The Mandalorian season 1 review
By Paul Anthony
It has been nearly a week since the season final aired on Disney+, so at this point I figured it was a good time to do a review since most of what I say shouldn’t be a spoiler. Honestly if it is a spoiler then I feel sorry for you because this had to be the show of 2019 even though we had a few other shows and not to mention that this show came at the very end of the year with only 8 episodes but that was part of the magic. this show had every thing the Star Wars fan nation wanted and it didn’t have too much of one thing, let’s take a look back.
The show came out the same day Disney+ started but after that each episode was released on a Friday ever since then minus episode 7 which was second to last. I know this was to help build up Rise Of Skywalker but I thought it also made sense to build up the last episode by making us wait even longer to see how it would end. Soon as it ended of course many of the fans were wondering when was season two coming which would find out would be in the fall of 2020 so looks like every year around the same time we will get a new season.
The show follows A Mandalorian bounty hunter who goes by the name of Mando since no one knows his real name. The first real mission is to retrieve what we all called baby Yoda which is actually 50 years old but slow to age which explains why Yoda was so old and so powerful with the force. Anyway Mando gets the baby and his reward but comes to his senses and break the bounty code which makes them an enemy of pretty much everyone who wants money. They hop from planet to planet and do small jobs for cash and parts but each episode is an adventure for Mando with people trying to kill him. Until he is needed and people are willing to wipe the slate clean and he knows this is what is best for the child and himself. In the end it is no easy fight, he learns most of the Mandalorians are killed because of his actions, everything leads to this epic battle against storm troopers and their leader vs Mando and his little team and hope seems lost until the very end in which we learns Mando real name and it is Din Djarin and the villain Moff Gideon survives his battle and cuts his way out of his fighter jet or X Wing for your hardcore fans with a Black Saber which is a Mandalorian artifact, leaving us with questions going into season 2. Mando in the end is determine to find the child’s parents though he had develop relationship with the child.
This show in the end had a good story to tell which did shock me, then it had good fight scenes nothing over the top, they did a few callbacks to tell you where they tied in the Star Wars timeline. Best part of it all was that it created new characters to follow without being caught up with the old characters. It will be a long wait for me for season 2!
Rise of Skywalker review and more!
By Paul Anthony
Now in this blog I am going to review the number 1 film over the weekend and that is Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, which is now the last film in what is now known as the Skywalker Saga which basically covers three generations of Skywalker. Episode 1-3 covers Anakin Skywalker/ Darth Vader rise and fall and then you had Luke’s story in episode 4-6 then you had the story of Ben Solo/ Kylo Ren for 7-9 but now it is all over and did it end the way we all wanted to it to? Warning this blog does contain spoilers so if you haven’t seen it yet don’t read on.
If you were thinking that Kylo would be redeemed and end loving Rey and they defeat the evil Emperor once in for all and live happily ever after, well you wouldn’t be completely wrong, your just not right either. Here we have it the final episode in this saga, a lot was riding on this film and did it deliver? First let’s look at the plot, here we have the emperor returning and revealing he created Snoke and led Ben to the dark side just like he did to his grandfather years ago but the emperor has one request he wants Rey dead, who is now the last jedi and Leia is finishing her training. Here we see Kylo searching for Rey and he reveals to her she is the granddaughter of the Emperor, they battle for the last time and Leia reaches out to Kylo using the force at that point he realizes he can be Ben again but Rey impales him. After Rey feels Leia gone she heals Ben and reveals she would have taken Ben’s hand not Kylo. There Ben talks with his father Han and it becomes clear he wants to Ben. Now Rey’s story through this training and learning her family’s history goes into exile which Luke convinces her other wise, she heads off to face her grandfather, which he reveals he wanted her alive not dead but she is good and determines to defeat, Ben comes to help and the final battle begins with the two losing but then the past great jedis gives her the motivation the voices include Anakin Skywalker. There she defeats her grandfather for good but at the cost of her life and there Ben uses the force to heal her and they kiss before he becomes one with the force. Afterwards Rey buries the Skywalker light Sabers on Tatooine where Luke grew up and now she takes the Skywalker name as her own with her very own Light Saber which is yellow.
