.
The music isn’t necessarily my personal cuppa, but it works with the imagery and the action. The voice talent, as with the first film, is top-notch.
All in all, I couldn’t ask for anything better, other than that “To Be Continued” at the end.
This review first appeared, in an earlier form, on Dropbox.
As a D&D player, I had a lot of fun. But this was not a great movie.
I’d heard that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a brilliant homage to the classic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, full of easter eggs and fun and great action and lovely bits and bobs.
I’d also heard that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a scattershot fantasy action that had some nice minutes but awful quarter-hours, with an incoherent plot, poorly sketched characters, and little for a non-player of the game to latch onto.
Which have I learned is the truth here?
Yes.
For someone who’s been immersed in D&D since the early 80s, D&DHAT is so steeped in lore and in-jokes and setting that it all begins to precipitate out like a passing, meaningless shot of rust monsters arguing over a scrap of metal. From funny spells to dire threats to factions to cities to name-drops of famous figures throughout the history of Faerun, D&DHAT tries to out-LotR LotR in its eye to detail and endless, endless fan service.
And, heck, I’d love to make it a table requirement that every player in a new game of mine watch that movie as a means of setting tone for the sort of game I want to run.
At the same time, desperately taking a step or three back, the movie is something of a narrative mess, from flashing back in sometimes confusing fashion, to throwing new obstacles and perils in just because they are cool, not because they are needed or pay off. Things happen, jokes are japed, battles ensue, banter is banted, the heroes win by the skin of their teeth, and we move on without any meaningful consideration of what it all meant. In a very real way, that’s the worst part of D&D, an endless series of Random Encounter Table rolls, with only the most threadbare plot to go with.
Alongside that threadbare plot are characters whom we root for because they are the characters we are clearly meant to root for, and who have backstories that, with maybe one exception, are simply sketched in, hand-waved, and thrown into the action. It’s less the stereotypical “Let me share with you my novella about my character’s origins (the index is on the last five pages)” and more a Pick-Up Group’s depth.
Even the main character — Chris Pine’s Edgin — who gets more backstory time than all the other characters combined, is such a fast-talking nobody that all the dramatic beats that the movie pretends to provide — love, loss, self-sacrifice, parenting, oath-breaking, regret, redemption — feel rushed and shallow in order to get to the next incredibly geeky-cool action moment.
The acting is all fine for the roles (one of these days, Hugh Grant is going to wake up and realize he’s been a laundry list of character actors over the decades), the SFX are quite good, the attention to lore is astounding (see your reviewer squealing “OMG IT’S GRASSY FIELDS OF THE DESSARIN VALLEY!!!!!”), and I had a tremendous amount of fun watching it. The Rotten Tomatoes scores for critics and viewers were both highly respectable.
But this is not a great movie. This is not even a great fantasy movie (compared to, say the Lord of the Rings trilogy — indeed, one might easily argue it’s a bit more The Hobbit trilogy in tone and content). I enjoyed it, and it’s arguably the best D&D movie I’ve watched since Conan the Destroyer (1982). But the folk who were surprised that it didn’t do better in theaters shouldn’t be: I strongly expect that, were I not someone steeped in D&D myself, I’d not be nearly as likely to have watched it, nor to want to watch it again.
I collect and research quotations, to a degree that some might deem obsessive. The fruits of my amateur labor are stashed at my Wish I’d Said That (wist.info) website.
The other day I was doing a deep dive into quotations by Judith Martin, a one-time journalist who shifted into a columnist and bookwriting career as “Miss Manners.” Martin’s etiquette work is witty, thought-provoking, grounded, and delightful to read.
I’d pulled together a (large) number of quotations by her, grouped by books she’d written, and decided to find URLs to those books online so that I could provided proper, linked citations for them. A quote without citation is nearly useless; a citation without a link to prove it exists is merely problematic.
While I’m a longtime fan of Google Books, I’ve of late become an even bigger fan, as a researcher, of the Internet Archive. Among its many other invaluable resources, its online collection of scanned eBooks is invaluable in finding or confirming the existence of quoted text, in a way that access to the biggest research library would find challenging.
So I searched at IA for books by “Martin, Judith,”, and amidst the various Miss Manners books (and books by other people with that name), I ran across a volume that made me do a double-take:
An oddly familiar cover
Huh, I said, looking at it. That reminds me of a play I was in back in … 2nd grade, I think.
And it was, in fact, my stage debut. Not that I have an extensive theater career, but I did a lot of plays in school, and in college, and even a couple of things since then, and this, this reminded me of that very first play.
I didn’t remember the title, but I remembered cardboard cutout trees that looked like that.
And I opened the book — and, by golly, this was in fact the book (and script) for that play. The Tree Angel, published in 1962.
It’s a frothy bit of children’s theater silliness, about a trio of trees chopped down by a woodcutter, rescued by an angel who gives them legs, letting them out-run the woodcutter who comes back to drag them off.
While written for three kids (as trees) and a couple more as the angel and woodcutter (which can actually be performed by a single person), it can also be expanded to fit a full class, with three speaking trees, a bunch of relatively silent trees, and (in the case of Mrs. Bogosian’s class) two woodcutters.
I was Woodcutter #2. And I had one line. And here it is, as illustrated by Remy Charlip:
“Trees can’t run!”
“Trees can’t run!”
Of such lines are great theater careers made. Or not, but it stuck with me all these years, so we’ll say great memories of theater careers, instead.
We woodcutters didn’t have actual axes, of course, but painted, corrugated cardboard cutouts (I had the green-handled axe, much less exciting than the red-handled axe, but I was, after all, only Woodcutter #2.)
Fortunately, given the fragility of corrugated cardboard, and the propensity of 2nd grade boys to want to chop at things with a prop like that, it was a one-night show, suitable for parents. I have to wonder if there are pictures lurking in my Mom’s photo albums somewhere.
As it turns out, the author of the play was not Judith “Miss Manners” Martin, but a child theater artist named Judith Martin who passed away a decade ago. She co-founded the Paper Bag Theater in 1960, focused on contemporary theater for children using everyday themes and props. It looks like she had a marvelous career.
I was a bit disappointed to learn in the end that a seminal literary and theatrical experience for me wasn’t actually crafted by “Miss Manners,” providing some sort of subliminal influence over me all these years — but it was still amazing running across the book unexpectedly, and the backpaths of memory it took me along.
Because the trailers are sometimes half the fun. (Though the movie was definitely a lot of fun.)
Trailers that were showing before our Friday-of-opening-weekend showing of GotG3.
Elemental – A charming-looking Disney film about anthropomorphic figures who live in a fascinating city and society that resembles our own, but cunningly adapted to the traits of its denizens, who must learn to live in harmony and perhaps, even, love. Which, if it sounds a lot like Zootopia, that’s the reaction I have every time I see the trailer, which is cute, but not enough to really motivate me.
The Flash– You might be confused if you thought this was a Batman movie at first. Or … multiple Batmans. Batmen. Or maybe Superman, er, Superwoman. Fighting Zod. Oh, yeah, the Flash is in there, too, and supposedly it’s his movie. Oh, and there’s a bunch of Flashpoint stuff in here, too, the series that really screwed up the DCU and the Flash, and which Warner Bros. hopes will unscrew-up the DCEU, or whatever they are calling their movies these days. Also, Flashpoint was done on the Flash TV series, and a number of DC animated movies, and can we please move on from this storyline? Unlikely to go to this, even without considering the Ezra Miller drama.
Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – I’m not sure who thought the idea of a HG prequel was a good one, and whether they are any more clueless than whoever thought this was a title that would attract an audience. This is the movie I am least likely to see this year.
Fast X – If this were a series I watched, I would probably be highly interested in it. As it is not, I am not. At all.
Dune, Part 2 – I have heard plenty of admiring things about the first one, except that it all seemed to be a setup for the second one. So maybe once the dust settles on the second one, I’ll do a Dune-a-thon weekend with the two new movies, the classic Lynch, and the Syfy mini-series. Or maybe not.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – I am seriously jonesing (ha!) to see this. Yes, I was burned by the The Kingdom of the Glass Skull (which, to be fair, had a much better title than this one), but the Indy series is clearly in a “odd movies good, even movies bad” cycle, so we should be due for a final hit.
The Marvels – The most predictable trailer for the set (hello, MCU!), but, y’know, I am so there for this. I like the three title characters, I like the quantum entanglement that gives them an immediate problem to resolve, and I like that we don’t know much more than that right now. Plus I want this to succeed to spite the fanboiz who hate these three characters for a variety of disturbing reasons.
(NO SPOILERS) A fun, frenetic, somewhat frightening finish to the GotG saga.
The Series in Review
GotG 1 was about a band of misfits thrown together by chance to form a family. There was humor, and there was banter, and there was some crazy space stuff, and there were some dark moments, too, but it was a great intro.
GotG 2 was about challenging that family, re-defining it, expanding it. But it was also about cranking up the already-high level of humor to 12, and going bananas with the special effects. It had some serious threads, too (salute to Yondu), but it was overall pretty frothy.
(Insert a few other appearances here and there — holiday specials, cameos in other MCU movies, and so forth. Fun, but relatively shallow, leaning into the tropes, music, the mayhem, and the humor. )
GotG 3 … brings us back to the first installment in a good blend of tone. It’s dark in a lot of places, especially toward the beginning, to the point of being sort of even grim in tone. I would hesitate to bring a kid to this one, and people sensitive to body horror should probably steer clear.
Repeating that note: this is NOT kid-friendly.
The violence, suffering, and (I’ll use the word with consideration) atrocities that are shown or hinted at, and the level of (cartoon) violence in some of the battles, are very intense for an MCU film.
But it’s not gratuitously not-kid-friendly
A lot of the more gut-wrenching stuff is setting the stakes, teeing up the villain and one of our hero’s reactions toward him. That ties into a theme here: paying off past outstanding threads, some going all the way back to the beginning of Vol. 1 (Quill’s flight from his Earth family, and the tight-lipped secrets of Rocket’s origins), others being shaped neatly for the other characters.
It’s not always comfortable to watch, but it serves the narrative.
By the end, after trial, travail, confronting old ghosts and getting ready to confront new ones, we reach a satisfying set of reasons as to why this is the final volume of the Guardians, at least as we know them. Stories are wrapped up — or, if not wrapped up, set on new courses, some of which we may never see, others of which … who knows?
