Memories of Barb.

As do many people in the digital age, my girlfriend Karli likes to share the minutiae of her life with those near and dear to her - perhaps overshare in some cases. As an example, recently she's been struggling with a serious cold that has involved a substantial amount of coughing:

 

Of course, the first thing that came to my mind was the ambiguous - and somewhat gross - final scene of Stranger Things, Netflix's unexpected success story from last year.

But, let's look at the bright side - if you're having a problem with alien slug babies, better Stranger Things than Alien.

- Sid

War Movie.

 

I think it's safe to say that Disney can consider its test case for standalone Star Wars Anthology movies to be a success: so far Rogue One has stacked up an international box office total of more than $980 million since its debut in December.

And I'm part of that near-billion dollar jackpot - in fact, like several people I know, I've actually seen it twice, although in my case it's because I act as a movie wing man for a couple of friends rather than out of fanboy enthusiasm.  However, having seen it twice, I have to confess that in some ways I found Rogue One to be less than successful as a movie experience.

I'll qualify that statement by saying that Rogue One is COMPLETELY successful as a Star Wars experience - which is not necessarily the same thing.  The franchise demands weird aliens, snarky robots, despicable villains, remote location shoots, epic space battles, heroic acts of bravery and, of course, semi-hidden references to other movies in the series.  Rogue One magnificently delivers on all of these counts in glorious widescreen 3-D Dolby™ action.

For anyone unfamiliar with Rogue One's plotline, it takes place immediately before Episode IV (and I mean immediately, apparently A New Hope starts ten minutes after the end of Rogue One) and deals with the pivotal events leading to the theft of the Death Star plans that contain the vital information regarding the battle station's hidden vulnerability.  It's a darker chapter in the saga - director Gareth Edwards wanted to make a war movie, and, as happens in wars, people die - on both sides.

In addition to being a war movie, Rogue One is also very much a geek movie, aimed at the dedicated fan and filled with references and Easter Eggs from the first Star Wars episode. However, those aspects of the film are not just pandering to the fan base.  Given the close timelines between Rogue One and A New Hope, the filmmakers were faced with the challenge of recreating the look and feel of a movie made with 40-year old technology, and, in some cases, with the need to feature actors who no longer looked the same or who had passed away since 1977.

 

For the most part, they succeed. The design and art direction of the film beautifully replicates the look of A New Hope*, and unused found footage from the climactic battle in Episode IV was digitally de-grained and added in to provide additional plot and character continuity between the two films. The digital recreations of Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia have received mixed reviews - personally, I found the simulated version of Peter Cushing to be quite good, but didn't like the recreation of Carrie Fisher, whereas most people seem to have the opposite reaction.**

However, success as a franchise entry is not the same as success as a movie. The scripting of Rogue One suffers from two main problems:  overly convenient plotting and lack of character development.

Convenience may sound like an odd accusation to levy against a script, but there are just too many places where it's obvious that a plot point was written in order to achieve a specific goal rather than a more organic and natural sequence of events advancing the story.  Rogue One is full of things like dramatically located switches, pointlessly irising hatches, meticulously timed simultaneous arrivals, convenient delays after destruction, and so on.

There are plot points that are never resolved or even mentioned again - as a relatively spoiler-free example, one of the supporting characters is Bodhi Rook, an Imperial cargo pilot who is persuaded to defect by Galen Erso, the reluctant architect of the Death Star. Rook seeks out the rebel forces on the planet Jedha, bearing a message from Erso to his old friend Saw Gerrera regarding the fatal flaw that he has engineered into the battle station.  Rook is captured by a group of Gerrera's guerillas*** and taken to their base.

The leader of the group who captured Rook lies to Gerrera regarding the circumstances of the capture, but we never find out why he's deceiving his leader.  In order to determine the truth, Gerrera subjects Rook to having his mind read by a giant squidlike monster - we are told that the process will render Rook insane, but he seems at worst confused after the process, and we never see any sort of resolution regarding the results of the scan. In fact, it's never mentioned again, nor is Bodhi's possible insanity.

This sort of failure in plotting aside, the great disappointment in Rogue One is the manner in which the characters are portrayed.  In theory, everyone in this movie has a story to tell, a story which would illustrate the nature of the conflict between Empire and Rebellion in much clearer terms than any of the other films. Jyn Erso, the protagonist and abandoned daughter of the Death Star's creator, apparently has a history of rebellion not just against the Empire but against any sort of authority.  Her partner, rebel spy Cassian Andor, has been part of the Rebellion since he was six, and has done "terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion." They are accompanied in their mission to steal the Death Star plans by K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial war droid; defector Bodhi Rook; and a pair of failed Jedi temple guardians - blind warrior-monk Chirrut Îmwe and his militant partner Baze Malbus.

There are brief moments when we see a glimpse of the emotional potential created by the characters' back stories, but for the most part we are told about these aspects of the characters rather than shown them, and that's where the film really fails. If Cassian is haunted by his actions on behalf of the Rebellion, let's see it - show us something like Martin Sheen's tortured anguish from the opening scenes of Apocalypse Now, a scene that establishes that he's suffering from remorse and guilt long before he's tasked with callously using a daughter as a tool to find and kill her father.

