I'm four episodes into Disenchantment, the newest offering from Matt Groening, the man who gave the world The Simpsons and Futurama, and.... I don't really see the point of this show.

The feeling I get from watching it, is that nobody working on it really enjoys working on it. This is a paycheck to them, and nothing more. So they're putting in the minimum amount of work necessary. And as a result, the material is weak and feels forced. There's a lot of reliance on the cheap, "Ha ha, that's disgusting!" brand of comedy filler, where cringiness is used as a stand-in for humor.

There are also a ton of pop-culture references used as a "Hey, I'm making a reference! Isn't that funny!" thing, again in place of putting effort into writing any actual comedy.

Taking Futurama as an example, that show used a lot of pop culture references. But because the theme was science-fiction, they mined everything from Star Trek to Doctor Who to Star Wars to Planet Of The Apes. You name a sci-fi franchise, they fit it in somewhere. It was a love letter to sci-fi created by people who obviously knew, loved and most importantly understood the genre and all the tropes it encompassed.

Disenchantment's pop culture references all feel out of place. They aren't genre-savvy. They aren't even genre-related. They seem to all be of the "Here's something from the present day that doesn't belong in the middle ages! hilarious!" variety. There's a whole world of Fantasy and heroic adventure out there that they could be mining for references, and they just aren't.

So, to repeat myself: The feeling I get from watching it, is that nobody working on it really enjoys working on it. They either don't know the genre and it's tropes, or they just can't be bothered to care.

Also, I think a lot of what makes this show feel like a weak retread is that it's covering ground already covered by better series, and doing a worse job of it. Discworld did it better. Black Adder did it better. Star Vs The Forces Of Evil did it better. But to even invoke those names in conjunction with this show is to give it too much credit.

It feels like a stale retread. Instantly outdated, and created by people who are just putting in time until this thing blows over.

I just don't see the point.

A little something else I discovered recently - most 80's "stereo" pop recordings are actually in mono.

What I mean, is that nothing in the track is panned left or right. Everything is left dead center, with stereo sheen added through reverb.

Instead of thinking in terms of left channel and right channel, think more in terms of middle and sides. When the same sound is playing from both speakers, you get Middle. When left and right speaker are playing something different, you get Sides.

So, basically what you have are:
MID - just the mono middle
SIDES - extreme stereo separation, with no middle
TRUE STEREO - both

There's a thing called mid/side processing which takes advantage of this idea. There's a freebie plugin from Voxengo called MSED:
https://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

...which lets you isolate and hear the middle and sides of your mix respectively.

By running a bunch of 80's radio hits through it, I've come to discover that almost all of them are mono mixes, with no channel panning at all. They create a sense of stereo by running individual elements through a stereo reverb to overlay that mono signal with a light stereo wash.

There are a few notable exceptions however.

Ray Parker Jr's GHOSTBUSTERS, again to use an earlier example, has everything in mono, in the middle, with light stereo reverb applied, except for the shout of GHOSTBUSTERS! which is in true stereo.

And again, to use an earlier example, Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf uses an interesting trick: kickdrum, vocal and bass are mono center middle
the guitar is phase reversed so it plays only in the sides.
the snare drum is true stereo - I guess because this gives it extra punch

This is the video that led me to the MSED plugin:


Worth a watch if you're into this sort of thing.

This is technical music studio stuff, so if you're not into that you may want to skip it. But, since there are a few other furry musicians out there, I figured I should share this audio mixing trick I came up with.

Well, I'm probably not the first to think of it, but I got there entirely on my own and I'm a bit smug about that. So here it is:

When mixing in the past, I often found myself being overwhelmed by routing numerous instruments to individual mixer channels, with FX applied to each channel, and then trying to manhandle all those volume and fx adjustments together into a final mix. Keeping track of everything was a challenge. Trying to find that one part of the mix that didn't sound right was a challenge, because there was this sea of controls to deal with.

Here's how I tamed it...

When professional recording studios would do their final mix, whether it was The Beatles or The Cars... they would mix down onto a four-track tape deck. Two reels of tape, holding four channels total.

So... that's what I've started doing. I designate the first four channels on the mixing board to be tape tracks 1-4. I then mix into those.

