Dark Star (1974)

Title: Dark Star (1974)

Director: John Carpenter

Writers: John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon

Cast: Dan O’Bannon, Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm, Dre Pahich

Review:

Dark Star is fun to watch simply because it was John Carpenter’s training wheels as a director. Same as THX-1138 was for George Lucas and Sugarland Express was for Spielberg, Dark Star was John Carpenter’s student film. It evolved into a full length feature film thanks to producer Jack H. Harris, the guy who decided to put some money behind Carpenter and O’Bannon’s then unfinished student film. He decided to believe in this crazy bunch of filmmakers, he saw something there. So he financed a couple of extra scenes to expand the films running time so that it could be released theatrically. Watching films like these is a joy because it’s the equivalent of seeing baby pictures of an old friend whom you’ve known your whole life. I’ve been seeing John Carpenter films since I was a child, and watching Dark Star showed me a Carpenter who was a directorial infant, just getting started, fresh out of film school, but as future films would prove, with talent to spare.

Story concerns four guys who travel across the galaxy on their spaceship called Dark Star. Their job is to fly around the galaxy looking for unstable planets which are considered threats to future colonization. Once they find these unstable planets, their job is to blow them up with “exponential thermostellar bombs”. Unfortunately, when they are not blowing up unstable planets, they spend too much time completely bored out of their minds! So they play pranks on each other, catalog their journey on a ship’s log, stare at the universe for hours and hours and play dangerous games with the ships mascot, an alien that looks like a Killer Tomato/Beach ball. Seriously!

Essentially, this film came to be because a bunch of film school students wanted it to. You have to have a certain amount of balls in order to get this kind of film made. I mean, its no easy task to make something out of nothing and you could tell these guys had next to nothing when they were making this one! Still, these guys had the gravitas and they went ahead and made chicken salad out of chicken shit. Spacesuits were fashioned after toys, because said toys were used as miniatures for some scenes. The sets were extremely claustrophobic because some of them were made inside of closets….and the buttons on the spaceship were made out of overturned ice cube trays. Miniatures for the film were made out of re-fashioned model cars, and aliens were made out of repainted inflatable beach balls. So it’s that kind of a film where you can tell it was made on a shoestring budget. But what we can admire about this kind of film is that the guys behind it went out and did it none the less. I mean, anybody else would have said “no way, this can’t be done!” A sci-fi with no budget? But these guys had the ‘cojones’ to do it, so I salute them. Best part is that the film is actually watchable and entertaining.

The filmmakers behind this film came out of USC’s film department and at the time, the big story that came out of USC was how George Lucas had turned his student film THX-1138 into a full length feature film. This story excited the hell out of the rest of the student body in that film school, many of whom followed Lucas’s example and did the same thing. Amongst those that followed suit was John Carpenter, only difference being that Dark Star was a much smaller film than THX-1138 and it got very little exposure when it was first released on a limited amount of theaters. It was a bit misunderstood at the time, because it was marketed as a serious science fiction film, audiences werent expecting a comedy. I mean, one look at the films poster and you'd never get an idea that it was a comedy! But like all films of merit, Dark Star eventually found its audience and well, here we are still talking about it after all these years.

Can you spot the cup cake mold?

I’ll be honest, Dark Star is not the most exciting film ever made, but I guess that was the whole point. This movie is about as laid back as its main characters are laid back. This isn’t a movie about interstellar wars, with battalions of spaceships and big budget special effects. Nope, this film is the complete opposite, it’s so low key. It’s a movie about four bored guys flying through space. Four working class heroes, bored with their lives, bored with their jobs, with nothing better to do then talk amongst themselves, philosophizing, asking the big questions. You could say the film flies by without a heck of a lot happening except these four guys just passing the time. One look at these guys and you can tell that the actors (including Dan O’Bannon himself) were a bunch of hippies in real life; the kind that would rather just sit back and smoke a fat one, if you know what I mean. Carpenter himself would have fit in nicely in this crew of misfits characters had he decided to act on the film. Back then, he looked like a hippy himself. Actually he still looks like one if you ask me. Hurray for eternal hippies man! Hurray!

