How I would Improve Star Wars Episode 8

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

Well I already wrote a fan story map for Episode 9, and I decided "might as well do Episode 8 since that's where everything fell apart." I know I said "I liked it," but I was naïve at the time (or in denial), it sucked. Since it would be to easy to just "scrap everything, start anew," I wanted to work within the confines of what I laid out in my Episode 9 rewrite and what was done in Episode 7. Basically I have to end in the same place (Rey has no master, Kylo is going to try to take over the galaxy, Snoke is dead, Rey's parents are nobodies) and start in the same place (Rey finds Luke hiding on a far off planet).

OK first off, I'm not even going to waste my time rewriting the Finn and Poe sub-plots; the ones where Finn and Rose go to the gambling planet to find a code breaker and Poe's attempt at mutiny to save the fleet in the slow moving space race, and both of those ultimately lead to nothing. Yeah, those could have been cut entirely and nothing really would have changed, it was all filler. One could argue "it lets us learn more about Finn and Poe, and introduces this new character Rose," but I don't think we learn anything new about any of them (we all know Poe is "the hot shot pilot," Finn doesn't understand the world, and no one cares about Rose). I don't even know where to start with this because I can replace it with anything and it would make just as much sense. Maybe Finn and Poe get onto a First Order ship and steal some plans, find themselves able to stop them from destroying a resistance base but that would result in them destroying another base, and they have to make a Sophie's Choice and live with the consequences. Anything not "slow space race running out of fuel, sacrifice all our ships" and "we are weapons dealers, we make money off both sides, real world commentary."

The main thing I want to look into is Luke and Rey's story. The main thing we need to answer is "why was Luke absent from the first movie?" I'm going to take an unpopular opinion, but I'm going to keep Luke as a defeated old man that ran away, and he is responsible for creating Kylo Ren. Before you click away, hear me out. Luke is the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy at the end of Episode 6 (because he's the last), and in the events between Episode 6 and Episode 7 Luke tries to start a new Jedi order and it doesn't work out as evident by there being no Jedi in Episode 7, and when the First Order is taking over the galaxy in Episode 7 Luke is absent. If Luke wasn't a defeated old man, don't you think he would be there next to his sister fighting the First Order? For what reason would Luke have to be out on some deserted planet with no way for anyone to find him while the galaxy fell to ruin if he wasn't hiding? If he was off developing some "super force technique," he would have trusted Han or Leia with that information and his whereabouts if necessary (and it certainly was necessary), but they didn't know where he is. Luke also has a history of self doubt and cockiness, it's his character flaw in Episode 4 and 5 that he must overcome in Episode 6. I don't think it is out of character for Luke to be so humiliated after a defeat to be driven into a life of solitude; plus, I am going to have him screw up SO badly that it would be hard for anyone to show their face let alone imperfect Luke Skywalker.

OK, so here's the back story for why Luke is ashamed and ran away. Between Episode 6 and 7 Luke finds some force sensitive younglings and sets out to train a new generation of Jedi, and in his first class is his nephew Ben Solo. Luke has 2 small problems that come together to form one major problem though; Luke is a gray Jedi (a good Jedi that does not let occasional use of the dark side corrupt him), and his Jedi training is incomplete and therefore doesn't know how to teach. In Episode 5 Ben Kenobi and Yoda tell Luke that his training is incomplete, and in Episode 6 Vader and Palpatine tell Luke "join us in order to complete your training." Luke is barely a Jedi Knight, and in the Prequels only masters could take on padwans. Luke is the highest ranking and most skilled Jedi now because he is the only one, but that doesn't mean his is meant to teach. Luke also engages with the dark side and does things that are against the light Jedi way. In Episode 6 he can be seen force choking the guards at Jabba's palace. The only other characters to do this are dark Jedi (and Asoka, who was trained by Darth Vader; you never see pure light Obi-Wan use it), and the lore says "this is a dark force power." Luke also abandoned his Jedi training to help his friends, because he has worldly ties to people, something that draws Jedi to the dark side (see Anakin), and no light Jedi have, but Luke has those worldly ties and therefore isn't the "pure light Jedi" that padwans would need. Gray Jedi can be good teachers (see Qui-Gon), but they must also be great Jedi masters and not barely Jedi knights. For these reasons, Luke was doomed to fail as a teacher.

Here's how it went down. Luke has set-out to start the new Jedi Order, and he finds 5 force sensitive younglings, including his nephew. Luke teaches them the ways of the force, and force ghost Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin consult him on his teaching techniques. They are quite pleased with Luke's teachings, except for the fact that he sometimes incorporates dark force in the lessons. As a gray Jedi, Luke thinks there is no bad force, just bad users, and for one to be a full Jedi one must have respectful use of the dark side. All of the padawans are shaping up to be great Jedi, all except for Ben Solo. All 3 force ghosts warn Luke that Ben is not taking away the proper information from his lessons, and that he is being seduced by the dark side. Luke calls out Obi-Wan and Yoda saying "you said the same thing about my father and I ended up being right about him still being good," and then addresses Anakin "and had they taught you a healthy understanding and respect for the dark side like Qui-Gon would have done I wouldn't have had to bring you back, I see the good in your grandson the same way that I saw the good in you, and I'm going to do for him what should have been done for you." That's the cockiness of Luke, and he's not even wrong on it; Obi-Wan and Yoda were wrong about Vader being unredeemable, and Qui-Gon could have given Anakin the proper training to be a powerful gray Jedi.

Luke ends up being wrong though, he isn't able to reign in Ben's dark tendencies, and this is when Ben find secret Palpatine apprentice Snoke. At the end of Episode 7 we don't know who Snoke is, or where he came from after the sith were wiped out at the end of Episode 6, and we need to find out the answers in this movie because Snoke is dead in Episode 9. We know that Vader was Palpatine's true apprentice in Episodes 3-6, but Palpatine is constantly surrounded by people and followers, so maybe there was a force sensitive user that he didn't officially train but let him listen in on the lessons with Darth Vader, and he "secretly" learned the ways of the dark side of the force. That, or Snoke is Darth JarJar after he drops the fool act and disfigures himself to be unrecognizable. Both are equally legitimate as far as I'm concerned and either way, Snoke and Ben are drawn to each other and Snoke promises to teach Ben the ways of the dark side. Before Snoke can teach Ben, he has to sever his ties to his Jedi teachings, by killing all of his classmates and master Luke. Ben agrees, and one night he kills all his class mates in their sleep. Ben then goes to kill Luke, but Luke pulls the old "pillow under the blanket emerge from shadows" routine, and force restrains Ben while trying to talk sense into him. Ben is to strong though, and breaks free of Luke's force restrains and charges at Luke with a light saber. Luke pulls out his light saber and blocks the strike, again telling Ben "I won't fight you, I sense the good in you, it's not too late." Ben isn't hearing any of this and cuts off Luke's legs as he draws his light saber down off Luke's light saber, and then force chokes Luke. When he thinks Luke is dead, he throws him off to the side and sets fire to the Jedi temple. Luke isn't dead though, and force levitates himself to safety.

Leia feels the disturbance at the Jedi temple when Ben starts killing his classmates and finds a dying Luke in the rubble. She takes him to get medical treatment and like his father now has mechanical legs. This is OK because we don't actually see Luke's legs at the end of Episode 7, and prosthetics are very life like in this universe so even if we did it's still plausible. As is to be expected, Luke is distraught; his 3 guides warned him about Ben, they told him he was making a grave mistake, and he did it anyway because he thought he knew better, and he drove his nephew to the dark side which resulted in the death of his other 4 students and crippling of himself. He blames himself, and doesn't know how to live with himself. Leia tries to console him, as does Han saying "kid, Ben just has that bad boy smuggler blood in him, you remember how hard it was to get me to care about people," but Luke is just too broken up. Han tells Luke about how he saw Ben going after political power and that he's the only one who can stop him, but Luke says he can't do that now because he's too weak and not used to these robotic legs, and he has to go away for a while to train himself up. Leia offers to join him since she is also strong in the force and wants to refine her abilities, but Luke said "no, I have to go alone, and can't be bothered." Luke finds the planet and does some training, but fails badly (falls over, can't lift rocks anymore, burns himself on his light saber, things like that), and just gives up because he realizes he will never be able to beat Kylo Ren.

Now that we have "why Luke was absent from Episode 7," how does that influence him with Rey in episode 8? Luke still is not going to accept his returned light saber, but instead of disrespectfully throwing it over his shoulder, he's going to drop it and sulk away. The subtle difference here is by throwing it over his shoulder, Luke is saying "I am above this, it's garbage," whereas if he just drops it he is showing his defeatist attitude saying "I can't even bring myself to hold this, I'm not worthy." Here he is too humble. Luke still doesn't want to train Rey, but it's because he doesn't think he is good enough to train another Jedi, not because he wants the Jedi to end. The conflict of "Luke refuses to train Rey" is still present and gives us something deeper than Yoda on Dagobah, but why Luke is refusing is different and is far more in line with who he is. Luke avoids Rey similarly to how he did in actual Episode 8, but he's hiding from himself and saying "I'm washed up, a has been, I can't teach you anything, you're better off figuring it out for yourself." This goes on until one night when Luke is meditating he does a similar thing that Yoda did in Episode 5, by arguing with disembodied force ghosts.

Luke: She's very persistent, just won't take no for an answer.

Yoda: Another persistent padawan, she sounds just like.

Luke: *sigh* I just don't think I can take on another apprentice after what happened last time.

Obi-Wan: If I had said the same thing, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

Luke: *sigh* I wasn't able to stop Kylo Ren when I was whole, how am I going to stop him now that I'm broken?

Anakin: Son, I lost a lot more than you did and that didn't stop me. No one is asking you to fight Kylo Ren, all you're being asked to do is train the one who can.

