Readers Request - Perfidious Albion, Milkshakes & Pangolins

It's come round again folks - it's another edition of the blog you love the most, the show without the host, you asky and me talky - it's Readers Request! If you don't know, it's where I ask people to provide prompts or questions for me to address, and then I... address them.

And I got a boatload of them this time round, so let's crack on, shall we?

Boobs! - YAY someone did it! (For those not in the know, almost every time, someone suggests boobs.)

Favorite spider man film. Also favorite super hero film. - I blogged about the Marvel List recently, and... though I haven't seen Far From Home just yet? My favourite Spider-Man film AND my favourite super hero film are one and the same. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.

(Also bewbs) - Excellent, excellent. Yes.

Moobs - Also kind of a fan. I mean I have some. Picture not included.

A treasure Planet live action remake perfect cast and any other additional changes - So in 2002, when Treasure Planet came out, I loved it. I like my scifi, and this one had a main character that I genuinely saw a lot of myself in. I think it's one of the few Disney cartoons that could actually benefit from a live action treatment. Casting is difficult - but I think you could do a lot worse than having someone like Taron Egerton playing Jim, someone like Rory McCann as Long John Silver, and Captain Amelia - well I dunno, maybe Charlize Theron or Zoe Saldana?

A reboot of The Deerhunter ... using only boobs - I am... not sure that the average boob can convey the pathos required for the Deerhunter. (Which is an amazing film, if you haven't seen it.)

JourneyQuest season 4 Kickstarter. - Okay folks. JourneyQuest needs our help. Check it out on Kickstarter right here. It's a fantasy series that is made by folks well-acquainted with the tropes of the genre and of gaming inside that genre. They're a driven, talented bunch and they deserve success.

Favourite parts/moments of collectable card games - My favourite moments are when either myself or my opponent pull off the most weird and outlandish combo that you can possibly imagine. Like you are laughing halfway through the description of how it all works, and you aren't even mad when you have to concede. That's why I play these games.

Thoughts on 'Pirates of Darkwater' - NOY JITAT! I loved this show. Such a crime that it got done dirty. It deserved like a hundred episodes and a movie. If you don't know? Here's a link to a "history of" video that I liked.

If you could give any song the superhero treatment, like Immigrant song in Thor: Ragnarok, what would it be and how? - Hard question. I loved how Immigrant Song was used in Ragnarok (both times), and how The Chain was used in Guardians 2 (both times). So if we assume songs from a similar period, then I am thinking that a particularly emotive, introspective or soul-bearing moment would be suitably accompanied by Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Perhaps something involving certain members of the Avengers or their compatriots who are no longer present?

Times when a creator has talked about something they've done that you found interesting/changed perspective/deepened your like of the thing. - I really enjoy listening to songwriters in particular talk about their songs and the creative process that goes into them. I like making-of documentaries in regard to movies, too; Dangerous Days about Blade Runner is particularly insightful. Actors, though - when you listen to an actor talk passionately about a role they've enjoyed playing, that juices me a lot. The one example I think of? Will Smith, talking about making Ali. About his respect for the man, his dedication to making it all look real. The results speak for themselves.

Really interesting director's commentary was my first thought but interviews, online posts anything firsthand really. I love Song Exploder podcast for exactly this ^.^ http://songexploder.net/ - This was an additional comment to the above, but deserves to be included, because my second example comes from Song Exploder - if you don't know I love Nina Cried Power by Hozier, well you do now, it's an AMAZING song. And my appreciation for it only grew when I heard him on Song Exploder, discussing how he wrote it and how it came together. You can catch that here.

Coping with existential dread. - Literally the only way I can do this is by not thinking about it. I know that's not a suitable solution but it's all I have. Also; if you have seen any of the recent articles talking about how likely it is we are living in a simulation, or seen Sword Art Online, or similar - well my answer to all that is, if your life is still here even if it's just a simulation, then you still have to live it. The risks and rewards are all just the same. Even if none of it is real, that means everything is as real as it is going to get. Your happiness is as real as you are, and that is why we exist. To be happy.

Perfidious Albion - I mean, yeah. We have a rep for backstabbing and self-interest, and we have that because we're self-interested back-stabbers on the world stage. Not much we can do about that if a significant swathe of the population keep voting for assholes.

Also perfidious albinos - The Other Being The Bad Guy is a trope that makes me kind of sweaty. Albinism gets kind of used like that. Matrix Reloaded, The DaVinci Code, The Princess Bride and Star Trek have all used this particular trope in a pretty shady way. Not a big fan. It's a shame when you have generally cool people like Yellowman (reggae artist), Anderson Cooper (news anchor) and Shaun Ross (model) doing their best in the face of this nonsense.