There are no effects on channels 1-4. They are there only to hold the mix. If I want to put an amp sim on a guitar, I route it to its own channel, say channel twelve. Apply the amp sim there, and then route that into one of the four tape tracks.

For example, at the moment, I'm working on a track where I have these set up:

1) Drums
2) Guitar
3) Synth / Bass
4) Sound FX & Vocals

Just to give you an idea how how this all works, here's a YouTube deconstruction of The Beatles SGT PEPPER letting you hear the individual mixer tracks The Beatles used:



Rather than just having John, Paul, George and Ringo on one channel each, you can see how they scattered parts across all four channels. If something was happening on one channel, they used the blank space on the next channel. Track four on this mix is basically just a sustained crowd noise, and nothing else (which is why they don't really play that track all the way through, solo)

But by studying individual tracks of a mix, it's helped me figure out how to break my own mixes down into individual tape tracks, and do the same thing.

In the past, I had the habit of adding so many parts playing all the the same time, that some of my older mixes got badly distorted and were somewhat muddy with overdubs fighting each other. But now, by doing it this way, I can see how all the pieces fit together, I can keep an eye on the levels for an individual section of the song, and if I find myself with more parts playing at once than can be fit onto four tracks like this, then I know I'm going a bit too far and I need to dial it back: thereby keeping everything clean and balanced.

For your further education, here are the four isolated mixer tracks for Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf:
Drums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0-.....UBPM&t=29s
Guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp47-TVng90
Bass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAdAPOR8MQc
Vocals & Synth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBHcWnVG_yc

Additionally, here are the isolated individual mixer tracks from Ray Parker Jr's GHOSTBUSTERS:
Drums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7pvJ92ib1s
Bass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMopcwFS7eY
Synth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpdnpJmf9So
Guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sic.....BeJkA&list
Vocals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjNi757K2g

As you can see, there are five tracks there, not four. So Four isn't a hard limit.

But this has helped me out a lot. It organizes things in such a way that it's easier to keep track of all the individual elements of a mix. I can also mute to individual tracks of my "tape" to check that each of those is balanced and mixed together cleanly.

Cheers, all. Go forth and make music!

EDIT: Added a visual example, here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/28374975/

Hoya amigos...

It's August, and it's hot outside. Which means it's the perfect weather to hide inside where the air conditioner is, and watch YouTube videos.

So, for your enjoyment, here's list with a couple of my recent favorite channels:

HOW RIDICULOUS
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5.....79YLp_p9nfInRA

A little over 400 years ago, Galileo demonstrated the principle that all things fall at the same rate by dropping them off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Quite a bit later some enterprising folks down under in Australia decided that sounded like a bit of fun, and constructed their own leaning tower (The Leaning Tower of Gingrin) designed specifically for throwing things off of. With a 15-degree tilt, and 222 steps to the top, visitors are encouraged to drop objects from the top of it into a fenced-in sandpit.

This youtube channel is run by a group who have taken that invitation to the extreme: dropping bowling balls onto trampolines, anvils into swimming pools of oobleck. Darts, javelins, golf balls... watermellons. All from 45 meters (148 feet) in the air. Y'know... FOR SCIENCE.


TECHMOAN
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5.....W9gZPVkvzM8_Cw

Ever since the invention of invention, humans have been manufacturing a wide array of bizarre machines for the purposes of recording, storing and playing back events in the world around them. This channel looks at some of the more oddball, obscure and forgotten recording and playback devices, as well as reviewing more recently released devices. All commentary delivered by a chirpy British chappie with the semi-occasional appearance at the end of some videos, by puppets.

One of my own personal faves, as an example:
A look at The Tefifon. A vintage german "tape" player from the 50's that isn't playing what you usually think of as tape.



CAPTAIN DISILLUSION
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE.....U0P-0THehuIIeg

From somewhere beyond space, time and After Effects comes a superhero for the YouTube age. His mission: to debunk and deconstruct the strange, the paranormal and the impossible (at least when those things appear in youtube format) through the magic of visual effects. Along the way he is joined by various skeptical dignitaries including James (the amazing) Randi, BEAKMAN (of Beakman's World), and a sentient lens flare.

and finally, since this is a furry site after all:
RIMBA RACER
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_.....h-0zdvrkI0vR6w

It's from Malaysia, it's in English, It's racing, it's furry and... it's actually pretty damned good. It's also well into it's second season, and all the episodes are free on youtube.

