I've enjoyed the latest round of Star Wars sequels, and I have tickets to see RoSW this Sunday. They aren't life-changing cinema, but I'm still moved when I hear John Williams' motifs.

I really liked The Last Jedi a lot. A lot a lot.

And, yeah, John Williams goes right to my heart and probably always will.

In semi-movie related news, Baby Yoda has taken over real life.

I went to the Fathom Events rerelease of They Shall Not Grow Old last night. Very powerful and moving to see all that WWI footage and hear the voices of veterans who lived through it. It really surprised me to hear how lax recruiters were about sending teenage boys to war, and how badly some of the returning soldiers were treated by British employers. Not the picture of national unity and cooperation Dunkirk implied at all.

I wasn't as big a fan of the film restoration job as many seemed to be, however. A lot of the soldiers' faces looked eerily superimposed onto their heads. (I should not have been thinking of Vlad in cat form from What We Do in the Shadows during a war documentary!) And the colorization was a big mistake, imho. For someone who's committed some amazing visuals to film, Jackson seems to have very little awareness of when his work dips into the Uncanny Valley.

While I was watching it, Rise of Skywalker was just moderately dumb shiny fun. A full night's sleep later, I find myself becoming more and more sad/angry about it. JJ Abrams is such a goddamn coward.

As an alternate Christmas movie outing, may I suggest a CATS/Little Women double bill?

It's definitely a JJ Abrams movie. That said, I loved it. It gave me my feels.

It's definitely a JJ Abrams movie.

That it is. But I liked it. It hit all the notes I wanted it to.

I liked some, disliked some, and hated the way the fuckers sidelined Rose.

I wasn't surprised by just about anything, though.

Yep, that was about what I expected. I had fun time overall, but I LOVED both TFA and TLJ so this was a bit of a letdown. It had way too much busy work -- Like, I felt like I was on one of those bus tours that go through 7 European countries and 12 cities in 2 weeks. It would have been a better film if it was allowed to breathe once in a while.

Also what Consuela said in her white font. That and the disappointing reversal of Rey's parentage, which I knew was coming were the two things that sat most uneasily with me. And I wish I had more feels about the Leia stuff, but the left-over footage they used of her was so generic, it left me relatively unmoved.

The Trio stuff was great though -- I enjoyed that thoroughly. I've been more invested in Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's fate than most fannish friends I know, and I was more or less pleased with what we got. Also, sneaky of them to introduce the whole force healing thing on The Mandalorian just before the movie! I mean, I understand it has been in a thing in expanded universe material, but for most casual viewers, this would be the first time they encounter that ability.

My new favourite thing though, might have been the critter we met who fixed up 3PO in that planet with Keri Russell's character. Let me see, Internets tell me his name is Babu Frik. He was tiny and he had the adorable squashed cat face and his sheer enjoyment at all the goings-on made me smile.

I THINK the thing Finn was trying to tell Rey all movie was that he thought he had some force ability? You know, with "I just feel it." If that was made explicit, it would have made me feel better about the whole "the force belongs to only the ones with speeeeecial lineage" BS.

The only immutable truth is the sequel trilogy seems to be that Oscar Isaac is just indecently handsome.

Too true, Vonnie!