Heroes need a villain
The MCU hasn’t always done well with villains, and GotG as a series is an example of that. Vol. 1’s Ronan (Lee Pace) was a grim non-entity (and a lackey at that). Vol. 2’s Ego was, with the rest of the movie, equal parts humor and jerk.
The main heavy here is (I doubt this is a spoiler) the High Evolutionary, a self-created mad genius of great power and greater ambition to produce perfection in living things. What that looks like, what he’s willing to do, re-do, discard, try again, etc., makes him in his own way a deeper, darker adversary than your Thanos or your Ultron (or Ego, for that matter), perhaps because in some ways his motivation reverberates off of too many of humanity’s own darker moments.
But it also tees up a bunch of Marvel backstory fun, including places and groups that the High Evolutionary of the comics is associated with (i.e., Easter Eggs a-plenty here). The HE of Marvel Comics has always been a mix as a villain — very much the “everyone is a hero of his own story” and more of a bad guy because of his dispassionate pursuit of perfection than because of twirling mustachios. The HE here (Chukwudi Iwuji) plays up the zeal and ego a lot more, and it works pretty darned well.
Indeed, all the actors play their roles well, in parts great and small. There are no real weak links in this ensemble. And I have to give a big shout-out to Bradley Cooper, whose voice work for Rocket is a key to so much here, and carries so much of the (superbly animated) character.
The Special Effects
Fun and detailed and much more transparent, in many ways, than in Vol. 1 and 2. Practical, makeup (a world record in prosthetics), and CGI all blend together delightfully and such that I really stopped noticing it, even with creatures and characters that were a mixture or were all-CG.
We watched in the theater in 2D. There was stuff that I’m sure was very cool in 3D, but it wasn’t necessary to pay the extra money or headache.
The Music
The film score was done by John Murphy, replacing Tyler Bates from Vol. 1-2. The ever-present pop songs seem to have trended a bit more modern (though there are still some good rock classics in there).
Openings and Closings
The Marvel Studios opening sequence is a tribute to the GotG, rather than the current standard. It’s nicely done.
There are two credits scenes, at the usual spots. Both are worth watching for their own reasons (esp. since the credits themselves are a nicely done scrap book of photos — from the movies and not — of the characters we’ve come to know and love over the series.
A few minor bits of glee
1. After getting just a passing glimpse in the Collector’s collection, I am so glad to see Cosmo the Space Dog getting some decent screen time.
2. Rocket learning his secret origin — not just the origin that he remembered but never wanted to talk about (and with reason), but the origin behind that — was delightful, esp. in its payoff.
A few minor quibbles
1. I’ve follow Adam Warlock’s career from the beginning (as the cosmic “HIM”) to his Roy Thomas Counter-Earth Christ-figure days, to becoming another Jim Starlin cosmically wise / clever / menacing type. Will Poulter’s rendition here is pretty much nothing like any of those, which is kind of a pity — but the character does line up well both with his Vol. 2 origins and with the general theme of the Guardians.
2. I love the Guardians comic-style uniforms, and to the extent that they have been trying to be an organized force to protect the galaxy, sure, makes sense. That said, they do seem to come out of nowhere during the film.
Overall
I was a bit worried about Vol. 3 continuing the trends from Vol. 2 (make it louder! make it funnier! make it more psychodelic!), but James Gunn has made a movie that is both a great wrap for the saga, send-off for our characters, and a good film in its own right. Bravo.
Time for another review of movie adverts at the movies
So, what sorts of movies do Big Media think will attract possible customers who are there for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? Here are the trailers we saw this evening:
Super Mario Bros.: The Movie— This just looks plain silly, but neatly crafted in its silliness. A moderate chance we’ll see it when it comes out (if my son has any say in the matter).
Air — (a) Who would have thought that the decision of a struggling Nike shoe company to back untried rookie Michael Jordan would lead to so much money being made? (b) Who wants to see a movie about it? (c) So, which is a bigger number, (a) or (b)? (d) Who cares?
John Wick 4 — I saw the first JW film and decided that, while it was fun, it was about all the John Wick I needed for a lifetime.
Flash — I’m more and more convinced that the only reasons this movie is finally being released are (1) it’s already complete and probably fully depreciated by WB, and (2) James Gunn is too much of a geek to miss the chance to provide a canonical excuse for the DCEU timeline being changed. I have no interest in seeing this in the theaters, but I might stream it some time.
Fast & Furious 10 — I’m sure the trailer will excite F&F enthusiasts. I just see a franchise that’s both winding down and is becoming its own self-referential parody.
Elemental — A new Disney/Pixar flick about a world just like ours, except everyone is made of earth, air, water, and fire. Amusing hi-jinx and a heart-warming forbidden love ensue. Um … for whatever reason this just didn’t do it for me.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 — This trailer has been out for a little bit, but it’s nice to see on the big screen. Another sub-franchise winding down to an exit (along with its writer-director), and I am very interested in how it turns out.
We also saw two different segments in the pre-show and an ad during the trailers tied into Creed 3, which I have utterly no interest in.
There was also some pre-show chatter for Shazam 2, which I would be a bit more interested in if they had actually pulled in some of Capt. Marvel’s Shazam’s classic villains for, rather than … “the Daughters of Atlas”? Which, even with Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren, doesn’t get me excited.
So, net-net, only one real win for me (GotG 3), though some mild interest in a couple of others.
So here’s the bad news: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (AMWQ) is not one of the best Marvel movies of all time.
But, and unlike the early press and folk who are beginning to enjoy piling on Marvel, it is not one of the worse.
Instead, it falls pretty square in the middle: entertaining without influencing the genre; pretty but sometimes too in love with its own prettiness; some humor that works, some that doesn’t quite; too much of some things, too little of others; decent integration with the MCU; a great villain but too many faceless mooks getting killed; some nice personality moments but a rocky plot; etc.
If I had to compare it, I’d say Guardians of the Galaxy 2, or Shang-Chi, or maybe Captain Marvel. Good, not great. But not bad.
Plot
So take first a reminder that the Ant-Man franchise has always been — well, not lighter, but not pompous or overly serious. Drama occurs, but plenty of humorous moments, too. AMWQ doesn’t balance this quite as neatly as the earlier two installments, but it has its moments, and it helps explain why the aside vignettes during action scenes feel to me like they largely work here, where they would have to be a lot fewer and shorter in a more conventional MCU film.
There’s a lot going on in this film: The Lang/Pym extended family is five all by itself, and that doesn’t account for a ton of secondary players, a major villain with lots of backstory, a significant side villain, multiple rescue missions and guilt trips, a big battle, and a gorgeous world to explore.
There’s about 15% too much stuff here, which ends up somewhat short-changing some of the characters and some of the “family matters” arc that it starts out with. As it stands, there are some occurrences in the film that seem to reference stuff that isn’t there in the release any more. It makes matters a bit rocky in places when you try to catch a breath and consider what’s going on.
Further, from a suspension-of-disbelief stance, there are odd scaling issues. Kang has amassed a massive army, sure, but nothing he could actually conquer the universe with, given his opposition (and, well, the sheer size of the universe). Conversely, it does seem like he has an army in at least the hundreds of thousands, given the size of his fortress complex — and there’s no indication that the doughty refugee / rebel alliance has anywhere near the numbers to take that on, even with the assistance they receive. Kang’s forces are simultaneously too small and too large to be believable (ironic in a tale of super-heroes who shrink or grow huge).
In short, the plotline for AMWQ does not hold up under close scrutiny any more than the physics and biology do. Just go with the flow.
Acting
We saw it in 2D and it was fine.
The main players all do a decent job amidst the flurry. Michael Douglas feels a bit more relaxed, having gotten all the shoutiness out of his system in the previous two films. Michelle Pfeiffer makes up for it by being positively grim and driven. Paul Rudd is his normal amiable self, still the grounded, sane guy amidst a bunch of zanies (though, sadly, we get no more of his San Francisco buddies). He’s become a bit more of a parent/worry-wart than before, but it feels in character.
Kathryn Newton, taking over as Scott’s daughter Cassie, fills the role well, and the movie provides support for what one hopes will be an eventual Young Avengers movie. Evangeline Lilly gets something of the short end of the stick here — she’s present, and she does stuff, but her character arc is pretty flat.
Everyone is express rave reviews for Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, and they are well-deserved. Majors plays the alternately world-weary, egomaniacal, manipulative, and frustrated-beyond-all-understanding super-villain in a way that makes him a top-tier MCU antagonist. He picks up and seamlessly expands on the multiversal metaplot of the MCU from his variant in the first season of “Loki” without dropping a beat. Majors makes us mostly hate, kind of fear, but also occasionally sympathize with Kang, no easy feat.
I applaud the job he’s done here. He’s a great catch for Marvel, and a great lynchpin for the whole “Kang Legacy” focus of the upcoming MCU phase(s).
Beyond all that, there are, as you may have heard, some unexpected cameos. They worked well, even the one I most worried about.
Production
AMWQ is visually stunning, and that’s almost a problem. The early time in the Quantum Realm harkened back strongly to Disney’s unjustly lambasted Strange World, only a lot more photo-realistic and, therefore, a lot more distracting. When everything looks amazing, nothing looks amazing, if you will.
But besides that, the imagination and execution of the alien wonders of the Quantum Realm (and a coherent look for the dark blot that is Kang’s presence) are impeccably done, as are the shrinking/growing being done by Team Lang/Pym.
A nit to pick: everyone who had one of those quick-deploy helmets (Scott, Hope, Cassie, Kang, and MODOK) spends way too much time with it off when it should just stay on (complete with zippy deployment / undeployment). Yes, I realize that’s a conscious decision to let the actors’ faces be visible to emote but the masks on to more easily stunt / CG the action, and perhaps it was even the right decision, but it also happened with such frequency as to create a distraction.
Comic Bookiness
Underutilized helmets
Most of the focus here has to go on Kang, whose costuming and make-up are as exquisite as Jonathan Majors’ portrayal. The only thing missing are his gigantic inter-changeable super-future-guns.
Tip of the hat to the renditions of other Kang-related characters, recast into the framework of the MCU from their original form.
Another tip to the way the MCU has pulled in elements of Marvel’s Microverse to make its Quantum Realm, both conceptually and in the form of characters like Jantorra.