Luke reluctantly agrees to train Rey, but only after he warns her about how he's a terrible teacher and that he is responsible for Kylo Ren. Rey reassures him that she is not like Kylo Ren, and she will stop him but only if Luke teaches her the ways of the force. There's some training montages, but they're all unsuccessful. Luke is trying to show Rey how to stack rocks, but he can't do it himself and Rey gets frustrated. She tries to encourage him (a student teaches the teacher thing), but it isn't working. This is when we have Kylo Ren do the force talk with Rey, because that wasn't an entirely bad idea just not the best executed. Kylo can still be "conflicted and salvagable," and they both try to convince each other to join their side, and Kylo is still trying to sew doubts about Luke and the light side in Rey, just that it would be based on strength and how weak the light side is compared to the dark side, point out crippled and weak Luke as the prime example, and how even as a dark padawan he was able to overpower a light Jedi knight. When Luke finds out about these conversations, he completely gives up. "Rey, I can't train you anymore, you are going to fall to the dark side like Kylo Ren, and maybe you should because I am weak." Rey frustrated storms off and says something like "I now see the legends about the great Luke Skywalker were myths, works of fiction, I believed in you not because you were a great Jedi master, but because you were a nobody farm boy, like me, and despite that you were able to save the galaxy, but now I see I was wrong to believe in you. I'm going to stop Kylo Ren, with or without your training." As Luke watches her fly away in the Falcon, her words really sink in, and some rocks start to levitate behind him. Luke's back.

The confrontation between Rey and Snoke would be kind of similar. Here we would get more exposition and back story about how Snoke found and trained Kylo, and say "I secretly trained under the great Darth Sidious and became equal in power to him," or "I am a powerful sith lord, because meesa masterin de chaos." He offers to train Rey, and Kylo still kills him, and a better choreographed fight ensues, and Kylo still does so because he wants to rule the galaxy with Rey. This leads into what I did with Episode 9.

The "not Hoth" battle can still happen, but maybe make it "more unlike Hoth," like a desert planet. Luke can also come back for one final battle, but this time Leia's going to help (because she also has the force, but just isn't as well versed as Luke). They tag team Kylo to buy the resistance time, and when the resistance is able to get away safely and Rey reaches them to see what is happening, they are both struck down a la Ben Kenobi call back. This tears Rey up because now she is truly alone and gives her some reason for her angst in Episode 9 (there are no more Jedi masters to learn from, she knew Leia would train her but now she can't, and she recognizes that she is not ready to take on Kylo).

And this is where we end Episode 8. This leads well into my fan script for Episode 9. The only thing that would need to change is the conversation between Kylo and Vader, where Kylo says "but Uncle Luke tried to kill me." It would have to be something like this:

Kylo: but I killed master Luke, and master Leia, and master Snoke, and my classmates. I am irredeemable.

Anakin: I too killed my masters and Jedi padawans, and I was still able to return to good.

Well that was fun. I hope you enjoyed my little Star Wars fan script, and how to improve the worst main-line Star Wars movie. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

How I would Improve Star Wars Episode 9

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

So Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise of Skywalker is a terrible movie, I reviewed it here and was nicer than I should have been, because after letting it settle more I really hate it. Others have done a better job than I explaining why it's bad, but the main problem I want to talk about is "bringing back Palpatine, that'll solve everything." I know JJ was in a bind after Ryan decided to throw out all the foundation that JJ laid for him, and JJ thought Palpatine was his only choice, but I have a much better way of "gluing back together what Ryan shattered." I'll handle this point by point of what Ryan broke, what JJ thought he was doing with Palpatine, and how I would solve this.

But first, why is it bad to bring Palpatine back to life. In Episode 6 Return of the Jedi, Vader throws Palpatine down the reactor shaft, thus rejecting evil and redeeming himself to bring balance to the force. It's a major sacrifice since it costs him his life, and is the entire arc of Annikin, from fall to redemption. By bringing Palpatine back to life, it renders the events of episode 1-6 completely worthless. There have been many other people who explain it in greater detail, but this is the probably the biggest reason.

OK, so the first reason JJ brought back Palpatine is because Rey needs lineage. In episode 7 if was strongly hinted at that Rey's parents were something special, and that's why she is so naturally talented with the force, and who her parents were would be revealed in future films. Then in episode 8 it's revealed that her parents are nobodies because Ryan wanted to subvert expectations. JJ was probably going to establish them as "grand jedi that left the order" or something like that, and then that would play into her arc, but then Ryan said "nope, she's just special because anyone could be special." JJ was now stuck with "OK, I still need to make her descended from someone, and they have to be already established, and it would have to be from the prequels since a grandparent would be from that generation, guess I'll go with Palpatine since Jedi back then were celibate." Here's how I would fix this, make her a descendent of Qui-Gon Jinn. How would this be possible? Qui-Gon is a gray jedi, while he is loyal to the light side of the force, he does not subscribe to all of the teachings of the current jedi way (case in point, training Annikin even though he is too old). While it is the rules for Jedi to be celibate so they can fully commit to being a Jedi and not let emotional ties cloud their judgement (like what happened with Annikin and his mom and Padme), I can imagine Qui-Gon having a 1 night stand with someone without it corrupting his judgement. Like, if Qui-Gon saved some leader on an assignment and their custom was "when our leader is saved by a powerful worrier, we insist that said worrier mates with a woman from our tribe so that their genes would be passed on and make our society stronger, here are examples of other worrier savior descendants that had no emotional involvement from their father that helped keep us safe," and Qui-Gon saying "it is against the Jedi code to form emotional attachments to others, but my mission is to establish the future safety of this city and if this is how you deem necessary then I will assist."

Now how does this tie into the events of Episode 9? The big problem Rey has is she has no direction, and is conflicted about her lineage. Her master Luke is dead, her father figure Han is dead, Leia isn't a good teacher and is distant (because of real world complications), Rey needs guidance as to how to handle her power and no one can help. This is where Qui-Gon comes in. It's been established that dead Jedi can return as ghosts and provide guidance for those whom they have a connection with and need the guidance, and Qui-Gon can come to Rey as a ghost when she is in a fit of rage and confusion. I imagine the scene like this.

Rey is on some barren land, yelling and swinging her light saber yelling "why!!!!?? WHO AM I!!!???" or something similar.

She hears a voice "no one said the path of the Jedi would be easy"

"Who's there!?"

She turns around and there is a force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn.

"Hello Rey, my name is Qui-Gon Jinn, and I am your grandfather."

Rey: What!? But how!?

Qui-Gon: When I was on assignment many years ago, your grandmother bore my child as part of their goal to make their village stronger. That child was your father. Before I could check on your father's force sensitivity, I was killed by Darth Maul while protecting Padme Amadala, the mother of Luke and Leia. Through the force I checked on your father, but he didn't have strong force sensitivity and therefore never became a Jedi. While he may not have been strong in the force, his child was, you Rey. And that is why I am able to talk to you now."

From then on Qui-Gon helps train Rey and we see what a truly wise in force training master can do. He helps Rey understand her powers, helps her quide her mind, and teaches her what he did and gives her a lineage to be proud of. This wouldn't have the same "lengthy process" as other movies like Luke learning from Ben and Yoda, but Liam is skilled in the art of training montages. This also gives us the opportunity to learn more about Qui-Gon, a Jedi who is very complex but who is also not well understood.

OK, next reason for Palpatine coming back is because we need a supreme evil that seduces Kylo and for him to reject and have a redemption. In episode 7 we get Snoke, a sith lord who teaches Kylo the ways of the dark side, whom we haven't heard anything about until now. OK, but maybe he's someone and we'll find out who in episode 8, and then Kylo rejects him in episode 9 like Vader did Palpatine. Nope, Ryan kills off Snoke and has Kylo say "I will rule the galaxy, and I want you as my partner Rey." OK, now how is JJ going to have Kylo reject ultimate evil if the ultimate evil is already killed? "Uhhhh, Palpatine was evil and super powerful, I'll make it so he survives." Here's how I would change it, Kylo doesn't get a redemption arc, he dies evil. It's hard, I know, but bear with me. Palpatine didn't just "come into existence as the most powerful sith lord," he could have been a light Jedi, but was trained as a sith lord by his master either by choice or by force (though I think it was by choice). Count Duku was a respected Jedi master before turning to the dark side, and I get the impression he chose it after seeing the power of the dark side. Kylo Ren does not trust the Jedi after Luke tried to murder him, and he very clearly turned to the dark side by choice, and was given multiple opportunities to reject it but didn't (killed his dad, killed his Sith master but chose to stay sith, probably others I'm forgetting or weren't shown), just keep him a Sith at this point. Sure, Annikin did a lot of bad things (he kills a bunch of children), but at the end of Episode 3 you can tell he has a lot of reservations about it (he's crying in that one scene, he says "it's OK Padme, I'll kill Palpatine and we can live together in harmony, without worrying about the Jedi." He only turned to the dark side because of Padme and was distraught when he couldn't save her. Kylo went to the dark side because he wanted to, and because he thought he had to finish what Vader started. He doesn't need a redemption, just make him evil. This has the added benefit of "not being a rehash of the original trilogy" since Kylo rejecting Palpatine is the same thing Vader did in episode 6.

Making Kylo fully committed to the dark side also gives us the opportunity to REALLY have him reject good, and fix a universe hole. Kylo's whole thing is "I want to finish what my grandfather started." His grandfather is Darth Vader, Annikin Skywalker. There's a scene in Episode 9 where Han comes back as a ghost and gives Kylo one last father-son heart to heart to bring him back, and that doesn't make any sense since Han isn't a Jedi, "so maybe it was a hallucination." Here's the problem, Kylo does not respect Han, he kills him as an act of evil to make him a true Sith. Han wouldn't reach Kylo since he has no remorse for it. Kylo doesn't respect anyone because they'll just get in his way of ruling the galaxy, except for one person. As I said, Kylo idolizes his grandfather, Darth Vader. He's doing all of this "because I need to finish what Vader started." Instead of having "maybe ghost, maybe hallucination Han," have Darth Vader come to Kylo as a force ghost. Here's the scene.