Excitement comes along when the ships alien mascot/killer tomato decides to take one of the crew members for a ride, hiding in the spaceship, playing games. It has been said that those scenes with the alien tomato mascot were the inspiration for Alien, which O’Bannon was responsible for writing, so that makes sense. The other exciting moment in Dark Star comes when one of the bombs that the guys use to blow up planets called ‘Bomb #20’ (wow these guys have blown up 19 planets before this one!!?) gets jammed and wont drop. Problem is that since the Bomb is essentially a thinking computer, it decides that it has to follow orders and blow up anyway, even though it’s still attached to the ship! How hippy is this movie? I’ll tell you how hippy: one of the crew members decides to philosophize his way out of this tight jam by convincing the computer about the existence of the universe. Ha! So this is a film made by true blue hippies, for true blue hippies. In fact, some have gone as far as calling this one “the last great hippy film”. Another trippy element that the film has is that it was inspired by 2001 (1969), obviously Carpenter and O'Bannon were huge Kubrick fans. There are a lot of elements here that come straight out of Kubricks film, like for example the use of classical music, trippy space traveling visuals and the use of an intelligent computer that turns on its crew members. The film also has elements from a couple of sci-fi novels, these guys obviosly loved Phillip K. Dick. So essentially, Carpenter and O'Bannon payed homage with this movie to everything they loved about science fiction, but in a funny, ireverrent way. This movie was fun times, and it goes to show just how much film is an illusion. If Carpenter and O’Bannon took a closet, a couple of ice trays, toys, car models and cup cake molds and made a science fiction film out of them and got said film released in theaters, what’s to stop you from achieving your dreams? Exactly!

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5

Star Wars, What Does It All Mean?

Star Wars fever is sweeping the nation, and of course the excitement is understandable; Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) is the first sequel since Return of the Jedi (1983), that’s 30 plus years! Sure, we got Episodes I through III, but they weren’t sequels, they were prequels, telling the story of how Anakin became Darth Vader. With The Force Awakens we’re getting a true follow up to the story, we’re moving forwards not backwards. We’re seeing what happened to the Rebel Alliance after they destroyed the Death Star along with the dictator known as Emperor Palpatine. I must admit I am extremely curious as to where it’s all going. Thinking about this new film and the excitement surrounding it (trust me, now EVERYTHING is Star Wars) I inevitably go back to the first time I saw Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), because yes, I was one of those kids who grew up with these movies. I played with that first batch of Kenner Star Wars toys. I remember waiting years and years and years for a new Star Wars movie, which Lucas just didn’t want to give us. I remember seeing Jedi beneath the stars at a drive in, with Jaws 3-D (1983) playing on the screen next to it. So after all the nostalgia and years of Star Wars mythology that have passed, we have to ask ourselves, why do we love these movies so? What is so endearing about these characters? How do these movies speak to us, what do they say about society?

If we get down to the nucleus of things, Star Wars is all about the people vs. the evil government and evil governments are a worldwide phenomenon, which explains why people from all over the world embrace these films, yes my friends, Star Wars is subversive. In these films the good guys want to kill the emperor and blow up his floating castle! Stop the dictator who masquerades himself as a leader to the people. It’s no surprise that the emperor’s servants look like Nazi soldiers, they represent oppression. The choke hold that Vader performs is symbolic of the kind of choke that evil governments can have on society. So of course people are going to embrace these movies, they are about what we all want, a good guy leading things, which sadly rarely happens. I screened Star Wars (1977) the other day for an audience and they actually cheered when the death star blew up. I mean, the Death Star blowing up, Palpatine falling down to his death in Return of the Jedi (1983), these moments all symbolize one thing, the triumph of good over the forces of evil. On these movies, the good guys win and it feels so good.  But what happens after you debunk the evil government? What government comes in its place? Who will rule now? These questions are never answered which is why I’m so curious as to where The Force Awakens (2015) is going. I want to know what happens after they blow up the second Death Star, perhaps the build a third one? Obviously The Empire isn’t entirely gone, so more than likely The Force Awakens (2015) will be all about how evil simply changes its name and the farce that leads to oppression begins anew.