I do believe this was good way of ending this saga because had Ben lived you knew they would have to go on with this saga, pretty much everything was on par but they really didn’t explain how Emperor survived and stood hidden for nearly 30 plus years which means there was some pretty lazy writing at times. This series kept ignoring the fact that Vader became a force ghost, this film would have been a good time to bring him back instead they just does a voice over, clearly this was a big disappointment to me because he was such an important character, having Rey take the name made sense after all the Skywalkers were the people she truly loved. One last thing I did enjoy was the fact that they were introducing more people that had the force ability like Finn who was a weak force user but continues to get strong. In the end I am giving this a good B or right around 80 percent and like I stated in the podcast I am excited to see what happens next!
Star Wars Episode IX The Rise Of Skywalker Movie Review
By: Justin Hopkins
**SPOILER WARNING**
I should start by saying I am not the biggest Star Wars fan. Outside of the Clone Wars Cartoon, The Mandalorian, and I had a lot of interest in whose Rey’s parents were. I haven’t had much interest in the series in general. Why am I saying all this you might ask? Two reason, to heighten just how much I enjoyed this entry in the Star Wars Library, and to keep any potential spoilers out of the intro paragraph on social media. Like some pages gleefully ignore. With that out of the way, lets jump in and take a closer look at the end of the Skywalker Saga.
The movie opens with it’s usual crawl explaining what is happening, with Palpatine returning. Sending out a mysterious radio message. General Leia has sent out spies to try and find out what is going on and The Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is killing anyone who gets in his way, and that is who we jump to. Kylo is manhandling and killing everyone in his way to retrieve this triangle devise. That leads him to the Sith Homeworld and the Emperor Palpatine was waiting. Offering him everything he wants, including a massive fleet and idea of succeeding where Vader failed, but he has to kill the scavenger (Rey). We go from there to Chewbacca, Poe, and Finn. Going to get intel from a spy, and just as they are getting it. Are attacked by Tie Fighters and a crazy space chase breaks out where Poe is Lightspeed skipping the Falcon and amassing a lot of damage in the process. Meanwhile, Rey is training with her new Master General Leia. Trying to draw in the Jedi of old, but can’t, and in her frustration goes to run the training course. Where she has a Force vision of her taking Palpatine’s throne, and it obviously jolts her. When talking to Leia about not feeling worthy of Luke’s Lightsaber and giving it back. When the crew returns, gets into an argument with Poe. It starts off small, but it’s really over the fact that she is their best fighter and not on the field. They finally hold the meeting over what the spy gave them, which is not only confirmation of Palpatine being alive, but plans on executing what is being called, ” The Final Order.” Rey recognizes the name of the planet from Luke’s notes and along with Poe, Fin, Chewy, and C3PO. Go out to start where he left off and find the planet before the Final Order begins and while I am going to talk way way more about what happens. Going to back of the story for those who really need to go and watch, but I will go in depth from here out, so if you haven’t watched it. Come back after.
I really enjoyed the story that they were telling here. How they had to go directly to the source of the dark side of the force and deal with the biggest threat they had ever had to face in Palpatine, who in my opinion, never looked stronger than he does here. The amount the resistance had to go against felt like the stakes were at their highest. Important to have for a final fight of this magnitude. To even get to that point though was captivating, especially when it came to Rey and Kylo. Kylo coming off like the powerhouse enemy, that he has only shown glimpses of so far. Rey not only having her powers growing at an alarming rate, but getting more and more scared as they start to turn toward more darkside. Unaware of what her lineage to Palpatine, which I got wrong, my money was on Kenobi till they announced the return of Palpatine. Even still, they did a good job conveying. Gave her another dynamic then simply good fighting dark, but someone who could easily access the dark side, but resists because that is not who she is and together, they were amazing. The fight scenes they had felt unique and different. Their connection through the force was so well done. Switching from her location to his was seamless. Even passing stuff off to one another. All of which succeeded due to the talented Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver.