Kylo is building up his forces, getting ready for the final attack on the resistance, talking to Vader's chard helmet.
"At last grandfather, I will finish what you started, the galaxy will belong to us."

James Earl Jones voice: "that is not what I wanted."

Kylo startled turns around to find force Darth Vader in his black suit that Kylo idolizes. "Grandfather?"

JEJ: I did not turn to the dark side to so that I may rule the galaxy

Vader takes off his helmet to reveal Haden Christensen Annikin: I turned to the dark side so that I could stop your grandmother from dying in childbirth, but ultimately I was the one who killed her because I turned to the dark side. I only set out on galactic conquest because it was the path of master Palpatine and he was the only family I had left. Over the years I was corrupted by the dark side and was only saved by your uncle Luke Skywalker, my son."

Kylo: But master Luke tried to kill me grandfather!

Haden: But he chose not to. You didn't narrowly escape, he decided not to kill you. He didn't know how to control your power alone and was scared. His fear lead to anger, his anger lead to hate, and now his hate has lead to suffering, your suffering. The dark side says it has the answers to your problems, but it's not.

Kylo: I?...No, you are wrong. You may not have had the vision, but I do. I will rule the galaxy and finish what you were too scared to.

Haden: Then you are lost grandson. This will not end well for you. *Fades away*

That right there is fully within the rules of the universe (fallen Jedi can come back as ghosts, and Annikin came back to at the end of episode 6), and gives Kylo some REAL conflict.

OK, big climatic fight scene, Rey now trained by Qui-Gon battles fully evil Kylo Ren. Maybe beforehand Rey wants to bring Kylo back to good, maybe at the suggestion of Luke (he did for Vader), but Annikin tells her otherwise, and Qui-Gon is unsure of what the right decision might be. Then in the fight when Rey is down, Annikin in a voice over is telling Kylo "stop, this is not what I wanted" and then maybe Palpatine as a ghost voice says "hahahaha, Vader was weak, but you are strong, you will complete what he finished." He might be a little torn, but he's definitely going for bad. Then Qui-Gon in a voice over says "Rey, you are a Jinn, quide your mind, feel don't think." Rey closes her eyes and quides her mind, and instinctually pushes Kylo off her and deals a death blow. When she comes to she realizes what she's done, but is comforted by Qui-Gon and Annikin, Annikin saying "he was too far gone, fully consumed by the dark side like my master Palpatine," and Qui-Gon saying "and my master Duku, it is never easy to kill, I always had troubles when I was forced to do it, but being able to do the hard things is the true mark of the Jedi." Maybe not exactly like that, but it would be something to comfort her.

Maybe Rey gives Kylo a Jedi cremation, and then as Kylo is burning Annikin and Qui-Gon stand behind her as ghosts, and then Luke and Leia show up next to them, and then Yoda, Alec Guinness's Ben Kenobi (or Ewan Gordon McGregor's Obi-Wan if there's a problem with Alec's likeness), Mace Windu, and Asoka, stand behind them, and then other Jedi on the counsel and in the background show up all giving Rey silent approval. You can keep the final scene of Rey burying Luke's light saber, and the lady asking her "who are you," but instead of "Rey, Rey Skywalker," just have her say "Rey Jinn." That would also fix all the "she's not really a Skywalker, she's stealing the valor," since she really is a Jinn by blood and after the training by skill.

Don't like "Rey is a Jinn and Kylo is truly evil," OK leave everything the same and make JarJar the Sith lord. "JarJar is a Sith lord" is a "respected" fan theory. I say "respected" because it has somewhat far reach, and isn't just one guy's fan fiction.

Make JarJar a sith lord, have him give some monologue about how "it was all an act, the fan theory is true, and now I'm going to finish what Palpatine was unable to complete, and Rey is somehow my granddaughter," you got something. You still have a pre-established character, one whom everyone hates and would enjoy seeing him die, and you don't have to ruin Vader's redemption by bringing Palpatine back. There would still be a lot of problems, but at that point the movie is almost satire and I think people would be able to at least laugh at it.

I know it's not a perfect plot fix, and this is honestly a first draft (because that's how I generally write blogs), but I've been thinking about this for a while and I think this makes episode 9 much better. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Reviews Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise of Skywalker

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker, the final movie in the Skywalker story, and one that has the difficult job of fixing all the damage that Last Jedi did. Yes, I know in my review of Last Jedi I called it "pretty good," but I was blinded by the uniqueness and in denial of how bad it was. No, Last Jedi was bad. Not Solo bad, but there was a lot of irreversible damage to the series that could not be repaired. There have been many people better than I who have gone in depth onto why Last Jedi is bad (MauLer, RedLetterMedia, and Robot Foot come to mind). So I'm going to get this out of the way and state the obvious, this is not a "perfect movie," because it is impossible for this to be a "perfect movie" after what Last Jedi did. I'd go so far as to say it's impossible for Episode 9 to be a "great movie" after the complete destruction of the Star Wars foundation that happened with Last Jedi. Even Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, and Quentin Tarantino working together in perfect harmony to deliver the best movie ever couldn't fully bring Rise of Skywalker beyond "well I guess this is the best that could be done given what they had to work with." So bear that in mind when I say "JJ did the best he could given what he had to work with." I'm going to keep this as spoiler free as I can, but there's only so much I can go with.

First and maybe most important, Rey was turned into an ACTUAL character and not a Marry Sue, as best she could. In Episode 8 (and to an extent Episode 7), Rey is just "naturally gifted in the force, she doesn't need to struggle and grow and is boring," (at least that's how the criticism goes, which I agree with to an extent). Now obviously Rey can't "unlearn everything and have a real Jedi training," but there was still room for growth and struggle, and JJ finds a way for Rey to have a struggle, be conflicted, stumble (literally and figuratively), and I think it works, as best it can. JJ finds an interesting way to make "Marry Sue Rey" into a flaw that she must overcome. As Dr Ian Malcolm said, "it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox and now you're selling it you want to sell it." That I think is the best way to describe Rey's short character arc without spoiling what happened specifically. JJ takes the unearned power Rey has and uses it to build a conflict.

Next, there's a far better overall conflict. While Episode 7 was "lets blow-up the death star" and Episode 8 was "slow moving resources race with some weird political commentary on the economics of war, with Rey not needing Luke's training," Episode 9 was "the First Order is on the rise, the Resistance is on their last hope, it's up to our team to save the day, for realz though." None of this "retell episode 4" or "tell a bad story just to subvert expectations" nonsense. It's really a return to "good guys good, bad guys bad, there is pure evil and there is redemption," which is welcomed because I couldn't deal with another "the bad guys are also the good guys because capitalism is profit."

Another great character building is all the "neutered" characters have returned to their greatness. Poe is respected and not told "sit down and shut up, the grown-ups are talking." Luke isn't a grouchy old hermit that just wants to die (ghost Luke was fully reformed and is the wise old man we wanted him to be). We even see some unexpected returns that REALLY add to the story and do the best they can to redeem themselves after Ryan tried to destroy them.

Now there is a bit of an elephant in the room, and that is Leia. I don't remember who said it (I think it was Midnight's Edge, but I can't find the right video), but I remember hearing "the original plan for Episode 9 was Leia would be the one to complete Rey's training, but with Carrie Fisher passing they had to craft a story around alternate shots and bloopers from previous films." Uuuuuuggghhhhhhh, yeahhhhh, with how few lines and little screen time Leia has you can tell a lot of creative editing had to be done. Again, "they did the best they could with what little they had." I remember someone saying "if they did reshoots of episode 8 to make it so Luke lives and Leia dies after Marry Poppins'ing herself out of space, they wouldn't be in the predicament they forced themselves into." And it's true, you can tell Leia was meant to have a large part in the story but they had very little to work with. I think they did a pretty decent job, I've had to change my vision for short films that didn't pan out how I wanted due to actor conflicts, and while it would have been better to reshoot some things in Episode 8 to kill Leia instead, Ryan left a smoldering pile of you know what for JJ to work with, so it's really the best that could have been done.

Now for action scenes. They were pretty good. I kept my eye on the choreography to see if there would be another "guard fighting the air" bit, and there wasn't from what I could tell. The climatic battle at the end, really entertaining. The back and forth Rey and Kylo have with fighting, really good. What I think I liked most about them is they were more "fights of will and conviction" similar to that of the lightsaber battles of the original trilogy. A lot of critics and analysts have pointed out that the lightsaber battle between Vader and Obi-wan was more taunting and a battle of the mind given weight by the lightsabers, and the same can be said for the fight between Luke and Vader in Episode 6 where more words were said than lightsaber swings. While I definitely enjoy the high energy fights of the prequels, those only really work when it's not "we have loads of character tension between us, we need to talk it out," (Darth Maul said 2 lines, he's just evil and that's all you need to know, Duku is a bad guy and there's no changing his position, Anikin and Obi-wan are young men in their prime and Anikin's rage is at it's boiling point and needs to be released physically, and everyone wants to kill each other). Rey and Kylo are all about trying to turn each other, they don't necessarily want to kill each other, so their fights (along with other fights Rey has) are more talking than fisticuffs. All the action is really good with how it does things.

There's also the overall tone of the movie. Whereas Last Jedi wanted to be "super serious" while also "lulz we're not that serious, here's some jokes," to the point where it was tonal whiplash, Rise of Skywalker had a pretty consistent tone. Yes, there were lighter moments and instances of comedy, but it never really broke the tension because it was done in such a way that it was a failed attempt at breaking the tension, which is how pretty much every other movie was (except for Episode 1, which is probably the most light hearted of the movies because it takes place before the real rise of the sith). One other thing with tone that, while consistent, still caught me off guard, was the swearing. There are like 5 instances of mild profanity (damn and hell), which wouldn't feel out of place unless you're a super fan like me that has basically memorized all the scripts of episodes 1-6 and knows the only other time even mild profanity was used was when Dex said "they're cloners, damn good ones too" in Attack of the Clones. While it's not "bad," it's just "unexpected" (this is how you "subvert expectations" properly).

