The blog in review part 3: Part 4, Jade-Shade.

• Part 1, Home.
• Part 2, FAQ.
• Part 3, Harry Hembock.

And with no other bullshit this week for a change, we continue right away with...


Jade-Shade.

This is a project that I just had to get out of my system before figuring out through a lot of painful trial and error what I'm really meant to be writing.
I think I have now.

The ending feels a bit rushed....screw it, a lot rushed, some chapters are downright rough and sloppy, but I'm proud of the good parts, and I think there's more good parts than bad.

If I really wanted to, I could fix it up with another pass....but I lingered on this long enough.
It's done. Move along.

Looking back, it's "the next big project, after the holidays", referenced at the very end of "First-world problems".
Cuz I started it right up in January of 2013.

...and here we are, that one's done, and I'm on to the next "big project".
Hope I stick the landing on this one this time. :-P

Anyway, on to the page overhaul....


Quantum Dissolve.
(The Jade-Shade saga).

This can just go.


Chapters.

I'll turn "chapters", into "text adventures".


Season 1: Origins.
Season 2: Heroes, Villains, & other nutcases.

I'll moosh the "seasons", in as smaller headers within a combined list of everything.
That "seasons", idea was dumb.
There were supposed to be 10 of them, and they were supposed to go faster, but I had diarrhea of the keyboard.
It would've had to have been at least a 2000 page book to do them all proper justice.
Screw that.


Art.

"Art", I'll make into "graphic adventures".


Other junk.

Like with Harry, I'll turn "Other Junk", into "Museum", and bump it up top.


Finally, as said before, I'll fold this into the Harry page.

And, that should do it.


Next up, Archives.


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The blog in review part 3: Part 3, Harry Hembock.

• Part 1, Home.
• Part 2, FAQ.

And after a month of being distracted, we continue with....


Harry Hembock.

Like the FAQ rants, I'm proud of Harry.
And like the FAQ rants, I'm glad I wrote that time of my life down, cuz I'm not that guy anymore.
The phases of our life slip away into the memory hole if we don't record them.
Harry was me in my teens and 20's, JS was me in my 30's trying to recapture my 20's, my next character is gonna be me now in the present, moment to moment.

Anyway, can't move on to a new phase if you can't admit the last phase is over.
And the Harry phase is over.

But there's a line from Dr. Suess that I try to live my life by "don't be sad it ended, be glad it happened".
I'm glad Harry Hembock happened.
Really glad.
He kept me sane, and made me remember myself in the face of the world's bullshit.
I needed that.
Not so much these days, I can do it on my own now.

Anyway, time to "pack it away", by overhauling this page.

Books

*Sigh* everyone's bought these that's gonna.

E-books

*Sigh* no one's ever gonna buy these.

Info/history-

This right here is the real meat.
This needs to be the centerpiece.
I think I'll bump this up to the top, and change it to "Museum".

Free-to-read adventures

This too.
I'll have this second after "Museum", and change this to "Internet Adventures".

Miscellany

Submitted stuff.
I think I'll change this to "sorta/non-canon adventures".

Other junk

Yeah, this is where the most trimming and re-sorting has to go down.

I'll put...

• Harry Hembock hair on chicks
• More Harry Hembock hair on chicks
• Harry Hembock hair on chicks, part 3
• Harry Hembock hair on....dudes??

...into this review, and cut them right out, and then link this review to the Harry page, thus putting them back in, but out of the way.

I'll bump Books and E-Books down here.

I'll bump...

• Harry Hembock Bookstore.
• Harry Hembock on Facebook!

...up top above "Museum", and call them "Important stuff".

And, I'll fold Jade-Shade into Harry Hembock.

And that should do it.

I gotta hurry up, and get these done before the anniversary next month!


Next up, Jade-Shade.


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Big 2018 Movies Part 7.

• Part 1 (Black Panther)
• Part 2 (Ready Player One)
• Part 3 (Infinity War)
• Part 4 (Ash)
• Part 5 (GB:ATC:WDMC)
• Part 6 (Deadpool 2)

It's Star Wars. C'mon, you know it is.


Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Previously-

• I Love Star Wars
• The Force Awakens 
• Rogue One 
• The Last Jedi
• Happy seventh observed Star Wars day.
• Star Wars: Solo poster!

All right, let's just do it....