Also perforated albinos - Caliban in Logan gets perforated. I think. Shrapnel?

And perfidious albatross - YOU CAN'T FUCKING TRUST AN ALBATROSS

Bewbs -

Current favorite podcast - I don't listen to podcasts really, but I recently got referred to Start With This, a podcast for creative type folks from the Nightvale crew.

How you go about getting out of bed when every fiber of your being is screaming to remain in your warm, cozy, cocoon. - I kind of have to, the longer I spend in one position, the worse I hurt - so actually getting out of bed is sometimes an absolute blessed relief. Unless moving hurts more than laying still. Which I don't get to find out until I try it.

Mecha (or anything really) you'd love to see fight Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Well gee, I dunno - but I'd love to see Coop from Megas XLR throw down with TTGL. If only because I know he and Kamina would be instant friends afterwards. Can you even imagine?

For bonus geek points the tightness of ones shoes and the relevance of said fact in light of ones amnesia in relation to the methods of dancing -  "Something my father said. He was... Old, very old at the time. I went into his room, and he was sitting, alone in the dark, crying. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "My shoes are too tight. But it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance." I never understood what that meant until now. My shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance." I love Babylon 5.

Transformers gundam throwdown - Okay, do we mean Gundam universe, or actual Gundams? Cos like. In a fight, even the gruntiest Transformers are gonna win against Zakus and GMs. But the Gundam itself is a whole other beast. Not a lot of Transformers are powered by psychic craziness. I probably think Megatron would win against the Grandpa Gundam, but that's mostly because of who Megatron is rather than his actual capabilities - he'd use every single dirty trick and nasty ploy to get one up on the hapless Gundam pilot before blowing his ass out of the cockpit with the fusion cannon. (Optimus and Amuro wouldn't fight, let's face it.)

The inevitable heat death of the universe - SOON PLEASE

The "nice" weather that's indicative of the impending climate catastrophe - I mean... yeah? ...what's there left to say, we're fucking doomed.

Favorite milkshake flavor - Either whatever is splashed over the fascist it's been thrown on, or, strawberry.

How we can avert heading towards an even greater dystopian hellscape - Immediate and total revolution.

Favorite author (other than yourself ;) ) - HAH as if I would ever believe I am my own favourite author? Uh. But I digress. That's actually a hard question, but I think I'd have to swing for Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. Not strictly because of their work, but because of who they are (or were), and the messages inherent in their work. And also they are (or were) both generally amazing people.

Which SINGLE member of the Tory party would you most like to give a swift kick to the genitalia? - Seeing as Maggie is dead? Boris Johnson.

Top three snack foods - This is a hard one. Uh. I'm tempted to go with the stuff that I can't often lay hands on in this country. So - flamin hot cheetos, chilli cheese fritos, and sour patch kids.

Your take on the current state of the human condition, and do you feel there is cause for optimism, cynicism, or a mixed bag? - The human condition is pretty much defined by insecurity. It's core to who we are. Now, if society as a whole was capable of dealing with that in a constructive or healthy fashion, then I'd be optimistic - but that would make the money sad, so we have to use it as a marketing ploy rather than recognising it as part of us and coping with it. So yeah. Cynicism all the way down.

The cultural normalization of casual alcoholism - This is a big thing in this country. Casual drinking to excess is accepted as basically being normal here, and alcoholism appears to be determined as "when I have a problem big enough that other people notice and talk to me about it" rather than its actual definition. So, not entirely surprised that it is a huge problem in this country. And as the financial problems mount up, it is only going to get worse. It always does.

Favorite candy color - Red. I like the red ones.

How long do you think we have before the technological singularity? Or do you think we're already there? - The date that was previously predicted was 2029; recently Ray Kurzweil of Google has predicted it will happen by 2045 in this article right here. I think that's hard to predict, though. The definition of the singularity is a point wherein "technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible", and... okay, imagine your life without microchips or combustion engines. Boom. We're there, already. There's just depths ahead of us.

Your best case scenario that ends with a unified Earth - ...I don't think there is one. Unless we see a total overhaul of our politics globally, which leads to an overhaul of corporation, industry and finance. Which - lets face it - simply isn't going to happen.

Will the be armed opposition to our eventual machine overlords, or will they simply take control of everything and people will barely notice? - If they are smart, they will take over long before we even realise they have done so. We may not even actually notice, ever. We may just start doing the stuff the machines want us to, because it's easier for them to arrange that than to make us accept machine rule. It's what I would do if I was an AI.

