Star Wars

Saw The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters last Friday.

It was a pretty okay movie. Definitely not the best movie (my favorite movie is Return of the Jedi) but it was enjoyable enough. It's kind of weird that it sort of relies on context from the show up to the final season yet doesn't really involve many of the characters from the show at all. It involves a few minor characters from the show as well as two characters from the Boba Fett spinoff, but a lot of the Mandoverse's major recurring characters apart from the title characters of the film are nowhere to be seen. I won't go too deep into the specifics of that as to not spoil the film for people who want to go see it, of course.

There's a lot of people being weirdly negative about the movie online for either one reason or another, but you know whatever. People can think what they want of it of course, and there are some valid criticisms that can be made of it, but I kind of think people could be less annoying about it. I know obviously some of this comes from people who intend to be negative about new stuff no matter what and maybe aren't discussing things in good faith, but another part of this discourse seems to come from pretentious people who apparently got too attached to the writing of Andor and now are a bit up in arms that a movie which never intended to imitate Andor isn't imitating Andor. I'm not saying this to dunk on Andor as a show since I haven't actually seen enough of it to have an opinion on it one way or another, but good grief can the fans online be insufferable sometimes. You know, I'm not against deep social commentary, as the original and prequel movies had a fair share of that, but it's also okay to have things that are fun even if they don't have too much to say. This isn't to say that I think Star Wars should turn into a mindless action figure mashing franchise or whatever, but a movie isn't "slop" simply because it doesn't meet the standards you got from another thing that was deliberately meant to be different. It's good for Star Wars to have variety, and while that means not every project should be like The Mandalorian, it also means not every project should be like Andor.

Anyways, I had a good time watching despite all that and here's a blurry picture of a sign at the theater:

Anyone have any thoughts on the movie (if you've seen it)? Agree or disagree on anything I've said? I'm open to discussion.

Yesterday, voice actor Tom Kane sadly passed away at 64 years old.

In the Star Wars franchise, he was known for providing the voice of the opening narrator in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), as well as Admiral Yularen and Yoda in the same series and some other media. He also voiced Yoda in the previous Star Wars: Clone Wars miniseries from 2003. For a while, he was kind of the main go-to guy for Yoda when Frank Oz wasn't available. He also sometimes did the voice of Admiral Ackbar in some stuff, though not in The Clone Wars (Ackbar appears there but is voiced by a different actor), as well as Qui-Gon Jinn in some Lego Star Wars stuff. Sadly, his voice acting career ended after a stroke in late 2020, with the video game Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which released in 2022, being his final role, where he provided the voices of Yoda, Admiral Ackbar, and Qui-Gon Jinn.

Outside Star Wars, he was known for his voice acting roles in cartoons such as Professor Utonium and Him in Powerpuff Girls and Mr. Herriman in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He also sometimes voiced Gandalf in some The Lord of the Rings video games (and Lego Dimensions) as well as Commissioner James Gordon in a few Batman video games, namely Batman: Arkham Asylum and Lego DC Super-Villains. He also sometimes voiced characters in the Marvel Universe, such as Magneto and Ultron. He also voiced Takeo Masaki in Call of Duty from World at War up to Black Ops 4 as well as the robot character Lok in Fortnite: Save the World. There's a lot more stuff I could mention, but I think I've gotten the point across: he was in a lot of stuff. (Added note: he was also the guy who does the Disney FastPlay voiceover.)

Even though his career had already been over for some time by this point, it is sad to know the man behind these voices is now gone. The Star Wars galaxy, as well as the wider universe, won't be the same without him. Rest in peace, Tom Kane. May the Force be with you.

Happy 82nd birthday to George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Lucasfilm!

Been watching through my 2006 Limited Edition original trilogy DVDs and amidst a lot of the prequels vs sequels debates and stuff like that I've been kind of reminded just how amazing and in a sense comfortable the original films are. I do enjoy the prequels and appreciate how they expanded the lore, and as messy as they were I wouldn't say I hate everything that came out of the sequels, but I kind of think the original trilogy really is the best one, and I say this even despite the controversial Special Edition changes. Feel free to disagree of course, these are just my thoughts.

May the 4th be with you!