• I dig it, it's really cool, dunno if I'd call it awesome.
• Worth seeing though.
• There's a spoiler about a cameo going around, I had it spoiled, it didn't hurt the movie for me, I don't think it will for you. It's a nice bit of fan-service spice, even if you see it coming.
• I worried that where the Han Solo backstory had been done before in the novels, there wouldn't be much to surprise me, but there's enough swerves to keep even a hardcore fan guessing.
•  There's lots of little references explicitly for hardcore fans.
• Yeah, this one feels most like an EU novel put to screen. In a good way.
• This one's a lot of fun. Rogue One had a down ending, Last Jedi had a down ending, this is the mouthwash for that if it was getting you down. Pure exuberant adventure.
• Yeah "pure exuberant adventure", sounds like a pretentious critic blurb, but it fucking is, so there.
• People who are already down on Disney-Wars probably aren't going to change their minds at this point.
• If you've dug Disney-Wars so far, you'll have no complaints.
• The whole cast is great. Especially the trio of Han, Lando, and Chewie.
• Chewie steals the show the way Hulk did in the first Avengers.
• How do I rank it? Hmm....between Return Of The Jedi, and Revenge Of The Sith.
• If you were going to see it, go see it. You'll have a good time.

Now, to go watch all the spoiler reviews to see if people are happy, or whining....

Next time, probably this again, then Incredibles 2, then Ant-Man & Wasp.



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Anthology three yet again!!

Previously-

• Happy seventh observed Star Wars day.
• Star Wars Anthology Trilogy update.
• A couple Star Wars updates.
• Anthology three false alarm.

Nope, it's not Lando, it's....

Boba-Fett.

...again.

James Mangold (director of Logan) is writing and directing.
From The Hollywood Reporter, so it's solid.

Jesus fucking Christ, it's Fett, it's Kenobi, it's Lando, it's Fett.
Fucking COMMIT, Lucasfilm!!!!!!

Anyway, its got a writer/director.
But so did Kenobi many moons ago.

Anyhoo, here's another fucking infographic update.
No idea where it places on the timeline.
Could be before or after Solo, could be after Return.
Fuck, next week, it could be Max Rebo.
See you then!

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Star Wars text timeline.

As I said here...

So...if I choose to continue this timeline thing past the 6 movies, it's going to branch a bit.
I think I'll make something else to follow those.
I'll play it by ear.

Well, I decided to go with a text timeline.
I made it on notepad, then updated it to HTML with a color code, and was going to save it for later title reveals, but...y'know, screw it, here it is as it stands now.
I'll finish off the graphical version when the posters drop, but there's more than movies to keep up with now.


1. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999)
2. Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones (2002)
_. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2014)
3. Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith (2005)
_. ????: A Star Wars Story (2020)
_. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
_. Star Wars: Rebels (2014-2018)
_. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
4. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
5. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
6. Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (1983)
_. Star Wars: ???? (2019??)
_. Star Wars: Resistance (2018-20??)
7. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
8. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
9. Star Wars: ???? (2019)


Yellow = Saga
Brown = Anthology
Orange = TV


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Big 2018 Movies Part 6.

• Part 1 (Black Panther)
• Part 2 (Ready Player One)
• Part 3 (Infinity War)
• Part 4 (Ash)
• Part 5 (GB:ATC:WDMC)

And after a couple false starts, it's....


Deadpool 2 (2018)

Previously with Deadpool...

Deadpool.

And previously with the whole X-Men franchise...

• X-Men and The Wolverine Collection
• X-Men: Days Of Future Past
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• Logan

Now, the rundown.

• Loved the everliving shit out of it!!
• I dunno if I loved it more or equal in different ways than the first one, but it's way up there.
• Marvel jokes, DC jokes, X-Men jokes, Logan jokes, this one had everything.
• Rob Liefeld bad art joke!!!!!
• I said in the first one, I dunno what's left they can make fun of. Oh shit, was I naive, just wait a couple years, there'll always be new shit in superhero movies to goof on.
• More 80's music!!
• No boobies. :-(
• More gore!! :-D
• More verbal profanity and vulgarity! 8-D
• Crazy cameos!!! (ohhh, I wish I could spoil, but no)
• No after credits, but the pre-credits scenes are the best thing in a comic book movie ever!!!
• Some are saying this beats "Infinity War", okay, let's not get fucking crazy here.
• I'll say in a lot of ways, this one was a lot more fun than "Infinity War".
• Josh Brolin is a fanboy God now.
• There's SOOOO much more to talk about, but all of it would be spoilers!
• Best time at the movies in a long fucking time.
• No nosebleed in the theater this time! (never happened before or since, weird)
• Everything this time was perfect, no talking assholes, no nothing!
• Traffic home was slow and shitty though.

Definitely go out and see it.


Next week, Solo: A Star Wars Story!!!!!!!!!!


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Anthology three is finally picked!!!