So... if you haven't already heard about it and checked it out, there's a lot for you to see here.

And it has a story arc, so start with the first episode of season one and work your way through.

That's all for now. It's too hot to write any more.
Time for a cold drink and some youtube.

A friend of mine, who I have known for several decades now, transitioned in the recent past.

He was a guy, now she's a woman. And considering how bigoted America has become towards Trans people, she wants to get the hell out of this country. Can't say I blame her.

Me, I'd go live someplace sunny like New Zealand, where you can always get a fancy tropical drink, and some Polynesian cooking when you want it (and you're conveniently out of the blast range of most of the major superpowers). But, since she has roots in Ireland, and therefore qualified for Irish citizenship right off the bat, she's decided to head a little bit north and quite a bit more east towards that emerald isle. She's got her paperwork all in order, everything signed and ready to go.

Unfortunately, the time she took off for her surgery resulted in her being let go from her job. And that's put a financial dent in her escape plans.

So... if you are so inclined, please visit this link and donate whatever you can to help the great exodus:
https://www.gofundme.com/emergency-.....igration-costs

Every little bit helps.

For the record, I am not going with her. So, this does not benefit me. This is all about helping her.

Thanks, gang.

My new favorite thing of today is this reddit thread, where everybody suddenly realizes that they all own the same dinner plates:
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comm....._just/cz0v3bc/

Just for the record, across the room from me is one of those white corner china cabinets stocked with plates with little tiny green flowers all around the edges.

No, Not Darkwing Duck. That's old news.

For those of you who don't like spoilers, you may want to go watch the episode first, so I'm not ruining the surprise.

For those of you who just want to know what's up, read on..
***SPOILER SPACE===
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Okay, it's the Gummi Bears. They are never mentioned by name, but Dunwyn Castle gets a shout-out, the bears are clearly shown in silhouette as drawings on a parchment, the lyrics of the opening theme song are quoted in dialogue, and the episode story revolves around a supervillain, with an island covered in berry bushes, creating a batch of Gummiberry Juice, complete with a recitation of the formula. Though oddly enough, they leave out the most important step in the entire process (superfans will know that of which I speak) - and it appears that the bouncy qualities of the Juice don't only work on Gummi Bears in this version of reality.

And the episode ends with Webby absconding with a bottle of the juice, hinting that this story may not be entirely over.

I'm looking forward to seeing where they take this. It does raise the question of what happened to all the humans, though.

Could we be looking at a post-series tale where the Gummi Bears eventually fled to another dimension?

Time will tell, I guess.

I've been working on a care bears related commission for someone, and during the process, I decided that I needed a refresher course in how to draw them. So I started poking through Nelvana episodes with the sound off, since I tended to be stopping, starting, and jumping around from episode to episode looking for reference frames, while I had my own music playing in the background.

Anyway, I left the video rolling while I fiddled with my drawing, and when I looked up one of the bears was doing this:
https://gfycat.com/BrokenAggravatingEft

Been visiting my brother in CA, as some of you folks know.

One of the things that developed while I was here, is that my ten year old nephew has turned into quite the little con artist. He and a group of his friends play a videogame called Fortnight, where they routinely scam the other players with a carefully practiced bit of grift.

They select a target, and all congregate around this target, while pretending not to know each other. They also each slip into a character. My little nephew’s character seems to be “the little kid who has never played this before, golly gee”

They then begin trading weapons and items among each other, and in so doing, attempt to rope their target into doing the same, along with them. It then evolves into a peer pressure thing, where the target is goaded into making poor trades, while being convinced that he’s not just making good trades, but is taking advantage of the little noob who has never traded before and needs to have his hand held along the way.

He also uses this character to seek out folks who are eager to help a new player by dropping free gear onto him as a welcome gift.

And of course, after the target is out of view, they divide up the spoils of their con game.

My brother and his wife both seem to find this behavior more humorous than anything.

Howdy folks. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm going to be flying out to California in a few days to attend my nephew's graduation, and I've just been informed by my parents that I'm expected to give him a congratulatory card with $100 in it.

Unfortunately, I'm running a little short. So I'm opening up ONE commission slot:

$50 slot: that's two characters, color, with a simple background.