Ever since this trilogy started, Daisy Ridley’s Rey has been the only real highlight, in my opinion. Watching her come up from a lowly scavenger to being a powerhouse force user in such a rapid time. Believing in the good when there was nothing else their and Daisy really ramped it up in this. Her emotional distress over the idea that she might end up turning to the dark side visibly shaking her. To the point where she was ready to isolate herself to an island to make sure it didn’t happen and Daisy did a wonderful job portraying all of it and her Lightsaber battles were great. On the other side of that, Adam Driver at long last, got to play the cool, powerful villain I thought he could be. So, sure that he could turn Rey and take out the Emperor to start his own reign. And I will be the first to admit, after him killing Han, didn’t believe there was any good way to turn him back to the good side, but Adam pulled it off. The pain he experienced losing his Mother and Rey saving his life. The heartfelt reunion he had with Han. As his swan song with the character. Adam definitely delivered.
There is so much more that I can go into here, but for one last positive, as I said at the beginning, I enjoyed the Clone Wars and while Cad Bane and Maul were big reasons. Ahsoka Tano was the biggest and was thrilled that her voice was part of the Jedi Voices, pushing Rey on at the end. To see one of my favorites get some recognition was a real joy. Glad we got all of them involved, but Ahsoka the most.
Now, as much as I have praised this movie so far. There were certainly some negatives. That being Poe and Finn particularly at the start. Finn just came off as dumb at times. They all recognize Rey as the strongest, stop trying to charge into her fights. It got really annoying real fast. It got much worse than that and it revolves around C3PO. When you have a beloved character, who is essentially wiping his memory, in a a big emotional moment (That was ruined by the trailers, thanks for that.) it does not help when Poe and Finn has been blatantly ignorant to C3PO. The entire thing just means nothing to them, even when he is giving his heartfelt speech. The only one to show anything, was Rey, and it lead to me not caring at all about Poe or Finn the rest of the way through. Know it lead to him being more of a joke than before, but C3PO has been here since the start and in nearly every version of Star Wars. If they weren’t going to show this mattered. Than it may have been better to not even have them there.
I know there is a lot of reviews saying otherwise, but in my opinion, this was a stellar way to bring about the end of the Skywalker Saga. It’ll probably land as my favorite among the movies. You have a lot of callbacks and fanservice to go along with the Rey storyline. I strongly suggest checking this out in theaters as soon as possible. Final Grade: A+
Thank you for reading.
Box office Rundown 12/17/19
By Paul Anthony
We are now in the final few weeks of the box office year and this weekend, we have a big name entering the game and that film is Star Wars: Rise of SkyWalker. We also have Cats debuting as well which will make the box office very interesting because we literally have a little of everything in the current box office. Last week saw the debut of the third Jumanji film which came in at number 1, then we had the remake of the reboot in Black Christmas, which fell flat and then we had the Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell which came in at number 1. Now We know Star Wars is going to come in a number one, its hard not to think it would even come in at any number but number one but lets take a look at the current top ten
- Jumanji: The Next Level, 59.251 million
- Frozen 2, 19 million
- Knives Out, 9.1 million
- Richard Jewell, 4.680 million
- Black Christmas, 4.240 million
- Ford V Ferrari, 4.080 million
- Queen and Slim, 3.583 million
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, 3.276 million
- Dark Waters, 1.897 million
- 21 bridges, 1.183 million.
Now here how I predict this box office to go!
