Happy
New Year December
31, 2019
Baby Yoda wishes
you a Happy New Year
(illustration by MDI Digital for the Hollywood Reporter)
Music Association: U2 - New
Years DayMovie Series Review
(with mild Spoilers)
Star
Wars: The Last Trilogy December
27, 2019
When Disney set out to continue
George Lucas's
Star Wars,
they wanted to continue the good movies, you know, just the good stuff
--
ala carte
movie making. To follow up from the middle (first!) trilogy of A New
Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and the Return of the Jedi, they probably
explored having an Ewok movie, a Wookie movie, and then an Ewookie
movie -- teaming up pairs of Ewoks and Wookies in a delightful romp!
The next day, the Disney people sobered up and focused on the
three stars
of the best two Star Wars movies (New Hope and Empire), so Obi-Wan
Kenobi, Yoda, and Lando. When they really sobered up and were looking
at three movies to fill, they decided to make the first one focus on
Han Solo, the second one on Luke Skywalker, and the third about
Princess Leia.
Star Wars 7 - The Force Awakens
(the Han Solo follow up)
Star
Wars 8 - The Last Jedi (the Luke Skywalker follow up)
Star Wars 9 - The Rise of
Skywalker (the Princess Leia follow up)
All
three film titles could have been titles of A New Hope and references
to Luke Skywalker.
In
retrospect, it seems the Disney people may have been more excited to do
an Ewookie movie than following up on what Han, Luke, and Leia have
been doing. They killed them all off in fairly non-heroic ways. Luke
choked on blue milk right after milking a sea-cow. Han mishandled a
lightsaber while juggling it. And Leia died in her sleep. Did I mark
this with the
-spoilers-
mark? Sorry. None of them died (exactly) as I said.
I'm
trying to write about the last Star Wars movie trilogy while being
preoccupied with Baby Yoda. The robe-blanket that Baby Yoda wears is so
big, it would probably be too big for Master Yoda. Hey! What if that
robe had some history. What if... Remember when Obi-Wan Kenobi died and
his robe survived? What if Baby Yoda wears the Master Kenobi robe?!?
I
rewatched Last Jedi before going to see Rise. I had remembered the
whole jumping-into-hyperspace-crash nonsense and nothing else. I forgot
how much the core story, the core message of the movie, sucked, and how
much Mark Hamill didn't like what they had him say and do as Luke.
(When commenting on his role in The Force Awakens, Hamill said,
“
I'm
speechless.”)
Star Wars 8 - The Last
Jedi
LUKE:
And this is the lesson. The Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say
that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity. Can you feel
that? Balance. Powerful light, powerful darkness.
REY:
You've closed yourself off from the Force. Of course you have.
LUKE: Lesson
Two. Now that they're extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But
if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the
Jedi is failure. Hypocrisy, hubris... At the height of their powers,
they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them
out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and
creation of Darth Vader. [After turning Vader] I became a
legend.
For many years, there was balance.... and then I saw Ben. My nephew
with that mighty Skywalker blood. And in my hubris, I thought I could
train him, I could pass on my strengths. Han was Han about it, but Leia
trusted me with her son. I took him, and a dozen students, and began a
training temple. By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness
rising in him, it was too late... I went to confront him. And
he
turned on me. He must have thought I was dead. When I came to, the
temple was burning. He had vanished with a handful of my students. And
slaughtered the rest. Leia blamed Snoke, but it was me. I failed.
Because I was Luke Skywalker. Jedi Master. A legend.
What
a load of crap. That's the big backstory. If the hiding hermit story
wasn't bad enough, Rise of Skywalker reveals that in the dark of night,
Luke went to kill Ben Solo because he was afraid of him. What a weak
story and backstory.
Imagine how much better the
story would
have been if Luke trained Ben, feared Ben's choices, overcame the fear,
and then went on teaching.
The Luke Skywalker story
would have been forgivable if the stories of Rey, Finn, Rose,
Poe, and Kylo Ren had depth and character and charm beyond just
disobeying orders (all the time).