Happy Treason Day Ungrateful Colonials - You've got to laugh, or you'll remember our colonial past and realise that any success this nation has enjoyed on the world stage is built on the exploitation of others.

Bewbs² - Ah yes, yes indeed. Boobs squared. I prefer boobs rounded but all boobs are valid, including a lack therein.

Your arguments against violently seizing the means of production - I only argue with the term violently. Every chance to get it done without cracking any skulls. I think we owe that to our humanity. Necessary force only, people. We're not cops.

Top three colors - Magic, wind, red.

The effects of people enclosing themselves in like minded echo chambers and discrediting anything opposed to that as categorically false - Well, look around you. Our entire society is built on echo chambers. Our history is built on people only listening to the things they want to listen to, and mostly untroubled by the voices of those beyond the boundary. This isn't a new thing that the internet has helped give birth to. It's just easier to see it play out in real time, now. Humans like to be surrounded by those that think the same as they do. It emboldens them, it plugs that hole of insecurity in their hearts. It can be especially freeing to be surrounded by people that hate the same things you do. With some things (insert name of band here), that's something you can share with society; if it's something closer to racism, sexism, antisemitism or any other crime against people - you're likely to try and surround yourself with people that agree, so you don't suffer social consequences for expressing your (already shitty) views. CGP Grey did do a video on this though, which I was linked to in the comments.

Magnets, how do they work? - "And I don't wanna talk to a scientist, y'all motherfuckers lying and getting me pissed!" ...honestly I still kinda love Insane Clown Posse, and I love the fact that they did a whole album trying to convince people that they were evangelical Christians AND IT WORKED.

Someone 40 years ago would never believe we can have incredibly powerful computing machines in our pockets and wisely available to the public. What do you predict to be similarly unbelievable in 40 years time? - That we all had such powerful always-online computers in our pockets and still so many of us believed in such stupid things and acted in such stupid ways. That every house and building that is built isn't absolutely covered with solar panels. That we were still using the internal combustion engine. ...the cynicism aside, I think there will be a space elevator in forty years, and the idea of that absolutely blows my fucking mind.

"Oh hi Mark" - "WHAT IS LINE"

Why rats make the best pets - They're friendly, smart, clean and affectionate. They're adorable. I know they get a bad press but I think we can kind of accept that it is nonsense. I speak from experience: the best pets I ever had were my rats. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. I just. You know. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS LITTLE CUTIE PIE

The ethics of having a kid in a world with late stage capitalism - ...I mean... yeesh, it is a heavy one. Not that I am a kid-having kind of person, but at the same time, the world being as on-the-brink as it is has to be an additional consideration, right? Like, I am gonna bring a person into existence on a planet that may be unsuitable for sustaining our lives before the person reaches middle age. It's awful. There will be a collapse, it may well happen very soon, and when it does happen, shit is going to go sideways for literally everyone. Not sure I could advocate bringing a child into that battlefield.

PANGOLINS!!!!! - I LOVE PANGOLINS I love pangolins so much they're amazing. I actually had an NPC character in a Mutants & Masterminds game called Pangolin, who could grow the armour plating thing out of their skin. I love pangolins. PANGOLINS.

Boobies - I love boobies. Here's a nice pair.

Breasts. <3 - Oh lawdy yes. My favourite part. (of the chicken)

The fall of Cybertron - Superb game. Best depiction of Grimlock ever. Metroplex? Metroplex!? Just a great game overall, and a fantastic retelling of how the Autobots and Decepticons ended up on earth. Maybe not the best Transformers game - Devastation is amazing - but still. Get it. Get itttt.

Favourite fictional (!) post apocalyptic universe. - I love that you had to incorporate Fictional in that. Uh. That's hard, because I don't usually like post apocalyptic stuff? But in terms of media set in that universe - I have to say Mad Max. Fury Road is an EXCEPTIONAL film, and the Avalanche Studios open-world game is superb too.

Forgiving others and yourself. - I find this hard. Myself, specifically. I try and it just doesn't stick. I am still beating myself up over dumb shit I said when I was twelve, let alone mistakes I've made in recent years. Up to a point I'm very forgiving of other people. I like to think I am understanding in terms of people having things going on in their lives and how that may impact my interactions with them. Malice, though - malice I find very hard to forgive, nigh on impossible. And they say forgive and forget - like, no. If I forgive, I will forgive, but I will absolutely not forget anything that I have had to forgive someone for. Even if remembering it means I treat them kinder and have more understanding for them. If you fuck with me, and I forgive you, better not assume that I don't remember that you fucked with me.