Previously-

• Happy seventh observed Star Wars day.
• Star Wars the series.
• Star Wars Anthology Trilogy update.
• A couple Star Wars updates.

And it's.....

Lando.


Yep, after all the foot dragging, and faking out, and secrecy, and bullshit, Kathleen Kennedy just blurted it right out.
No special press conference, or convention reveal, or nothing.
Just in an interview "oh yeah, it's Lando...anyhooo...".

Did they always know, and they were waiting for how Solo is received, or was it a coin flip between Lando and Kenobi, and the reception of Solo was going to decide?

Whatever, we finally know.
The torture is over!!

Infographic updated!

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RIP Margot Kidder.

Future-me from 5/7/24 finally getting around to this one.

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A couple Star Wars updates.

Previously-

• Happy seventh observed Star Wars day.
• Star Wars the series.
• Star Wars Anthology Trilogy update.

Yheeep, a two-fer.

First..

...the Star Wars streaming series is going to be set 7 years after Return Of The Jedi.
So, that's that and "Star Wars: Resistance", in the Jedi-Awakens gap.
Still no title or casting yet.


Second...

Anthology three looks more and more like it's the Obi-Wan movie set between Sith and Hope.

An inside source says Lucasfilm is setting up crew members to be able to jump from Episode 9 to Obi-Wan, and the art department is making drawings and sketches for the production.

The same source also says Lucasfilm/Disney is probably waiting for Episode 9 to gear up to say anything about it.
This fits the pattern of the other 4.

Given that the Han Solo movie ended up being "Solo: A Star Wars Story", it's a safe bet Obi-Wan will be "Kenobi: A Star Wars Story".

So, time for an infographic update..

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Why Answer The Call is a worthy sequel to Ghostbusters 2.

Yeah, ATC is coming up on 2 years old, so I can talk full spoilers about it now.

I've wanted to rant this for awhile, but the Trump election and its fallout, and the scandal shit we find out every single day has really clarified it in my mind.
So, I'm glad I let the rant age for awhile.

First of all, thanks to the multiverse of the comics, ATC is indeed Ghostbusters 3.

That out of the way, this will be about why it's a worthy and proper sequel to GB2.
Why GB2 specifically?
I'll get into that.
Here we go.

Okay first, here's a quickie spoiler recap of GB2.

A river of pink slime is forming under New York, and the slime is both a condesation of angry negative vibes, and grows when exposed to more angry negative vibes.
It's a psychic pollution.
If you're exposed to it, it makes you mean and nasty, and even violent, and then you feed more negativity into the slime river, and the cycle spirals.

Drawing on and focusing this energy, is a possesed painting of Vigo The Carpathian.
He's like a horcrux of the original Vigo.
Who's heavily based on Vlad The Impaler.
And the actor who portrayed him was a rapist.
But he's dead now.
So, when you watch the flick now, you get extra joy in seeing him destroyed.

The Ghostbusters gradually figure out the stuff between the slime and Vigo, learn how to change the polarity of the slime to positive, make backpacks that spray it, and use a mix of it, and classic proton beams, and beat Vigo.
Also, they make the Statue Of Liberty walk.
That's a thing.

Along the way, there's a side plot about Dana's baby, Oscar, another side plot about Vigo's flunkie, Janosz, and a side-side plot about Janine fucking Lewis.

All of this is tied up with the bow of Bobby Brown's "on our own", and laughter and joy is had by all.


Now, ATC.

In the broadest sketchiest strokes, it's the skeleton of the first  one.

Our characters come together, form the Ghostbusters, the powers of the big-bad gradually build, and they fight him at the end, and save the Earth from doomsday.

But with two important twists.

First, the villain is a human, and that human has used co-opted Ghostbusters technology to open a porthole to the spirit realm, and summon the ghosts to end the world.
So, he's an evil reverse-Ghostbuster.

Second, and this is what pissed off anti-feminist fedora wearing basement dwellers to no end, and made blood shoot out of their ears and eye sockets, he's an anti-feminist fedora wearing basement dweller. Minus the fedora. But we just know he has one tucked away somewhere.

Anti-feminist fedora wearing basement dwellers found this to be an unfair insulting stereotype.
Fuck them.
Fuck them with a red rubber dick.
Without lube.

Red pill, Incels, alt-right, they're Rowan through and through.
Rowan's villain rant is right out of the fucking Incel manifesto.

Incels look up to Elliott Roger, they come right out and say so.
You know, that fucking little murderer who felt entitled to pussy, and threw a homicidal tantrum when he couldn't get any, because women didn't like him, because he was a fucking creep.
Well, now he has clones, and they call themselves Incels.
Short for "involuntary celibates".
Oh, goody, the worst people ever have movements now.