Payment required in advance, via paypal.

If you're interested, send me a note.

First one to jump on it gets it.

update:  ruathan got it!
To those of you who missed it, sorry. maybe next time!

I should be in bed, but I can't stop watching this. It's mesmerizing:

First part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEcLitBiGhY

Live Now:

https://www.battleforthenet.com/redalert/

Ok peeps, you know what to do: hit this link and USE it.

Don't let the Internet become just another cable TV system owned by the kind of creeps that run Comcast.

Recently, my first and longest-running patron,  rnixon wrote to me asking for permission to task a few other artists with the job of drawing their version of a Foozle. I readily agreed, because the world needs more Foozles. Lots more Foozles. Bring on the Foozles!

Well, the first couple have arrived, and here they are:

 drakefenwick gives us a peek at the daily grind of a Foozle on duty as member of Boink Guard, in his own inimitable style. Not sure what she's there to collect, but I suspect that tiny little vial isn't going to be big enough for the job.
www.furaffinity.net/view/27241548/

 joerandel has always been good at getting the feel of character design. His Disney art is always incredibly on-model. So, it's interesting to see his interpretation of my own style. It's like having Rule 34 status. Plus it's cute as a button. A pink, naked button.
www.furaffinity.net/view/27246887/

Anyway... enjoy!

Placeholder. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Don't lick that, you don't know where it's been.

Seriously folks, SPOILERS! If you haven't seen the film yet, DO NOT READ THIS.

Put it down, walk away. Grab a cold one and watch some Netflix. You do not want to be here, and you do not want to read any further.

In fact, after I finish writing this, I'm going to create basically a "buffer" journal, just so this isn't sitting on my main page as a sort of spoiler landmine for the unwary.

Last chance to bail.
............................

Okay... So, everyone who hasn't seen the film, I hope like hell you're gone now. The rest of you....

Let's talk about that ending.

My initial reaction was "Huh? WTF?"
That's how you're gonna end it, seriously?

I guess my big problem was, I went into this film expecting it to be the big final payoff of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, The endgame they had been building to across the entire franchise, and it sorta was... but, it also sorta wasn't. Because it ends on the mother of all cliffhangers.

I feel a little bit cheated by that. That the post-credit sequence is just a setup for the next film is also sorta expected, but I went into this expecting the story to actually go someplace, and it only went about halfway there. It's only half a movie. I paid for a whole movie, and I got about half.

And this comes back to a complaint I've leveled in the past - modern movies are so hellbent on creating a multi-film franchise, that you stand a good chance of not actually getting a whole story anymore when you go to see one. Every film basically just becomes an extended trailer for the next one.

So... now the wait begins, for Captain Marvel, March 2019, Followed by Untitled Avengers Movie, May 2019.

It would have been nice if they'd put a PART I on it. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I know - it might ruin the big shock ending, but that big shock ending has actually made me start to miss numbers on movie sequels. At least that way you know.....

(the remainder of this review will be posted next year. Stay Tuned, True Believers)

It's April 16. I'm 48.
...and yet I'm still amazed they let me in Liquor stores.

Three years ago, in this journal:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7115415/

I opined:
there will come a day when artificial intelligence, CGI, and voice-print mapping have all matured to a point, that you can plug any TV show into a scanner program, that will then go through all the provided episodes, and work out who the characters are, what their personalities are, how they look, how they sound, how they react in any given situation, what the typical plot-line structure is, and what the standard style of content is for the show, what the incidental music is likely to sound like, and it will then generate entirely new episodes on the fly.

Well, we're not quite there yet, but we're one step closer:
https://gizmodo.com/this-ai-can-aut.....rto-1825236308

"This AI Can Automatically Animate New Flintstones Cartoons"

"Researchers have successfully trained artificial intelligence to generate new clips of the prehistoric animated series based on nothing but random text descriptions of what’s happening in a scene."

"the researchers are able to feed the AI a very specific description of a scene, and it outputs a short clip featuring the characters, props, and locations specified—most of the time."

So, am I officially a futurist now?

Okay.... I have just sat through the first episode of the new Lost In Space from Netflix. My overall impression is... it's not horrible, but Lord it isn't good.