The Emperor's New Groove - This was great. Really great. I liked the animation a lot, the musical number at the beginning is a classic, a lot of good lines, it just... always felt a bit like there was meant to be more? And of course now we know there was actually meant to be more. It just got rushed out. Which is a shame. Like there was a plotline involving Yzma trying to devour the SUN for god's sake.

The art of storytelling - I dunno if I can really cover all of that in the boundaries of this blog? But like... it IS an art. More of an art than a science. I could never get the hang of the whole arc structure, but you notice when it's done badly. If your story requires a different structure - give it that structure. Push it. See if it works. Readers are important for this. Get some! (Hey, if you wanna be one of my readers, you can totally hit my Patreon. Or just ask nicely.)

Should more artists stand up for their work. - This day and age makes it a lot easier for the consumers of media to contact the creators of that media, or for an artist or creator to see people's reaction to that work. Should you defend your work? I mean, that probably depends on the work, on the criticism raised against it, and on how you are going to stand up for it. Often what is called for isn't so much a "standing up" as an acknowledgement or a clarification. If only because outright haters aren't going to be pacified by anything whatsoever. It doesn't matter what you did or what you do, haters are just there to cause you misery, and then leave you on read while they go off and hate on someone else when you try and do right by them.

But, but, what if I want to do more?? - NO COLIN NO YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH BAD COLIN

Things that have made you laugh out loud - Huh. Well. Usually it's goofy shit. So I am gonna include some examples below, from the playlist I maintain on youtube called "Shit That Makes John Snart" - also included, a link to the entire playlist...

And that just about wraps it up this week, and what a week it has been. I think that's a record. 56 entries! And some of them weren't suggested by Colin I'M WATCHING YOU COLIN

Anyway. Thank you for joining me. If you made it this far - thank you for your patience!

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

Why Would They Do That?

I think that one of the key parts of fiction - and perhaps of life - is understanding motivation.

Part of enjoying a character is understanding them, grasping who they are - and following that, understanding why. Inigo Montoya, as demonstrated above, has who he is writ on his sleeve from the get-go. You learn more about him later, obviously. More depth is revealed. The important thing, though, is you know why he is doing what he is doing.

And a strong driving motivation is good. Right? Like, it helps a character move in life. It's hard for them to be dynamic and proactive if their main goal in life is Like Whatever. Why are you here, pal? Why are you doing what you are doing? Why should we care about you?

Consistency is important here, too. Like, if a character is going to have to change what they want or what they are doing, it should be for a good reason. The story should show you that. There should be little doubt - and if a change is sudden, it doesn't hurt to acknowledge the fact.

You know a movie that has a bunch of characters with easy-to-understand motivations that absolutely rocks?

John Wick.

Great film. If you can get past the, uh, reason why he is motivated to absolutely fucking end Alfie Allen's entire fucking existence. But once that happens, you totally grasp WHY he wants to murder the eternal shit out of Theon Greyjoy. In fact you are practically begging for it to happen, because Alfie Greyjoy is such a scumbag that I'm fairly convinced he'd run as a local UKIP candidate (OH SHIT POLITICS KLAXON).

You kind of understand why everyone does what they're doing, in this movie. Iosef (Alfie FUCKING Allen) is the exact kind of weak-ass pathetic shitweasel that would absolutely steal a mans car and do, uh, what he does, just because that guy stood up to him. His father Viggo is a Russian mob boss, torn between survival and familial duty. There's precious few moments where you are left confused.

That's just good writing. Combine that with the absurdly beautiful cinematography, the fight choreography that redefines an entire genre, the soundtrack oh god the soundtrack and one of the best performances ever put in by Keanu Criminally-Undervalued-As-An-Actual-Actor Reeves amongst others, and it makes John Wick one hell of a film.

...sorry, I got distracted.

Anyhow, it is part of - as best I can tell - why people feel Gang of Throne ended so poorly. The consistency. Or lack therein. A bunch of complicated characters with conflicting agendas all of a sudden forgetting several key parts of their motivation and how they feel about, well, anything. If only there was a character who could use some kind of mind control to manipulate how people acted, a thing that could be used to justify the personality transplants that several Thronefolks seem to undertake...

Okay, okay. Settle down, Kellogg's All Bran.

All this is about writing, of course. It's about making your characters either easy to understand, or making them compelling enough to stick around and find out why they are the way they are. If someone just shows up, and we have no idea why, and we have no reason to care - well, why? In fact, sometimes the only thing you need about a character is their motivation. We didn't know anything about what the Winter Soldier was, or who. All we got was how he locked, the music that played when he showed up, and the fact that he is 100% here to FUCK UP YOUR DAY.

This movie, dude.