The MODOK character looked pretty cool, though almost entirely divorced, besides his final appearance, from the comic book version in identity and personality. Still, it was a better revision than, say, “Black Widow”‘s Taskmaster, and infinitely superior to choosing a near-nameless mook to be the obligatory lieutenant / hatchet man.
In Sum
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania poster – the kitchen sink visual approach, which you could accuse the movie of taking, too.
I’ve no regrets springing for movie tickets. I’m not sure if it’s in 3-D anywhere; 2-D was just fine.
There are the standard mid-credits and post-credit scenes. They are worth staying for, just for their MCU tie-ins.
The headlines for early reviews of the movie have been brutal, but if you look at them carefully, they are largely coming from critics who think anything superheroic of coming from Disney/Marvel is commercial hackery from the get-go, and are therefore happy to point out every cinematic flaw in detail without going into the basic popcorn enjoyment of the thing.
For viewer ratings, we’re getting a grade of “B,” which isn’t a sign to me of “Marvel fatigue” or the demise of super-hero films, but of the end of the amazing 15-year cinematic honeymoon the public has had with the MCU. A “B” is an accurate, but quite respectable grade. That this is somehow a wildly embarrassing flop seems greatly exaggerated.
I enjoyed going to AMWQ. I expect I will this film again at home. ‘Nuff said.
Neil Gaiman works some magic … as do Penn and Teller
There are two main threads. The A-plot has a dozen subplots to it, most of them delightful. The B-plot is more straightforward, and a bit more difficult to grok.
A-Plot
The Brakiri on B5 arrange to rent part of the station, in a such a way that it legally becomes “their territory” for one evening, sunset to sunrise. This isn’t just a diplomatic embassy kind of thing — weird magic stuff is going on for the “Day of the Dead,” which only happens every few centuries, son one of the Brakiri on the station want to miss out. As part of the process, that section of the station will be somehow metaphysically moved to Brakir, so that it partakes in the festival. As this includes some sleeping quarters sections (a weird thing to rent out around), some of the crew members learn a lot more about the Day of the Dead than they wanted, as they are visited by ghosts left behind during the show.
Lochley: Lochley is visited by a friend, Zoe, from when they were teenagers. Lochley apparently had quite the while JD life, living rough, involved in petty crime and drug use.
LOCHLEY: We were cold, sick, and we were hungry all the time. We did thing to survive I’ve done my best to forget. We lived in that burned-out hotel. I was scared all the time my father was going to find me. No, it was bad.
ZOE: Yeah, but … we still had fun.
It was only when she found Zoe dead of an OD (and covered in cockroaches) that she got “scared straight” — back to her overbearing Space Marine dad, back into school, and then into the military, and into the world’s most stiff-spined, upright life. It’s still a trauma that haunts her (we learn her sooper-sekrit passcode is “Zoe’s dead”). The visit ends up serving as a reconciliation between the two, and closure for Lochsley when she finally confirms that Zoe’s OD was suicide, not her being a good enough protector and friend.
ZOE: Lizzie, I do remember my death. I didn’t want to hurt you, but … yeah. I did do it on purpose. I just couldn’t go on. Don’t hate me, okay?
LOCHLEY: I could never hate you.
One added creepy note here is Zoe passing a message for Sheridan on from Kosh (!): “When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.” It’s been so long since we got some of Kosh’s unintelligible warnings, I’d forgotten how much I both loved and hated it.
Garibaldi: Our erstwhile security chief is visited by Dodger, the Marine that he loved and lost in ep. 2×10, “GROPOS”. As then, she’s looking for a good time, he’s busy being paranoid about what’s going on. Eventually they both relax and spend time … demonstrating you can recite Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Londo: Just as Garibaldi is visited by a former lover, Londo meets with Adira, the Centauri dancing girl he once, truly, loved (ep. 1×03 “Born to the Purple”) … before she was assassinated (ep. ep. 3×15, “Interludes and Examinations”). She was killed (by Refa, probably, possibly with Morden’s connivance) to snap him out of his personal funk and back into leading the Centauri to greatness.
It’s a tragic re-meeting, even as Londo takes it all much more at face value than any of the others. It gives us a final chance to see Londo before his trip back to the Centauri homeworld and throne change him forever — something he is very much aware of, and rues. Because the fact is, Londo could probably have been very happy being a minor, fringe noble at a thankless diplomatic posting, if he’d had Adira by his side.
ADIRA: Normality will return soon. And when this night is done … so am I. And you? You will go on to become Emperor Mollari.
LONDO: I don’t want to become emperor. I want to stay here with you.
ADIRA: Londo, I’m a dream. In the morning, I’ll be gone. And you will rule 40 billion Centauri. But not one of them will ever know you the way I know you.
Lennier: Lennier, taking a quick break from training to actually see the long-rumored Brakiri “Day of the Dead” (and, not-incidentally, wanting to visit Delenn), shows up on B5 … and is visited in the night by Mr. Morden (Ed Wasser with sharp but distressingly short hair). After learning he can’t punch the ghost out, Lennier is informed that he will end up betraying the Rangers and, by extension, Delenn, and likely die in the process. Lennier is either the smartest or dumbest person in the tale, because he chooses to ignore everything Morden has to say and sits down to meditate, leaving Morden to read the newspaper.
Interestingly enough, dead Morden actually gets an answer from Lennier that he was unable to get from Delenn, so long ago: What a Minbari wants.
LENNIER: Why did you come back here? Mr. MordenMORDEN: I’m dead. It’s my job. Why did you come back here?
LENNIER: I came for wisdom.
MORDEN: You don’t come to the dead for wisdom, Lennier. […] Wisdom. Let’s see … Delenn does not love you as you love her, and she never will.
LENNIER: I know that.
MORDEN: No, you don’t. Not in your heart. That’s the problem, you see? No one should ever want to talk to the dead.
LENNIER: Go away.
MORDEN: Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You raised a ghost, now you have to listen to him.
Interestingly enough, most of the ghosts — Morden, Zoe, Dodger — deny they’re actually ghosts.
Sheridan shows up a bit in this story — interrupted from the B-Plot, he personally investigates the un-enterable Brakiri zone (since apparently Security is all asleep), and nearly gets beaned by a fire extinguisher he throws at the interface. Okay.
One of the weirder, less explicable parts of the plot here is G’Kar, who has some funny moments, but … well, he seems to know what’s going to happen, warning Lochsley not to “sell” the station to the Brakiri (even if it violates their religious rights), warning Garibaldi, and finally choosing to sleep in the bridge rather than his own quarters … but he gives no details, no actual reason to listen to him, just portents and alarums. To make matters worse, he later expresses regrets about having missed it all. It’s kind of sloppy writing for the character.
B-Plot
Rebo and ZootyThe most famous entertainers in the galaxy, Rebo and Zooty, come to visit B5. They’re played by Penn and Teller, and knowing them from thirty years later, they haven’t changed much. The show does a nice job of modifying their schtick, slightly, for a different pair of stage magicians.
The pair charm everyone on the station, except for Capt. Lochley, who apparently doesn’t enjoy humor and silliness (there should be some time here to her A-Plot, but there really isn’t). Even the aliens all enjoy the stage-magical hijinx of the pair (in part because R&Z have widely studied alien humor); all you have to do is say “Zooty-Zoot-Zoot!” to anyone on B5 (except Lochsley), and they burst into the equivalent of laughter.
In reality, R&Z are here to talk with Sheridan and Delenn about … going into politics. Giving up being comedians and doing something “worthwhile”. It’s an interesting take, looking back over the decades, as we see folk like Jon Stewart becoming political forces, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy leveraging a career that has included comedy to become President of Ukraine — and holding it together under their darkest hour.
Ultimately, it’s the least effective part of the episode, as we get a little homily about how important humor is, both socially to hold people together during hard times, and politically, to speak truth to power (and to serve as a canary in the coal mine). Not bad lessons, and some of the personal interplay in the scenes works well, but in the end it’s all a little preachy.
Other Bits and Bobs
As a guest-written episode (and one that written early days in the season, before Joe had the full timeline charted), it wisely avoids tying too much to live troubles in the B5verse. The telepath problem, political stresses in the Alliance … all are put into a soft focus in the background, making this a somewhat standalone (if prophetic) tale.
Meanwhile …
If this seems very non-Joe Straczynski — being a guy who is okay with writing about telepaths and aliens who wield the power of gods and technomancers who create magical effects from technology and the like, but who would never write about straight-up magic — well, you’re right. This is the single episode in seasons 3-5 which wasn’t written by JMS. Instead, it was a long-term commitment fulfilled to have fabulist Neil Gaiman write it. And Neil Gaiman writes magic.
In the end, it’s not too glaring of a matter. Suspension of disbelief — hey, we all believe in destinies prophecies and Centauri seeing their death, after all — is already established. It does create a different tone for it all, but I was able to handwave the more overt use of “magic” for purposes of an episode.
ZoeA bit of trivia: Gaiman has noted elsewhere that Lochsley and Zoe were also former lovers (perhaps another reason she ran away from home). There’s certainly that aspect to be read into their interplay, but anything overt, if it ever existed, was filed off by JMS on editing the story. If it were so, it would make Lennier the only one not visited by an ex-lover (likely because the only one he’s ever loved is still alive and otherwise involved … which then ties to Morden’s prophecy …)
There is some controversy as to where “Day of the Dead” should be placed. It was written early in the season, after only four scripts had been completed by JMS, and before all the detailed chronology was figured out; it was originally shot 11th, but shuffled to 8th during the original run because of conflicts with the NBA playoffs, and so as to let a more solid sequencing of episodes occur. This creates some minor continuity conflicts, and some oddness with G’kar and Londo being (still? again?) on B5, but other recommended options have their own inconsistencies as well. Since it’s all relatively trivial, I’m going with here, as in the original broadcast and on the recent HBO Max run.
Not only does this ep give us an opportunity for a long-promised Gaiman episode, but series consultant Harlan Ellison “shows up” as the electronic voice of Zooty (thus allowing Teller to remain mute).
Moments
Most Dramatic Moment:
Lochley — who is usually a staid rock — practically falling apart talking to Zoe about what their life together was like, how bad it was — and about finding her body.
Most Amusing Moment:
SHERIDAN: Okay, captain, let me get this straight. You sold Babylon 5 to an alien race for the nighT, who somehow transported a square mile of this station to their Homeworld, while apparently filling it with people temporarily returned from the dead?