These films are also a coming of age story. When we first meet Luke he is just a teenager looking to follow his dreams. He is anxious to go see the world, anxious to live his life. Luke has that anxiety one has at a very young age, when you know you’re whole life lays ahead of you and it’s just getting started. He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows something’s going to happen! And same as all of us, Luke has to choose between the light and the dark, which is why I love The Empire Strikes Back (1980) so much. That whole sequence that takes place in the swampy surface of Dagobah, with Yoda giving Luke the fast forward version of Jedi training is one of the most pivotal moments in the whole series. Like Luke, we all have mentors in our lives; we just have to learn to listen to them. Yoda is wise in his ways, he warns Luke about the dangers of being “seduced by the dark side of the force”,  which of course is something we can all identify with, that’s a danger that is out there, the dark path. It’s a choice we all have; we can choose to bring goodness into this world, help our fellow man, but we can also choose to be tools of evil. This isn’t just some silly movie logic, its real life advice that young people can apply in their lives during those formative years. As Luke learns in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), evil is sometimes so close to us that it could be our own freaking parents, sometimes it flows through our DNA. We have to be ready to shun it from our lives and move forward in search of our own particular destiny.

As for the films as pure entertainment and visual candy, there’s no denying their awesomeness. I watched the three of them back to back to back recently and had a chance to absorb the whole trilogy once again. The first one is the introduction, and it has a lot of gaping holes in logic that we can see only now, after years and years of being exposed to the Star Wars mythology. Like for example, if Luke is just a farm boy, how come he immediately knows how to fly an X-Wing? He’s never even set foot in one and they give him a whole ship! That’s like giving me a freaking F-14. I’d crash it in less than 12 parsecs. But not Luke, he drives it as if he’s driven one his whole life! Out of the blue he knows all about attack formations and whatnot. Obi One’s lightsaber “duel” with Darth Vader pales in comparison to the kind of lightsaber battles we see today, but what the hell, back in ’77, nobody had seen a freaking lightsaber duel, hell, the mere sight of a lightsaber was amazing! But watching these movies with a good dose of suspension of disbelief is necessary, more so on science fiction films like this one.

I have to agree that in terms of direction and tone, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is the best one. Its dark, it’s dramatic and not childish at all, which of course is something that Return of the Jedi (1983) is a bit guilty of, catering to the kiddies. But wow, that showdown between Luke and Vader on Cloud City is the stuff of legends! The battle of the gods! Han Solo gets frozen, the Empire is alive and kicking and Luke gets his hand cut off! I mean, they really wanted to make us feel unease with The Empire Strikes Back. Then we have Return of the Jedi, which used to be my favorite, but upon this recent watching realized that the whole Ewok village segment just slows the movie down to a big fat crawl. Sure the Ewoks are cute and all and true, there are a lot of revelations involved in these scenes, but it just brings the pacing of the film to a standstill, something that doesn’t happen as often in the other movies. The good thing about Jedi is that it has its many amazing moments and when it’s on, it’s on! That speeder bike chase sequence! The final epic space battle! And again, when Luke and Vader duke it out, it’s a show stopper! My favorite moments are those in which Luke is being tempted by the greatest evil of all, Emperor Palpatine himself, well, those are really intense moments. Luke is really put through the ultimate test. Will he break?  Emperor Palpatine made an amazing villain. Sure he only sits on the throne, but man you can feel the evil power flowing through his every pore. You feel like Luke just might turn, you feel the conflict within him for sure. One thing is good about these Star Wars films, they paint a picture of ourselves, and it's not black and white. We have shades of evil that can surface if not kept in check. 

All in all, I love all three movies for different reasons. Now all J.J. Abrams has to do come next Dec 17^th (that’s when I’m seeing it!) is deliver what is commonly known in film buff parlance as “a worthy sequel”. Man, J.J. Abrams must be shaking in his storm trooper boots right about now! A legion of fans is waiting to judge his work! But honestly, I don’t think he has to worry, I think J.J. is going to knock it out of the park. He took the Star Trek franchise and made it cool, I mean, that’s no easy feat! He’s produced television shows that really entertain, like Lost and Fringe. Point is, the guy knows how to please an audience. He knows we want to be wowed, he knows we want that Star Wars magic back again, we want to feel it. Something not even Lucas himself was able to do with Episodes I through III. Plus, this film has all of Disney’s millions behind it, so we know that at least from a production value standpoint, the film should be solid. How solid? Well, they actually built real sets! I mean, that’s almost unheard of in today’s sci-fi films where the only thing that is real are the actors. See Jupiter Ascending (2015) to see what I mean, or better yet, don’t! Thank god J.J. and crew decided to go old school for The Force Awakens. I mean, those old films were made with sweat and tears, not inside of a computer. To me that’s real filmmaking. Sweat and tears. Locations, sets, props! Of course, I have my theories as to the mysteries surrounding The Force Awakens, the big question that’s lurking on everyone’s mind is will Luke turn to the dark side? I seriously doubt it. Whose kids are whose? Oh boy, I can’t wait to see the mysteries unfold. Well, that’s it for my take on the whole Star Wars craze! See you in theaters! I know you got your ticket safely hidden away in a secret envelope, to be opened only on premiere day, so until then. may the force be with you…always! 