All of this said... what is scarier than being totally lost on someone's motivations in real life?

Like, that's the thing, isn't it? Not knowing why someone does what they are doing? Why mass murderers mass murder, why war criminals think it's okay to use white phosphorous, why that guy at the bus stop says racist shit to the nice lady waiting for the next bus? Why anyone would put toilet paper on the roll the wrong way? (You know what I am talking about.)

Why would someone gleefully strike down equality legislation, make people's lives objectively worse, deport people that have every right to live here, make an environment hostile to people who are literally allowed to live here, and simply shrug over literal deaths on her watch...

...and then only cry when she announces her resignation?

Sometimes it isn't even that we don't understand a motivation. Sometimes we understand it just fine - and we hate it.

It's just easier in fiction.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

2019 Movie Time - #3 Captain Marvel / #4 Infinity War / #5 Endgame

Hard to believe that the last time I made it to a cinema was back in the beginning of January - but here we are. At least the days I go, I make it worth it, right?

And not satisfied with the double-feature of last time - in which I found what is probably my favourite Marvel movie, and new hope for the Transformers movie franchise - this time we have a triple header.

Yes yes.

Admittedly - this all happened on Wednesday the 24th, about a week and a half ago. I just didn't really want to do the reviews last week, if only for spoilery reasons. I think we're starting to get into the period wherein most people who care have seen it, now.

That said. If you haven't seen Endgame, and don't want a frank discussion of the plot? It's gonna happen in this blog. You have been warned.

Let us begin.

#3 Captain Marvel (2019)

A superhero movie about a badass lady set in the 90s? Someone read my Christmas list.

Captain Marvel isn't a complicated movie. It isn't meant to be. It does what it is trying to do, ties it up in a bow, and leaves the character of Carole Danvers for further adventures (some of which will definitely be handled below). What it is, is thoroughly enjoyable.

A soldier in an alien war machine, Vers (yeah there's a reason they call her that) is tasked with hunting down face-changing "insurgents" responsible for terrorist attacks - and finds herself questioning everything when it turns out that she might not even be who she thinks she is. In fact, she's been gaslit pretty hard.

For a movie so simple - bits of it are pretty subtle.

From the very beginning, you don't necessarily buy all the things she is being asked to buy into. There's an ongoing suspicious air around the activities of the Kree, which perhaps is more informed by our view of how the world works in the current age than anything. You'd have to be naive to not see obvious parallels between certain foreign policy decisions and the mission that Vers - under the stern gaze of her commanding officer, Yon-Rogg - is sent on in the beginning of the movie.

(If you can't see it - a small force of elite soldiers being sent into arid terrain in which the "natives" could be the "enemy" and should be treated as secondary to the "mission" to extract an "asset"?)

It isn't long after the mission goes south that we see Carole Danvers start to shine.

Yon-Rogg and the other Kree spend a lot of their time telling her to chill out and calm down, see. She's always, always being told that she needs to do things their way, that she has to rein herself in, that she's too emotional, so on, so on.

The first time she is out of their line of sight, she pretty much comes alive. She fights like a valkyrie. She smirks, she laughs, she's competent and powerful. You very quickly realise that the Vers that Yon-Rogg wants her to be isn't the person she really is... and that should be your first indication that the script was primarily written by women, who have first-hand experience of this. Having to lessen themselves so they don't make the menfolk mad.

Irony, given that one of the responses to this movie was:

sHe Is ToO pOwErFuL

Well for one thing, this is a superhero movie. I didn't hear any of these complaints when Hulk punched Surtr half to death in Ragnarok, or when Steve Rogers didn't die immediately when the plane crashed with him in the cockpit.

Could it be that she gets treated differently because she is... wait, wait... no. No. It COULDN'T be that she's not allowed to be strong or powerful or cocky or arrogant or sarcastic because she has the audacity to be...

...a WOMAN!?

Shock horror - but hey, there's a section of the internet that is never going to be happy until every character is a white cis-het male, so fuck them anyway. The movie's approval rating was review-bombed down to 28% on Rotten Tomatoes BEFORE its release, then rose back up to a 78% review score AFTER release; if that doesn't tell you everything about these people, nothing will. If you don't like a superhero being a superhero, you're in the wrong place. Go home.

I love Carole Danvers. She reminds me of a halfway mix between The Sentry and Daria. She's like the super-person you really wish Superman was capable of being, except he's too flat. She's a hero. She's a hero who whoops when she flies and sings bad karaoke because it's fun.