This movie predicted the fucking little demons that would crawl out of the sewer once Trump got elected.
I don't think it meant to, but it did.

Rowan is the pink slime from GB2 with a face.

I smile every time the female Ghostbusters literally shoot him in the dick.

Anyway, Rowan commits suicide, comes back as the logo-ghost, grows to Godzilla proportions, the girls shoot him in the dick, throw him into his porthole in reverse, and the whole thing is tied up in the bow of Elle King's "good girls", and laughter and joy is had by all.

Oh, and the gaps are filled in with RGB references as much as actress improv routines.


So, what did the pink slime from GB2 stand for when the film actually came out?
There was no Red Pill/Incel/Alt-Right back in '89, what message was Dan Aykroyd conveying?

In broad terms, it was the negativity our culture was infested with, particularly in New York.
I don't recall Aykroyd ever getting more specific than that.

He always strived to keep the GB films a-political.

But OUTSIDE the films, he's pretty candid politically.

During the press tour for ATC, he came right out, and said that ATC haters were future Trump voters, and among their number were old fat KKK members.
He does not mince words.
Not anymore.

'89, he had to be a little sneakier though.
So, you have to decode it a little.

'89 we were coming to the end of the Reagan years.
And his "it's morning in America", and "the shining city on the hill", shit hadn't exactly happened.
Not for the lower middle working class.
Not for anyone I knew or grew up with.
Yuppies however, had a big old coke orgy.
They always do when the Republicans roll into town.

And New York was still a corrupted polluted nightmare Hell city where you were really likely to be murdered and/or raped.
Since then, to the shocked and awed disbelief of many, New York has been cleaned up, and become managable!
People WANT to go there now!
SANE people, not just hipster assholes who romanticize misery, and want to write a novel about the seedy underbelly of life while they take lots of heroin.

Hey, maybe the Ghostbusters fixed it!! :-D

Anyway, yeah, America had Reagan hangover.
And who else was the poster boy for Reaganism, but Donald fucking Trump?

And oh, lookee here!
Look who's in the music video to "on our own", on the GB2 blu-ray!!

Surpriiiise, surpriiiise!!!

And who was sneering at ATC before anyone else on Twitter?
You fucking guessed it.

The biggest hint in the actual film we get is Aykroyd as Ray calling those bratty kids at the birthday party "ungrateful little yuppie larvae".
Well, what else did those yuppie larvae grow up into but the beasts that besiege us now?
Whether it's the fuckers from "The Wolf Of Wall Street", or Trump's goon squad, or a bottomless blackhole of social media trolls who claim to be Libertarian, but pull the lever for the Elephant every fucking time.

Now, at the time when ATC came out, when all the fevered white-knuckled internet misogyny was going on, I and other GB fans compared the hate to the GB2 slime river.

But as we can now see with just a couple year's distance, GB2 and ATC were forecasting the same exact shit.
Just different facets of it.

I think ATC will be more prophetic and dead-on the further out we get.

The pink slime is the hate, Rowan the Trump voting Incel is the source.
As are Rowan's real life clones.

And their 1989 counterparts were middle class dopes on Reagan burnout that refused to blame it on Reagan burnout.


So, if GB2 and ATC line up as political forecasts, what's GB1 about?
No one really knows.
I mean, there are themes of being a plucky small business owner following your dreams, but they don't really carry through the whole movie.
There are themes of government bureaucracy being inept, but they're only sprinkled in there, not the main focus.

I guess it's just about guys with laser beams fighting ghosts!

Although, GB1 does have a Rowan, but he's offscreen, and only talked about.
Dana's apartment building was built by Ivo Shandor, and he designed it to be a ghost energy attracting machine.
Like Rowan's machines.
And like Rowan, Ivo decided that society was too sick to survive, and its destruction needed to be accellerated.
With ghosts.

In an earlier draft of the GB1 script, Gozer was supposed to manifest as Ivo Shandor, and he was supposed to be played by Paul Reubens (AKA Pee-Wee Herman).

The comics put the Pee-Wee version of Ivo into the arc/graphic-novel called "Mass Hysteria".

Also, we find out in the 2009 video game, co-written by Aykroyd BTW, that the slime from GB2 was made by machines built by Shandor on a sunken artifical lisland that pulled vibes out of the air like the Shandor tower, and concentrated them into the slime, and then pumped it into the New York sewers.

So, Shandor is the secret villain of GB1, GB2, and GBTVG.