J.J. Abraham's directs The Force Awakens (2015)

The Humanoid (1979)

The Humanoid (1979)

Director: Aldo Lado

Cast: Richard Kiel, Barbara Bach

I've spoken a lot on this blog about Italian rip-offs because they are just so damn entertaining. More so if you've seen the films they are shamelessly copying from. Usually Italian rip offs don’t just copy from one film, sometimes, like in the case of 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982) they copy from various films at the same time. In the case of The Humanoid, they were ripping off only one film in particular and that was George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). Now, ripping off a film like Star Wars isn’t easy because it immediately involves a higher budget due to the fact that it’s a science fiction film. Problem is that Italian Cinema isn't exactly known for big Hollywood sized budgets, in fact they are known for the complete opposite. But the prospect of making some money off of Star Wars was too great to pass up and so the Italians did not one, but many Star Wars rip offs! The first one is one of my favorite Italian rip offs ever, the inimitable Starcrash (1978). A film that was meant to be a Star Wars rip-off, but ended up being a homage to Barbarella (1968) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Now if you haven’t seen Starcrash and love b-movies, do yourselves a favor and check it out. I promise you’ll laugh your ass off while being completely entertained at the same time. Following Starcrash was The Humanoid (1979) which by the way had a slightly higher budget than Starcrash. Did more money translate into a decent film? For the longest time I’d been dying to see this Star Wars rip off, so, how was it?

The story goes something like this. A villain known as ‘Lord Graal’ enlists in the help of an evil scientist to create a chemical that can turn everyone it comes in contact with into a brainless zombie willing to obey his every whim. Lord Graal intends to release this chemical on the population of Planet  Metropolis, hoping in this way to create an unbeatable automaton army, you know, kind of like the clone army from the Star Wars films. But first they try the toxic on a random individual which ends up being a pilot named Golob. Golob ends up becoming the titular Humanoid. At the same time, the people of Metropolis have become aware of Lord Graals plans, so they send a soldier to stop Lord Graal. Will they succeed? Or will Lord Graal turn everyone into a mindless automaton?

Starcrash is a cool movie in my book because while most of its posters and publicity materials screamed Star Wars (just take a look at some of its posters) the film itself wasn’t such a Star Wars rip off. To me it turned into its own twisted, hilarious thing. I’m thinking producers wanted Star Wars, but Luigi Cozzi -the director- gave them a loving homage to old sci-fi/fantasy films. But The Humanoid? Here’s a real, true blue, Star Wars rip off! Oh my god! This one is Star Wars through and through! The sets, the spaceships, the situations are all Star Wars inspired, only cheaper and consequently funnier. The Humanoid cost about 7 million (3 million more that Starcrash) and you can tell because it looks slightly better produced in someways. The sets and spaceships look slightly more expensive, but never as polished as anything you'd see on Star Wars. Producers obviously spent their cash on making this one look exactly like Star Wars, but at the end of the day couldn't really match it. So what we get is a goofy version of Star Wars.

But just how Star Wars is The Humanoid? Well, let’s see…the film starts off with a scrolling text introduction, we get giant triangular spaceships flying through space. The main villain in the film is this guy who is dressed all in black. He is obviously this films Darth Vader, only he reminded me more of Dark Helmet from Spaceballs (1986), but with a Samurai Helmet? They filmed a lot of the film in a dessert that resembles Tattoine, they even have this craft that hovers a few inches off the ground just like in Star Wars. Okay, check this out, how low is this? The film’s director is a guy called Aldo Lado, but in order to make his name sound like George Lucas, they billed him as George Lewis! I mean, that’s just sleazy marketing techniques. This films version of R2-D2 is a little robotic dog called ‘Robo-Dog’ who by the ways pees yellow liquid on which the storm trooper types slip on, then he laughs at them when they fall. He also wags his antenna tail from time to time when excited! The film has some sleazy sexy stuff you’d never see in a Star Wars film, for example, this villainess has these huge breasts…and the camera stays on them for a few seconds too long, I was just cracking up. Lord Graal has a girlfriend on this one whom he wants to share the universe with, and sex as well, there’s something Darth Vader never did. They even have a Princess Leia type character entering data into a robot while saying the words “It’s our only hope”.   