- Star Wars: Rise of SkyWalker
- Jumanji: The Next Level
- Frozen 2
- Knives Out
- Cats
- Richard Jewell
- Ford V Ferrari
- A Beautiful Day in Neighborhood
- 21 Bridges
- Black Christmas
Friday RoundAbout 11/22/19
By Paul Anthony
Welcome to another exciting addition of Friday Roundabout where we look at some stories that we didn’t cover during the week. So why waste time let’s look at some stories, now this one actually came out last Friday and that is That on November 15th 1989 a little channel launched and that was Comedy Central. We know that this channel launched some famous shows that we fell in love with. These shows includes South Park which is currently still going strong, then you had the very popular The Man Show, Reno 911, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. these shows no doubt made Comedy Central a hit and even though the torch has been passed today shows will never live up tp the first thirty years but Congrats to Comedy Central.
Back in May HBO’s Hit show Game Of Thrones ended and many people were not happy with season 8 though the writing was on the wall to see twist that was coming but now it is being revealed that the crew did film an alternate ending that they did for fun. Now Kristofer Hivju revealed this news but said he couldn’t say anymore about it. There is no doubt I believe him but there is a good chance that we will never see this unless the demand is so overwhelming when the box set comes out.
We now have our first R rated billion dollar film and it was nice to see history happen however when you make a billion dollar off a 60 million dollar budget no matter what the story is you know a sequel will happen. Right now Joker 2 is so called now in the works but the details are still up in the air because Todd Philips who directed Joker actually got access to film two origin films of D.C. villains one of course was Joker now there no doubt that Warner Bros might want both another Origin film and a Joker 2 film but time will tell as to what we will actually get.
Now Here is something that is truly funny and that we all know we are entering the streaming war where everyone has their own streaming service now PornHub has announced they want to get in the act of streaming as well, which isn’t a bad idea but outside of just more porn which a lot of people get for free what else can they do?
Apple is now making more then just phones and computers, we know they have their own streaming service as well and as they march towards having their own movies and shows they did encounter a setback and have suspended the release of their movie the banker because there are sexual abuse allegations surrounding one of the producers of this film which sounds pretty good and it stars Anthony Mackie and Samuel L Jackson and Nicholas Hoult. Until this situation clears up, we wont be able to see this film sadly.
Of one the famous Star Wars characters is Darth Maul who at first seem to died in Episode 1 when he was introduce but people loved the character back that Star Wars shows found ways to bring him back even though his stories seem to have skipped all around the timeline but now many are saying it is time for him to have his own movie or show which now with Disney plus it would most likely to be a show and finally give us his full story which we know he dies in rebels. This still just a rumor and nothing has been confirm just yet.
The Mandalorian episode 1 review!
By Paul Anthony
To say that I am blown away by the first episode of this sure to be a hit show is an understatement. Let’s talk about the overall show itself. When I first heard about this show I didn’t want to give it chance because it was about a new character and a bounty hunter nevertheless, I know people go crazy over Boba Fett the bounty hunter that was in a lot of films but had amount screen time around 10 minutes was a joke. But here we are, Star Wars first live action show and it is based on a bounty hunter that is new and honestly that is best part of show so far.
Each episode will be around 40 minutes which is long enough to tell a story without dragging it on and on. Now as of right now there will be eight episodes and starting tomorrow, they will be released every Friday. I have to admit I do like the idea of not releasing every episode at once, something we all knew Disney wasn’t going to do. Now the total time of season one will be 320 minutes. If you don’t want to do the math I will tell you how long that is in hours. Season one is five hours and 20 minutes long, which when you are talking about a season isn’t bad at all.
Episode 1 starts with a bang, the show opens with our Bounty Hunter showing how much of a bad ass he is and pretty much will take one anyone to get to his target. He doesn’t say much, I would say the entire episode he might have spoken two paragraphs of words which was okay actually. After we see he can be a badass his boss gives him his next mission but he has to meet the client in person, which he does but he is also greeted by imperial guards nonetheless the client tells him the last location and that the target is 50 years of age. The bounty hunter sets out and there he battles bad guys with the help of an Bounty Hunter Droid, then they see the target and its actually a baby looking Yoda and the droid explains that some beings age slower then others which explains how Yoda lived as long as he did. Our guy kills the droid and the episode ends there.