The first thing that goes wrong is, they've tried to be clever rather than smart - so they went with a non-linear plot structure. That's a cheap gimmick, even when it's done well, and it isn't being done well here. All the exposition that we should be receiving is in those scenes which have been ripped out of place and fed back to us in the wrong order, so I often sat there feeling completely lost, because they were deliberately hiding the things that I, as an audience member, needed to know to even understand what was going on. The end result is a mish-mash of jumbled scenes that feel like someone in the editing bay got drunk and just threw random footage together in whatever order the clips were easiest to reach.

I actually had to stop the damned thing, twice, just to check and make sure I hadn't started with the wrong episode by mistake. That's how jarringly bad the scene construction is here.

Someone desperately needs to edit this back into the right order.

Important tip for any future directors out there: It's really hard to care if a character is in danger, when the scenes that introduce that character and let you get to know them to a point that you would even give a fuck what happens to them come AFTER you show them in danger.

Who is this person, and why should I care? What is the point of any of this? Stop tap dancing and just tell me the goddamned story, you asshole! You're not being clever, you're just being a dick! Hiding information that the audience needs to have, just so you can whip it out later and go "Ha! Bet you wish you'd known THIS!" is a dick move. Mark that down. Memorize it. Don't be a dick.

The next thing to go wrong is the science, which isn't just bad, it's A third grader wouldn't make this mistake bad.

Yes, I realize it's probably expecting a lot from Lost In Space, but this isn't supposed to be the cheap and cheerful goofiness of the original. It's doing it's best not to look or feel cheesy, so getting the science this wrong isn't just bad, it's cringe-inducing.

The ship crashes into an arctic wilderness of endless blowing snow and ice, and promptly breaks through the ice into deep water, and sinks.

The crew remove their helmets and walk around in this frigid environment, with fully exposed faces. That's exposed skin, with no concerns about frostbite. And just in case you thought well, maybe it isn't that cold - they have the deep water that the ship sank into freeze into rock-solid and iron-hard ice, in just under thirty seconds - but only after a crew member goes down into it so she can conveniently get trapped down there.

They then get the idea of burning her out of it with magnesium, which means they melt a nice deep hole into the ice trying to dig down to her. And that's when it starts pouring rain. Yes, rain. It's pouring fucking rain. So the hole fills up with water. And somehow, while it's warm enough for fucking rain, it's also still so far below freezing that the water filling up the hole they've just dug freezes solid instantly.

Whoever was the science consultant on this needs to be beaten unconscious with a physicist.

This is completely aside from the arctic wasteland that stretches to infinity in all directions being conveniently right next to a rain forest. I'm tempted to let that one slide for now, because I seem to recall something vaguely similar in that feature film version from many years back. I suppose I'll have to keep watching to see if this is an intentional rip-off from the film, or just another Whoops! Science! moment.

...and as the episode closes we finally get to meet Dr. Smith, who isn't a Doctor or named Smith. She's an escaped mental patient, who stole the jacket belonging to a real Doctor named Smith on the big mothership. This might not be such a problem if the story hadn't taken such great pains to make it clear that the only people going on this trip into space had to pass through a battery of easily flunked testing, just to go in the first place.

Yes, Dr. Smith is a woman. They went for the sex change, because why not? It's the trendy thing to do now. It used to be "Let's take a famously white character and make them black!" but this week it's "Let's make that guy a woman!" because lord knows, that hasn't been done to death already.

What really makes all this so deeply annoying, is that there's a glimmering of a really good show here. It just needs to get the hell out of it's own way, stop being gimmicky, and just tell the story!

This could have been brilliant. At best it's a broken mess. At least the first episode is.

Let's see if it gets any better from here on out.

Update: Episode two got a bit better, but I see a recurring theme. Nothing makes a noise until the plot requires it. In episode one, Will gets snuck up on by a forest fire that is completely silent until the very last second. In the second episode, a massive raging storm complete with thunder, lightning, and hurricane force winds remains completely silent until it's right there, and pelting the cast with hurled stones.

This show didn't just flunk physics, it thinks it's spelled with an F.

Okay so... I'm starting to get a bit paranoid about Sunday.