Now don't get the wrong idea and think "this is all good." The main thing that comes to mind is how Kylo was handled. Throughout the movies I never really bought "he is evil, just confused." He always kind of came off as a "Prince Zuko" kind of bad guy, where "he wants to be an antagonist, but doesn't feel like he's doing it because it's his only option and doesn't REALLY want to be bad." In Avatar the Last Airbender, Zuko was bad because he's a fire bender and he needs to get the avatar to restore his honor, but it isn't fully committed to being evil. I really got that impression in Episode 7 when he threw tantrums and wore the helmet "because he wants to honor his grandfather," and it seemed like Snoke was the puppet master. Then in episode 8 the discussions between him and Rey really felt "I'm not really evil, just confused" (which was really amplified with Luke "I'm going to kill him in his sleep" Skywalker). Now in episode 9, I still can't take him seriously. I don't believe that he is the leader of the first order and he built this because of his charisma; rather he feels like a trust fund kid that wants to impress his dad but doesn't really know how. JJ kind of tries to explain that away with the new villain he introduces (after Ryan kills Snoke off for no real reason), but this is once again "the best he could do," and I can't place the blame on Ryan for this one since it goes all the way back to Episode 7.

Which brings me to the new villain. While this is a really good villain that managed to retcon the nonsense of Episode 8 killing Snoke, he comes out of nowhere and is really confusing. Like, "wait, he was the puppet master all along, and he fits into all of this without having any noticeable influence so far." I mean, maybe after rewatching episode 7 and 8 I could find some hints, maybe, but seeing that I know Ryan threw out JJ's road map for the sequel trilogy, and it's pretty clear JJ threw out Ryan's direction after episode 8, but this really came out of left field and "was the best way they could explain away the problems of episode 8." I don't necessarily "hate" this direction since it was a pretty awesome climax, but it definitely feels "unearned."

There's also the final scene. As nice of a scene it was, it feels "unearned." I won't go into why it specifically feels unearned, because that would be spoiler, but it feels more like raw fan service without actually needing to be there. It ties up a thread that wasn't actually loose, and probably should have remained untied.

Overall, I think it's worth matine price, or at least a redbox rental just to see how it concludes. It's not the best movie out there, and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to skip it. I know I did after how badly I was burned on Solo, and Last Jedi retroactively. However, it's kind of like Aquaman and Wonder Woman, where they technically are part of the Snyderverse of DC movies, but they realize the Snyderverse is trash and do the bare minimum to acknowledge that and try to exist on their own. What I really want is for the fan editors of the world to make an "Episode 8/2, The Real Jedi," where it's like 30 minutes of things that are crucial to the events of Episode 9 (and maybe some battle scenes), but remove all the "subverting expectations" and other character destroying malarkey, because I really would be happy if we could all completely forget that Last Jedi happened. Anyway, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Random end card other thought, before the movie there was a trailer for "Free Guy," a movie about a videogame NPC that decides he's going to be a hero, or something. It's a Ryan Reynolds action comedy movie that's being released under 20th Century Fox, and they said "from the same studio that brought you Beauty and the Beast remake, Aladdin remake, and Lion King remake," since those were all under the Disney brand. It looks like a funny movie.

Pokematic Reviews Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi (Spoiler Free with Warning)

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?..why Pokematic "hi."

Ahhh Star Wars, it's a franchise I'm a big fan of (see my review for Episode 1 3D,  Force Awakens Spoiler Free and Spoiler Full, The Phantom Edit, Rogue One, and Attack of the Phantom), and I was quite happy when Disney injected some much needed life into the films (though I do wish they didn't hand the games license to EA, how much longer do we need to wait this out?). Well, it's time to review Episode 8, The Last Jedi. I'll keep things spoiler free for first part, then I'll go into some spoilers in the second part.

OK, so right off the bat, I need to say this has a lot of laugh out loud moments. Like, there were at least 10 times I let out more than just a faster than average exhale, these were real "hahehehehe." Don't get the impression that this is a comedy though; this is an action movie and it has a lot of that, but it probably would have been a little too heavy if they didn't have the bits of comedy. And don't be scared, this isn't "Jar-Jar being a slap stick cartoon character" comedy, this is "3PO telling R2 to 'let the wookie win' after learning about wookie nerd rage" comedy. All the comedy is very in character and reasonable within the cinematic universe that has been crafted.

The next thing I need to say is this movie keeps you guessing and the last third or so of the movie is nothing but twists. I won't go into detail here (that's for the spoiler section), but man alive, as we're approaching the climax I was thinking "alright, time for some action with..." only to have it be the complete opposite of what I expected. Then when I was kind of catching onto what they were doing and expecting the unexpected, they went into going with the expected that threw me for an even greater loop. Wow, well crafted twists, which I'll get to in the spoilers.

The last big thing I'll mention is this movie is very polarizing among the starwars community, not in the Star Wars Episode 1, "that...didn't suck...right?..I mean it's Star Wars" denial kind of polarizing (which, for the record, is my favorite Star Wars film; if I didn't wear my fandoms on my sleeve, I would call it a guilty pleasure). It's a real debate as to if it was good or not. There are a lot of things to dislike, particularly with Luke. I'm not going to go into detail here, but it's worth warning that Luke takes a pretty dark turn in this movie, and it kind of feels like character assassination at times. It's not full character assassination (there is a reason for what he does), but it's kind of hard to come to full grips with it.

Before I get into spoilers, just a couple of technical things. The music was great as always. John Williams strikes gold again. Then there's the visuals. Recent movies have been kind of "uncanny." They still have a lot of the model designs, but it's all CGI, so my brain gets a little confused having seen the other movies so many times (and primarily on VHS might I add). But, the visuals are still good. The movie is also long, but the pacing keeps it alright.

It's a pretty good movie. Hopefully you enjoy it. If you don't want spoilers, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye. OK, now for spoilers.

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OK, the first thing first, the 2 parallel stories. There's the "Luke trains Rey" story, but there's also the "rebels vs the first order" story. I'll get to Luke and Rey later, first I need to talk about the...underwhelming? rebel vs first order conflict. It opens pretty strong, the rebels are trying to get to the outer rim where they can set-up base and regroup, and the first order is on their tail and is doing the unthinkable, tracking them through light speed. I suppose in the star wars universe that would be difficult and considered impossible, but I'll get to science anger later. Well, when a giant first order fighter ship comes out of light speed, Poe (the fighter pilot from Force Awakens that befriends Finn) sets up a bomber run on the ship, and it's very remenicent of bomber runs in war time films, where the fleet of bombers have to survive enemy attacks while approaching their target. It's very high energy and very costly in that all the bombers and most of the support X-wings are destroyed after a remaining bomber narrowly manages to drop her load on the target before being blown-up, by the force of gravity, through open bomb bay doors the pilot is in without an oxygen mask. The scene is very powerful, as we see the face of distress as each pilot is blown up, with the final bomber pilot desperately trying to get the release controller to fall to her hand while we watch her do her duty and die with tears in her eyes.

But with that in mind, I just can't help but get angry at the science. I get it, Rian was going for the "world war 2 bomber run" feel, and it works, but I just can't get past the fact THAT THEY'RE IN SPACE! There is no gravity, and no atmosphere. The pilot was in the bomb bay, with the bomb bay doors open looking down onto ship below. This universe has not established an "air trapping technology that acts as a barrier between space and atmosphere," at least not in the movies. While I've seen it in the REAL battlefront games (not the EA garbage), I've not seen it in the movies. There is a small argument to be made regarding things like the deathstar hanger, but those are large ships with the express purpose of having shipping and receiving. Seeing that I see airlocks on higher profile entry points, I'm left to assume it's rather costly technology, to the point it would be cost prohibitive to have it on bomb bay doors of a bomber. But OK, let's assume it does have that passive barrier, I mean the primitive gungans have it for underwater. This doesn't stop the gravity problem. I'll suspend my disbelief regarding artificial gravity on ships within the interior. I mean, this is the world of controlled lasers after all. However, I take problem with that artificial gravity extending beyond that of the ship all the way down to the impact point of the bombs. The bombs fell under the force of gravity, and they appeared to be accelerating at a constant rate meaning the center of the gravitational pull was at the ship. They were pretty far away, I can't believe that the artificial gravity would be able to extend that far. It just doesn't work like that. Errrrrrg, OK, that rant is over.

I do have to comment on one thing. In this big battle, Poe follows Battlefront 2 space battle tactics (the real battlefront 2, on PS2 and XBOX Classic; not EA). On a failing ship, Poe flies into the hanger of the first order ship, blows up some component of the ship, and hijacks an enemy ship. That was my favorite part of battlefront 2. I loved flying a marine into the hanger of the enemy, go to the life support system and engine room to blow it up from the inside and steal an enemy ship to hurt them with their own arsenal. Oh it was so cool to see that happen on the big screen, and hopefully they included it as an allusion to the real battlefront 2.

Back to the story, general Leia is distraught, because these weren't pawn, they were people, with loved ones, and while they took out a major first order destroyer, the cost was too high. She scolds and demotes Poe, shortly after having the command deck of her ship get blown up by the first order that tracked them out of light speed, with everyone dying in the empty vacuum of space, with her surviving only through her force power. See, real science that's defied within the logic of the universe through the magic of the force. This puts her in a coma and she is replaced by her second in command, which causes tension between flyboy Poe and by the numbers general. I gotta say, the conflict is pretty good as Poe wants to take the big risks with high reward potential, whereas the general wants to play it safe. This is increasingly complex because the rebels are running low on fuel and can't outrun the first order. However, they can keep out of range if they just stay far enough away, with the big plan to buy time until they come up with a better plan. Time is of the essence, because they can't stay out of range forever. It's a race against the clock, a simple conflict with high stakes as we see ship by ship run out of fuel and fall back to the first order's fire with their only hope to send all the crew to a ship that's further upstream. We even see the captains stay behind and go down with the ships that will add more weight later.