With the ending I am pumped to see what happens next try to see what makes this baby so important that certain people want it killed. A show like this is costing money because the graphics and effects and everything like that is on par with something you see at the theatres. In All Disney spent 120 million on this season alone, so I expect nothing short of a movie quality show. I am giving this first episode a good A rating and I hope the rest of the episodes can be as great as this one and have to say this show is a must watch!
More Star Wars and Avatar Coming!
By Paul Anthony
Sometimes it seems like when you have a good thing going you can never get enough of it, and a few weeks ago now we have learned that we are getting more Star Wars films and more Avatar movies. Now both franchises have been in the news lately. With Star Wars we recently got a title for episode 9 and a trailer to go with it. Avatar hasn’t been around since 2009 but when Avengers: Endgame came out and how much hype it had people brought up Avatar because it is the number one movie of all time. We know recently Disney bought Fox which owns Avatar so in other words Disney owns the top two films of all time.
Now Disney announced that we would getting three more Star Wars films starting in December 2022 then in December 2024 and a third film in December 2026. Now Episode 9 being billed as the last Skywalker film so we know that these films will involve new stories and characters. Disney right now trend water here in which they are 50/50. Rogue one was a success however Solo was a failure by blockbuster terms. The rumors are of course going around that these films could feature the stories from the Knight of The Old Republic which are very popular so it only makes sense but time will tell us. I would guess we will have to wait until at least the beginning of 2022 to even get some details regarding this matter.
When a film makes 2.7 billion dollars you know there will be sequels usually two more on average but now Disney owns it and we getting four more sequels which are set to come out in December 2021 then December 2023, December 2025 and then the series will end in December 2027.
Now I can’t get over how Avatar made 2.7 billion dollars and I wonder no wait I believe the other films will never come close to that number again. Disney will own the month of December for a long time to come and it made sense to do it this way. Why have big time movies under one banner coming out and battling each other and run the risk of losing money. It has been no secret that Disney has been spending money like crazy and you would be dumb to think that they wouldn’t want to start making that money back. Heck they just spent 70 billion just to get Fox so yeah they need to be very smart with how they are releasing their movies so they can get top dollar for their films.
A Return of an old foe!
By Paul Anthony
It is the last movie in what will be one of the greatest sagas in cinema history. Star Wars Episode 9 released its first trailer and gave us the title of the film, which will be called Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Judging by the title and how this film is being billed as the last film in the Skywalker saga, you know this film needs to be epic. The trailer started off will the basic stuff for a teaser but then the trailer went dark and you heard a laugh which sounded like the one and only Emperor Palpatine. Soon as we heard that let’s be honest the fan base went crazy and so did I.
Then it was clear they made it official and clear that yes that was the emperor’s laugh and that he would be in the film however we don’t know though. Last time we saw him was in episode 6 Return of the Jedi. In which Darth Vader threw him down a reactor shaft because Vader at that point saw the light and became Anakin again because the Emperor was using Force lighting on Luke. At that point we assumed he did in fact died. We know in “Legends” Palpatine used clones to continue living long after Vader fulfilled his prophecy with bringing balance. But once disney took over and rebooted everything it was never made it clear we just assumed that he did in fact die.
If you are a big fan of Star Wars then you almost saw this coming, just look at what happen for Darth Maul, he was sliced in half and fell a very long way but yet they brought him back and even had a cameo in the Solo film. Even if you think about in the story sense, Siths seem to thrive on pain, Maul cut in half lived on, Vader himself had his limbs cut and was burned alive and still became one of the strongest siths ever. We know the Emperor was even more stronger then the black suit Vader so this makes sense but why did it take forty years and what was he up to these past 4 decades?
If this is the last film in the Skywalker saga, it makes sense to bring him back because it was him and his master messing with force to have Vader born. This also raises another question, Why haven’t we seen Anakin’s force ghost yet which he became one shortly after his death yet he was never seen again? I have to wonder if they are holding out on us like they did with darth maul cameo. If they do this the way fans what them to do then watch out because this film could make a run for the number one spot of all time. It is sad to say we have to wait until December for this film to be released!
