My Pitch for the Future of Star Wars

  So the other day I was on the Star Wars fan forums website theforce.net and there was a thread on there asking fans to speculate what Star Wars content set after The Rise of Skywalker might be like. Some of the comments from other users on there inspired me to come up with a hypothetical roadmap for various post-Skywalker Saga projects. I shared my outline on the forum and a few people there said they liked what I had in mind, so I figured I might as well share all of my ideas here too. Keep in mind that I do not expect Lucasfilm to actually do any of this stuff. This is all just for fun.

Before we begin, though, allow me to clarify a few things. First of all; I think Star Wars has outgrown the “trilogy structure,” at this point. I have some ideas for three shows as well as three live-action films, but each project would theoretically stand on it’s own, so that they could be made in almost any order (some may not have to even be made at all). Furthermore, the only sequel trilogy characters I have ideas for are Rey, Finn and (to a lesser extent) Rose. Nothing against the other characters. I just don’t know where their stories can go. Also, I know John Boyega said in mid 2020 that he was done with Star Wars, but he has since walked back on those comments and recently said he was open to returning. For some reason the press didn’t really run with that story, though (probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative of “Disney ruined Star Wars”).

With that all being said, here’s my pitch for what post-Rise of Skywalker content could look like. Part of me actually still feels that all of this is stupid, but I’m gonna share it anyway, so here it goes:

ANIMATED SHOW 1

Working title:

Star Wars: Regions of the Galaxy

Rough idea: 

Starts a few years after The Rise of Skywalker. There’s no galactic-wide government of any kind anymore. The Resistance managed to gain control of the Core Region of the galaxy and have since evolved into The Core Republic. Other parts of the galaxy are controlled by other factions (Mandalorians, crime syndicates, maybe even new versions of stuff like the Nihil and Nightsisters, etc.). So I guess if this “Age” needed a name it would be “Age of Divide” or something like that. There are no remnants of the Sith, Knights of Ren, Empire, First Order or Final Order whatsoever. The closest we get to that is whatever Thrawn has going on in the Unknown Regions (assuming he’s even still alive by this point). I also like the idea of one of the factions experimenting with cloning again, maybe even perfecting force-sensitive clones. But that’s not essential. I also like the droid revolt idea (mentioned by someone else on the forum).

Rey and Finn are restarting the Jedi order in two different ways; one of them is gathering small children like Broom Boy and training them slowly in a school-like environment, and the other is speed-training about half-a-dozen or so other adults and they’re all going on adventures (sometimes together and sometimes apart) in a Knights-of-the-Round-Table type of fashion. 

Right now I’m leaning towards Finn being the one mainly training the adults (and show Rey training him beforehand through flashbacks). I want to use this show as an opportunity to “move him further along.” Maybe he rekindles the flame he briefly had with Rose on Crait and takes her last name (or finally finds out what his real name was). Maybe he meets one or more of the ghosts. You get the idea. He’s “the field agent” and Rey is “the Yoda.” And not that it matters, but as far as saber colors go, I always thought green would suit Finn.

I wouldn’t have a central conflict or war or anything driving the show forward like that. Just keep it loose and episodic. The main purpose of this show is just worldbuilding and laying the groundwork for the future.

LIVE-ACTION MOVIE 1

Working title: 

Star Wars: Alliance

Rough idea: 

It’s been like five or ten years now since The Rise of Skywalker. If Lucasfilm wants they can make this movie first and then make the show described above afterwards to “fill in the gaps” between The Rise of Skywalker and this.

In short; characters from the sequel trilogy team up with characters from The Mandalorian and its “sister shows.” So it’s basically a crossover, of sorts, between the Skywalker Saga and the Mandoverse. I think that would be a neat way to bring back sequel trilogy characters (mainly Rey) in a live-action movie without undoing the idea of The Rise of Skywalker being the end of the Skywalker Saga. It’s not really what I would want, personally, but it would probably put butts in seats, which is what Disney is thinking about.

I would have Rey team up with Din Djarin specifically (who I assume is ruling Mandalore at this point), to really emphasize this “crossover” idea as much as possible. I know he’d be like 70-75 at this point, so maybe keep his helmet on the whole time and just have Pedro Pascal limp around and say something along the lines of “I may be old but I still got a few tricks up my sleeve,” just not in those exact words (cause that would be stupid). Alternatively, just have him “sitting around” and have Rey instead pair up with Sabine, who would probably also need to be played by a different actress at this point, or at least keep her helmet on the whole time too.