“I thought it was a metaphor, sir.”LOCHLEY: Yes, sir.
SHERIDAN: Well, do you have an explanation as to why you did this?
LOCHLEY: Yes, sir. I thought it was a metaphor, sir. I’ll try to be more literal-minded from now on, sir.
Most Arc-ish Moment:
Surely Morden chatting with Lennier.
LENNIER: I know what kind of a man you were.
Morden and LennierMORDEN: Give a dog a bad name and you can hang him with it. You shouldn’t listen to everything Sheridan tells you. I’m surprised he’s not here tonight, since he died at Z’Ha’Dum. […] So … do you like being a Ranger, Lennier? Would you like it any better if I were to tell you that you will betray the Anla’shok?
LENNIER: You are lying.
MORDEN: I wish I were. No?
LENNIER: Sheridan did not die at Z’Ha’Dum. If you do not know the present, how can you know the future?
MORDEN: I’m talking about the future. So what if I’m not up on recent history? I’m prophetic, not infallible.
LENNIER: I think you are neither. But at least you have shown me there is truly life beyond death.
MORDEN: Not necessarily, but you’ll find that out soon enough.
LENNIER: I am Anla’shok and shall remain so until I pass beyond. I could no more betray the Anla’shok than my fingers could betray my hand. Our talk is done.
MORDEN: Your loss.
The Bottom Line
Some great dialog, some dubious plotting, a welcome break from Byron and the Telepaths.
Overall Rating: 4.5 of 5.0 — Good-to-Great stuff in the A-Plot, Interesting but Mixed stuff int he B-Plot, great lines, but also a clear sense of filling in.
Next episode: 5×09 “In the Kingdom of the Blind” — The Telepath Problem heats up, and Londo learns there’s something rotten in the heart of Centauri Prime.
David Byrne’s interactive show about unreliable reality was fun
David Byrne
My wife, being a fan of David Byrne of Talking Heads from way back, had her attention caught by an article and ads for his (and Mala Gaonkar’s) odd-looking show, Theater of the Mind (directed by Andrew Scoville). It had its world premiere in Denver last September and, we found, was carried over into this month before moving on to new locations.
Theater of the Mind
Three things to know about the show:
While it’s a DCPA production, it’s not held downtown. Instead, it’s at the York Street Yards, a light industrial area off Steele, north of City Park.
That’s because this is an interactive show, with small groups of sixteen moving from room to room over 75 minutes, delving into the (light) story and (fun) perceptive experiments / neurological parlor tricks.
We’re glad we went.
David Byrne and the thesis statement
Without going into spoilers, the show is about questions of identity, reality, and personality. That sounds very deep, and while there are deep questions raised, the audience is encouraged to do most of the raising themselves “over a coffee or a beer.” (The show provides a digital program after the fact, talking about the science involved.)
The experiments and demonstrations of how our perceptions, memory, and worldview are both unreliable and change over time are relatively simplistic, especially in the social media world of today. But in aggregate, and in context of the narrative (which seeks to engage the audience by giving them all new names and a bit of slowly developed backstory), it leaves a sense both of unease (who am I now, and how might that be different tomorrow?) and encouragement (we have at least some control, if only of acceptance, as to all of that).
One of the “David”s in an early scene
Again, while the tone glides from breezy to absurd to briefly serious, it’s meant mostly to be thought-provoking, not gut-wrenching, and it succeeds in that. That’s helped by a large and (presumably equally competent) case, each playing the single role for a given group: a semi-autobiographical David Byrne (even if none of them, quite intentionally, look like him). Our “David” (Steph Holmbo, I believe) was quite good, and I expect all of them are.
An enjoyable show and experience, worth going to see.
Like a lot of other folk (“all the cool kids are doing it!”), I’m suspending use of Twitter for the indefinite future. I’ve already been cutting back substantially the last month or so, but between the likelihood that the system is going to crash and burn technologically, if not socially, and that most of the key folk I followed on Twitter have departed — well, there are not much reason to be here, and many reasons not to be.
So my @Three_Star_Dave Twitter account, and the automatic quotation tweets to @WISTquotes will go silent unless things substantially change on Twitter. That’s unfortunate, because Twitter (while always having had problems) has been an amazing global resource, and an avenue to contact people in an remarkable array of walks of life. It’s been a precious news and communication channel in a way I think we haven’t realized. I’ve learned a ton there, and stayed in touch with a lot of people there. It wasn’t as satisfying as my previous social media community on Google+, but it had many great moments.
Elon Musk
But the onset of Elon Musk — who I’m convinced got sucked into taking over Twitter in as inadvertent and self-inflicted a fashion as Donald Trump turned a publicity stunt into an unexpected term in the White House — has ruined the place for me. The growing, free-wheeling hatred and deplorable culture that Musk is so amused by (and that he is encouraging so as to drive up numbers and sell lots of advertising) is too reprehensible for me to support by even my small sliver of traffic.
A number of thoughtful people have suggested continuing to fight the good fight there. Don’t give up. Don’t let the bastards win. And there’s something to be said for that. But as a tactic it assumes that actually being there can make a difference, and that it isn’t actually hurting the cause by keeping up the numbers Elon keeps waving at advertisers to bring them back.
It’s still a legit tactic. But not one for me.
So … where to now?
My own blog here has lain relatively fallow for a while, except when I choose to make long-form writing stuff (usually reviews). I have utterly no desire (still) for Facebook — if Twitter is turning Chaotic Evil, FB has for a long time been the social media face of Lawful Evil (as a company).
Instead, for the last few weeks I’ve been using Mastodon. It’s a marginally clunkier version of Twitter, stylistically, but its diverse federated nature means it’s less vulnerable to take-overs like Elon’s, and elements of its design — most particularly, a lack of “algorithm” to drive the most infurating info directly into your face — make for an experience much more pleasant, and a culture that’s a heck of a lot more civil (in my experience) and less doomscrolling than Twitter has been for a long while.
It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s pretty decent. As a small pond, still, I’m getting a lot more engagement from others than I have on the birdsite. And a lot of the voices I was most interested in following on Twitter have shifted full- or part-time to Mastodon.
All the cool kids are doing it.
I’m not deleting my old Twitter accounts — at least not yet. I may still poke my head over to see what’s going on (or to steal some material). But going forward, my former Twitter @three_star_dave sort of content can be found at https://mstdn.social/@three_star_dave, and my WIST stuff is being rebroadcast to https://zirk.us/@WISTquotes. Running on different instances means I can keep both accounts open in my browser, which is handy.
And I’ve figured out a decent RSS feed of the Mastodon stuff in the right margin of my blog here, too. So … commitment!
A movie that allayed fears and more than fulfilled expectations.
With the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020, MCU fans were unsure what would happen next. Would Boseman be replaced by another actor playing T’Challa? If not, would we just get some sort of mawkish memorial at the beginning — or, worse, mawkish, weepy memorials all the way through, “That’s what T’Challa would have wanted …” — or maybe, without Boseman, we’d get something that was just vapidly action-oriented without the depths he would have wanted.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is none of those things.
It is a movie suffused with grief, with people dealing with the untimely loss of a loved one, a leader, a geopolitical figure. A lot of that “dealing with” leads to errors in judgment that lead to further complications, but the dominoes that tumble by all of that that feel logical and realistic. As much as the viewer wants to yell at the people making bad decisions, much is because we understand where those people are coming from and sympathize, even as we want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them.
There are a ton of features to admire about the movie. Wakanda remains a remarkable society, with a complex polity and a realm as complex as their highly advanced technology, and the internal politics of Wakanda are themselves a significant factor in the action. But it’s brilliantly done that Wakanda is also a vulnerable society — not through simple brute force (as in “Avengers: Infinity War”) but through applied tactics against the strengths of the opponent (this is true both for the Atlanteans attacking Wakanda as well as Wakanda’s counter-attack).
Namor’s people and their profound grounding in Meso-American heritage is a delightful expansion of their pulp fantasy origins in the comics. While one can pick nits at their tech / lack of tech, they (and Namor) are delightfully rich.
(And I give a thousand points of credit for the film’s leaning into Namor’s ankle wings, calling them out explicitly and making them part of the plot. The most ridiculous thing about Namor’s character, and they went with it. Bravo.)
The movie actually makes sense (in terms of cascading bad judgments) in creating the conflict between Atlantis (okay, Talokan) and Wakanda, and uses the relative powers of both nations in imaginative and believable ways.
And there is a mid-movie cameo that was both unexpected and completely believable — and which drove forward Shuri’s evolution as a character.
The weakest parts of the movie relate to events outside of the Wakanda-Talokan conflict. The shenanigans related to Everett Ross and Val de Fontaine were all amusing, but felt like an add-on. And, sadly, Riri/Ironheart never quite fit into the emotional heart of the movie, despite being a significant part of the physical action. She’s a prop, more than a character here, and as a character she deserves much more.
But, again, that’s because this movie is really about grief, fear, dealing with T’Chala’s death — and the mistakes and misjudgments that stem from that. That grief is palpable, in both the drama and the meta (the Chadwick Boseman-focused Marvel intro sequence), and that is infused beautifully into the entire narrative, and into, ultimately, Shuri’s character arc.
This is a much more sophisticated tale than most MCU entries, because it is more about internal conflict than external, about finding one’s place in the world vs. blowing up the bad guys, and because so many characters are proceeding along parallel arcs that lead to conflict, and so many plausible ways that conflict can play out. And, at the end, we have no true resolutions, but anticipations, potentials, and possibilities.
Very much like real life. Which makes this a particular gem in the MCU.
ProTip: There is only one mid-credits scene. But it’s excellent. But when it’s done, you can head for the exit.
A beautifully crafted, long, slow simmer of Tolkien’s Second Age.
Definite Spoilers for S.1 and the Season Finale
Rings of Power Season 1 is a wrap. Since my original review, two eps in, has my opinion changed?
So now we know who these folk all are. There will be a quiz.
It’s a show that has been simultaneously wonderful, intriguing, and maddening. Let’s break it down.
The Bad — Too Much Time On Their Hands
Viewers, unlike Elves, are not immortal.