The one element of originality the film has is The Humanoid itself, played by Richard Keil. When he is under the control of Lord Graal, he screams like The Hulk, breaks down doors and throws bad guys up in the air! He looks like the James Bond villain in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), because he is! This film gets really weird when it deviates from the Star Wars and goes into its own crazy territory, like this little Asian kid named Tom Tom, who has these amazing powers? He is basically like Jesus. He is also protected by these ghost like warriors, who by the way shoot glowing blue arrows! This magical kid kept reminding me of The Golden Child (1986). At one point, when he completes his mission a ghost ship comes flying and picks him up to go to who the hell knows where, because who or what this magical kid is, is never truly explained. He does say that he is “going back to Tibet”, laugh out freaking loud. But then again, many things are never explained, like the villain who sucks the life out of beautiful girls to get younger. This sub-plot goes nowhere! Why does she have to suck the life out of girls, if it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film? Whatever, who cares! Ultimately, it’s crazy elements like these that make these movies so entertaining. 

Other Italian Star Wars rip offs include: Space Odyssey (1979), War in Space (1978), Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977) and War of the Robots (1978), but I have a feeling none of them are as entertaining as either Starcrash (1978) or The Humanoid (1979), so watch those at your own risk. The Humanoid is the most blatant of all these rip offs. It has to be. I mean, you can’t get more Star Wars than this! No way! You remember that scene in Star Wars where Han Solo and Luke are on board the Millennium Falcon and they start shooting all those Tie Fighters? There’s a copy paste of those scenes on this one! It even looks like they used the same explosions! That whole scene where Leia is captured and tortured? Same thing here.   But then just when you think it’s a copy paste of Star Wars, Lord Graals hands light up and he begins to shoot blue laser beams out of them! So it’ll feel like a Star Wars rip off, but then totally not! It’s entertaining that way. Ultimately, I enjoyed Starcrash more (because its even crazier than this one) but The Humanoid is actually not that bad as far as bad movies go. It’s actually quite fun and recommend it if you ever want to turn your frown upside down.

Rating: 3 out of 5   

The Dark Half (1993)

Title: The Dark Half (1993)

Director: George Romero

Writer: George Romero (based on the novel by Stephen King)

Cast: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker

Review:

So The Dark Half is one of those George Romero movies that doesn’t get talked about much. Like Monkey Shines (1988) and Martin (1977), The Dark Half tends to get overshadowed (as most Romero films that don’t deal with zombies do) by Romero’s living dead films. But in all honesty, I think this movie deserves a whole lot more attention then it gets, simply because it’s not a film one can easily lump amongst Romero’s bad films, like Bruiser (2000) or Season of the Witch (1972) for example.

Hey, Thad just so happens to be giving a class on the films theme! What a coincidense!

The Dark Half tells the tale of Thad Beaumont, a writer who has been working under the pseudonym George Stark so that he can sell books and make a living. You see, he writes trashy violence filled novels under this name so that his real name isn’t tarnished. Kind of like the same way that Stephen King would write under the name Richard Bachman, but more on that later. So anyhow, Thad decides to kill off his pseudonym and tell the world that George Star and Thad Beaumont are one and the same. Problem is, when he does this, George Stark, basically Thad’s alter ego comes alive and starts killing off people. Everyone thinks that it’s Thad doing the killing, when in fact it is his alter ego/persona George Stark. Will Thad be able to stop Stark? Will he ever confront his dark side and win?

This film marks one of many collaborations between Stephen King and George Romero. Their first collaboration was Creepshow (1982). They worked together yet again on Creepshow 2 (1987). The Dark Half is an interesting picture because it mixes the best of both of these brilliant horror oriented masterminds. On The Dark Half, we get a lot of the themes that we can come to expect from a Stephen King novel/film. If you notice, a lot of Stephen King stories revolve around the life of a writer, in this way, King mirrors his own life in his work. Misery, Desperation and even IT all have writers in them. And in many of these stories, the writer is always confronted with the fear of someone hounding him, like in Misery (1990) for example where the writer is assaulted and kidnapped by one of his own rabid fans, forcing him to write the story she wants to see.