On the topic of music? The score for this film absolutely slaps. Not just the soundtrack - which features some of the good shit from the nineties, you know me - but the score. It's got a fantastic set of motifs which are unmistakable even when heard casually. Nick Fury's little "I'm Doing Stuff" motif is this wicked electric guitar riff. I've listened to that score like once every couple days since I saw the movie, that's how much I liked it.

I got out of that movie with a good feeling. I felt good watching it. It made me laugh, it made me cheer. I think the thing I liked the least was the noise of a cat horking up a hairball at the end. (Anyone who has had a cat will testify to this noise being the worst noise ever.) Outside of that, well - hell, it ended up pretty high on the List. It's top five. It was an enjoyable bit of cinema even without the greater MCU context.

Speaking of the greater MCU context...

#4 Avengers - Infinity War

We watched Infinity War / Endgame back-to-back as a double feature, and frankly - it actually made me like Infinity War more to see it presented as a part 1 to Endgame's part 2.

See I LIKED Infinity War - liked a lot of the things it did - but it felt a little... bitty. A little all-over-the-place in parts. I recognise it is difficult to tie together the threads of the MCU into a cogent ending but still, the problems gotta be recognised.

Seeing it again reminded me how funny I find some of it. The entire scene in Manhattan, Tony and Strange squabbling with each other, actually leaves me in stitches. Whenever Tom Holland's Peter Parker shows up - yes, I'm a fanboy of him, too. The fight scenes are predictably nicely put together, too. I mean, why wouldn't they be. They've been doing this for a while. My boy War Machine gets to put in some work in that final fight. Bruce Banner gets to be Bruce Banner. Thor gets to work through some truly holy rage.

I don't think I need to go into a lot of detail about this one. I'll just move on to the main event here. Which, obviously, entails spoilers. You've been warned, okay?

#5 Avengers - Endgame

I didn't know what I was expecting when I went in to watch this. Not really. I had some theories. Almost every expectation I had was blown away - this isn't the movie you think it is.

It becomes obvious that the two were filmed at the same time. The two are similar to the second and third movies of many modern trilogies - The Matrix and Pirates Of The Caribbean come to mind. The movies individually don't necessarily feel complete, don't fit within a neat arc, don't feel contained or resolved, don't seem to give good balance to aspects of character. Taken as pairs seen as a whole, they are a lot more balanced, a lot more fulfilling to watch.

(I mean I say that. I may personally like the Matrix trilogy, but nothing will convince me to rewatch the Pirates movies. Urgh. Anyway.)

While Infinity War was very compartmentalised, putting each of the Avengers in different places (and straight-up not featuring one of them at all), Endgame is literally an Avengers movie. It's about them. More specifically - it is mostly about Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.

I came into the movie with some theories as to what would happen. Only two came to pass - one was obvious, one was a joke.

The obvious one is that Dr Strange knew that everything had to pan out this way. HAD to. That's why, while everyone else was trying to stop Quill from slapping Thanos about, he did literally nothing. That had to happen. He saw the way it would all pan out. And that is why, when he gives the stone to Thanos, he apologises to Tony.

He's not saying, "I'm sorry I am giving him the stone because we fought hard to keep it from him". He's saying, "I'm sorry - but I am keeping my promise - because you WILL die at the end of the chain of events I have foreseen. I said I would sacrifice you to keep the stone safe. That is exactly what I am doing."

The joke I made was that - heh, wouldn't it be fucked up if they just went and murdered Thanos in the first fifteen minutes? ...which wasn't out by much, because Thor lops his head off with Stormbreaker in the nineteenth minute.

What follows is one of my two quibbles with this film.

Five years pass. During that time, Tony has made good on the vague statement he makes at the end of Age Of Ultron - "Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book. Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up" - and the dream he had involving Pepper being pregnant. Steve Rogers has done what he always does, held together small groups with his natural warmth and leadership. Black Widow has slipped into a paranoid overwatch role in the remains of the Avengers head office. Hawkeye has gone full Ronin, and is busy killing his way across what remains of the world's criminal underworld. Bruce deals with Hulk by treating him as a cure rather than a disease, and in doing so becomes greater than the sum of his parts. And Thor...

Well Thor justifiably has a breakdown. He's lost his mother, his father, his hammer, the three buddies he used to pal around with, his best friend, and his brother - who he was just starting to get on with. Half of his people are dead. He throws himself into the task of murdering Thanos, because he has "nothing else to lose". He almost dies making a weapon that can kill a being that powerful. Then he shows up and he puts it to use - and through little fault of his own, doesn't get the job done before Thanos snaps half the universe into oblivion. (Presumably also including half of the remaining Asgardians.) He gets another chance and beheads the big purple bastard, and...