I
was glad I rewatched Star Wars 8 before seeing Star Wars 9 (on opening
day in a nearly empty theater) to help me to like 9 in comparison to 8,
but that's not saying much.
My summary of Star Wars
9 is that
Disney couldn't make the Leia story due to Carrie Fisher's death. So
they made Luke more of a villain, while Rey and Kylo Ren talked over
the
Force=Internet.
Meanwhile
Disney freaked over Poe's preferences and mildly improved
Finn's
role. Then they added Babu Frik, the little mechanic, and
maybe
(just maybe) all will be right in the Star Wars universe.
Music Association: Coven - One
Tin SoldierCaged Innocents
Detained
Nativity December
15, 2019
A nativity
scene with immigrant detention fencing, barbed wire, and a mylar
blanket was unveiled about a week ago at the Claremont United Methodist
Church in California.
On any given day, about
47,000
immigrants are detained in the United States under the Trump
administration. More than 11,000 of those immigrants are children.
Seven children have died in the facilities in the past year. Children
were sleeping on concrete floors and being denied soap and toothpaste
at a facility in Clint, Texas, according to observers. A visiting
doctor called the detention centers
“torture
facilities.”At
a processing center in El Paso, Texas, 900 migrants were
“being held
at a facility designed for 125. In some cases, cells designed for 35
people were holding 155 people,” the
New
York Times reported.
According
to
NBC
News, one
internal
DHS report described cells so overcrowded
that detainees could not even “lie down to sleep,”
with
temperatures “reaching over 80 degrees.” With
inadequate
showers, the migrants were “wearing soiled clothing for days
or
weeks,” and agents struggled to “quarantine
outbreaks of
flu, chickenpox, and scabies.”
Overcrowded fenced area holding
families in McAllen, Texas on June 11, 2019And
U.S. border officials are issuing
fake
court notices (
pdf)
to keep out immigrants who have won asylum, according to
BuzzFeed.
While
most of the larger detention locations are at the southern border,
hundreds of jails and other public or private facilities are scattered
all over the United States (
ICE
Detention list and
Wikipedia
list). Four are in Minnesota (there used to be more until
local
authorities said no):
•
Carver
County Jail, 600 East 4th Street, Chaska, MN 55318
•
Freeborn
County Jail, 411 S. Broadway Avenue, Albert Lea, MN
56007
•
Polk
County Jail, 816 Marin Ave #110, Crookston, MN 56716
•
Sherburne
County Jail, 13880 Business Center Drive NW, Elk River, MN
55330
Music Association: John Lennon -
So This Is ChristmasCute, Real Cute
Force
Out December
2, 2019
Once upon a time, a little frog
hopped.
The
little green frog hopped down a trail, you know, hippity-hoppity and
all that jazz. The little frog looked over its shoulder without a pause
in its hopping, as the trail curved round a tree.
Hop.
Hop. Hop. And from around the tree a small toddling figure appeared,
chasing the little green frog.
The
wobbling figure with big black eyes, long green ears, and a long
rustically-brown robe was gaining on Hoppy, the little green frog.
That's
right, I went ahead and named the frog.
Somebody
in this story needs a name and...
I
don't know... a species.
The nameless,
unknown species little figure dove on top of the little green frog and
caught it and ate Hoppy the frog.
Is
there a point to this story? Not so far. We've come a long way without
having any point or purpose. That's what streaming shows are all about.
That's what this President is all about. Stumbling along.
Music Association: John Williams
- Binary SunsetThree Tickets Please
The
Impeachment November
15, 2019
Music Association: Dr. John -
Right Place, Wrong TimeCovid-19Trump Timeline (PDF)Voter
Suppression
Music
VideosLandmine
HopscotchSupermanImpact
InvestingHoliday
Gifs of Cats and Kittens Part 1
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3 Part
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Southdale
Hennepin Library Edina
Library Wonder
WomanFood
Fraud