So, the whole trilogy has had a human villain.
Gozer and Vigo were just pawns.
And Rowan is a pretender.

Now, I can just hear the crocodile tear laced cries of making the films a partisan axe grinding thing.

Well, sorry, evil in the world is wearing an elephant skin right now, and you have to be blind, deluded, or lying not to admit it.

Maybe some day, it'll wear a donkey skin.
It has before.
Back when Republicans were like Lincoln.
I'll point out if/when it does again in my lifetime.

So, yeah, that's the running theme of at least two of the films as I see it.
If not all three.
I'm drawn to that message, so it helps me enjoy the films even more.

If you agree with me, maybe you'll get more enjoyment too.

Food for thought.
Mull it over.
Enjoy.


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Disney/Fox Part 4: Don't celebrate yet, kiddies!

Previously-

• Disney/Fox Part 1: Comcast drops out.
• Disney/Fox Part 2: Marvel's cinematic history. 
• Disney/Fox Part 3: Confirmation!

*Sigh*

Yep, Comcast is back in the mix fucking things up.

They're begging and borrowing from banks to bid 10 billion over Disney's bid to try to snatch Fox out of Disney's mouth at the 11:59th hour.

Assholes.

And even if Fox still wants to sell to Disney, legally, they might have to consider, and even take Comcast's bid, because if you don't take a bigger bid, it looks like collusion and anti-competition.

AND, those Fox-Marvel characters might not revert to Disney after all, because if Comcast buys Fox, and leaves it intact, and doesn't dismantle or tinker with it, then Fox's contracts also remain intact, and X-Men and Fantastic Four are still stuck with Fox.

I don't know who the real villains are, Comcast themselves, or the banks that would give them the credit.

Fuck it, it's both.
Fucking banks almost imploded the country in '09, I still haven't forgiven that shit.
Now they're throwing free money at rich people to not only buy toys, but fight over the toys.

What a gross country.
Really.
What a fucking gross lousy country.

I just wanted Spider-Man to hang out with Human Torch, and Wolverine to fight Hulk.
Was that really so much to ask?
I don't think so.
It shouldn't take carving the planet into bigger and bigger monoloplies to get a simple thing like that accomplished.

*Head shake, another sigh*

Anyhoo, I'll retro-link this back into "Happy 10th anniversary, Marvel Studios!!!!".


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Big 2018 Movies Part 5.

• Part 1 (Black Panther)
• Part 2 (Ready Player One)
• Part 3 (Infinity War)
• Part 4 (Ash)

Holy fuckballs!! I never thought we'd get to this one!!


Ghostbusters:
Answer The Call:
What Dreams May Come
(2017-2018)

Previously with this franchise...

• My original Ghostbusters series review.
• Happy 1st anniversary, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call!
• Ghostbusters 101: Everyone Answers The Call.
• Ghostbusters 101, a year later.
• Ghostbusters: RGB references in ATC.
• Ghostbusters: Crossing Over update.
• GB: ATC: WDMC issue reviews.

And here's those individual issue reviews...

• Issue 1.
• Issue 2. 
• Issue 3.
• Issue 4.
• Issue 5.

And now for a review of the whole thing as a movie (on paper).

• Ehhhh, it's cute. But, where GB101 was worthy of being a movie, this feels more like a decent episode of the RGB cartoon.
• It has its neat little moments, like Holtzmann's new gadgets in issue 1, and the revelation in issue 4 that Holtzmann brainwashed Abby into being obsessed with soup, but overall...I wanted more. Especially after having to wait 8 goddamned months for this thing. 
• I enjoyed it overall, I'll probably buy the graphic novel, but this isn't my favorite entry in the series. I mean, "Crossing Over", is two issues in, and I'm already enjoying that more.
• Well, Paul Feig intended ATC to be a trilogy, and with 101, and this, it finally is. 
• In spite of my wavey-handing, I wouldn't mind if this creative team did another sequel. There's some good ideas set up that could be explored more. 
• I crave an RGB-style ATC cartoon, have since the movie came out, and if this spins out into a permanent ongoing series, that would be almost as good. 
• Yeah, if you look at this as a pilot episode for an ATC-RGB, this is pretty damned good.
• Okay, I take back my "Ehhhh". You did good, ladies.
• I want more though, if this is a one-and-done, I'm let down all over again.
• Like I mentioned both in the issue 3 review, and my Ash season 3 review, I'm not gonna do issue/episode reviews like this anymore. I'm gonna wait for all 8 issues of "Crossing Over", to come out to review it all as one thing. 