OK, last science nit pick, then I'm done. During this conflict, when the ships run out of fuel, they decelerate and behave like a ship running out of fuel on the open sea (turning, twisting, rocking with the current, and slow down). Again, vacuum of space without gravity. One efficiency of space travel is that one only has to expend fuel to get up to speed and/or change direction; but once a course is set, one only has to coast at a constant speed because there is no drag and natural forces acting against you requiring you to keep expending energy to maintain propulsion. You could make the argument that the ships are using fuel to maintain a constant rate of acceleration and that's how the first order catches up because the rebel ships are now moving at a constant speed (and with no real points of reference in space, the camera could be moving at the same rate of acceleration as the ships giving the illusion of slowing down), but the ships don't maintain their direction as the first order catches up to them, they twist and turn as they run out of fuel suggesting an external force acting on them. It just makes the science nerd in me scream. OK, that's it for the science rants.

OK, enough rebels for now, time to talk about Luke and Rey. This is where most of the controversy within the community stems from. As was hinted in episode 7, Luke doesn't want to be found, but on the final shot, Mark Hamill has some "hope" in his eyes as Rey hands him his old light saber. Here though, when Rey hands him it, he throws it away (which was handled quite funny), because he's done with the Jedi and wants to see it end. We know Luke feels guilty about Kylo, and Rey knows it too. Her goal is to convince him to train her as she can stop him. This is a very interesting and layered problem. Obviously, there's the whole "Rey wants to learn, but Luke doesn't want to teach her" bit, which we've seen in the past with Anikin and Luke as the potential students (Anikin by the council, Luke by Yoda). Unlike the council and Yoda, Luke isn't hesitant to teach Rey because she's too old, or annoying, or any other reason of "the student," Luke doesn't want to teach her because he as the master is not ready. He feels responsible for Kylo Ren, he does not think he's a good teacher, and he does not want to risk creating another Kylo Ren. It's a very interesting character struggle, that come to think of it is entirely within reason. Think about it, Anikin was taken in by one of the best Jedi in the galaxy, Qui-Gon, and Luke studied directly under Qui-Gon's apprentice AND the wisest Jedi in the galaxy, Obi-Wan and Yoda. Both of them had formal training under experienced Jedi masters who knew how to teach the force. Luke on the other hand, was really made it up as he went along. Luke didn't learn it all, he didn't have enough time with Jedi mentors to learn all the ins and outs of the force. This is why he holds his failure of Ben Solo so close. A lot of critics basically say he's being selfish, and I don't blame them, but I understand where he's coming from. It also adds time for us to see hermit Luke and his daily routine, which had some good laughs.

One thing I found very interesting is what beak's Luke's position to not train Rey. Rey goes to the Jedi temple Luke made with the remaining sacred jedi texts. As she's reading them, Luke confronts her and they have a heart to heart where Luke agrees to train her, just the 3 fundamentals. Fist thing, mediclorian haters will love this. When Luke is explaining the force, he explains how it's the energy that binds everything together, and that when he dies, the force will live on, and how the Jedi are a religion that's goal is to harness the force. While it doesn't necessarily retcon "Jedi germs," it definitely retcons "Jedi germs gives Jedi their powers" and it's a genetic mutation or whatever. This basically says "anyone can use the force, some are just more gifted than others," kind of like algebra. Similarly, it's through this exchange where Luke see's that Rey isn't power hungry, she just wants to carry on a legacy and bring balance to the universe. There is one plot hole here, and that's "where did these texts come from?" Luke was not an original Jedi, the Jedi temple was destroyed along with the texts (LucasArts Battlefront 2 cannon as my main reference), and only Obi-Wan and Yoda survived. The most I can figure is Yoda had them in his hut on Degobah and Luke took them after Yoda died. But who knows.

While this is happening, we get some Kylo Ren development. Thoughout most of the movie, Kylo Ren is torn. This is first pointed out in a meeting with Snoke. Snoke tells Kylo "you are still conflicted, there is still good in you" (or something to that extent) to which Kylo responds "no, that died along with my father." This meeting is happening with the first in command of the first order, who also has an err of hesitancy to him. I see that mainly when he and Kylo are talking to each other. It's very interesting, because it feels like neither of them are really committed to galactic conquest (a feeling I kind of got in episode 7). A lot of their actions kind of have this immature "really guys, I'm one of you, and I'll prove it" feeling. This is a very different perspective from other villains in the series. I had no trouble believing that Palpatine, Duku, Vader, Tarkin, or any other villains were in this 100%, but the again, these guys were also much older, with an ideology they firmly believed in. With Kylo and the first commander, I get the feeling that they wanted to start something, but it grew outside their own control. This is done INCREADIBLY subtly, with it all being within their mannerism. When Tarkin blew up Aulderon, he had a very calm and calculated demeanor, like this was just "business as usual." When the first commander of the first order blew up Coruscant, he had a nervousness in his tone and mannerisms, like "OK, I'm really going to do this, I'm going to kill millions of innocent people, oh this is crazy." Duku, Vader, Tarkin, and the rest of them were all following Palpatine's lead, and Palpatine was pure evil. Kylo on the other hand feels like he started this with his top commander to carry on the dream, but it got too big. It gave a very different feeling to the kinds of people that are in the first order.

Kylo and Rey have these random "mind links" where Rey and Kylo see each other in the same rooms and talk to each other. During these encounters (after their initial "what's going on" encounter), they try to bring the other to their side. What's really interesting is the power dynamic between these 2. Whenever we had "light and dark confront each other," it's always been "impressionable light apprentice against powerful dark master," be that Anikin and Palpatine, or Luke and Vader. With this though, Rey and Kylo feel like they are on equal levels. While Kylo is a more experienced and trained dark jedi, Rey is more secure in where her moral compass points. These even themselves out in the power struggle, making for a very interesting character progression. Kylo uses his power and knowledge as an argument to his side (I can teach you what Luke won't), whereas Rey pulls at Kylo's conflicted soul as an argument to her side. During these encounters, neither seem futile. It's not one sided like the past. All the time it feels like it could go either way, which I really welcome.

This also ties into why Luke is hesitant to teach Rey after lesson 1. Luke teaches Rey how to find a connection to the force, but as he does he sees the great latent power in her, and it scares him to where he says "no more." I believe it's around this time that Luke tells Rey the backstory to Kylo Ren, and how Kylo lashed out, killed all the other apprentices, destroyed the temple, and started the first order. He had the same latent power that Rey has, and he wasn't going to do that again. It's a very hard back story, one Luke feels responsible for. It's pretty difficult for Rey to accept.

Oh, but then it gets better. What Luke said was true, but from a certain point of view. During the "Ben Swolo" encounter (the one where Kylo Ren doesn't have a shirt on that's become a meme), Kylo tells Rey there's more to the origin story. See, he didn't just "randomly lash out and destroy what Luke had built," he did it defensively. Luke feared him, and was ready to kill him in his sleep. During this flashback, Luke looked really evil, and mean. The lighting caused by his light saber made it really eerie, and atmospheric. What's more, this makes Ben a more interesting case. Unlike other Sith lords who were seduced by promises of power and glory, Ben was driven to the Sith by the Jedi. This makes Kylo Ren a very conflicted individual, and why he has an err of "I didn't have a choice, I did what was best for me and I'll live with my path in life." He's a much better character for it. However, it really hurts Luke's character. Luke isn't perfect, but he's good. It's really hard to imagine him doing something like this, which is kind of character assassination. This is a major complaint from critics, and I get it. This isn't the Luke that we know. Also, it sews a major seed of doubt in Rey. Yes, Rey calls Kylo a liar, and refuses to believe it, but Kylo does the whole "search your feelings, you know it to be true" sort of thing. This is when Rey does her most growing as a character.

After this, Rey confronts Luke about this. She is angry, and at the breaking point. She even draws her light saber on him demanding to know why he tried to kill Kylo. This is when Rey almost is turned, but once again, the story is true, from a certain point of view. Luke explains what happened in full. Luke saw the great power in Ben, and sensed Snoke's power attracted to him. One night, he went to Ben as he slept to see if he could tell Ben his concern, but he couldn't, and in a brief moment of desperation he drew his light saber to end it. That moment passed almost as soon as it came, but when Ben awoke all he saw was his master looming over him ready to strike, and in that moment he was a scared boy who ran away from danger. While Luke is narrating the story, the narration isn't necessary. The expressions could tell the entire encounter without the narration, a very powerful bit of acting and directing. Again, it's character assassination of Luke, but it is a reasonable direction. Again, Luke is figuring this out as he goes. He doesn't know how to teach students, and how to handle the dark side. He knows how to say no, but he doesn't know how to tell others. It's really quite powerful.

Before I get back to the rebels, I need to wrap up a couple of things here. Chewy befriends a puffin thing, after eating one of it's friends. It's a really funny scene. Also, after Rey and Chewy leave, Luke decides he's going to burn it all down, end the Jedi and destroy the sacred texts in his little temple. Who joins him? Master Yoda as a ghost. When Luke can't bring himself to burn it down, Yoda summons lightning and starts the fire. In this, we get a nice conversation between Luke and Yoda, about how the old ways are over, and Yoda helping Luke to forgive himself. I don't remember all the particular, because IT WAS PUPPET YODA!!!!! Yes, I am a puppet Yoda purist. I accept episode 2 and 3 because they needed Yoda to do crazy acrobatics and whatnot, and it wouldn't look good to have him suddenly turn from puppet to CGI, but I own episode 1 on VHS twice because I need puppet Yoda. I don't know if they made a new puppet or used the old one, but it was brilliant and I love it.