The main conflict would involve an outside-galaxy threat. Let’s just say the Grysk, for now (assuming the Mandoverse “big storytelling event” that Lucasfilm talked about doesn’t involve them first). For context; the Grysk are a new alien race that have been loosely mentioned in recent books as “a half-myth,” and they haven’t really been officially detected yet. Apparently they may or may not come from a different galaxy, and are described as “invaders.” The old Expanded Universe novels (now called Legends) had something similar to this.

I don’t know if I would flat-out say they come from a different galaxy, though. I would just “loosely imply” it, if that makes sense. Either way, the Jedi find out about the Grysk so they have to split up to go recruit all the other political factions outside of The Core Republic. It’s not the end of the Age of Divide, just a brief unification against this new exterior threat, is all.

Also, just to be a bit more “thematic” with the idea of divisions and factions, I would have Rey and Finn start to not get along at this point, because they have different ideas on how the Jedi should continue to evolve. They manage to put their differences aside for the climax of the movie, of course, but the very end of the story hints that the Jedi of the future may have similar differences, which they accept. This is to hint that the Jedi in centuries from now may be separated into several different factions with no centralization.

ANIMATED SHOW 2

Working title:

Star Wars: Fallout

Rough idea:

The purpose of this show would be to explore how the galaxy deals with the ongoing aftermath of the Grysk invasion. At this point I would start to move the sequel trilogy characters to the background, and focus on new heroes instead.

LIVE-ACTION MINISERIES

Working title:

Star Wars: Unity

Rough idea:

The purpose of this project would be to bring Rey and Finn back one more time after not having seen them again for a while, for a “farewell.” I imagine them being middle-aged at this point, and imply that they’ve now been fully estranged from one another for at least a few years. They each have their own isolated Jedi orders now (a further sign of what’s to come). Both characters are put in a position where they have to come together one last time. They both die together in a self-sacrificial way at the end of the miniseries, but they clearly forgive one another and are good friends again in the final moments. Their Jedi orders have a newfound respect for one another after this, but continue to remain separate.

        I understand the idea of Rey and Finn dying at the same time may sound pretty dark for Star Wars standards, but my gut tells me it would make sense. They started their “Jedi journeys” together, so might as well also end together, right? Also, the reason I would want this to be a live-action miniseries instead of a film is because I feel like doing this particular story as a film would feel too much like “Skywalker Saga Episode 10,” which I’m trying to avoid cause I still want The Rise of Skywalker to feel like an ending.

LIVE-ACTION MOVIE 2

Working title:

Star Wars: Jedi Legacy

Rough idea:

Set like a thousand years later, the Jedi have evolved into several different factions with no centralization, and each faction has a slightly different philosophy from one another. Meanwhile, the political factions are all unified back together now, and call themselves The Alliance (as a reference to the film described above). So this would be the “Age of Alliance.” Basically everyone hates the Jedi for not being able to get along now. This is where the Sith would come back, in some fashion. I would bring back Matt Smith’s “Sith King” character (an amalgamation of all dead Sith) that got cut from The Rise of Skywalker, and maybe have him act a little like Palpatine, to imply that good ol’ Sheev is “still in there somewhere.” As expected, all the different Jedi factions realize they gotta come together, but in order to do so, they need to dig deep and figure out secrets about how the Jedi first began “thousands of generations ago,” which leads us to…

LIVE-ACTION MOVIE 3

Working title:

Star Wars: Jedi Origins

Rough idea:

Okay, this one doesn’t actually take place after The Rise of Skywalker, but rather thousands of generations before anything we know from canon Star Wars. That said, it would still be “spiritually connected,” in a sense, to the film described above. It would basically be the Dawn of the Jedi comics from Legends, but as a movie. I know there’s rumors that this is what Taika Waititi’s film is gonna be. We’ll see what happens, I guess…

Alright, that’s all I got!

Peace!

Related: Fiction Repository

DUNE: Battle of the Adaptations

  A couple of weeks ago, director Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited adaptation of the Frank Herbet sci-fi novel Dune (or the first half of it, at least) was finally released in theaters here in the US, and as of this writing, I finally had a chance to see it over the weekend. In the days leading up to the screening, I decided to immerse myself into Dune lore by watching all of the previous adaptations, as well as the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, about a canceled film adaptation of the story from the 1970’s that would’ve been made by Chile’s favorite surrealist, Alejandro Jodorowsky. I had also wanted to read the book, but didn’t find the time (been busy lately), so instead I looked up some notes and talked to several people I know who happened to have read it in the past.