Anyway, like 101, it was good, and I'm happy.
If you didn't follow the issues, grab the graphic novel in June.

See you next time in the franchise for "Crossing Over", and...after that, who knows?
Hopefully continued comics sequels.
Hopefully, the next movie.
They're keeping everything more top-secret than a goddamned Star Wars title reveal.
We'll see.
Whatever it is, you know I'll be on it like stink on a monkey.

Anyway, next time, Deadpool 2.
...I think.
...I'm pretty sure.


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Revenge of the sixth!!!

Addendum to (seventh) Star Wars day.

I started observing Star Wars day on 2012, and I didn't even know it was a thing until Hyla told me about it.
I traced it back to see how many I missed, and apparently, it became a thing in 2008.
So, I went back to see what I was doing instead in those 4 lost years.

2008

I'm erased from internet existence.
I can't find anything.
I didn't start this blog until late June, so I missed it here.
I was taking a vacation from my usual boards so there's no record of me there.
I didn't start Facebook 'til winter.
So, all my internet activity was on Richard Dawkins, and the secret refugees board for Jason-Worlders.
And the latter has been wiped from existence, and the former rebooted their forums, and wiped all my shit from existence there.
There's nothing.
It's like I don't exist for that span.
But, I know I did, cuz here I am.
Closest I can find, is some build up to the first Iron Man movie in late 2007, and some Dark Knight stuff after May. Nothing hits the bullseye.
So...I was just getting in flame wars with Christians, and cracking jokes for my friends.
If someone mentioned Star Wars day, it flew over my head.


2009

Head was still wrapped up in religion crap.



2010

The Shmegalamonga coat of arms.

Which I re-reviewed here.


2011

Batdance!!


So, plus those lost years, next year is actually the 12th.
Gotta remember that.


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Happy seventh observed Star Wars day.

• First. (I was oblivious)
• Second. (The Disney deal dropped)
• Third. (Episode 7 started production)
• Fourth. (Episode 7 wrapped)
• Fifth. (The Force Awakens)
• Sixth. (Rogue One)

Saw "The Last Jedi", twice in the theater.
I'm putting repeat viewings in comments now, so no more multiple links to chase around.

I loved the shit out of it.
But with "the fandom", it's the most divisive since the prequels.
It still made 1.3 billion, so fuck those little bitches.

Yeah, I thought we'd be free and clear of this shit after this one, but it looks like we're stuck with whiny fanboys until generation X and Y fucking die.
Generation Z is grateful for all 9 of 'em.
They're where we were in the 80's.
Pure and unsullied by hipster-ism.

I have a feeling sooner or later, the hipsters will be eating a big bucket of apology.
Can't wait.

Anyhoo, from last time...

See you next year for "The Last Jedi", and some news on Han Solo and anthology three.

The first is taken care of above.
As for the other two...

• Lord & Miller were fired from Han Solo, and Ron Howard was called in to fix and finish the flick.
• Reshoots my ass, he remade the damned thing.
• "Untitled Han Solo movie", was finally titled "Solo: A Star Wars Story".
• Solo had its teaser trailer and teaser posters.
• The Solo teaser posters turned out to be ripoffs.
• Solo had its full trailer and another poster.
• Solo had its final (?) poster.
• And, the future of the third anthology flick is still as murky as ever.

Also...

• I did an update/sequel to the infographic evolution thing. 
• No word yet on how Episode 9 is going to deal with the death of Carrie Fisher. 
• Whatsisname was fired from Episode 9, and J.J. Abrams is wrapping up the sequel trilogy.
• Whatsisname landed on his feet, he's directing Jurassic World 3. 
• Rian Johnson is making his own trilogy. 
• Benioff & Weiss from GoT are making their own trilogy. 
• Jon Favreau is developing the live-action TV series. 
• Disney/Lucasfilm is retiring the Wilhelm scream. 
• I re-reviewed the prequels.  (I don't hate 'em anymore)
• I ranked the first 8 Star Wars films. 
• Rebels finished off, and it was awesome, and left seeds for the third series. 
• They didn't go up to "Rogue One", but what they did was even better.
• With Thrawn being in two seasons of Rebels, that's as good as the anime Thrawn trilogy I wanted. 
• One of the high up story-group guys at Lucasfilm said they're going to pull more and more from the old EU. So Thrawn was just the start. *Crosses fingers for Mara Jade*
• The third animated series is called "Star Wars: Resistance".
• Star Wars Land is called "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge".

So, I'm writing this post three weeks ahead of time, cuz I couldn't stand the wait anymore.
I'm gonna do that now, instead of backlogging the news in the comments of the previous year.
If any new news drops between now and then, I'll add it in.