Now that I've explained Rey, Luke, and Kylo, time to get back to the Rebels. We left off with the First Order in pursuit of the Rebels. Leia is comatose, and most off their back-up has been destroyed. Their fuel reserves are running low, and the things seem bleak. Back to the story. Finn enlists the help of Rose, the sister of the bomber that was killed in Poe's bomber run. His plan, find a hacker that can get into the First Order ship and turn off the tracker. He figured out that the first order is tracking them through their main ship, and if they can turn it off, it will give the rebels just enough time to get away to safety. They go to Rose's old home planet, a casino planet. Aside from the humor BB8 causes with people thinking he works there or is a slot machine, it's a story of "all the glitter's isn't gold." The way Rose was hyping it up, it sounded like gangs were going to mug them and steal their ship or something, but they run in with the law because they park on a public beach. Everyone there is fancy, and ritzy, and sophisticated. But we soon find out that the nice place is held up on the backs of slaves, whom are sympathetic to the resistance, and one of them has force powers. It's pretty interesting.

Now we get to twists. The heroes think he's one of the gamblers, but he turns out to be a stuttering prisoner. When the hacker steals a ship, we learn that the ship belonged to a weapons dealer. First we see this dealer sold to the first order, so it's OK, he was a bad guy; but then we see that he also sold to the resistance, so it gets murky. It's quite interesting to see this "it's not black and white, good and evil" in the universe, some people just do what works for them. Then there's the break in. They sneak on, steal some uniforms, and get to the place. As they're getting done, successfully hacking the ship, they get caught. I didn't see that coming. Then the hacker makes a plea bargain, where he sells out the rebels, because "it's just business." There's a pretty awesome fight scene with Fasma making a return, and they get away back onto rebel ship.

Now for the largest twist. Rey confronts Kylo on his ship. I saw a lot of parallels between this and Episode 6 with Luke and Vader. It worked pretty well. We see Rey tempted by Snoke. Snoke apparently did the mind-link with Rey and Kylo. It was all part of his plan, and he wants Kylo to end her. Kylo is conflicted though, and we can really see it in his mannerisms. Now for a twist, while Snoke was torturing Rey, Kylo takes his light saber and kills Snoke. Cuts him right in half using the force. A lot of parallels to episode 6, again. Then there's this big hand to hand fight scene with Rey and Kylo against Snoke's guards, with them improvising light sabers as needed. And right when we think Kylo had a change of heart, he offers Rey a chance to rule the galaxy with him, now that Snoke is dead he doesn't have to answer to anyone. And this is what changed him to be a true Sith. All this time, Kylo thought what kept him from being a real Sith lord is his bond to his past life, but it was really his bond to Snoke. This is cemented by Kylo's mannerisms. Now, there is no more confusion, no more conflict, he is evil. Wow, really well done. Now he is the Sith he hoped to become, and is a true villain.

Now for more twists, the acting commander's plan was to buy as much time as possible, then let the fleet escape on escape pods to an abandoned rebel base. Poe doesn't agree with this plan, because Finn is running his hacking plan, and he does a mutiny to let Finn do his thing. Then when Finn gets back defeated, Poe agrees with the plan, but only after Leia awakes and agrees with the acting commander. All the rebels are fleeing with the last ship taking the fire as it's about to run out of fuel. However, the first order is onto the plan (thanks to the hacker) and starts taking out rebel escape ships. Then in a final act of courage, the acting commander turns the ship to the first order fleet, and jumps to light speed, ramming them and destroying some of the ships. This was really cool, because we've heard about how important it is to make your course during a jump to light speed. This was the aftermath of it.

Now the movie could have ended there, but then there's a "Hoth battle" (I call it that because that's what it's based on). Now, more twists. The rebels get into some junkers to make one last stand against the first order as they try to get away, and the first order is getting a cannon ready to beak open the defenses. Finn figures he can stop it by flying directly into it, but he's stopped by Rose. And then there's the big final battle between Luke and Kylo. Luke flies to the planet, reunites with Leia shortly, and then steps out onto the battlefield. Kylo orders all fire be concentrated on him, but it fails, requiring Kylo to fight him one on one. Oh, it was such an epic battle, with words being as strong as the actual battle. It was a battle of minds and will as well as a battle of power. Then, in another twist, Luke ends up being a projection of himself from his island. Then Luke dies and falls into the force. The movie kind of ends after that. I find it ironic, the movies killed off all the original characters, except the one who's actress died.

All in all, it was an awesome movie. I can see where people find problems.. I have my own problems with it too. This isn't a movie for the simple viewing. It's complex, takes a lot of risks, some of which work and some that don't. Hopefully if you watch it, you can enjoy it. I really enjoyed it. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Where are the Action Cartoons Cartoon Network?

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "Hi."

So if you don't know already, I'm a fan of cartoons and Cartoon Network. Animation is a great medium because you can do things in it that just look bad in live action (see Scott Pilgrim for an example of such failure, text review and rant podcast). So where do I go for my cartoon needs? Nickelodeon? No it's all Schider's Bakery right now, and SpongeBob. Disney Channel? LOL nope. DisneyXD? Well I don't get that channel unfortunately. Nicktoons? Getting closer but still no. It's Cartoon Network, the network for cartoons (except for those dark times). For years they had the mix of action and comedy, and in Courage's case, light horror. If you wanted action, there was Toonami. If you wanted comedy, there was cartoon cartoon Friday's. It was fun times.

In recent years we've fallen on some rough times. It's not just that Cartoon Network is giving all it's air time to a terrible cartoon that actively tries to be terrible, or that Cartoon Network is rebooting all it's popular action cartoons as comedies (Teen Titans Go, PowerPuff Girls 2016, and Ben 10 reboot), or that they have given up on anime and let the most popular anime franchise in North America go to their competitors (after 10 years of airing Pokémon, Cartoon Network didn't acquire the license to the Sun and Moon series and now it airs on DisneyXD); all of are symptomatic of a larger problem, Cartoon Network has given up on action.

Don't believe me? Lets look at what they did with their reboots. Lets look at the cartoons they rebooted for a new audience; Teen Titans, Powerpuff Girls, and Ben 10, all originally action cartoons. The reboots? All comedies. What about their original shows? Gumball, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, We Bear Bears, Clarence, and Adventure Time are all comedy based cartoons. The most action of them is probably Steven Universe, but even SU puts more focus on Steven just living his life, and not Steven trying to save the world. Where're the Samurai Jacks, or Megas XLR, or Transformers, or Symbiontic Titans? Boys like action.

"But action doesn't sell" you say. Really now? What are the highest grossing movies in recent years? Marvel super heroes and star wars. Who likes super heroes and star wars? Boys. What shows have successful toy lines? Action cartoons. No 7 year old wants to have Grizz, Ice Bear, and Panda toy sets where it's them going to the super market or going on dates; they want ninja turtle and foot clan action figures that they can make fight. They don't want to be normal gumball who is a normal kid in a weird world for Halloween, they want to be Optimums Prime. Boys have a natural attraction to gross and violent, so as Denis Leary said in Small Soldiers "don't call it violence, call it action, kids love action."

"Well action cartoons are just too expensive to produce, and just don't deliver the return on investment now adays." If you're basing your judgement on WB cartoons like Teen Titans, Young Justice, and Batman the Animated Series in comparison to Teen Titans Go, you have a point because the WB cartoons definitely had a larger budget. But lets look at the other reboots. Powerpuff Girls classic had fairly limited animation. They reused the same cycles and did a lot of moving "still frames" (no different drawing, just sliding stills apart to show emphasis). It was probably made on a similar budget as PPG 2016. I've seen internet critics make PPG 2016 "fight" scenes truer to the source by speeding up the video and adding in sound effects. Like, someone with a $100 budget was able to turn the comedy series of PPG 2016 into an action series just by making some small edits. It really isn't that hard. Ben 10 Reboot looks to have the same level of speed and detail as the original, but it just focuses on being funny instead of being super powerful. Plus, look what Nickelodeon and Disney did with their action cartoons. Nickelodeon made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with what looks like a rather limited TV budget still full of action when they need it to be. They just show the heavy fighting off screen and have the light fighting happen on screen. Star VS The Forces of Evil looks like it costs about as Teen Titans Go, but we still get all the delicious action of Star and Marco battling the monster of the week.

"But, we need to have a successful toy line for an action cartoon to be considered a success, and kids just don't want toys anymore." And how do you measure the success of a comedy cartoon that doesn't have a toy line? Looks to me like you gauge their success by ratings and ad revenue and episode sales. There is nothing stopping you from doing that with action cartoons.

"Uhhhh, parents are more adverse to letting their kids watch action than they are to comedy, so we want to make a cartoon that's the accessible." There is some merit to your argument. I remember my parents were rather strict with what I watched as a kid, and I do remember that there were more action cartoons on their "no list" than comedies, and more comedies on their "fine list" than action; but I think you're being a tad to cocky with that statement considering what you air. TTG is TV-PG, for parental guidance suggested, definitely not something I would be allowed to watch as a youngin. We Bear Bears would probably be considered too mature for me as it deals with teen issues and adult issues. Gumball would likely be considered too visually stimulating, and therefore not be appropriate. TMNT though would probably be fine because it's about good prevailing over evil.

Look, I know I'm not the target demographic for Cartoon Network. Turner networks would rather have me watch Adult Swim. I'm just saying that they need some variety, specifically in the action category. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Reviews Rogue One, A Star Wars Story

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

So if you don't know yet, I'm a fan of Star Wars, and I enjoy expanded universe stuff like Battlefront, the Clone Wars cartoons, and some children's books. I don't like the chapter books, but that's just because I don't like reading. Also, after Star Wars Episode 7, I'm very happy with where Disney is taking things. But this is the first Disney stand alone movie that isn't part of the "main episode series." I'm going to not go into spoilers on this one, but that's because there isn't anything to "spoil" outside of callbacks.