...and there's still a hole where his entire life was, and all the people that were gone are still gone. He failed. That is the only way he can see it. He failed his people, he failed the universe, and even finally going through with the killing didn't fix that. So he has a breakdown, and slips into a depression the likes of which are hard to imagine. Which is obviously represented by him... getting fat... and it being a joke? I don't like "he put on weight" being shorthand for "he had a serious fucking blow to his mental health and hasn't really recovered". Even if the scene in which you see him for the first time has one of the most incredible bits of face acting I've seen in any of these movies - when Bruce says Thanos' name. I didn't know Chris Hemsworth was capable of that level of pathos. The anguish that just... radiates from him in that one moment... is palpable. It hurts.

There's a few of those moments. They happen later though.

The midsection of the film - I say midsection, more like the middle hour and a half - is a time heist. Yeah. Time heist. I said it. And it is... actually fun. It's kind of a bit weird. Like in the face of this tragedy, we're engaged in hijinx to not go back in time to stop Thanos, but to just bring back everyone that was lost. In doing so it is almost like we are almost being shown the Avengers greatest hits - revisiting scenes from previous movies, seeing characters that aren't around any more, even dipping into the TV universe with Steve Rogers almost running into Peggy Carter and Tony Stark getting to have a talk with his own father.

It bears mention that the "rules of time travel" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe aren't actually very well defined at all, despite the amount of arguments I see about it online - there is only one rule, and that one rule is given by the Ancient One, to Bruce Banner.

The stones have to be where the stones are. If they aren't, everything goes wrong. Otherwise, everything is fine.

So as the past starts to seep into the in-movie present, we don't have to worry about paradox. And that's good, because the plans start to come good, and we get the stones back. The Soul Stone, of course, requiring a sacrifice.

My second quibble. I think Black Widow was sold short. Like, not just in this movie. In general. She gets to be support. Constantly. She helps everyone else achieve their objectives, and while that is a valuable contribution, I want her to shine. I want her to do things. I want her to have her Captain Marvel moments - and they just never seem to quite emerge. I know she is chalked in to get her own spin-off movie or series, but... well... it felt a little like fridging, like she'd died mostly because it would make other people suffer. I think she deserved more. I think she should have been there when A-Force happened.

Oh, you don't know about that yet? Well here comes.

So Bruce Banner gets the Stark-forged right-handed Infinity Gauntlet on, and Snaps, and really savagely fucks himself up doing so. But before we see any serious effect of this happening - short of Clint's phone buzzing, his previously-dusted wife calling him, and Scott seeing a sudden increase in the amount of birds outside - the bad shit happens. Thanos decides to take the fight across time, shows up over Avengers Compound circa 2023, and bombards it into a smoking crater. Which sets us up for the endgame of the title.

While several folks struggle with the smashed-apart structure of the building - and Clint tries to get the gauntlet out of the sewers - we get to see how much Thor, Tony and Steve have changed since that fight in the park in Avengers Assemble. It's one hell of a fight against Thanos, who - even without the stones - is an absolute monster. During that fight, one of the coolest moments in the Marvel universe happens, and I was not the only one in the cinema who cheered when they saw this:

Steve Rogers summons Mjolnir, proving himself worthy. And Thor isn't angry, or jealous - Thor is overjoyed. "I KNEW it!" he yells, grinning. That moment, that moment right there, is worth price of admission alone.

It's not enough, of course. Thanos brought his flagship, the Sanctuary-II. Thanos brought an army. The three amigos are left in the dust. And Steve Rogers, shield actually broken by Thanos' attack, stands up. He stands up, and squares his shoulders, because that's what he does. He can do this all day.

"On your left."

The hairs on the back of my neck go up when I think about that scene, when I hear the piece of music on the score. Of the lost people coming back through portals, brought back by Dr Strange. Of Tony Stark seeing Peter Parker again and grabbing him like a long-lost son. Okoye and T'Challa and Shuri, and half of Wakanda. Every wizard that Strange knows. Valkyrie, resplendent in her war plate and her fucking unicorn. The works. Everyone is here for this. This is how this fight is going to happen.

It does happen, too. It's a hell of a spectacle. Carole Danvers showing up and being a one-woman cavalry resulted in more cheers from the rest of the folks I was watching the movie with. She smashes Sanctuary-II like a matchstick model, takes the gauntlet from Peter, and then...

So A-Force is a period of the Avengers in which the team is all women. That's what you get. The badasses line up, and carve a path for Danvers to deliver the payload. I wish Black Widow had still been around for that moment, in which the majority of the MCU's women get to slap around Thanos' legion of dickheads, but I will settle for what we got - which probably prompted more squawking like

tHaT wAs So CoNtRiVeD

It's a superhero movie, go home.