The film was based on the Stephen King novel of the same name

On The Dark Half, Thad Beaumont is the writer. And he writes these violent novels by using the pseudonym George Starks. In a way, Thad uses Stark and these violent novels in a cathartic manner, exorcising his inner demons, his dark violent side. The film explains we all have this dark side, the side we don’t show to everybody. Thad is also a university teacher, and on his classes he explains that a writer needs to let their super-ego, the dark secret self out when they write. A writer’s job is to set this inner persona loose and let it go wild and free. And of course this is all true. A writer does need to let go of inhibitions when he or she writes. On The Dark Half, this secret persona becomes real when Thad decides to eliminate him. So suddenly we are in a story where Thad has an evil version of himself doing all sorts of twisted and perverted deeds. Problem is, all these evil deeds are blamed on Thad.

George Stark's one evil S.O.B!

I actually enjoy it when he does something other then zombie films. I’m a fan of Monkey Shines, I love Martin. And I love The Dark Half. It stars Timothy Hutton as Thad Beaumont, and it’s a good Timothy Hutton performance. He plays a double role, the good side of Thad and his dark half, George Stark. It is said that Timothy Hutton was not easy to work with during this production, that he and George had differences. Hutton even quit the film for a few days during the middle of the film! But whatever, I say that this all translated rather well on film. Hutton seems intense and evil when he is playing Stark, who by the way has a little bit of Elvis Presley in him as well. He constantly hums Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” all through out the film, another sign that Stephen King is mirroring himself with this story. Stephen Kings affection for the King is well known. By the way, King himself says that this story is semi-autobiographical because it has to do with a story that forced him to reveal his Richard Bachman pseudonym to the world. When King wrote under the Bachman pseudonym, his novels were darker and violent, and that’s because no one knew he was Bachman as well. As a writer, he would go nuts! Until he was forced to come out to the world and say the truth: that King and Bachman were the same guy. After that, he wrote The Dark Half. I will say this about The Dark Half, it has more King then Romero in it that’s for sure. So maybe that’s what some critics mean when they say this isn’t so much a Romero film.

The film was plagued with production woes. Aside from the differences between Romero and Hutton, Orion Pictures was going bankrupt, and so the film was stuck in limbo for well over two years after completion. It didn’t really make its money back at the box office, making only 10 million vs. its 15 million budget. But I’m sure the films failure at the box office had more to do with the way it was marketed, then the film itself. I recently saw it and didn’t find many faults in it. I mean, the only negative side to the whole thing is how to explain George Stark manifesting himself in the real world. I mean, okay, Thad Beaumont had an unborn twin brother lodged inside his brain when he was a kid, but it was surgically removed. My only question for King and Romero is how do they explain a fictional character manifesting in the real world like that? How did George Stark come to be? I mean, Stark was simply a pseudonym, a name. That’s all. Stark was really Thad all along. Is Stark some sort of dark spirit? What exactly is Stark? It is never explained. But I let that go because within the fantasy of the film it works. I mean, I get the symbolisms and what the story is trying to say; it’s just that when it comes down to logic, there really isn’t any there. That’s about as negative as I can get about this movie.

Nightmares can be a bitch in a George Romero film!

This is not really a whodunit, because pretty early on we know its not Stark doing the killing, we know about Thad’s dark side pretty early on. If anything, some might think that it isn’t that fun learning the films “twist” so early in the film, but that’s just fine with me. The Dark Half isn’t a Shyamalan film, wanting to wow you with a twist ending. Romero isn’t concerned with that. This film isn’t even a gore fest like many of Romero’s zombie films, the blood letting and gore on this film is suggested and happens off-screen most of the time. No my friends, The Dark Half is more of a psychological film, a symbolic film. It asks us to deal with our dark side, confront it, and eliminate it if need be. It’s interesting that Thad decides to do this so he can protect his family from harm, in this way, revealing to us its ultimate message.

Rating: 4 out of 5

In Defense of The Last Jedi

By now it should be no surprise that The Last Jedi was an extremely polarizing film, some loved it, some hated it, me?  I thought it was an extremely satisfying film, I loved how it shook my expectations. Of course, I had expectations. We all did. I remember having movie buff conversations around each one’s theories of what was going to happen with Luke, Rey, Kylo and Snoke. Still, no matter how many theories we had, what was going to happen in the film was a mystery to us all. But boy was it fun to speculate! We should have took heed of the trailer for the film which did warn us “This is not going to go the way you think!” And that was the problem, everyone thought the film was going to go how they wanted and when it didn’t they labeled it as “bad”. The reasons people gave for hating the film weren’t truly convincing for me because they came of as either blind hatred, or simply hatred because the film didn’t make their fan predictions true. Here are some of the reasons I heard from friends and read on the internet. Do you agree with them? For those of you who haven’t seen the film yet, do not go forward, this is an article that’s FILLED WITH SPOILERS! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