What do I mean by "nothing really to spoil?" Well this is the story of the rebels getting the death star plans that are used in episode 4 to blow up the death star. All of us that are fans of Star Wars are familiar with the end result of this mission; the rebel alliance stole the plans to the death star to find the weak spot that Luke shoots to blow it up and many rebels died to get the plans. It takes place weeks before the events of Episode 4 a New Hope (or whatever the equivalent unit of time would be for a civilization that does not rely on rotations of a planet to measure passage through the 4th dimension). But like my dad said, "it's like Apollo 13 or Titanic; you know what the ending will be, but you go along for the journey, not the destination." Now as someone who enjoys the whole "universe building" thing, this was great. Did I or anyone else really need to know the story of the rebel spies that stole the plans? No, not really, and I know of some critics that will probably fault it for not being "main series." But do I want to know the story of the rebel spies that stole the plans? Well now that you mention it, yes, yes I do. It's not going to really ADD anything to the movies you know (and it kind of retcons some small details in Episode 4), but it's still a fun ride, and cool to see a little bit more into the inner workings of the death star and rebel alliance.

Now if the journey is the point and not the destination, then the companions you bring on the trip must be enjoyable. And these guys are. Now if you're expecting a new Luke, Anikin, or Rey, with deeply complex character motivations that we will care about for rest of the franchise, you will be mistaken. As a stand alone movie that takes place just before Episode 4, I don't see the new characters being main stays in movies to come. Most of these characters were introduced here, and their stories were concluded by the end of the movie. While I suppose there always could be room for new stories (I mean Episode 4 was meant to be stand alone, but then George made Episode 5 and 6, giving us a greater look into everyone), you don't really need it. I think it's worth mentioning that I am intentionally not using anyone's name, and that's because I don't remember anyone's name. I just think of them as "main character," "love interest?," "pilot," "droid companion," "blind force monk that isn't a jedi," and "heavy gun friend of blind monk." They're all great "travel companions," but they aren't "your best friends" like Luke and Han.

It is worth mentioning that since this does take place right before the events of Episode 4 there are characters that appear again, which brings me to the point about the special effects. This movie takes place weeks before Darth Vader captures the rebel ship and Leia sends the droids off with the plans to Luke. However, this movie came out 40 years after the original Star Wars was made. This isn't like Episode 7 where Han can show up looking 40 years older because the movie takes place 30 years in the future. This is further complicated when certain actors are dead at the time of production. Well, being the VFX masters that are ILM, they were able to bring these characters back to their age in Episode 4 ALMOST seamlessly. I admit, there is a little uncanny valley, but my ability to distinguish between practical and CGI is heightened due to all the videogames and movies I consume. But the level of detail that went into digitally sculpting these faces from 40 years ago was breathtaking. I won't go into who these characters are (those are the things that can get spoiled), but when you see it you might actually believe it.

And then there's the set design. As I said with Episode 7, they did a REALLY good job mixing the look of the original trilogy with the VFX capabilities of today while being able to hide behind the excuse of "well it's 30 years into the future, of course things are going to be a little different." But when you're a movie that takes place weeks before a movie that came out 40 years ago, the bar is set REALLY high to "make it visually appealing for modern audiences," while also "matching the feeling of a movie from 40 years ago." It was absolutely amazing. When there was a hologram projection, it looked like the same sort of thing from episodes 4-6. When they were on the death star, it looked and felt just like the death star from episode 4. The storm trooper and rebel suits looked just like they did in episodes 4-6. There was one bit with the construction of the death star that looked like it was a miniature, and it may have been since it would certainly be more authentic and cheaper to film a miniature with lighting and simple movements than make it all in CG. I felt like I was in the period of episode 4 while having the added believably of modern VFX.

There's one more thing I want to cover, and that's the writing. Now from the limited information I heard about Rogue One, it was "going to be more serious than other movies in the franchise." Which I'm not against; this was a pretty serious story with a lot of heavy elements. However, there was some GREAT comedy in this. Some of it was "Star Wars inside jokes," but a lot of it was just "well timed execution of funny lines and actions." Back to those other critics, yeah they probably will get angry at the inclusion of the easier humor. But you know what, with a story as serious as Rogue One, it needs the light hearted moments. I mean, this movie does earn it's PG-13 rating for action, and bits of comedy keep it from being overly dramatic.

So should you see Rogue One? Eh, it's polarizing and you will probably love it or hate it. It's not "a Star Wars film," it's "a film that is in the Star Wars universe." If you want "a Star Wars film" with Jedi, and learning the force, and opening text crawls, you won't find that here (yeah, no text crawl, guess all the backstory came from episodes 3 and 4). However, if you want more information of the universe building to get to Episode 4, you will probably like this. Please don't spoil the spoilers for people in the comments. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic Review's Star Wars Episode 2.1 Attack of the Phantom

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

So the phantom editor strikes back, and re-edited Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones, this time called Episode II.I Attack of the Phantom. I already watched and reviewed Episode I.II The Phantom Edit (readable here), and I decided to watch and review The Phantom Editor's second work, Attack of the Phantom. First I want to tell the story of finding a stream of it. It's pretty easy to find a download of the DVD files, but I don't want to download things because I'm paranoid when it comes to downloads from less than reputable websites; plus I didn't want to make a DVD, so I wanted to find a stream. With The Phantom Edit I found it easily on multiple different streaming sites (probably because it's rather famous), but it was much harder finding Attack of the Phantom (probably because it's significantly less famous). I eventually found it on Youtube, but it's blocked in the US for copyright reasons. However, that's promising because it wasn't "removed for copyright reasons." Plus, I have a youtube unblocker because I enjoy occasionally watching Todd in the Shadows and many of his videos are blocked in the US. However, my standard youtube unblocker was having a lot of trouble with this video, because after about 3 minutes the webpage would crash. This required me to install another youtube unblocker, and this one lets you try out different proxy domains from 64 different regions. After about 5 minutes of scrolling through regions, I eventually found a region that works. As far as youtube is concerned, I'm watching it from Vienna, Austria. I'll provide full directions at the end of the review if you're interested.

Before I review this fan edit, I have to talk about the original. Unlike many people, I like Attack of the Clones. The prequel trilogy were the first Star Wars movies I saw in theaters. It was the trilogy that had all the toys that I played with since everything wasn't a sought after collectors item. On long car trips I always did a star wars marathon in number order, so I always saw episode 1 and many times episode 2. I've seen episode 1 so many times I can quote the entire movie from memory, and while I'm not AS good with episode 2, I know most of it from memory. Sure, the prequels are a bit hokey, but I love that hokeyness. I didn't want to watch Attack of the Phantom because I wanted to see "what it could/should of been," but because I was curious as to how this fan interpretation would be. I would also like to note that I will be making MANY comparisons to The Phantom Edit and my thoughts on it, so be sure to watch it and/or read my review of it first, otherwise you will be lost.

Now onto the review. So what is Episode II.I Attack of the Phantom? It is a fan edit of Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones that aims to remove what made the prequels "bad," restore select deleted scenes to improve story, and make them more faithful to the original trilogy. In The Phantom Edit this included removing the "roger roger" and all of Jar Jar's non-essential to the plot dialogue while restoring scenes like Qui-Gon being chased by Darth Maul's probe droid to explain why he and Anikin are running. In The Phantom Edit, there was a lot of goofy that could be cut, and a lot of scenes were restored. In Attack of the Phantom though, there are a lot of things cut, but not a lot is restored. I also want to note that the original Attack of the Clones is considerably less goofy than Phantom Menace to begin with. Like, Phantom Menace was "lets make a movie specifically for the kids" (and I love it for that), but Attack of the Clones was "OK, now that we have that out of our system, lets make something a little more for the teens and adults." This didn't leave much in the way of "goofy" to cut out, so we were left with sub-plots and non-essential action to be cut, and honestly, I feel it REALLY suffers for it.

"But Wait, this is supposed to make the movie more faithful to the original trilogy by removing all the crap and restoring the good deleted scenes" you might be saying. How can that be bad? Well, let me start out with the scenes that were restored; or more accurately, singular SCENE. Yeah, unlike Phantom Edit, Attack of the Phantom only restores one scene, and that's Anikin and Padme visiting Padme's family. In this we see that Padme does have a family, and it's actually rather normal; She has a sister and both parents. Her sister mistakes Anikin for her boyfriend and Padme quickly responds with "he's not my boyfriend...he's my bodyguard," and of course her parents are concerned for her safety. I like this because:
A) it really humanizes Padme
B) it adds to the complexity of Anikin and Padme's relationship
C) it really juxtaposes Anikin's lack of traditional family and Padme's loving family
D) we see Anikin kind of jealous of Padme and her family
and E) it gives a little more context as to why Padme would be safe hiding out on Naboo as opposed to "oh it's where I once ruled, and my friends and I used to go to this lake house on breaks."
This addition was very welcomed, and is probably the best part of this edit.

Now to talk about the things that were removed. I'll first start with sub-plots and exposition, and work my way down from "glad it's gone" to "why was this removed?" I'll start off by saying "there is no 'glad this was gone.'" As mentioned earlier, I like Attack of the Clones as is. There's not really anything in them that I wish George Lucas did without. In Phantom Menace there were a couple of things that left me confused and Phantom Edit removed them. This time however, there wasn't any of that, so the best I can start out with is "I didn't miss that." The only thing that really constitutes "I didn't miss that" is about half of the Anikin-Padme relationship development. In this cut pretty much all the scenes of Anikin and Padme falling in love and talking about their forbidden love is gone. The only thing remaining are some kisses and a couple of hints at them falling in love. The scene with them playing in the field is gone. The dinner scene is gone. The whole scene about their love being forbidden and "wish away all my feelings" is gone, as well as the "I shouldn't have done that" aftermath of the first kiss is gone (it transitions from them making out right to Kamino). Of the relationship development things, I don't miss all the "teen romance novel" scenes of them falling in love, like dinner or playing in the field. That stuff, yeah, we can do without. It doesn't add a WHOLE lot of development to Anikin's and Padme's characters, and is just kind of "teen romance novel." While I don't think it's great that it's gone, I don't really miss it as we already get that they're falling in love with the whole kisses thing.