Solo Oh No!
By Paul Anthony
Could it be? No it can’t be, Right? did we just witness our first Star Wars fail? As much of a shocker, we aren’t talking about episodes one through three, instead we are talking the most recently film Solo: A Star Wars story. Now at the time of this blog the movie has made 260 million worldwide and still currently is the number one film which, they will try to promote it as just that to get more people to come but with the drop its having in its second week its now pretty clear its a flop.
First lets discuss the numbers as i said before the movie has made 260 million worldwide so far and the budget was 250 million now when you look at those two numbers you think hey just in the second week it has already made a profit but when a movies has that type budget they looking to make at least 800 million and that is the low point, honestly this movie won’t make anywhere near that. In it’s second week it dropped 66 percent and for the domestic total for the second week it only brought in 30 million so the crowds are done flocking out to see it. It will only get worse for the numbers because from this point June is loaded.
Now we must wonder why this film didn’t do well and I may have the answers. Fatigue, yes this can happen to any fan base and Star Wars does not get a pass here. Disney got cocky here, just after releasing the Last Jedi just 6 months ago they decided to release another film which makes four films in four years, that is a little overboard when the franchise stayed quiet for over a decade. Clearly Disney needs to slow down. Next is the month Now we know Disney owns marvel and Star Wars and is trying to buy Fox so in theory they pretty much owned the month of May in 2018 but Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War was just too much for a film that had nothing to do with the main Saga. The fans, look just because a few people like idea of a spin off doesn’t mean everyone does and then you add in the fact that before Han Solo doesn’t really have much of a story to tell, the character became so popular simply because of who played him and not the character himself. Which is our last reason the story, we know who solo was but did we really clear? No we never did so the story didn’t add much to anything to the franchise and that also hurt it.
Now Disney has the money to take this lost and and just move on and i would be shocked if this even changed their plans moving forward. Its going to take for movie fails to realize that they messed up from somewhere. So fans get over this and get ready for Episode 9 which is the end of this current run that they are on with the main saga.
Bye Netflix
By Paul Anthony
Who doesn’t have Netflix these days, right? I know I love Netflix, their online content may be small compared to their DVD collection, now many have noticed that there are more Disney owned films showed up on Netflix. I remember when I saw Captain America: Civil War on there, little did I know, 2016 was the first year Disney and Netflix began an awesome partnership. However, we all know that all good things must end and sure enough this partnership might be ending as fast as it begun because last week Disney dropped a Bombshell and they announced they are pulling their films at the end of 2019.
When they announced that which was only the beginning, they announced from that point on that they would have their own streaming service, of course it comes with a monthly fee just like Netflix has. Now at this point we are to believe it’s just their movies but then it was reported that Netflix was trying to keep the Disney owned shows, now at this point we don’t know what will happen to the marvel Netflix shows, I assume those are safe since Netflix help co-produce them and has been a big hit for both parties.
If the shows go to this will be a big blow to Netflix, if you just think about all that Disney owns, the classic movies, the new movies, the hits from Pixar and Marvel and even Star Wars are just few things Disney owns and makes billions from. This could be the start of more film studios doing the same and that would pretty doom Netflix the same way they doomed video stores.
If Netflix manages to keeps Disney owned shows, the hit wouldn’t be such a death blow, for now that is. This partnership was short lived one, total of three years to be an exact.
I doubt there is anything Netflix can say or to do to bargain with Disney because they hold all the chips, they know that with starting their streaming service people will buy into and that is a fact, Netflix has nothing to change Disney’s mind about doing this.
We still have a few more years left to see all our favorite movies and T.V shows. Pricing has yet to be determined but my best guess is it will be around 9.99 for the basic package and more for the better plans, so for now enjoy your Disney stuff that is on Netflix.
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