By having a “guarantee” for five seasons, it felt like a certain sense of time pressure was lifted from the creators. That “we have to get pulses pounding so that they will renew us!” gave way to “We have all the time in the world, so let’s not be hasty!” The result? Tons of slo-mo, so many lingering looks, and …
… well, to paraphrase Emperor Joseph from Amadeus, “Too many notes.” Or, rather, too many stories, too many characters. Lindon, Eregion, Khazad-dûm, Numenor, the Southlands, the Greenwoods … the Elves, the Dwarves, the Humans of Numenor, the Humans of the Southlands, the Harfoots (and not to mention the Orcs) …
Sorry to leave you hanging, guys.
Stories came and went, and the viewer never knew what they’d manage to wedge into a given episode. Remarkably enough, even the Big Season Finale just left some of them dangling in the dark, not even giving us a passing look to acknowledge them. The family conflict in Moria. The fate of Bronwyn and the Southlanders. Well, folks, we hope we remember you when we do a quick catch-up whenever Season 2 rolls around.
And I’ll add into the “Bad” the delay to S.2. Given that the first season (even with COVID) took 18 months to produce, and that they just started filing S.2 this month, I expect we won’t see anything more until early 2024. Which is … damn. Even the LotR movies kicked out reliably across three Christmas seasons.
The Good — Gorgeous and Occasionally Clever
Stranger Things
That said, the last handful of episodes really did start paying off all the long, loooong passages in the beginning, and the finale split story between the Stranger/Harfoots and Elves/Rings was awesome. (Yeah, the Numenorean bits were fine, too, but very much played third fiddle to the overall episode.)
Indeed, given how slowly things had been moving, I didn’t think we’d get to actual Ring Forging until next season. Instead, it fit in quite neatly here (even though, honestly, if Sauron hadn’t acted, he might have done away with the elves altogether, at least in this world’s setup).
I would watch this show just for the visuals.
Which, thinking of all that forging stuff, causes me to consider the elvish forging equipment, which makes me think of the visual worldbuilding here, and what even its biggest critics have had to admit: this show is drop-dead gorgeous. Numenor and the Numenoreans are design wonders, evocative of what the West (Gondor) eventually turns out to, but with rich overlays of ancient Middle Eastern tones and artistry. Exquisite.
The Road to Rhun
There were also, by the end of the episodes, fine setups for S.2 — we are off to visit Rhun (which is a massive blank canvas, so the Middle-Earth pedants will lose some traction), and Numenorean politics is about to heat up, esp. with Miriel blinded (and so unable to use the Palantir up the attic), and the whole “Only old-fashioned race-traitors like the elves” sentiment simmering under the surface. Speaking of whom, not sure what the elves will be doing, aside from maybe arguing over who gets to wear the Three (Gil-Galad might have something to say about that, as he did in the original), and clearly there’s more to come about the internecine struggle amongst the dwarves, even if it wasn’t even acknowledged in the finale..
The Okay
This saga takes fairly significant liberties with the original material. Even if you acknowledge that they could only play with the Appendices of LotR, not the actual Silmarillion, we have tremendous time compressions and lumping together of storylines across the Second Age to show that the story itself is clearly being altered.
If it’s Tuesday, it must be Eregion …
But to that extent (and to the end of having a single coherent show, not an anthology across those 3,400 years of Second Age), I think they did pretty well. Sure, they ended up with Galadriel basically walking, sailing, and galloping from one end of the western world to the other (I almost expected to see her riding a horse through a landscape, that would then open up after her passage to reveal our favorite Harfoots hidden from her eyes), but it all turned out … pretty okay.
Three Rings. Why three? Now we know.
Did it all make sense? Sometimes. Usually. The finessing around Sauron’s reveal and the forging of the Three, for example, was very neatly done.
On the other hand, the idea that rerouting a big reservoir of water across twenty miles of earthen tunnels to pour into a volcano’s caldera to create a massive explosion and pyroclastic flow that destroys the landscape but doesn’t kill everyone nearby, so as to create a “nuclear winter” localized landscape and weather system, perfect for orcs … well, that’s just silly, but it’s beautifully set up and executed and it beats any story Tolkien gave us about the founding of Mordor, and it’s a goddamned story about elves and orcs, so I can live with it.
I mean, WARS have been fought over trees in this mythos.
I’m slightly less sanguine about the plague on the Tree and the origin of mithril and all of that — except, again, it replaced centuries of kingdom-building and elvish (and dwarvish) politics. A big goofy, but within parameters (especially given how arboreal health seems elsewhere in canonical Tolkien to be so damned portentous).
So, yeah, the books talk about the Istari arriving by boat from the West, greeted by Cirdan (who gives his elven-ring to Gandalf), and all of that a thousand years into the Third Age, not falling from the sky thousands of years earlier. But … whatevs, it kept people guessing and doesn’t effectively change the dynamic. (And despite utter confidence that that’s Gandalf there in the burlap robe, for a variety of reasons, I’m holding out hope that it’s actually Saruman. Or maybe one of those Blue Wizards who actually traveled to the east …)
Canon or not, I enjoyed Galadriel, Warrior Princess
As to whether Galadriel was a warrior princess … again, it works here, even if it’s not quite what our known background info would suggest. Again, adaptation, and, let’s face it, with the pacing problems the show had, having a damask-robed slow-motion Galadriel looking somber the whole time as she walked from grove to grove would be … damned boring.
In Sum
Safe travels and fair roads until we meet again.
Overall, it’s not quite as Peter Jackson-mesmerizing as I had hoped, and it suffered from too much material presented too slowly, but I would much rather have watched Rings of Power than to have never seen it. I hope, eventually, to enjoy at least another season of it.
Some fine, fun, comic book action and self-mockery, but never really finding it’s spot.
Spoilers for She-Hulk ep. 9
Watched the S.1 finale for She-Hulk tonight. As mentioned before, at length, I love this character, and I really looked forward to an MCU comedy that capture that light-hearted, highly meta, but underlying dramatic creation I’ve come to love.
Ultimately, I got something that didn’t lean into its 4th Wall meta until the finale, then did so to excess, while at the same time trying to be a rom-com lawyer show, with a zany cast and so many situations to be comedic about.
And, fundamentally, I’m not a standard sitcom kind of guy. And this felt soooooo standard.
The talent was solid. The writing wasn’t.
So, bottom line, I was disappointed by She-Hulk, but it was moderately entertaining, and I appreciated its willingness to drag in big and little MCU characters. There was humor I did like, but so much must popped rather than banged.
I’m reluctant to get too critical, because there’s been from pre-Episode 1, a contingent of “Ugh, strong woman bad, can’t we get more Punisher?” viewers out there. Many of whom then morphed into “How dare Matt Murdock smile, let alone sleep with a skank like Jen?” crew. And, I assume, those same folk were cheering for the Intelligentsia at the early climax of the show, and actively wishing that Zack Snyder were directing this.
And none of that has any resemblance to my reasons for being a skosh disappointed. Even though I don’t regret having spent any time watching the series.
I thought the rather heavy-handed “K.E.V.I.N.” sequence was … well, yeah, heavy-handed. It should have been funnier, and it wasn’t, and it was frustrating.
I’d love to see She-Hulk come back in the MCU. Despite the solo aspects, Jen can work in a straight drama, too. And I’d be happy to see an S.2 of She-Hulk, maybe with a different writing vision.
Jen Walters — and She-Hulk — are great characters. Here’s to more of them, better executed, in the MCU.
I wanted to enjoy the current She-Hulk series on Disney+ a lot, boiling down to two reasons:
Always fun.
I really like the character in the comics, esp. in incarnations where there’s humor involved (i.e., starting with John Byrne’s famous run). I wanted something that captured that fun.
There was a lot of early criticism of the show, far too much of which boiled down to “Powerful female character? Ugh! Gimme more Punisher!” The first episode’s monologue about the problems/risks that women professionals have — a sentiment that every woman professional I’ve talked with about it agreed with — were met with scorn and derision and disbelief from much the same criticizing audience. I wanted this show to be a real hit just to show those yahoos off.
Unfortunately, we’ve ended up with a show that is … okay. Not horrible. Not great. The humor, including the fourth wall bits, feels kind of awkward, with maybe one good laugh an episode. The action sequences are so-so. The CG feels definitely budget. The courtroom bits are mostly more mildly funny humor. The characters are walking bundles of tropes. The storylines are kind of silly and clunky.
As I said to my wife last week, if this were a non-super-hero show, or even a non-MCU show, I would probably have stopped watching by now.
Should be fun!
I’m not sure where the problem is. The actors, including star Tatiana Maslany, seem like they should be good. Writing? Directly? Something is just not clicking, leaving me with an amusing, but not uproarious, interesting but not gripping, legal dramedy in spandex.
Worse, at a time when the MCU really needs to be stocking up its bag of heroes for the next Phase, the so-so nature of She-Hulk makes her being part of that action less and less likely.
Here’s hoping they pull something big out of the bag in the last 4 of 9 episodes. If not … well, I don’t regret the time I’ve spent watching it, but I don’t see myself watching it again.
It’s a show that wasn’t needed, but it’s a show I’m enjoying so far.
All right, here’s the Number One Question that is burning in the heart of every fanboi out there: Was this series absolutely necessary?
No. Of course not. No TV series is “absolutely necessary.” And, honestly having lived in Prof. Tolkien’s head for nearly half a century, I can say that I would have survived if we had never gotten a visual study of the Second Age (as adapted and time-compressed for television).
That said …
There are a lot of characters. A lot.
I’m enjoying it
I enjoyed the first two episodes of “The Rings of Power.” The adaptations for “Let’s put all the exciting stuff of the Second Age into a single cast of characters that isn’t all-elvish, kind of like Tolkien did for the Third Age” are, so far, fine. I like the characters introduced, both known and unknown. And the FX were quite suited for a billion dollar investment/adaptation.
I can easily be a pedantic purist. But I also tend to accept what is presented to me and evaluate it for what it is, not against some Platonic ideal of the True Tolkien Story. Given the number of renditions of the tales that Tolkien himself did, that seems like a wise starting place.
The status quo we begin with is fascinating, and highlights something that LotR fans usually forget: the Elves are just as culturally flawed and personally prone to error as any random Human, Dwarf, or Halfling. In LotR, we focus on the top-tier Elvish Elders (Elrond, Galadriel, and, yeah, Mr. Galadriel Celeborn), or on the Elvish Super-Hero, Legolas.