So now that I’ve done my homework (or as much of it as I can, up until this point), I thought it would be fun to compare all the different cinematic adaptations of the book that we’ve had thus far, and explain which version I think is the ideal one, and why.

With that being said, let’s go ride some sandworms…

David Lynch’s Dune (1984)

Background: When experimental filmmaker and cult hero David Lynch was first approached to adapt Dune, he hadn’t even read it. The fact that he even agreed to do it is a bit of a shock, since he had just turned down directing Return of the Jedi because George Lucas showed him a picture of Chewbacca and it “gave him a headache.” What won him over was the fact that the studio promised to fund his next film, Blue Velvet, once Dune was complete. After working his way through the book, Lynch wrote the screenplay all on his own, which itself is pretty impressive, since he wasn’t even familiar with the source material beforehand. Once filming had wrapped, Lynch put together a rough cut that was about four or five hours long, and proposed splitting all the footage into two separate movies. Since this wasn’t the norm at the time, the studio rejected his proposal, and instead trimmed all of his footage down to a single two-hour film that ended up bombing both critically and financially upon release. Needless to say, Lynch didn’t take this well, and says he still regrets ever getting involved with Dune to this very day.

Greatest Strength: As flawed as it may be, it’s nice to have a version of this entire story that can be digested in just two hours. It’s extremely hard to follow if you’re a newbie to the Dune lore, of course, but for “seasoned veterans,” it’s a convenient way of reliving the tale without having to invest too much time into it (again).

Greatest Weakness: This isn’t really a true Dune adaptation, per se, but rather David Lynch’s “reimagining” of it. If you’re a fan of his unique style in general, that may not be too bothersome for you, but those looking for something more “in-line” with the book can expect to be disappointed. Personally, I’m someone who considers themes to be the most important aspect of any story, and what I find fascinating about the original Dune novel (what I understand from it, at least) is that it deconstructs the theme of “what it means to be a messiah.” In other words, it critiques “the hero’s journey,” before Star Wars even made “the hero’s journey” cool. That’s why that book was so ahead of its time, and why it still holds up now. None of those things are anywhere to be found in this film version, though. Did Lynch overlook these details? Or did he omit them intentionally due to external constraints? We’ll likely never know. That said, if you treat this film as its own thing, and if you’re able to get past how rushed it all feels, it’s actually not that bad. While I’m slowly becoming a fan of the source material, I’m also a fan of Lynch as a director, and can appreciate his unique “taste” that he put into this project (weirding modules and all!). Hell, even Herbert himself said he liked the movie and didn’t mind the artistic liberties that it took.

Alan Smithee’s Dune: Extended Edition (1988)

Background: This is actually just a three-hour version of the Lynch film, with about an hour’s worth of deleted scenes added back in, first broadcasted on television in two parts. By this point, however, Lynch himself had long since disowned the project, and therefore asked for this new cut to give the directorial credit to “Alan Smithee” (a name often used by filmmakers who are ashamed of their own work). For the writing credit, Lynch used “Judas Booth” (a combination of Judas Iscariot and John Wilkes Booth).

Greatest Strength: Obviously, it’s a lot less rushed and more coherent than the theatrical version, meaning certain plot holes are now resolved, while Lynch’s sense of charming zaniness is still maintained. That said, the movie still fails to emulate many of the unique themes from the book.

Greatest Weakness: One of the biggest differences between the theatrical cut and this version is the beginning. Instead of the monologue from the Emperor’s daughter (which itself is already awkward if you’re not familiar with the book), we’re treated to a seven-minute long worldbuilding narration that uses concept art to try to get viewers to better understand how exactly this fictional universe works. While I admire the effort, I personally find worldbuilding of this scale to often be one of the least important aspects of telling a story (at least cinematically). When I don’t understand how a world works, I’m usually fine with just correcting things in my head using “the Star Wars excuse” (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away a.k.a “this doesn’t need to make any sense”). The book definitely deserves praise for just how dense its own lore is, but I have yet to see worldbuilding of that magnitude done well in a cinematic format (even the new 2021 adaptation omitted some of these details).

John Harrison’s Frank Herbert’s Dune (2000)

Background: Around the turn of the millennium, the infamous Sci-Fi channel (known today as Syfy) teamed up with director John Harrison to take a crack at Dune in the form of a TV miniseries. With book fans still burned over the Lynch version(s), Sci-Fi was determined to create an on-screen take more accurate to the source material, even going as far as to name the project Frank Herbert’s Dune to emphasize this.