With this in mind, I do kind of wish that the other half of the romance development was left in, mainly the forbidden love. Like most people, I don't fully understand why Jedi can't love. I guess it has something to do with loyalty to the Jedi brotherhood and being able to self sacrifice since they have no other ties to the world, but it still feels a little strange. That's why I suspect the phantom editor cut it. However, it's still important. Durring most of the forbidden love scenes, we really see how this is tearing Anikin in 2; 1 part loyal to the Jedi, and 1 part loyal to his Worldly ties. It really demonstrates why it was such a problem for him to be trained so old. In Star Wars expanded explanation books I read as a kid, younglings are taken to the Jedi temple at age 3, before they develop close bonds with family and potential relationships. However, since Anikin was 9 he already had a bond with his mother and was crushing on Padme. In Episode 2 we really explore these feelings and see how it is pulling Anikin to the dark side. However, with the forbidden love scenes cut, we don't see how these feelings are hurting Anikin. We still get some of that with his mother later on, but it's not really enough for me.

Another bit that was cut was some explanation of the events between episode 1 and 2 particularly with Padme and how she went from queen to senator. This I am divided on. I fully understand why this was cut from a fan edit perspective. The whole "queens are elected" thing is confusing the first couple times around, and only recently did I fully understand the whole "padme was really the queen in episode 1 but this time she ran for senate after stepping down," so it makes sense to gloss over that as much as possible in a fan edit; but if you're a dedicated fan, it will make sense after watching it enough times and it will add to the experience. At least, it did mine. I do wish that George Lucas explained it better, but it does make sense. I miss it but I completely understand why it was cut.

That's it for "kind of miss," now it's time for "just plain miss." Since I'm still on the subject. I want to talk more about Shmi Skywalker, Anikin's mom. One scene that's missing is Anikin having the nightmare. In the original we see Anikin in bed dreaming about his mom, and we get the impression that it's a bad dream because of the panicked "no! no! mom no!" I miss this scene. Sure, we still have the whole "Anikin meditating the next morning" scene where he discusses it with Padme, but we don't get the feeling of pain. With movie story telling there's the saying "show don't tell," where because this is a visual medium, it's better for the audience to see what you want them to see instead of telling them what you want them to see. While we don't see the actual dream, the actual dream isn't what's important; rather, it's how it's hurting Anikin. Sure, there's some exposition of the dream, but it also shows Anikin's trust of Padme by opening up to her like that. By removing the dream scene, we're just kind of left with "tell don't show," and it hurt's Anikin's character.

On a related note, Cleat Lars's eulogy at Shmi's funeral was removed. This I miss, because it added more to Shmi's character than just "Anikin's mom." This shows that her death affected more than just Anikin, and it was nice to hear about her. I can see why it was cut since it was not very essential to our main characters, but it added an extra layer to the universe.

Now it's time for the "I wish this wasn't removed" parts. These are mainly concerned with Obi-Wan. First I want to talk about the removal of the space battle between Obi-Wan and Jango. On the surface all this is is a space battle that looks cool. Removing a cool space battle is bad enough from a visual appeal perspective, but the battle highlights Obi-Wan's ingenuity and piloting skills as it shows him faking out these tracking missiles and sneakily following Jango even though Jango knows there's a tracking device on his ship. It really adds to Obi-Wan's character, and makes the movie more visually appealing. I can almost see why it was cut, but I don't think it should have been.

Then there's the Kamino toxic dart sub-plot that was cut. Now instead of being shot by a toxic dart that leads Obi-Wan Kamino, the assassin just says "Kamino System." One could argue that it's a slow plot development, but it REALLY adds to Obi-Wan's character. First and foremost, we see that there's more to him than just a "stick in the mud" jedi. He has a good friend, Dex, that is a bit of an expert in the universe. In a deleted scene we see Obi-Wan with the dart being analyzed by the Jedi temple robots, but nothing is coming up, so he goes to his friend that knows a lot of things and maybe he would recognize it. It really shows his logical skills and that he has friends outside of the Jedi (there is no way that this greasy diner owner is a Jedi, so he has to be a friend). Then there's the whole "OK, so the planet should be here, but it isn't. What is going on?" eventually leading to him asking Yoda and the younglings. Sure, it MIGHT be a bit out of logical character for Obi-Wan to think that a kid could think of something that he couldn't, but it also shows the dangers of putting too much faith in knowledge vs wisdom, and that maybe sometimes the crazy answer is the right answer. It's a pretty major development point, and Obi-Wan feels a lot less flushed out because of it. I REALLY wish that this was left in, and maybe had that deleted scene restored. A LOT was lost by removing this.

Then there's also the removal of Jar Jar saying "lets give Palpatine the power to have an army." We still get Palpatine accepting the power, but we have no idea where the power came from. We still have the scene of the senators saying "we don't have anyone to call the vote to give him power," and the scene where he gets the power, but we don't know who called it. I think this was related to trying to remove Jar Jar as much as possible. Well, his removal here created a major plot hole. This should have stayed. Everything else is minor in the grand scheme of things since the movie is still coherent. But this, this makes a giant plot hole. Like, you can feel that something is missing. If it was Jar Jar saying "...that's why meesa vote to give mui mui reserve power to the supreme chancellor;" it could have been edited to be "...vote to give reserve power to the supreme chancellor." And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think fans were perfectly OK with having Jar Jar be the one that ultimately screwed up the universe. He was already the most hated character in the franchise, so what's having him give Palpatine the power he needs to destroy the galaxy?

Alright, I've covered all the major plot points. Now I'm going to talk about the "removal of small goofy bits." But first, I must give credit at leaving in "wanna buy some death sticks?" That scene was perfect and had every right to be in there, and I'm glad it was respected. However, many other things were not so lucky. For example, Mace Windu no longer says "this party's over." I get it, it doesn't add anything to the story, or the character, and may seem out of place for a Jedi to be so snarky. HOWEVER, Mace Windu is played by SAMUEL L MO-FO JACKSON! It's out of character for him to NOT say something like that. Then during the failed execution scene, there's no "you call this a diplomatic solution? No, I call it aggressive negotiation." Sure, the context for the term "aggressive negotiation" is gone since the "play in the field" scene is gone, but it was so hilarious. There's also the removal of the battle droids freaking out saying "UH OH! ROGER ROGER!" when the giant mantas thing is about to kill Obi-Wan. It's strangely silent, like something is supposed to be said there. It's already been established that these things talk, and their gestures look like they're saying something, but they aren't. Another jarring omission is Duku saying "but our skills with a light saber" after saying "this won't be settled with our knowledge of the force" during the Yoda fight. What is that supposed to add? It sounds like an incomplete thought. It doesn't give any context for why they're suddenly light saber battling. It's not goofy, it sounds like something a villain would say to taunt the good guy. I don't get it. He also removes the whole "Anikin losing his light saber, again" thing. While it is treated like a gag and doesn't add to the story (he still gets it destroyed in the factory but doesn't say "not again!"), it adds to the character of "Anikin is a teen and not completely responsible." All the removal of the gags and stuff really takes away from the movie. Sure, episode 1 had probably too many and was "overspiced," so removing them left some good flavor; but episode 2 had the right amount of joke spice, so removing it was either jarring at worst and bland at best. I could go on with the minor removals, but that would be overkill.

Before I end I want to talk about the removal of the alien language subtitles. I'm not opposed to removing the original subtitles and adding your own. That's the entire premise of the "anti-cheese" edit of episode 1 (an edit I plan on watching and probably reviewing soon). However, with this the phantom editor just removes the subtitles leaving us to guess what they're saying. Since I've seen Episode 2 so many times, I know the subtitles, so it's not like it's "sparing me the bad" at all, and all it does is confuse people. Plus, the subtitles weren't that bad anyways. I don't get at all why those were removed.


All in all, I didn't like this. It took away far to much and didn't add enough back. It also removed a lot of what made episode 2 good in the first place. Then again, I like episode 2. Maybe if I didn't like it I would like this fan edit better, but from my perspective it just wasn't that good. I kind of want to make a DVD of it now, because that has the phantom editor commentary of why the edits were made, and maybe it would explain what I'm missing and why the edits were justified. I can understand why they were for Episode 1, but I can't really for Episode 2. But, whatever. Anyways, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

How To Watch

So you want to watch Attack of the Phantom without downloading it. I'm just like you, I don't want to download it either. If you search for it you will find it on youtube. Lucky for us, it's not a dead link because the video is now removed for copyright reasons. Unlucky for us, it's block in your country. But lucky for us, plug-ins for this problem exist.

What you'll need.

Mozilla Firefox
Youtube Unblock (available here)
An email address you don't mind using to sign-up with Youtube Unblock
And the Youtube Stream (available here)

Here are the steps.

1. Install the Youtube Unblock add-on. I tried my normal youtube unblocker and the webpage crashed. I found Youtube Unblock to work
2. Sign-up for Youtube Unblock. I used my throw away email address to sign up. There's no confirmation email, so it's pretty immediate.
3. Go to the youtube stream of Attack of the Phantom.
4. Click on the Youtube Unblock icon in the corner of your firefox window.
5. Set your country to Vienna, Austria. This will change your proxy setting to one out of Vienna, Austria for your web browser, not just your Youtube tab.
6. Enjoy Attack of the Phantom
7.  At the end of the movie, sign out of Youtube Unblock to set your proxy back to your original proxy.

Note: This add-on appears to only give you a 2 day free trial. You will only need it for one day. Feel free to try other youtube unblockers for other web browsers.
Since this add-on is readily available through firefox, it appears to be legal. However, I cannot be held responsible for any problems this may cause you. Use at your own discretion. Later.