By the time this goes up, Solo will be a couple weeks away.
Then, that'll have to get us over the massive hump before Episode 9.
By next year, there should be some Episode 9 news, maybe a title.
And hopefully, we'll have some news on the next 2 trilogies, anthology three, animated series three, and the live-action TV series.
And oh yeah! "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge", should be built by then!

Up until Rogue One, we were going movie to movie, now the universe is going to explode out to the size it was in the 90's with the expanded universe.
I'm genuinely excited.
Good time to be alive.
And absolutely none of this existed this time in 2012.
So, you never know.
See you next time for more cool stuff we don't know now.


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Happy 10th anniversary, Marvel Studios!!!!

Yep, here it is!
Marvel has been using the whole year to celebrate, but this is the actual day Iron Man 1 came out.
Infinity War even has a special 10th annivrsary logo in front of it.

Not only is this saga quite possibly the best thing put to screen, its transformed the entire movie business.
You won't be able to tell the story of Hollywood in the 21st century without talking about Marvel.
It can't be done.
I mean, you COULD, but your history book would be a redacted pile of worthless lies.
So much for this being a fad.

Previously-

Happy 4th anniversary, Iron Man!
(Except it was the 5th, and on the wrong day, and the fucking date was right on the poster.
What an idiot!)
Ranking the MCU so far (2017)
The saga of the Sony/Marvel Spidey deal.
Disney/Fox Part 1: Comcast drops out.
Disney/Fox Part 2: Marvel's cinematic history. 
Disney/Fox Part 3: Confirmation!
Disney/Fox Part 4: Don't celebrate yet, kiddies!
Disney/Fox Part 5: The home stretch is in sight!
Disney/Fox Part 6: IT'S OVER!!!!!!!!!!

Now, let's go over the films again.
I'll put them in proper watching order, and review my old reviews.
I marathoned all of them up to "Raganrok", leading up to "Infinity War", so I have a fresh perspective on 'em.

1. Captain America: The First Avenger.

The old review nails it pretty well.
Except now in the light of the secrets from "Winter Soldier", "Civil War", and "Infinity War", it plays even better.
Some people's watching order is to put this as a flashback after the ending of "Thor", introduces the Tesseract, and I guess you could do that, but I like it better as a prequel, then you're introduced to Nick Fury at the end, then you jump to Iron Man as the son of Howard Stark, then Nick shows up again to link the two. Eh, it works either way, I guess.

2. Iron Man.

The one that started it all.
When you want to start a cinematic universe, you wanna go with John Favreau, not Zack Snyder.
Just saying.
I mean, no knock against Snyder, but he's better with self-contained weirdo artistic visions, not laying down tracks other directors have to emulate.
You gotta look at these things like big TV shows when you're building them.
The director of the pilot lays down the style for the other directors.
You gotta keep that in mind.
Although, to be even more fair to Snyder, I think WB sprung the whole cinematic universe thing on him after the fact. WB suits are assholes.
Anyway, this one is still great, and it's wild to go back to it knowing how far everyone has come.

3. The Incredible Hulk.

Okay, the continuity on this, "Iron Man 2", and "Thor", has always been contentious, but here's how I finally come down on it.

Go with release order.
Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor.

They all happen at roughly the same time, and overlap, but with Thor leading right into Avengers, that has to go last.
And with both the Hulk news footage, and the Thor hammer, Iron Man 2 should be in between.
Doesn't matter that Tony goes to meet Ross in Hulk AFTER the scene in Iron Man 2, there's just no way to make it perfect.
Just accept that time jumps around a little.

Except for Ross being in "Civil War", and "Infinity War", this one doesn't impact the saga much.
Maybe Abomination and Leader will be in Avengers 4, who knows?

4. Iron Man 2.

Come on, it introduced Black Widow, War Machine, baby Spider-Man, and adds a piece to the Howard Stark saga that runs through "First Avenger", "Iron Man 2", "Winter Soldier", "Ant-Man", and "Civil War". And the Gary Shandling evil senator thing pays off in "Winter Soldier".
I think it's underrated as fuck.

5. Thor.

Y'know, it snuck up gradually, but now with "Ragnarok", and "Infinity War", I think Thor might be my favorite character.
My only beef with this one, Hemsworth's blonde eyebrows.

6. The Avengers.

Still awesome, the MCU truly arrived as a force with this one, and in MCU continuity, the ripple effects of "the battle of New York", are still being felt.
And Thanos first appears here.
Cap to Thor were the gestation, the MCU baby was birthed here.

From the old review...