Greatest Strength: As of right now, this is still the most faithful adaptation of the book, though Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune: Part Two will likely render this one as mostly obsolete. Nevertheless, this take managed to finally capture the core themes of the original story accurately, among other factors (Chani is more likable and closer to her book counterpart here than in either Lynch cut, for instance). That said, I feel this adaptation might’ve been a little too faithful. It’s a common saying that not everything always translates well between mediums, and this is a solid example of that. For instance, the names “Mahdi” and “Maud’Dib” are very frequently used interchangeably for Paul, which may read well, but when having to hear the dialogue instead, I often found myself struggling to know which of those two names were actually being said. Paul also comes across as way more “flat” here, which I know was intentional for the book, but doesn’t really work on screen (the weird casting choice for him didn’t help either, no offense to that actor). That all being said, the miniseries does take a few artistic liberties that allow it to have a bit of its own “identity.” The biggest example of that being the subplot that was added for the Emperor’s daughter, which makes her a more fleshed-out character (though Lady Margot is cut, as a result). Rabban also gets a bit more to do here too, and it all works to further emphasize the “chess game structure” of the story, even if it drags a bit.

Greatest Weakness: As one would expect from a Sci-Fi Channel project, this miniseries was made on a budget of almost nothing, so it looks awful. The sets are trash, the costumes are trash, the effects are trash… I can go on. I suppose one cool feature was how all the night scenes had both blue and green lighting, since the two moons of Arrakis are supposed to be blue and green, respectively. Sadly, it’s still not enough to salvage the overall visuals. I’ve heard people say that this adaptation is best when you pretend it’s just a stage play that just so happened to have a camera in front of it. Seeing it that way definitely helped, but not by much. Thankfully, the 2003 sequel miniseries, which combined the second and third books together, is a vast improvement visually.

Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)

Background: As mentioned above, surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to get a Dune adaptation off the ground in the 1970’s, but things fell apart. This documentary by Frank Pavich is the closest glimpse we have to what that movie would’ve been like. Things got out of hand pretty fast. Salvador Dali, who would’ve played the Emperor, demanded to be paid $100,000 an hour, while Orson Welles, who would’ve played Baron Harkonnen, demanded to have expensive gourmet dinners cooked for him every single night as part of the movie’s budget. Jodorowsky himself was guilty of some of this disaster too. He casted his own son as the lead, despite the boy only being twelve at the time, and put him through two years worth of martial arts training for six hours a day. Jodo also demanded that the studio allow him to make the final cut of the movie ten hours long. Needless to say, the project died right then and there, but it wasn’t a total waste. During the pre-production period, over three-thousand pieces of concept art were produced and put together as a hardcover book that got passed around Hollywood for the next few years, influencing many of the sci-fi and fantasy films that took the world by storm in the late 70’s and early 80’s. That very same artbook actually sold for over $42,000 at an auction just a few years ago. Jodo himself would also go on to use many of his ideas for Dune in several graphic novels about his own original characters.

Greatest Strength: This entire movie would’ve been very different from the book, and the ending in particular was going to be something not seen in the source material at all. Paul was going to die, and then his consciousness was going to be split into a million pieces, all of which would then be “absorbed” by everyone else on Arrakis. The idea here being that in order for Paul to fulfill the prophecy of the chosen one, he would need to sacrifice himself so that everyone else could instead be the chosen one “in his place.” So, like the book, this adaptation would have been all about deconstructing the hero’s journey on a thematic scale. It just, you know, would’ve done it in a completely different way that would’ve destroyed all possibilities for any of the sequels to ever be adapted… Funny enough, after Paul’s soul gets split up like that, Arrakis was gonna somehow magically travel all over the universe at light speed, turning all dead planets it passes into lush environments full of life, before exploding into a supernova. In other words, Arrakis was going to die so that all other planets could have life, just like how this movie project itself needed to die in order to give life to Alien, The Fifth Element, etc.

Greatest Weakness: Well, in case it wasn’t already obvious, this isn’t really Dune. I understand that it’s important to take some creative license when adapting someone else’s work, but after so many changes, you might as well just make it your own intellectual property instead. Herbert himself was actually somewhat involved with the development process of this project, and like with Lynch later on, he apparently didn’t mind any of these crazy changes that Jodo wanted to make. That being said, having the original creator’s stamp of approval isn’t really enough, in my opinion. Fans of the book initially tore Lynch’s movie apart. If they had gotten this movie instead, we probably would’ve seen riots on the streets…

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune aka Dune: Part One (2021)

Background: Originally intended to be released in 2020, but delayed an entire year due to a certain pandemic, this adaptation is something of a passion project for Villeneuve, as he had been reading the book repeatedly ever since he was 14. Like Lynch before him, Denis requested that the studio allow him to split the adaptation across two separate films. This time, they agreed, but there was a catch: Part Two would only be approved if Part One did well at the box office first. Thankfully, that proved to be the case, and Part Two is now scheduled for an October 2023 release (my gut is telling me that it’ll be delayed a bit, though), and Denis himself hopes to round off his movie trilogy with an adaptation of the second book, Dune Messiah.