Here's why:

1) It's Easter. A National holiday, and a family get-together is scheduled.
2) It's also april fool's day. A holiday about cruel ironic pranksterism.
3) There is currently a rift in my family, over (if you can believe this) the superbowl. A stupid argument about a stupid reason, but sure to cause infighting and heated arguments.
4) We have a houseguest. An old family friend is staying with us after recovering from surgery.
5) A Chinese satellite is scheduled to fall out of orbit on Sunday, and our house is in one of the "sweet spots" where it might hit.

Basically, what I'm seeing here is that I'm about to walk right into the middle of a 70's disaster film.

All the characters are in their places. The stage is set.

Cue the satellite.

Oh, and of course, the President is being played by a former TV show host.

I think I may spend the day under my bed, just in case.

...in my own personal headcanon:

* The Jungle Book is the softcore porn film upon which Shere Khan's personal fortune was built: He made it, and used it's sale to finance the growth of Khan Industries from a small airplane manufacturer into a global transportation conglomerate.

* The original working title for the film was The Bare Necessities.

* Baloo appeared in it to secure the purchase of The Sea Duck (from Khan)

* Louie appeared in it, provided his island as the filming location, and rounded up the native monkeys to act as extras. He used the money from all this to build and open his bar.

* Khan incorrectly believes he has bought back and locked away every copy of the film.

* Baloo and Louie both have a copy tucked away:

-Louie keeps his locked away in his safe, just in case.

-Baloo's is in a box of assorted junk in a cabinet someplace, in a can with the wrong label on it.

Some two years ago, I reviewed season one of this show, and having looked back at that review:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7195509/

... I found it tedious and over-directed. I did eventually stick it out through that whole first season, but that was primarily due to the strength of David Tennant's portrayal of the baddie, Killgrave. He basically made that season work. He was the entire show.

Now, here we are again. A new season, but this time without the only thing that made the series work. And the result is... well it's not good.

The real tragedy here is that this season actually started off pretty decently. It's almost the mirror image of the first, which started off badly but got better. In the first episode, we see Jessica talking to a number of potential new clients - one of these, an overweight ginger man who called himself "whizzer" claimed to be a speedster, who was being perused by sinister forces. It looked like he was going to be a nicely comic foil for the painfully serious Jessica but... they kill him off almost instantly. And that's basically where the show falls apart.

Everything that follows is long winded, tedious, and boring. wadded with endless scenes of padding, including inappropriate sex scenes that seem intent on filling up screen time, and act as speed bumps for what little plot there actually is. As for that plot, it's little more than a morbid, depressing soap opera that really has no idea what the point of itself even is, and seems driven by the plot convenience of characters acting like idiots just so that bad things can happen in the right order.

In the first season we saw how Jessica was a normal little girl until she was in a car accident where her entire family died. After which she got superpowers, got adopted by a horrible showbiz family with a shrewish drunkard mother, and consequently grew up maladjusted.

In this season we find out that's all a lie. Jessica's real mother actually survived the car accident and.. she's the bad guy this season. Or she isn't. She's a villain. She's a hero. She's a victim. She's a monster. She's a tragic figure. She's...and on and on and on. Calling this wishy-washy twaddle is unfair to wishy-washy twaddle, which is at least entertaining enough to have a funny name.

An utterly unfocused mess of a show, that tries to go in every direction and manages to go nowhere. I am down to the final couple episodes, and I am basically just hatewatching it at this point, in order to get it over with and out of my life forever.

I know that Iron Fist took a lot of heat when it was released, but compared to this mopey, self-indulgent waste of film, Iron Fist was a tour de force of brilliance.

If they intend to do a season three, they should fire everyone involved with this one first.

EDIT: Figures, right after I write all that, and three episodes from the end, they finally have Kilgrave show up a couple times, as a hallucination. Still.. literally too little, too late.

I've just seen The Last Jedi, and while I realize that the entire internet has already weighed in upon it, I feel the need to express my own take as well.

So here goes.

THE LAST JEDI is not a bad film. After hearing about the uproar over it, I was prepared for one of the worst cinematic experiences of my life, and... I didn't get it. I have seen far worse in my time.

It's well made. It's well acted. I can see what the Director was thinking. I can see where he was going with it. The problem is he was headed in the wrong direction and using the wrong tools to tell the wrong story to the wrong audience.