But the First (especially) and Second Ages are full of Elves making horrible, monstrous, myth-making and realm-dooming mistakes of vanity and hubris and obsession. RoP gives us those Elves (including, ironically, Elrond and Galadriel), driven by their passions, their griefs over the First Age conflicts, their prejudices, their obsessions, their flaws.
That some of them (Galadriel) are correct in their concerns is not important. That they are not all spouting off profundities and hand-washing, mournful platitudes is.
I am quite satisfied by what we have seen so far, even if we have literally burned through 25% of S.1’s episodes in still setting up the situation. The show has a five year plan (they know precisely what the final scene will be), though only two seasons have been purchased.
Threads
There are a lot of threads in the air. Here are a few:
I’m not altogether certain, after two episodes, that we have actually met all these people.
Galadriel
Those who know their G-elf lore know that Galadriel was kind of a crazy rebel in the First Age and (OMG THE FIRST AGE IMAGES OMG) she is still now obsessive over the threat of Sauron. (And, yeah, she’s right, but is right in a wrong way.) Who has rescued her and boytoy Harbrand from the ocean (my bet is it’s Numenorean folk, kicking off that whole part of the storyline)? What will Gil-Galad’s reaction be when he discovers that Galadriel has given a hard pass on his “gift” of return to Valinor? How does she end up getting one of the Three Rings for Elven-Kings under the Sky?
Valinor
In the canonical Tolkien, the Elves rebelled in heading off to Middle-Earth from Valinor, in sort of a Garden of Eden sort of thing, in angry pursuit of Melkor/Morgoth and the Silmarils. And, as I recall, those Noldor Elves were originally banned from returning for their presumption of leaving it in the first place. I don’t know the specific moment that Elves were allowed to go back (let alone the non-Noldors), but having it show up here as a “gift” that the Elven High King can grant is … interesting.
Elrond
Elrond is part of one of the two cases that are mentioned elsewhere in Ep. 1 of Elf/Human — the son of Eärendil and Elwing. Born in the First Age alongside a twin brother Elros. At the end of the First Age, both brothers were given a choice as to what heritage they would become. Elros chose Human and was the first king of Numenor. Elrond chose Elf, and stuck around for a lot longer.
I almost thought they were going to refer to that early on when there was the “Yeah, you’re not an elf-lord” thing going on. I hope they eventually make it clearer, because it’s a key part of what makes Elrond who he is, and also really informs his attitude toward his daughter Arwen hooking up with the Human (and distant descendent through the lines of Numenor) Aragorn.
I don’t mind Elrond being an aspirational flunky for Gil-Galad, because he was. I don’t mind the difference between LotR Elrond and RoP Elrond because it’s three thousand years ago. Galadriel had mellowed. Elrond has gotten cranky. So be it.
Durin
I trust that, unlike in Pulp Fiction, we’ll see what’s in the box that Durin and his dad look into. My assumption is that it is some of the first mithril mined by the Dwarves, which will in turn prompt them to delve too deeply and unwisely. Will we see the unveiling of Durin’s Bane (the Balrog of Khazad-Dum) during the course of this series? I am absolutely certain we will.
I loved the “living” Khazad-Dum, by the bye.
Nori (and the Stranger)
So the Harfoots fit okay into the origins of Hobbits that Tolkien gave us, and their elusiveness reminds me of his discussion of how, in the Fourth Age (of Man) they gradually faded into the background, invisible from our sight. Nori as the rebel who wants to see the world amidst the village that wants to stay secret and safe is not a new trope, but it’s done well here, with her friend/foil Poppy giving us the conflict externally that a book might do internally.
Of course, the key with Nori is her finding and caring for the Stranger. Who is he?
Sauron (as a falling Lucifer from the skies, I guess) is an obvious and ironic guess — esp. after the whole firefly stunt and its aftermath — in which case, wanna bet that those constellations are visible in, say, Mordor?
But almost as likely is that we’re seeing one of the first Istari — the Wizards — sent down from the heavens. Yeah, the timing doesn’t fit with Tolkien’s canon, and the Istari showed up from Valinor at the Grey Havens, but we already know that dramatic license is being taken, so why not?
Of course, if it’s an Istar, then as the (presumed) first, it would be Saruman. And, as my son said, it would all be worth it in order to see Saruman eat a snail.
But if it were Gandalf, that would explain his fondness for Hobbits all these centuries later.
I am eager to learn (or to see how long they drag out the uncertainty).
Arondir and Bronwyn
So there are a lot of folk who see racism in some of Tolkien’s work. And, yeah, when he deals repeatedly with purity of white bloodlines, literally describes Orcs as a “Mongol race,” and has various Arabic and African humans ally themselves with the Super Bad Guy, that argument (about a Brit who was born and lived as a kid in South Africa) is not too difficult to make.
But Tolkien also talked about conflict between the different races/species in Middle-Earth. The most famous was the conflict between Elves and Dwarves, but the disdain of the Elves for Humans was also there: short-lived, vain mortals who were easily corruptible in exchange for promises of power.
It is absolutely believable that the Elves would maintain an active watch and suppression of Humans who had allied with Morgoth in the First Age. And absolutely believable that those Humans multiple generations on would resent that.
The delicate balancing act of racism in fantasy is that (a) it presupposes actual separate races/species in the fantasy world, which is a legit thought exercise but also mirrors historic racist tropes that different human “races” are similarly distinct — that Whites vs Blacks vs Yellows vs Reds are a real a thing as Humans vs Elves vs Dwarves vs Hobbits.
(The same thing comes up in science fiction, as multiple species interact.)
I don’t know that Arondir and Bronwyn’s relationship is believable, to the extent that we really haven’t seen much of what led to it or what it actually is in the present. But it’s a completely legit thing to play with in this world.
Oh, yeah, diversity
When nobody cares about the ethnic background of actors in an adaptation of a fantasy like this, that will be the proper time to say, “Oh, all Elves are white, and all Dwarves are white, and all important Humans are white, and probably all Halflings are white” and stage that as an experimental art film.
Until then, I really don’t care.
In sum …
I’m enjoying RoP, even as it sets up multiple storylines that have taken at least two (and likely even three) of eight episodes to start progressing. I am curious to see where they are going. They have not presented me with anything that I cannot deal with, and I really want to see what they do next.
Taika Waititi continues his droll, irreverent take on gods and super-heroes. Which is kind of a problem.
There’s much to enjoy in Taika Waititi’s new MCU movie, Thor: Blood & Thunder (a/k/a Thor 4). It’s visually brilliant, at the very least, and Waititi carries on with some success his droll fun-poking of the literary realm of gods and superheroes from the previous installment, Thor: Ragnarok (a/k/a Thor 3).
That is part of my problem with this film. While Waititi has mostly avoided the most common sin of sequels (taking what worked the first time and focusing solely on that, dialed up to 12), he isn’t completely immune to it. Thor 4 is too in love with its titular character being an unaware parody of a hero, bold and brash and unaware of any of the people around him or the consequences of his actions, juggling ex-girlfriends and ex-weapons with equal ineptness.
My wife — who was not enthused about going to “another Jane Foster movie” — pointed out something important afterward. Thor, as a character, is always about growth and maturity. In Thor 1, Thor learns to be worthy as a leader, not a selfish little boy. In Thor 2, he figures out how to be in a relationship. In Thor 3 (by Waititi!), he learns to be a king. In the Avengers films, he learns about teamwork and, ultimately, about accepting his own limitations.
The problem is that few of those lessons are allowed to take and carry on to the next film. The Thor of Thor 3 spends much of his time being a self-centered oaf, but the death of his father, and of his comrades, and the need to save the people of Asgard, drive him to new heights. Even the traumas of the Infinity War saga on the Avengers side of things, and the goofiness of his time with the Guardians, don’t explain the irresponsible dolt that he starts out as in Thor 4 and, for the most part, remains.
Thor 4 is centered on two sagas from the comics. The first — created by Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic — is the saga of Gorr, the God Butcher, a man who is let down by his people’s gods and who gets the power to punish them — and, as a new cause, all the layabout deities who take and take but never actually come through when asked for help in return. This is a remarkably dark saga in the comics, touching on personal relationships with the divine and theodicy, the profound question of why bad things happen to good people in a cosmos supposedly ruled by all-good, all-power divine power.
For the most part, though, Waititi plays it for wry laughs, and for what kind of cool special effects battles can be devised around Gorr’s use of the necrosword and shadows. Gorr ends up with sort of a Tim Burton style of scariness, a bogey-man rather than an existential terror, but the tragedy of his life, and of the actions he takes, and even of Thor facing the idea of times when he didn’t live up to the needs of his own followers — it’s all largely lost for the vast majority of the movie, book-ended by the introduction sequence and the sweet but too-late what-you-really-want message at the end.
The other original storyline here (also created by Jason Aaron) is the saga of Jane Foster as Thor–how she takes up that mantle, and what it means to be splitting her life between uber-powerful god-hero and chemo-weakened mortal cancer patient — especially when it becomes clear that all the Asgardian hi-jinx are neutralizing the chemo (but not the cancer), meaning that, at length, Jane Foster the human will be no more, leaving only Jane Foster the Thor — and what does that actually mean for her?
Jane’s story gets a bit more play here than Gorr’s — modified for the much different situation in the MCU — but it’s again blunted by the need to keep everything quirky and amusing, for Jane to be trying to figure out her catch phrase, for Jane to deal with her ex-boyfriend, the other Thor. The cancer, for most of the center of the movie, is merely a convenient way for her to be weakened at inopportune times. And Natalie Portman’s make-up never makes her look more than a little bit ill.
We end up spending far too much time in this film in humorous set pieces, all of them fun, but all of them consuming ruinous amounts of run time. The stage players of New Asgard (now become a cruise line stop), giving us minutes of recap of just a portion of Thor 3. Endless exposition or commentary by Korg (voiced by Waititi). The Gorr-justifying insouciance of Omnipotence City. Thor doing something or another in an oafish, thoughtless, laughable fashion.
It’s almost all of it funny and played successfully for laughs, but in the end it feels more like a series of really successful SNL skits poking fun at Thor than at a movie actually about him (and Jane, and Valkyrie, and Korg, and a bunch of kids, and Gorr, too). The film spends too much time not taking its subject seriously, aside from those bookend scenes, and so it’s hard to take it seriously when it actually does try to engage our sympathies at the end, with Jane making decisions about her fate, and Gorr doing the same, and Thor learning what’s really important in life (until, one presumes, next movie, when he’ll quite possibly be back to being a goofball).