Greatest Strength: So far, Villeneuve has been pretty faithful to the book and it’s themes, and I imagine that’ll continue in Part Two (I doubt we’ll get that orgy scene, though). That and the fact that this movie looks and sounds great and is well-acted pretty much makes this the definitive version, as long as Part Two is able to “round the story out” accordingly. While part of me misses the “dirtiness” of the Lynch version, I would still take this one overall. Furthermore, I’ve seen some people say that Part One doesn’t stand on its own enough, which I personally disagree with. I thought centering that film around Paul and Jessica surviving alone in the desert and culminating with their inauguration into the Fremen was a smart move (that final line from Chani was stupid though, and the fact that Gurney and Thufir both just disappear from the plot was annoying). As a side note, I also liked how this version emphasized how not all of Paul’s visions come true. That helped this film to stand on its own while still maintaining a bit of tension, in my opinion.

Greatest Weakness: So if you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I criticized Villeneuve for that temper tantrum he threw last year about his film having a theatrical release and a streaming release at the same time as one another. While I enjoyed this movie way more than I expected to, I still stand by everything I said in that post earlier this year. The guy was acting like people wouldn’t have the option to see it in theaters, which wasn’t the case at all. I understand his frustration with how the hybrid release almost killed his chances of getting to make Part Two, and agree that it was shitty of WB to not at least warn him in advance, but nevertheless, safety comes first. Nothing in life is a guarantee until it actually happens anyways. Hell, maybe the lowered expectations actually helped convince WB to green-light the second half! Besides, I saw the film in theaters with a friend, just to have an excuse to get out and socialize, and while I enjoyed the experience, there was nothing that made me say to myself “Oh my god, I’m so glad I saw this in theaters!!” A bigger screen and surround sound doesn’t really mean anything to me these days. If a movie is good, it’s good, regardless of where and how I see it.

And that’s about all I got! Looking forward to Dune: Part Two.

Peace!

2024 UPDATE: Just saw Dune: Part Two. It wasn’t as accurate of an adaptation as I thought it would be, but quite frankly, it’s all the better for it. Besides, people who want a nearly-book-accurate version can stick to the 2000 miniseries (as long as they don’t mind the bad acting and “no budget” look). Whereas people who want a big-budget, “modernized” version of the story now have the Denis films to embrace, and people who prioritize the “weirdness” of the source material can stick to David Lynch. Those of you who want a version that somehow does all three of those things are out of luck, but maybe in like 30 years they’ll do another miniseries version with a Game of Thrones-level budget, or maybe by that point AI will be advanced enough that everyone can just make their own versions…

About My New Sci-Fi/Fantasy Story Collection

  So at the beginning of this year I released my debut story collection Little Life Lessons: Fifty-Five Super Short Stories and wrote a blog post explaining how it came to be. At the end of that post, I mentioned that I had ideas for similar collections, and that I would begin to work on those. Since then, however, I realized it made more sense to combine all of those ideas into just one anthology… And I’ve now done just that!

Ladies and gentlemen, my sophomore effort, Real Enough: Forty Short Stories & Poems, is now available on Amazon. And just like last time, I thought I’d take the opportunity to make a blog post announcing it.

Unlike Little Life Lessons, which told stories loosely based on my own life and observations of the world, Real Enough consists entirely of science fiction and fantasy entries, split into four sections (Low Fantasy, Sci-Fi On Earth, Sci-Fi In Space, High Fantasy). As you may have noticed from the subtitle, some of these entries (exactly half, as a matter of fact) are actually poems.  All four sections of the book alternate back and forth between prose and poetry. As I mentioned at the end of my post announcing Little Life Lessons, I had wanted to also start experimenting with poetry, and quickly saw an opportunity to express some of my sci-fi/fantasy ideas in the form of narrative poems, rather than prose.