The Film is Feminist

I understand what you’re saying with this, but it’s something that’s happening in cinema and in society in general. Women are finally being put in the forefront and given major roles in films and you primates out there who don’t agree are part of the problem. Since forever, women were always relegated to playing ‘damsels in distress’ in films, always holding the man’s hand as he went ahead and solved the problem. Well, not anymore. Cinema is changing and hopefully the world with it. Now women are leading the rebellion. Though when you think about it, Leia was always leading the rebellion, so Star Wars has always been fighting to put women in the forefront in a way. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. This is something I always applauded about The Force Awakens and it’s something I applaud with The Last Jedi. Women are in the leading roles, they are at the crux of the plot, they are making the big decisions, they have something to say, it is they who are saving the galaxy. They are not being “bossy” they are simply saying what they think and making things happen. If you don’t like that, it’s time you checked your ways of thinking. I have no problem with the ladies taking the spotlight, it’s about time.

The Porgs Are There for Selling Toys

From day one Star Wars went hand in hand with merchandising. It has always been part of the equation. It’s why Ewoks exist. Now I’ve never been one to hate the Ewoks, because dammit I’ve always dug them. Those murderous cute fur balls. And I’m not one to hate any of the creatures that pop up in the Star Wars universe (Jar-Jar Binks excluded). I mean, cute cuddly creatures have always been a part of Star Wars, and you can’t deny The Porgs are actually cute, so I don’t get this hate either. Plus they are part of the indigenous life forms of the Island, it actually makes sense that the island is so alive and filled with all these different lifeforms.  

The Comedy Doesn’t Fit

Again, most of the things people hate about The Last Jedi have always been part of Star Wars, take for instance the comedy in it. Some have gone as far as calling it “intrusive”, as if it didn’t belong. Others felt like The Last Jedi was closer to Spaceballs than Space opera? Hey people, wake up, there’s always been comedy in Star Wars. Remember Luke saying “I used to live here you know” and Han replying “You’re gonna die here, convenient!” Or how’s about Lei calling Han a “Nerf Herder” or Yoda acting all goofy? So what if Poe calls General Hux, Hugs? So what if Luke has funny looking nuns helping him out? So what if Chewbacca has a funny moment with the Porgs, a little comedy has always been part of the Star Wars formula. It’s never overbearing. 

   

Leia Using The Force

Leia Organa has always been strong with The Force. It’s why she hears Luke’s voice in her head when he called her while hanging from the rafters of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. It’s how she “felt” that he hadn’t died inside the Death Star when it exploded in The Return of the Jedi. So why does it create such a reaction when she finally uses it to save her life in The Last Jedi? Is it because audiences thought she looked stupid or silly floating through space? The Force has always been used by characters to float from here to there, why wouldn’t Leia use it to save her life in that particular moment? Also, for me it was a cinematic, symbolic and moving resurrection of Carrie Fisher and it became an impactful moment for me in the film.

Luke Would Never Become a Murderer

Now this point here is about interpretation. The big deal here is that Luke pulls out his sword on Kylo to kill him because he considers him too big of a threat. You have to remember, Luke only considers killing Kylo for a second, only because he’d seen Kylos future and he knew all the chaos and destruction that Kylo was going to bring to the entire galaxy, all the millions that would die under his yoke as ruler of The First Order. But Luke only considered killing Kylo, he didn’t actually do it because Luke knew Kylo might have some good left inside of him. Same as Darth Vader had some good in him left at the end of Return of the Jedi. And don’t give me the “Luke would never do that” shtick because Star Wars has always been about that inner turmoil we all go through, that battle with our inner demons and our dark side. I can feel the conflict within you, but remember, Star Wars has always been about that very thin like between the Light and the Dark.

