Monday Media Musings - 12/30/19

Alita: Battle Angel: The previews for this movie put me off seeing it, because the protagonist fell into the uncanny valley for me, with her over-sized eyes and slightly off way of moving. But T watched it on a plane a few months ago and wanted to check it out on a larger screen, so we got it from Netflix. It was better than I expected, and I got used to Alita's cyborgian nature fairly quickly, but my overall reaction is still mixed. My main issue is too much plot -- it feels like half a dozen movies stuffed into one, and they could have trimmed it down, easy. Also we have the perennial issue of casting a film based on a manga with almost no Asian actors, and no main characters at all. Finally, the movie didn't have a proper ending, just a plot hook for a sequel; I suppose that's okay, but it's not my favorite thing. All that said, the visual effects were stunning and there were some great fight scenes, and Alita herself is a great character. So if there's a sequel I'll probably watch it.

Star Wars prequel trilogy: We finally got around to starting our long-planned YouTube TV trial this week. Since most of the shows we watch regularly are on hiatus right now, the jury is out on how well it will work as a total cable replacement (although I did go ahead and cancel cable, with minimum fuss -- I'd heard horror stories about how you have to lie about moving overseas or something in order to keep them from haranguing you to stay, but I didn't have to do anything so drastic, I just told them it wasn't about the cost and the agent let it go at that) but one interesting thing we discovered is that some networks (not all) keep a backlog of content on demand. One of those networks is TNT, so there's a pretty extensive catalog of movies in there, including all the Star Wars movies except Solo. I've meant to do a complete rewatch for awhile, so I took the opportunity of my holiday break to watch all three prequel films, roughly in the space of two days. I had hoped that a watch with fresher eyes, and with the full sequel trilogy behind me, would help me to see the same things that so many of my friends love in these movies, but I'm afraid it didn't really happen. The racisn of The Phantom Menace, the awful and awkward romance in Attack of the Clones, and Anakin's rushed character development in Revenge of the Sith were all just as bad or even worse than I remembered. That said, I'm glad I did it, and I'd do it again -- for Obi-Wan, for the reveal on the true history of the clones, and for two movies of Padme Amidala being a badass political leader (forever bitter that Lucas cut her political subplot from RotS). Next up, Rogue One.

Darths & Droids: I discovered this Star Wars screencap comic many years ago, but got out of the habit of reading it. The premise is that a group of roleplayers, in a world where Star Wars doesn't exist, are in a long-running table top campaign based on the events of Star Wars... sort of. The images are all screencaps from the movies, more or less in order, but the writers have felt very free to reinterpret characters and events to tell a whole new story, and the whole thing is quite brilliant. The comic started with The Phantom Menace back in 2007; I first discovered it about halfway through the original trilogy and read it regularly for awhile, then stopped sometime early in The Return of the Jedi. My rewatch of the prequel movies inspired me to go back -- I was really curious about their take on the new trilogy -- but I discovered that, after finishing the original trilogy and writing up Rogue One as a flashback, they had planned to wait until Episode IX was released before screencapping any of the sequels. Right now they're publishing an interlude based on Mark Hamill's episode of The Muppet Show, which is pretty freaking hilarious. But it's getting toward the end, so I have to think that they'll be starting with The Force Awakens sometime in the next few months. It's a fun and original mode of storytelling, filled with tropes familiar to anyone who's ever done tabletop roleplaying, and I definitely recommend checking it out (from the beginning, if you never have before).