While I’m proud of all forty entries, there are a few in particular that are longer than most. I call these the “flagship stories” of the book:

Soon

Highway to Avalon

Racing Death

Survivortown

Sunrise Order

Next Star Over

The Prince of the Island

Long Gone Magic

And just like last time, the process didn’t go perfectly. With the last book, the italics got lost. This time around, the last line of almost every poem was shifted to the side instead of being centered (all of the poems are supposed to be centered). When I saw that, I said to myself “Eh, screw it. Let people think it’s a stylistic choice or something.” There were also some other errors (extra blank pages at the end, extra margin spacing all around, a few typos in the story Soon, etc.). As I said shortly after I released Little Life Lessons, not everything is going to go according to plan, and as an independent author, you’re gonna have to be okay with that…

Honestly, I don’t have much else to say beyond that. I want to let the book speak for itself, after all! The question now is; what will I do next? And the answer is… I don’t know. I definitely want to keep this blog alive, and might even start posting here more frequently again. As far as other books go though, I think I might take a bit of a break now, before figuring out where to go from here…

In the meantime, if you choose to purchase Real Enough, I would like to thank you. Writing sci-fi/fantasy is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a little kid, so I hope you enjoy reading this book, just as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it…

Peace!

Loki: Top 5 Questions Left Unanswered

2023 UPDATE: Season 2 has fixed most of these problems for me now!

  So the new Loki series came to an end a few weeks ago, and I’ve since been allowing it to “sink in” with me, before finalizing all my thoughts. That said, with Marvel’s What If? right around the corner, I thought now more than ever would be a good time to express all of my gripes that I have with Loki. It probably goes without saying, but this post contains spoilers. You’ve been warned…

Also, quick disclaimer: I didn’t hate the show. I definitely have some issues with it now in hindsight, but overall, I still enjoyed it as it was going on, and I can still appreciate the acting all around, as well as the wacky sci-fi aesthetic, among other factors. Out of all three MCU shows that have aired thus far, this is probably the one I’m most likely to eventually go back and watch again (I also liked the other two shows as they were ongoing, but each finale kinda killed it for me).

All that aside, here are the Top 5 questions that Loki left unanswered:

1.What was the point of Endgame?

No, seriously! What the actual fuck?! So you’re telling me that whenever a timeline branch happens, the TVA shows up and basically “erases” that branch? If that’s the case, why did Captain America need to go put all the stones back? Those timelines all still count as off-shoots, don’t they? Hell, the 2014 branch (the one where they got the purple stone) is now missing Thanos, Gamora and Nebula. So at least that branch definitely got pruned by the TVA, right? I suppose this could serve as a new explanation for how Old Man Cap was able to show up at the end, since maybe the TVA bumped into him while he was on his little adventure and put him back on the sacred timeline. But still, all of this makes his “death” feel even more meaningless than it already was.

2.How exactly do the TVA people not age?

Okay, so let’s walk through this one step by step. Sylvie escapes from the TVA when she’s a little girl and spends the next 20 years or so hopping around from one apocalyptic event to the next. And since all these moments are still on the timeline, she still ages. But the TVA headquarters and “the void” and the citadel all exist outside of the timeline, which is why the TVA people and the other Loki variants and Kang never age, right? Okay… But here’s the thing: Don’t the TVA people still spend most of their day-to-day hopping around the timeline, to clip the branches? If so, shouldn’t they still be aging, just little by little? Renslayer says at one point that she and Mobius have been friends “for eons.” I don’t know if you guys are aware, but an eon is a pretty long fucking time! So it’s kinda hard for me to believe that all of these people are still as young as they are. Renslayer I can believe since she’s a judge who probably spends most of her time at her desk, but all of the others? I guess I can just write this one off as artistic license, but still…

3.How is there even an alternate TVA at the end?

As I mentioned above, the show clearly establishes the fact that the TVA exists outside of the timeline… So then how is there an alternate “bizarro” TVA at the end? The main episodic director of the show hinted that this was something that was decided upon at the last minute, during reshoots. Sounded like she wasn’t too happy about it, which would explain why she isn’t returning for Season 2…

4.How exactly does “timeline resetting” work?

So when Lady Loki/ Sylvie was deemed a variant and plucked from her timeline, did the TVA reset it all the way back to before she was born, so that Loki could be born male instead of female? That young version of Sylvie looked to be about 10 years old, so did the TVA seriously reset an entire decade of the universe, just like that? And did she seriously not deviate at all until that very moment? I get that little girls and little boys are pretty similar to each other until they get to their “tween” years, but still! Same question applies to Old Man Loki (aka Classic Loki). Richard Grant is about 25 years older than Tom Hiddleston, which means he was probably in hiding for about that long after the Thanos attack, right? So the TVA reset an entire quarter of a century of the universe? Just like that?! And then how far back did they reset our Loki’s timeline to? I assume just until right before he picked up the tesseract, so only a few minutes. I guess some nexus events are more “intense” than others, but still!!