The Casino Scene is Too Long

The Casino scene on Canto Bight is actually a very important scene in the film, in fact, it’s the one with the most social commentary. It’s the scene that’s making a statement about the society we live in. Child slavery does in fact exist in our world, and its one of those things that’s extremely wrong with our reality, yet there it is. If director Rian Johnson wants to make a comment about that and take a good chunk of the film to do it, then so be it. It’s a statement that matters. And it’s not unheard of in the Star Wars universe either, The Phantom Menace shone a light on similar subject matter by having Anakin be a slave child as well. And who’s profiting from those races? The rich scum of the earth, who sell weapons of mass destruction, to both sides. So yeah, there’s something to be said there. On top of that, it’s an amazing sequence filled with a bunch of creatures! I didn’t know where to look at with so much coolness up on the screen. It was on part with the Cantina scene going all the way back to A New Hope, so yeah, it fits right in there in Star Wars universe.  

Rose is a Weak Character

There’s something to be said with Rose as well. Aside from the fact that Disney is making a huge effort to make these films ethnically diverse by including people of all colors and nationalities in their films, Rose also fulfills the role of representing the working class. Her character (as well as Finn’s who used to mop floors on the Dark Side) show how anyone of us can make a difference and become a hero, we can all do something important with our lives if we chose to. And that’s also a statement that matters. She saves Finn from sacrificing himself unnecessarily. And it’s her dead sisters medallion (which she unselfishly gives up) that ends up saving the day at one point. So, I guess she isn’t as weak a character as you all might think.  

They Shouldn’t Have Killed Off Snoke

Star Wars is famous for killing off cool villains. Remember Darth Maul and how we all thought he was the coolest looking villain in Star Wars? Remember how we thought we’d be seeing a lot of him in future films only to see him get sliced in half in The Phantom Menace? Or how about Boba Fett dying in the Sarlacc Pit? The same can be said for the good guys. I mean, I was so freaking sorry to see Qui Gon Jinn dying in The Phantom Menace! Of course I was as shocked as the next guy when Snoke bit the bullet, but come one guys, Lucas had been playing that game since forever. Plus, I like the fact that Snokes death shook things up to the point where we have ask ourselves what the hell is The First Order going to do now? In this movie no one is safe! I loved that about it. 

The Film is Boring

Now this is just a lame ass comment. Really, a film that gives us juicy character development and has all these amazing events taking place, how can you even say this film was boring. Rey meets Luke, The First Order is on The Rebels ass, Finn almost bites it, Snoke is split in half… and that freaking battle in Snokes Throne Room, that scene is the reason they invented phrases like “worth the price of admission”. This comment about the film being “boring” seems like blind hatred to me. Moving on…

 

It Doesn’t Feel Like Star Wars (It’s Too Disney)

This isn’t true in my book for various reasons, but number one being that Disney has actually made sure that these films feel a lot like the first trilogy, like those first three films that came out. Some mentioned that some of the creatures were too Disney, namely the caretakers, the crystal doggies and the Porgs…to that I say whatever, Star Wars has always had cute little creatures. How could it not feel like Star Wars when The Last Jedi shares similarities with both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi? It has Luke and Leia. It has The Millenium Falcon, Yoda, C3-PO and R2. This is very much a Star Wars film my friends. It’s another brainless excuse to spew blind hatred.

So that’s my take on it dudes and dudettes. I think that what is going on is the film destroyed all theories and didn’t give audiences exactly what they wanted, which is what The Force Awakens did. J.J. Abram’s film gave audiences exactly what they wanted. The Last Jedi did the opposite of that and to me that’s the genius of it. J.J. Abrams is apparently going to direct the next one, so let’s see what he does with this universe left in tatters. Maybe audiences will like Episode 9 more because J.J.’s the kind of director who loves to give you guys what you want, but to me Rian Johnson made a bold and risky film and as a result ended up making one of the most talked about entries in the franchise. To me that’s something worth noting.

The risk taker, destroyer of worlds, Rian Johnson. 

When Empire Strikes Back was released, it had a similar reaction to The Last Jedi. Audiences thought it was too dark and like Last Jedi, it wasn’t immediately loved by all.  What we need to remember as audiences is that in Hollywood, the second film in a trilogy is always the one in which everything goes to hell. This is the chapter in which everything becomes complicated and sad and all our heroes are left in dire straits. This is all done so that it all resolves itself in the third and final chapter. This is George Lucas 101. This is screenwriting 101. So, don’t worry my friends, I’m sure Episode 9 will be a bit more uplifting and J. J. will be considered the savior of the Star Wars universe because his film will be the “happy ending” to this new trilogy. I also bet that like Empire Strikes Back, decades down the road, The Last Jedi will be considered by many as one of the best in the series, mark my words.