STAR WARS was built upon nostalgia. It exists as a tribute to the old black and white adventure serials of the 1940's. Heroes to cheer. Villains to boo. "How will they get out of this one?" escapes. Thrills, chillls and edge of your seat excitement. A rollercoaster of entertainment.

So, when the name STAR WARS is stamped onto a movie, that movie comes with a built-in set of expectations. We are here to see this film, because we expect something specific from it. THE LAST JEDI not only fails to cater to those expectations, but it takes great pains to get in the audience's face and sneer "You're not getting that."

It is generally a bad idea to take a franchise that only exists because of nostalgia, and write a film whose central theme is Nostalgia Is stupid, and you're an idiot for caring about it.

Because of this poor directional choice, after the opening titles and crawl, what follows is a two and a half hour slog through a tedious morass of "This is not what I paid for."

Good guys who might be bad guys. Bad guys who might be good guys. It's hard to cheer for any of this. That this back and forth wishy-washy twaddle plays out over what amounts to a parody of the far superior Vader/Luke climax from Return of The Jedi doesn't help at all.

In much the same way that The Force Awakens was a traced copy of the original 70's Star Wars, with it's Parody Vader, and it's Deathier Star. LAST JEDI cribs liberally from both Empire and ROTJ, giving us elements of both, patched together but pasted over a framework of generic action film. The 40's pulp thrills are gone, replaced by generic off-the rack action movie cliches such as silent explosions over slow motion footage. That the package for all this is too damned long and too damned slow just provides a greater opportunity for these flaws to scrape against a nerve.

THE LAST JEDI's biggest crime is that it isn't what a STAR WARS movie is supposed to be.

It's the wrong movie.

....and I'm starting to wonder if Disney will ever get this right.

This is a story about a metaverse in crisis.

We are first introduced to a boring gray man with a boring gray job, working in the boring gray computer department of a boring gray corporation. Overlooked, unimportant, a nobody. He spends his days doing a job that even he doesn't understand, tucked away in the depths of a great corporate building.

Next we meet a young girl who lives aboard the crumbling remains of a space station, whose windows are all overgrown with fungus so that nobody has been able to see outside through them for decades. She and her family live a simple life among technology that no longer really works, getting by day by day in their tiny microcosm of futuristic hallways, hung with plantlife.

We catch glimpses of a large-headed, antlike alien drone living in a alien ant-like society where everyone works to support their colony, living without thought for individuality, keeping their world going through sheer toil and service.

And finally we come to a world where KITT from Knight Rider, now installed in an updated, ultramodern black sportscar, is breaking in a new partner and preparing to go out on the road again to solve crimes. But as the two practice their tactics together atop a parking garage in an attempt to get used to each other, a catastrophe occurs. Something akin to a nuclear war devastates the landscape.

....and as all these characters claw their way out of the ashes of their respective worlds, we the audience slowly come to realize that these worlds have now, somehow merged. What's left is a blasted landscape made from elements of each world. And as a sinister army of faceless governmental shock troops roll through the ashes atop large, gray-painted dump trucks and begin setting up barricades, and arresting and dragging away any survivors they come across, these characters cross paths with each other.

...and realize they have to do something.

I have no idea what this story is called. It's just something that my brain wrote for me, as I took a nap a little while ago.
Unfortunately, I only got the pilot episode.

I don't watch a whole lot of Anime, so I tend to be one of the last people to find out when a new one comes along that's worthwhile.

As such, this may be old news, but just in case you're like me and have never heard of it before, here's a furry anime series I've just discovered that is well worth checking out:

Shirokuma Cafe - a furry anime series about a coffee shop run by a polar bear, with a customer base primarily made up of local zoo animals. It's cute without being cutesy, and it's also largely inoffensive so it makes for something good to chill out in front of at mealtime.

Here's the wikipedia page about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirokuma_Cafe

...and you can watch the whole thing, fully subtitled, here:
https://www18.soul-anime.us/anime/shirokuma-cafe/

Cheers!

I have to admit, that when I went to see Paddington 2, I wasn't anticipating that among all the family-friendly hijinks and tomfoolery, I would suddenly be treated to a scene where the bear strips nude in public, soaps himself up with sudsy lather, and then starts rubbing himself at someone through a window.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

....and you probably thought it's massive popularity with audiences was due to the story being so good.