5.What exactly is Kang’s motivation?

Seriously, what’s this guy all about? I get that he and all of his different variations each want to “conquer the multiverse”… But why?! Cause he’s smart? Cause he can? Cause he feels inferior and wants to be the only Kang or something? I put this one at the bottom cause it’s not a huge gripe, but STILL, why can’t all these different Kangs just, I don’t know… Leave each other alone?! What does one universe even have to do with all the others anyways? And why did he create the Time Keepers as a smoke-screen? What purpose did that serve? Felt to me like the showrunners just needed something to pad the show out and preserve the Kang twist. But if he’s as self-indulgent as he seems, why would he even wanna hide himself like that?

Alright I’m done ranting about Loki, for now. Listen, I get that not everything has to always make total sense. Just look at Star Wars, after all. That shit hasn’t made any logical sense since Day 1, and yet we all still like it (or at least I still do, for the most part). And like I stated earlier, there are still aspects of this show that I do enjoy. That said, I still felt the need to bring all of this up, cause I see most people overlooking all of these details. Sure, one or two plot holes can be hand-waved away as “creative liberties,” but once they start to stack up, the whole thing starts to “collapse in on itself,” and that’s certainly how I felt about this show (or at least this season of it, as I’ll try to keep an open mind for Season 2).

And I know I’ve said this before, but it’s weird how stuff like Star Wars gets nit-picked to death (at least since the prequels), whereas shit like this from Marvel always seems to get a pass. However, maybe things are starting to change. The finale of this season, as well as the finales of the other two Phase 4 shows thus far, were all pretty divisive, as was Black Widow (which started to tank financially after my last post). So maybe now Marvel is starting to receive the same level of scrutiny that Star Wars always gets. Not that scrutiny is a good thing but, you know, “an eye for an eye,” as they say.

The infinity saga was basically the MCU’s equivalent of the original trilogy, the only difference being that Marvel took what Star Wars did in three movies and figured out how to stretch it across twenty-three movies. But now it’s over, and the MCU is in its equivalent of the Star Wars prequels, sequels and spin-offs. It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Either way, I’ll still try to enjoy What If? and treat as it’s own “anthology” type of thing…

Sorry for getting off-track there at the end! Those of you who already read my blog regularly know how I am, tangents and all…

Peace!

PS: Oh yeah, and how exactly did Loki and Sylvie’s moment by the lake cause a nexus event? Aren’t apocalypses supposed to cover up, well, everything?! Is it just cause Kang wanted it to happen that way?…

Ranking KISS: 1978 Solo Albums

  Awhile back, I reviewed all twenty Kiss studio albums (here and here), and said at the end that I would eventually get around to reviewing the 1978 solo albums and maybe also the live albums. 

I have since decided to no longer review the live stuff. I recognize that those records are an important part of Kiss’s legacy, but if I review them, then I would most likely feel obligated to review live records from other bands in the future as well, and that’s a rabbit hole I’d rather not go down. That being said, I figured that I should still at least touch on these four obscure records in particular. So that’s what we’re going to do, right here and right now…

So for those who don’t know: In 1978, lead guitarist Ace Frehley almost quit Kiss (he would end up quitting for real in 1982 anyways), saying that he wanted to make a solo album. The band’s manager at the time then stepped in and said “You don’t have to quit, Ace. Let’s all do solo albums!” And thus, the infamous 1978 Kiss solo albums were born. As one would probably expected, Gene Simmons’s record sold the most at first (he’s always been the most popular member by far), but over time, Ace’s ended up being the only successful release of the bunch (both critically and financially). While I personally feel that all four members of the classic line-up were talented enough to write and/or perform good (if not great) songs, I agree with the majority of people out there that Ace’s record ended up being the only stellar one of the bunch. However, there are two other LP’s here that I think are okay, and only one that I think is bad, and it may surprise you which are which.