This is no fly-by-night summer flick that you forget about, this is the new epoch.
This is history making.
The box office records are justified.

Nailed it.
I was right.
I knew even then.

Also from the old one...

This is the new saga. Envy the children that'll grow up with it.

A generation has grown up with it now.
If you were 10 when Iron Man came out, you're 20 now.
If you were a fetus, you're 10.
This is a generation's Star Wars now.
I think that's awesome.

7. Iron Man 3.

Like Iron Man 2, I think it's underrated.

Tony's PTSD, his addiction to suits, his struggling relationship with Pepper, those threads play out in "Civil War", "Spider-Man: Homecoming", and "Infinity War".

And hey, you get The Silver Centurion armor in canon...if for only 5 seconds.

Yeah, yeah, fake Mandarin, boo-fucking-hoo.
The Marvel shorts say the real Mandarin is out there.
Get over it.

8. Thor: The Dark Word.

"Ragnarok", and "Infinity War", make this one pay off like gangbusters.
The haters seriously need to shut up now.

9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

From here on out, Marvel hit it out of the park with critics and fans.
Non fucking stop.
I can't think of one past this point that anyone whines about like they do "Iron Man 3", or "Dark World".
We were at critical mass, no going back.

And Bucky has been an awesome character.

10. Guardians Of The Galaxy.

I think the whole planet loves this one.
If you're a hipster douche that hates it, I don't wanna fuckin' know you.

Fans wanted them to meet the Avengers as soon as this came out.
Boy, did "Infinity War", deliver the goods on that!!

11. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.

I dunno if I can ever bring myself NOT to binge this back to back with part 1 from now on.
Technically, this is a phase 3 movie, but it happens a month after vol. 1, so it jumps back into phase 2.

Some people whine it's not as good as vol. 1,...I dunno parts of it I like even better.
Me, I love it.

12. Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

It gets better on rewatching, and a couple things pay off huge in "Infinity War", so this goes up a few points for me.
And Sokovia has big ripples throughout the MCU, so you gotta see it for that if nothing else.

I was slightly annoyed at the time we didn't get "Infinity War", right away as part 2, but now after seeing "Infinity War", I appreciate why they had to set some more stuff up first.
Also, the mid-credits scene to "Ultron", makes way more sense when you go back and watch it after "Infinity War".
Trust me.

13. Ant-Man.

Oh yeah, this came out the same year as the Josh Trank "Fantastic Four".
I had to see "Ant-Man", again to antidote it.

Ant-Man came right back in "Civil War", he was MIA in "Infinity War", though, maybe "Ant-Man & The Wasp", will explain why.

Hope he'll pop up in Avengers 4.
We will see.

14. Captain America: Civil War.

The best MCU movie until "Black Panther".
And then that one was dethroned by "Infinity War".

"Avengers", "Winter Soldier", "Age Of Ultron", "Civil War", "Ragnarok", and "Infinity War", are the big historical epochs of the MCU universe.
You gotta know at least those for your binge homework.

15. Doctor Strange.

My favorite Marvel characters before the MCU started were Hulk, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and then Thor.

I got 3 out of the 4 right up front.

I never dreamed we'd make it to Strange's solo movie, but holy shit, here we were.
And it delivered the goods.

And Strange delivers like gangbusters in "Infinity War".
Ho-ly shit!!!

16. Spider-Man: Homecoming.

And the Sony deal pays off!!

I said it all in the old review, I think.

17. Thor: Ragnarok.

Best Thor, best Hulk, one of the best MCU's period.

Said it back at Thor 1, with this, and "Infinity War", Thor might just be my favorite character.

18. Black Panther.

The Easter egg for this was planted way back at Iron Man 2, and Stan Lee blabbed that this and Doctor Strange were happening way back in 2013.
Never thought we'd get to it, but blam, here we are.
Hell, it's still in theaters in some places.

My old review of it said it all for the film's quality.
It deserved the box-office records it broke.

And finally...

19. Avengers: Infinity War.

What a long strange trip its been, eh?
Seen it twice already.
My two reviews cover it pretty well, I think.
Plus all the shout-outs throughout this list.

Oh, and as of right now, it broke "The Force Awakens", opening weekend record.
Damn!

So, next comes "Ant-Man & The Wasp", then "Captain Marvel", then Avengers 4, whatever the title's gonna be, and then we'll be into phase 4, and hopefully, some Fox character crossovers.
The future looks bright for Marvel!

Unless there's a nuclear apocalypse or something.
Go to sleep, North Korea! Sleeeep! Sleep for a decade!

Anyhoo, Happy Marvel, everybody!!!


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