With goats, of course.
Chris Hemsworth plays Thor well as far as he’s given to do so. He has the heroic and the goofy down pat (and should, after nine film outings), and I just wish he got to do more of the dramatic moments we’ve seen him in from the beginning of the saga. Natalie Portman’s more a mixed bag. Her rom-com moments feel weird and awkward, but she makes a fine hero. Christian Bale’s Gorr does well with what he’s given, shining in both his initial and final scenes, but hampered too much in-between, relegated to a kinda-scary action villain living in the shadows.
To be fair, it’s not all — or even mostly — actually bad. The make-up is amazing. There are some stunning set pieces (Omnipotence City and the small moon they battle on stand out), visually rich and gorgeous, and (while we didn’t) possibly worth the cost of a 3D showing. And, honestly, the very ending of the film was one of the most satisfying MCU endings in quite a while. (The two mid/end credit scenes weren’t bad, either.) Beyond that, like I said, Waititi’s irreverent humor, and how it translates to the screen, aided by some decent acting talent, works on its own terms.
And, just to say it, we loved the goats.
The goats are GOATs
And, net-net, I enjoyed Thor 4, especially scene by scene. It’s in its overall tone and structure that things didn’t quite gel for me. I will absolutely watch it again in the future, but for the moment I’m left feeling a bit unsatisfied, as if a promised banquet turned out to be all beautifully-baked sweets, and I had been hoping for some juicy steak.
By which I mean the “First Trilogy,” which remains a mostly awful thing.
I’m enjoying the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series on Disney+, so I thought (since I had some spare time) I’d watch the “First Trilogy” films, to get the background story that leads into this new story.
(And, yes, there’s a ton of stuff in “Clone Wars” that adds to all that, which I have also watched in the past, and heartily recommend, but did not rewatch the several seasons of which for this purpose. Sorry).
Obi-Wan notes: Ewan McGregor’s first turn as a Padawan learner under Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn. The relationship and banter between the two of them are a big part of the positives to this film. Obi-Wan is is young and brash and confident, but with some justification — he’s a fierce fighter (he does eventually defeat Darth Maul), a powerful assistant to Qui-Gon, and an insightful observer.
In the end, Obi-Wan is on his own — and has sworn to his dying master that he will take on Anakin Skywalker as his apprentice. It’s a role he has no training to take on, being barely promoted to full Jedi himself.
Obi-Wan notes: It’s ten years later, and Anakin, ripped from his mother, has grown into a sulky teenager. Obi-Wan, sporting a sage beard, has grown into an old fuddy-duddy. The bubbly, defiant, independent Padawan under the rebellious master Qui-Gon is now conservative, chiding, fretful, and domineering teacher.
When on his own — investigating Kamino, fighting Jango, checking out Geonosis — he’s a strong character. Fighting with Anakin against Dooku, he’s heroic. But every time he interacts with Anakin, any attempts to the bantering camaraderie that he had with Qui-Gon is awkward and forced.
Obi-Wan notes: Obi-Wan gets to watch it all fall apart — the Republic falling into tyranny, the Jedi Order is destroyed through its own arrogance, and his Padawan apprentice turns into the monster assassin of the Sith emperor.
And, in the end, he realizes his own failure — and that of the Jedi. He/they failed to see Palpatine’s plot, they failed to protect the Republic, they failed to protect the Younglings — and they failed to see how Anakin was falling from grace. It’s (rightfully) gut-wrenching for him, and the final battle he has with Anakin is no victory on his part, but a cap on the tragedy he’s overseen.
“You were my brother! I loved you!”
And that’s the final indictment, as he failed as both master and as brother, not fully embracing either role, because he got bulldozed into trying to be both when he was too young to figure it out.
And while he takes on a final assignment at the end of the film, watching over Luke, the OWK series shows he’s been more than a bit traumatized by the whole thing. Which adds an interesting twist to the series.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is arguably the most interesting and heroic character of the First Trilogy, and he was definitely my favorite character in The Clone Wars. I love that they’ve given him a dedicated series, and I am definitely eager to see what comes next.
A distinctively comic-booky film, in mostly good ways.
(No significant spoilers.)
When I got out of this movie, I tweeted, “This is the comic-bookiest movie I have ever seen. Both in (mostly) good and bad ways.” And, the next day, that’s still true.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a very (shall we say) strange movie. It is filled with arguably too many characters, but the important ones all get a fair amount of screen time and agency. It is filled with horror (none of it too horrific), and mind-altering multidimensional madness (which is all delightful), but remains at heart a super-hero film. It is filled with cameos and fan service, but those are present as lovely icing on a rich cake, less a distraction and more of the overall flavor.
Benedict Cumberbatch is back as Doctor Strange, who’s casually mastered magic enough since his 2016 movie to use it for casual costume changes, and to tie his tie. Cumberbatch actually gets to play multidimensional variants of himself — all very nicely done, and all leading to the character learning something about himself and having a nice, if not profound, character arc to go with it tale.
Elizabeth Olson is back as Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch (the actress pretty much flew from the set of “WandaVision” to begin shooting the movie). The character fits a bit awkwardly into role of super-villain, being driven by tragic circumstances, dreams of alternate universes where she actually has her kids, and, of course, temptations from the fell magic of the Darkhold. It’s kind of hard to feel sorry for her when she acts so violently and callously as time goes by. The final confrontation with her is fitting, but doesn’t quite make the whole thing work as a needed redemption arc.
So you could have had a fine film with just those two having at it, but there are three other major characters vying for useful screen time and making good use of it. Benedict Wong gets a solid work-out as Sorcerer Supreme Wong. He’s not the star of the movie (I would totally watch a Wong movie), but he gets a lot of screen time and great action sequences, and his banter is top notch. Rachel McAdams returns as Christine Palmer, a stronger far more successful second act for an MCU hero’s love interest than most others we’ve gotten.
And, of course, Xochitl Gomez plays neophyte power-house America Chavez, and deftly manages to dodge most of the snarky teen tropes, avoiding being too much of a damsel in distress, but also not instantly rising up as a super-hero. The movie is all around her, but not necessarily about her, and I want that latter movie as a follow-up. Nicely done, even if Saudi Arabia had the vapors over some very innocuous references to the comics canon background that she has two mothers (and wears an LGBTQ flag pin on her jacket).
And even after that we could point to significant appearances by folk like Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo (playing a Mordo in very different circumstances but very true to the character’s previous portrayal), and a host of cameos that will get any fanboi squeeing (my personal favorite being Rintrah, but that’s just me).
The plot is non-linear to the point of, well, madness, with the party being split (and the various splits given plenty of air time) multiple times. And while there are cast-of-zillions CG battles in places, a lot of that gets done in odd places in the movie, leaving the finale to be a much more nicely integrated combo of super-slugfest and very personal conflict.
The movie also wraps up on some very satisfying but unexpected notes. The Stephen-Christine thing is resolved, but not in an overly obvious way. The fate of America Chavez is left in a neat holding pattern for future MCU use. And, for that matter, so is Wanda’s fate; the multiverse being, of course, vast.
As well, we also tee up another (huzzah) DS movie, with some quick final-scene + mid-credits fun. (Yes, there are two credits shots, as usual for MCU movies. I’m not sure the final one is worth busting your bladder for, but if you can wait for it, it’s amusing, and quite appropriate for a Sam Raimi-directed effort.)
Danny Elfman’s music is fine, and perhaps even appropriate for such a tripped-out film. He does reference a few times (too few, for my taste) Michael Giacchino’s DS theme (I do love leitmotifs and musical continuity), but his original contributions fit the tone.
As to the overall film, written by Michael Waldron and directed by Sam Raimi … well, the “Multiverse of Madness” epithet is correct. Things get zany, and there are plenty of references back to old horror movie tropes to keep things tonally shaken up. There’s a real effort to keep the magic battle bits from too much like standard super-hero energy blast work. That includes one battle relatively late in the film that is delightful, different, and really very weird.
The end result is something phantasmagorical, as much mood piece as story, and that makes it both distinctive amongst its fellow super-hero films and, perhaps, a bit weaker. A movie like this could be approached with “What cool Doctor Strange story could we tell?” or with “How do we show off the multiverse?” The film tends to tip a bit toward the latter, though it does a decent job all-around, better than I might have expected.
Even though it was executed with technical excellence (as one expects from the MCU), it’s not just about that excellence. The difference in what it does, the seriousness with which it take its multiversal venues, and the quirky aspects of everything it gives us and how it directorially goes about it, will make it a much more memorable outing than some other technically excellent but more conventional super-flicks. I think it will end up a cult classic in the genre.
Because it is, in fact, the comic-bookiest film I’ve ever seen. It sacrifices some depth and story for visual and conceptual effects and craziness. But it does so in a way that stands out. Steve Ditko, who originated the visuals of Doctor Strange, would, I think, be very pleased. Overall, I like, and will absolutely be watching it again.
On rewatch, I liked this 6-ep series even better than the first time around.
Perhaps because I could stop oohing and aahing at all the fun stuff and pay attention to the story.
Loki titles
Loki has always been one of the best villains in the MCU, precisely because he’s been one of the most approachable and relatable. Cynical and sly, but also desperate for approval. Vain, but fragile. Casual betrayer but also, in his eyes, always the betrayed. Apparently self-possessed and confident, but constantly failing through his own hubris — and, perhaps, his own desire to fail, knowing himself unworthy. Petty, cruel, but largely because only by being mean does he earn what he thinks is respect.
Over the course of his mainstream MCU career — Thor, Avengers, Thor 2 (where he was pretty much the only part worth watching), Thor 3, and a few brief moments of Infinity Wars, we saw him at his most maniacal, and also his most vulnerable. It wasn’t quite a redemption arc, but it came close.
Loki’s nearly the only thing in “Thor: The Dark World” worth watching.
All of which made him a perfect candidate for a new Disney+ limited series last year, especially putting him into a situation where his power was was restrained, the threat to his life was real, and his ego would be taking multiple shots (and temptations).
Even with an ending that gets a bit more complicated than it needed to be (but setting up one aspect of the Multiverse, not to mention next big baddy Kang), Loki is a lovely romp through muddied morality. Is Loki a hero or a villain? (Yes.) Is the Time Variance Authority a good thing or a bad thing? (Good. No, bad. No, good. Maybe bad?) Is Loki capable of growth and change, of even, perhaps, love? Or is he just looking out for Number One and engaging in multiversal narcissism? (Maybe, to all of the above.)