I usually try not to rank things on this blog, but I decided to make an exception for this, since there are only four records here, and I feel pretty confident now that my feelings on all of them won’t change any time soon. So, without further ado, let’s rank the 1978 Kiss solo albums! Starting with…

4.Gene Simmons

Yeah, the one that initially sold the most at first is, ironically, my least-favorite of the bunch, and the only one that I think is a genuinely bad album. The record actually starts off strong with lead single Radioactive, and the ballad See You Tonite, but the other songs on the first half (Burning Up with Fever, Tunnel of Love, True Confessions) all sound the same as one another. Doesn’t help that the backing-vocalist girls are mixed so loud that I can barely even hear Gene on his own songs. Then the second half kicks off with Living In Sin, that really weird song where then-girlfriend Cher makes a random phone call in the middle. That one is followed by Always Near You/ Nowhere to Hide, a title so creepy-sounding that it makes me not want to even listen to the song itself. Then we get Man of a Thousand Faces, which always sounded to me like a shameless ripoff of Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. Then there’s Mr. Make Believe, which is just okay. That’s followed by See You In Your Dreams, an inferior remake of a song that was already on Kiss’s Rock And Roll Over. Lastly, we get When You Wish Upon a Star. Yes, the Disney song. Gene did that. Why? Who the fuck knows! This whole album sounds super lazy and uninspired…

3.Peter Criss

Sigh… Yes, I know this is the album of the bunch that everyone else hates to pieces (and not Gene’s). And for awhile, I couldn’t get into this record either. This is not the same Peter Criss that tore it up vocally on tracks like Black Diamond, Strange Ways, Baby Driver, etc. But you know what? That’s okay! He wanted to make a Rod Stewart type of album, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I actually think the first six tracks on here, as well as the closing number Can’t Stop The Rain, are all pretty solid. Unfortunately, it’s the other three songs towards the end (Rock Me Baby, Kiss the Girl Goodbye, Hooked On Rock ’N’ Roll) that castrate the album. Those three tracks are some of the most repetitive pieces of crap I’ve ever heard. Had he cut those three out and replaced them with another cover or something, then this album would easily rank above the next one on the list…

2.Paul Stanley

Let me say one thing first: Paul Stanley, despite his flaws, is a very, very good songwriter. Most of my favorite Kiss songs of all time are the ones he brought to the table. And this record is actually almost great… Almost! The songwriting is not really the problem. As a matter of fact, I think all of these songs stand surprisingly well on their own. Yes, I even like the super-cheesy ones like Together As One and Hold Me, Touch Me. The problem is that, at least lyrically, the record as a whole feels super inconsistent to me. It seems like Paul’s head was in two places at once, as the entire LP alternates back and forth between love songs and breakup songs. It’s like he can’t make up his mind about whether he likes a certain girl, or if he wants her to fuck off. And maybe that was intentional, but even if so, it still doesn’t make for a great album-listening experience, in my opinion. A simple re-arranging of the song order would’ve probably worked wonders. And yes, I know that the real reason the songs are in the order they are is because this is really two different EPs, recorded with two different session bands, in two different studios. But production-wise, all of these tracks sound similar enough that I don’t think mixing up the order would’ve caused any major issues. UPDATE: On second thought, maybe it’s best to just imagine that he’s singing about a different girl on each track…

1.Ace Frehley

Do I even need to explain myself here? This album is great, and everyone knows it! Every single song is rock solid. I can play this album dozens of time over to this day, and it still doesn’t get old. No wonder Ace wanted to make a solo album. He really had a lot of passionate musical energy to share here! If I had just one complaint, it would be that Ozone drags a bit. In my opinion, it either should’ve faded out earlier, or it should’ve had a more “climatic” ending. But that’s a minor complaint, at the end of the day…

…So there you have it! Interestingly enough, while I only really love one of these albums, I’m still glad Kiss did this. I know a lot of people say this four-album project was the beginning of the end for the original line-up, and while that may be true, I think that by 1978, the four of them needed to do something like this. I can’t really explain it in any other way than that. Either way, this all happened a long time ago, so it doesn’t really matter now anyways…

Peace!

UPDATE: Oh yeah, and if I absolutely had to condense all of this stuff down into one normal Kiss album, this is what I would go with (I made sure each side was less than the standard 22 minutes long, and tried to even things out between all four members as much as possible):

SIDE A

1.Tonight You Belong to Me

2.Rip It Out

3.See You Tonite

4.New York Groove

5.Ain’t Quite Right

SIDE B

6.Radioactive

7.You Matter to Me

8.Snow Blind

9.I Can’t Stop the Rain

10.Love in Chains

Furthermore, if I were them, I would’ve called the album Radioactive, and would’ve combined the portraits from the solo albums to make it look like all four members are standing in front of one another. Probably would’ve been a cool album, actually. Oh well…