I wanted to see a sharper, edgier, more dangerous Jyn Erso, the rebellious angry girl who was one of Saw Gerrera's best soldiers - show us Jyn slitting Imperial throats and making a reputation, a reputation that eventually makes her a high profile liability for even Gerrera's extremist partisans. I was left wondering about the fall of the Jedi Temple on Sadhu - Chirrut and Baze seemed remarkably carefree for temple guardians who have failed in their duty and are the sole survivors.  Is Chirrut actually a Force adept, or is his battlefield walk to the relay switch a complete act of, well, blind faith?  Bad puns aside, how did Chirrut lose his eyesight?****

What act of brutality or betrayal did Bodhi Rook witness that started him on the road to leaving the Empire?  What happened to Saw Gerrera that destroyed his body and eventually reduced him to a paranoid figurehead?  (There are YouTube™ trailers indicating that a younger Gerrera will be appearing in the upcoming season of the Star Wars: Rebels animated series, presumably filling in some of those gaps, but that doesn't particularly help me with Rogue One.)

Even before Rogue One's box office success, Disney had greenlighted the second film in the Anthology series, which will feature a young Han Solo. Given that this film doesn't even have a title so far, it may not be too late to save it from the failings of Rogue One.  My message to the writer or writers of the film is this: ultimately, starships, robots, aliens and explosions are just set dressing - stories are about people.

- Sid

*  If you're a hard core fan, you'll notice that the little chain that holds the neck of Darth Vader's cloak together is missing - and his gloves don't look right.

** For me, the joke is that I found the woman who acted as the body of  Princess Leia would have been completely acceptable if they had just used her face as-is - something they had no trouble doing with Mon Mothma.

*** Try saying that quickly three times in a row.

**** There's a seven minute YouTube™ video featuring Anna Akana that offers more insight into the character of a blind Jedi than Rogue One manages to provide in two hours and 13 minutes.

Last and First Men

“I'm quite disappointed that I'm still the last man on the moon.”

Eugene Cernan

Although his passing didn't garner the same sort of attention as Neil Armstrong's death, the departure yesterday of ex-astronaut Gene Cernan at the age of 82 provides us with an odd set of bookends: the first and the last man to walk on the Moon are both dead.

Eugene Cernan was part of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1963, and flew on the Gemini 9A, Apollo 10 and Apollo 17 missions, with Apollo 17 marking humanity's last visit to the Moon. Since then, NASA has split its focus between the International Space Station and automated exploration of the Solar System: robotic rovers on Mars and various near-Earth/deep space probes such as Juno, Cassini and New Horizons.

In the background behind these activities has always been the prospect of more manned space exploration - not a return to the Moon, but a larger step, the first manned mission to Mars.

For the last eight years, the White House has strongly supported NASA as part of Obama's focus on science and technology, as well as promoting space initiatives in private industry. This support has enabled NASA to work on refining existing technologies and developing new ones to make the goal of a Mars landing possible, with target dates of early in the next decade for manned exploration of an asteroid*, and sometime in the 2030s for the trip to Mars.

Sadly, nothing lasts forever. In three days, Donald J. Trump will become the 45th president of the United States, and as with many of Mr. Trump's statements, it's difficult to determine exactly what his position on the space program is going to be.

On one hand, he has stated: "NASA has been one of the most important agencies in the United States government for most of my lifetime. It should remain so."  He has also connected space exploration with his desire to return America to greatness: "47 years ago our nation did something that NOBODY thought we could do - we were the first to put a man on the moon. It is time to be number one, again! Believe me, as President, we will once again, Make America First Again!"

Not surprisingly, he also supports the involvement of private industry in space exploration, suggesting that NASA should concentrate on "deep space activities" and allowing the private sector to work on near-Earth projects.

However, Trump has also noted that "A lot of what my administration would recommend depends on our economic state. If we are growing with all of our people employed and our military readiness back to acceptable levels, then we can take a look at the timeline for sending more people into space," and that "In the old days, it [NASA] was great. Right now, we have bigger problems, you understand that. We have to fix our potholes. We don't exactly have a lot of money."

Personally, I can see the coin falling either way.  It's easy to see Trump beginning by putting his house in order as he sees it: bringing jobs back into the US or keeping them there, working on infrastructure, developing the military, and only then turning his attention to space.  But let's be honest. Donald Trump has a more than healthy ego**, and the space program has always been an area of international prestige for the United States. I'm certain that Mr. Trump would be eager to have his name associated with an epic return to space by the USA.

But let's take this to the next logical step. Mr. Trump is also a businessman who has made a lot of money off the branding associated with his name. Combine that with his statements regarding the private sector being more involved in space, and what do we get?

Hopefully valet parking will be an option.

- Sid

P.S. A comprehensive list of Trump's comments on the space program can be found at:
http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/be-a-space-advocate/election2016/trump.html

* I'm surprised to discover that the mandate for this mission includes redirecting an asteroid to near-Earth orbit. What could possibly go wrong with that?   

**  Yes, I realize that this is probably the understatement of the century.