A lot of folk were very “Ew” over this. I loved their relationship because it was clearly never, ever going to work.
The production resisted until the final couple of episodes the temptation to set up too many Easter Egg hunts. As a result, the Loki series still had appeal for both the trivia nerds and the casual MCU viewer. I thought it did its job solidly on both counts, not to mention setting up an eventual second series. Pretty much all the actors hit their marks well, with Tom Hiddleston easily taking on being the star of the show. Plus the music was great, and the production design delightful.
Bravos all around. I look forward to the next season.
An earlier version originally published on Letterboxd.
Hot telepath sex, not-so-hot telepath origins, and aliens who are (gasp) keeping secrets
This ep manages to have very clear A- and B-plots, with some occasional medlab scenes to help them cross-over. And the theme for today, in very different ways, is reparations.
A-Plot: As more telepaths show up at B5, tensions continue to grow. Outcasts in Downbelow resent that the teeps get free food and meds from the station. Zack has suddenly become a jerk, and has decided he really doesn’t trust teeps — except Lyta, of course, because she’s different, which attitude doesn’t endear him to her, and pushes her into being … kind of sketchily fanatical.
LYTA: If Byron asked me to follow him into hell, I’d do it gladly with a smile on my face, because I believe in him. What could you possibly say in five minutes that would change that?
Byron’s “Turn the Other Cheek” routine is likely to end just as badly as the previous fellow’s.
There’s one briefly violent encounter where Byron lets himself get punched in the face multiple times, both defuse a bully’s anger and to teach his people about being non-violent.
BYRON: Your anger has nothing to do with me. What will satisfy your anger will never come from me or anyone else here. I’m afraid you must look for it elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the same gang ends up curb-stomping another teep found on his own — and when Byron’s teeps telepathically torture one of the gang members to find out who was responsible, Byron gets arrested for the crime (very clearly unjustly). Which mean, since Zack is being a jerk and leaves Byron to cool his heels in a cell overnight, it means that Byron’s not there to restrain his people from assaulting one gang member telepathically to torture the whereabouts of the perp, and then beating the perp to death, all in utter silence.
There’s probably a sane middle ground between Byron’s “oh, I am so disappointed with them, I am a failure as a leader” moaning, and Lyta’s “I can’t excuse what they did, but, yeah, I can totally excuse what they did,” but the script turns up the melodrama dial. Lyta’s been reluctant to dive headlong into the teep colony, but seeing her beautiful cover model brood and angst over what’s happened (a scene that is either overwrought in its acting, or Byron intentionally manipulating her), she strips down and has hot telepathic sex with him.
Yeah, it seemed a bit odd to me, too.
Not, of course, as odd as what happens next.
One, the telepaths are clearly aware that their main man is going at it with his new girlfriend. I mean, it’s not like the bead screen between the floors they were sleeping on and Byron’s quarters offered that much privacy anyway, let alone the whole telepathy thing, but …
Fetal alien being made … telepathic?
Two, finally having some hot sex (or any sex) for the first time since she was taken by the Vorlons and Made Their Agent, triggers a whole bunch of memories for Lyta, both how things were like when she was working for the Vorlons (first Kosh, then, far less pleasantly, Kosh 2), and then, before that, how things were when she was in a tank, being biologically altered, and could see, in thousands of tanks around her, other individuals, some of them babies or fetuses, for a dozen races, similarly being modified.
And, of course, those memories are all being projected into Byron, and into all the teeps who have been awakened and are watching.
Which is when things get a bit dark, because while Byron has been begging folks for a planetary colony to being his people, now he knows a deeper truth: telepathic abilities were bred into races around the galaxy by the Vorlons, to serve them as weapons against the Shadows. And while he can’t sue the Vorlons, all the younger races are on the hook for their debts.
BYRON: They owe us a place where we can be among our own kind. We’ll ask to speak to the Alliance, put our case before them, see if they can be persuaded to do the right thing.
LYTA: And if they can’t?
BYRON: Then we’ll make sure they have no other choice.
Ssssssooo much for being Gandhi?
“I’ve got a secret.”
B-Plot: Franklin hasn’t gotten much love this season, but now gets at least half an episode to play with. He’s been tasked by Sheridan to study inter-species disease, to help address potential illnesses and plagues that could jump populations. It’s right in line with his past studies of non-human physiology, and with his refusal to develop bioweapons against non-humans.
Hyach-doh. Apparently the cap-wearing was considered genocidally déclassé.
In this ep, he’s researching the Hyach, a race that wants to be in the Alliance, but is very secretive about their past. Franklin researches the shit out of them, and ultimately uncovers the secret they have hidden from the galaxy: two sentient races, capable of interbreeding, were present on their world until about a thousand years ago, when the Hyach decided it was time to exterminate the Hyach-doh, and, in fact did so.
While it looks like Franklin might be killed for uncovering the secret, it turns out the racial elders had a reason to let him uncover it: the Hyach are going extinct. Something about past hybridizing with the Hyach-doh was apparently necessary for their medical/genetic survival, but now they’ve unwittingly killed the people who might have saved them. Unless Franklin might possibly research and discover a cure …
Franklin will do no such thing, more than happy to indict the present Hyach, who have been maintaining this secret, as accessories after the fact to genocide. Only if the secret is let out will he help organize the massive, interplanetary research project needed.
It comes across as kind of a strident response to the situation — Yes, you are responsible for the sins of your fathers — but it also abruptly reminded me a bit of the debate over contemoprary reparations to Black Americans over slavery (and post-slavery racial injustice), esp. with Franklin, a Black man, serving as proxy for the Hyach-doh.
Remember when folk still thought the Vorlons were good guys?
Other Bits and Bobs: So, yeah, reparations. Byron is convinced that his people deserve a planet, not just because it would be a charitable thing, but because they are owed it because of Vorlon interference with their fates. And Franklin is sort of demanding it of the Hyach– a public acknowledgment of (and shaming about) the identity and existence of the Hyach-doh, and what happened to them.
Not sure if that synchronicity was intended, but it passed right over my head the first time.
“What, we’ve got more of THEM arriving?”
As mentioned, Zack is playing his blue-collar Everyman role a bit strong, acting as a racist jerk toward the telepaths moving into his neighborhood and making trouble. (That he is maybe a bit jealous that Lyta is spiraling into their orbit probably doesn’t help.) That Zack has, in the past, been a voice of reason when Garibaldi was going off the deep end doesn’t help it feel a bit jarring.
The teeps, meanwhile, keep getting more and more cult-like. Early on in the ep, Lyta refuses to sleep over with the gang because she feels she doesn’t belong yet. At which point, Byron violates a whole bunch of confidential boundaries, walks out into the main room, and announces that Lyta doesn’t feel like she belongs with them. Which leads, in turn, to all the teeps getting up and gathering around her and giving her hugs.
Knowing (as I didn’t when the episode aired) that Joe spent time in a cult after he left home … yeah. The signs are all there.
Meanwhile: An odd episode with only three of the twelve regular cast members present (Franklin, Zack, and Lyta).
While Patricia Tallman was not actually nude (though with only quite sheer and unreliable pasties) they still made it a closed set during the filming. JMS — who apparently was quite uncomfortable even writing an intimate scene like that (he literally has in the script, “I wonder which is more embarrassing, reading this or writing it?”) — did not visit the set during filming. Though apparently Doug Netter, leading a group of studio executives on a tour, and having missed the CLOSED SET note on the call sheet, did.
So the B5 Rewatch has been stretching on for some time, but it had been multiple months since the last time we watched. My son had put together (for a different show we’re watching only when he’s home) a Google Slides presentation to brief us on characters and dramatic situations we might have forgotten. Inspired by that, I came up with this presentation to refresh him and my wife before we started watching this ep.
Most Dramatic Moment: The Lyta-Byron-sex-flashback-Vorlons-voyeurism scene probably hits the high mark here, especially when her eyes go all black and spooky.
Lyta started this series as something of a victim, and continued along that path for the past four years, trying to find an institution — Psi Corps, B5, the Vorlons — who would support her and treat her the way she wanted. They all failed. Unfortunately, the moment she’s going to choose to finally take an independent stand … will not be a good one for her.
Most Amusing Moment: This is not a laff-riot episode, and the usual suspects for humor and humorous interaction (Sheridan, Lochley, Londo, Garibaldi, Vir, even Lennier) were not around.
Just another day in Medlab.
So the best probably comes from the pre-credits sequence, where Franklin introduces what he’s doing about interspecies diseases in a conversation with a Pak’ma’ra, which is amusing in and of itself, but gets better when Franklin tries to feed him a barium milkshake.
(The Pak’ma’ra prosthetics/movement are actually very, very good. Today it would be done with CG, but the practical FX are nicely executed.)
Lyta, Vorlons, and the tank
Most Arc-ish Moment: Lyta’s flash-back, hands-down — literally hitting big moments from her character arc, plus peeling a further lid off the history of telepaths and the not-very-nice nature of the Vorlons.
Overall Rating: 3.1 of 5.0 — The A-plot whipsaws back and forth, with a lot of obvious set-up, a lot of melodrama, and a lot of cultish weirdness. I’m probably giving it a higher score than it deserves because of the big Vorlon/flashback scene. The B-plot is a fascinating setup, but ends in a very talky way that turns out both smarmy and preachy and far too neatly wrapped with a moral bow.
Next episode: 5×08 “Day of the Dead” – Neil Gaiman guest writes, as folk on the station are visited by the deceased of their past. What could go wrong?
There is some controversy as to where “Day of the Dead” should be placed. It was written early in the season, after only four scripts had been completed by JMS, and before all the detailed chronology was figured out; it was originally shot 11th, but shuffled to 8th during the original run because of conflicts with the NBA playoffs, and so as to let a more solid sequence of episodes occur. This creates some minor continuity conflicts, and some oddness with G’kar and Londo being (still? again?) on B5, but other recommended options have their own inconsistencies as well. Since it’s all relatively trivial, I’m going with DotD next, as in the original broadcast and HBO Max.
By having a commitment to a third film, the creative team could lean into richness of characterization, and creating a cast with depth and texture. Presumably the production was all of a continuum (the third film comes out next year), and that allowed some powerful development to be teed up and fulfilled.