Push comes to shove, and in the end, it is Tony Stark who does the deed: snapping his fingers to do away with Thanos and his legion. And here we come into character endings, because after 22 movies, these are important.

Tony Stark doesn't stop living - doesn't stop desperately clutching onto life, even after the side effects of snapping the gauntlet almost totally destroy him - until Pepper whispers to him that he did good, that everyone is okay. That they're safe. And then, and only then, does Tony Stark allow his own heart to stop beating. He is sent off with a touching funeral. Because even if he was an asshole at times, he was - when it came down to it - a hero.

Steve Rogers is tasked with the unenviable burden of getting all the stones back to where they were taken from. He does so, presumably - also presumably returning Mjolnir to Asgard halfway through Thor: The Dark World - and then... he goes to live the life that he didn't get the chance to have the first time round. He gets to dance with Peggy. He, this most worthy of heroes, gets his rest.

BuT tHe TiMeLiNe

Stones are back where they were because the world doesn't end. Go home. Sure, I'd like to see HOW he got the stones where they were going, but that's ultimately unimportant. Even if I know how I'd do it, were I him.

Thor isn't a leader. He's tried that. The one time he tried it, it didn't work out spectacularly well. He's just not cut out for it, which is frankly fine - he's seen that someone else being worthy doesn't make him unworthy - so he goes off with the friends he has left. The Asgardians of the Galaxy. Guardians 3 promises to be one hell of a ride with him aboard.

Bruce Banner presumably remains tech support for the Avengers. He's at peace with who he is, now. He's still a genius. He's still massively strong. He's just more comfortable doing what he does. If anything he's resolved the major thing he had wrong with his life. He just has to mourn the loss of Natasha Romanoff.

Clint Barton goes back to his family. Ronin is gone. He, too, is going to mourn Black Widow's loss. They all are, in their own ways. Clint, probably, the most. But he has his family, which is the most important thing to him, now.

We're left with a new Captain America in the form of Sam Wilson, a resurgent Wakanda, Peter Parker back in school, Strange back in his Sanctum. James Rhodes and Wanda Maximoff are still around. The Avengers still exist. A new phase can happen, with the old Avengers fading into the background.

That's how it is done.

Truth be told, if we never saw another Marvel movie, I'd be satisfied with what we got - what more can I ask for?

So you know what? 24th April 2019 was probably the best day of cinema I've ever had. It left me exhausted, emotionally, mentally and physically, and it was absolutely worth it.

I'm thinking the next cinematic experience that will crop up in this blog will probably be either... Spider-Man Far From Home, or Godzilla II, or - shudder - the new X-Men movie. We'll see.

Either way. Thank you for reading my ramblings. Especially all my Endgame nonsense.

See you soon.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

The Marvel List - Why and How

Remember a time before half the journalism online was top ten lists of things that you didn't necessarily care about?

Guess who is about to contribute to the problem.

Yep, little old me.

Before we get into that. Who's your favourite superhero?

If you don't have one - you know what, this blog probably may not hold much interest for you. I won't be mad if you hit the Back button. A lot of everyone else probably thought of at least one specific superhero - and it is probably Batman or Spider-Man.

Mine's Cable.

Following that, of course - there's been a lot of movies released in the past... well, let's be honest, forty years... that have followed the antics of at least one superhero and their respective villain or foil. I can predict that, if you have a favourite superhero, you may well have a favourite superhero movie.

It might even be Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, like mine.

They are, after all, a billion-dollar business. Some of the biggest earning movies in decades - 7 of the top 20 grossing movies in the past ten years, all but one of which were Marvel movies. Even if you don't read comics or care about them much, you have to acknowledge their success.

I mean, they're successful enough that there is an entire personality sub-trait which is "sneering at superhero movies", because, you know. Why not.

So - those who are still on board - you have a favourite superhero movie. Probably you have several more, and if pressed, you could arrange them into a list of sorts. Right?

The List - the capitalisation is necessary - actually came about as I was trying to work out what movies one needed to watch before they went in to see Avengers: Endgame.

I've always been more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan. The selection just interests me more. In terms of comics, it isn't like the two companies are as vastly different as their movie releases have been. That's a real polarising agent, right there. The gulf is wide.

So The List started as the master list for Marvel movies that had to be seen before Endgame, which I was compiling in chronological order in-universe. It's not Star Wars - you don't need to skip around that order to find the best time to reveal certain things. You can just watch it as it happened in the timeline. 

Then when I had that list in front of me, I decided to do something different with it.

I decided to stick them in order of preference. Not order of quality, of objective film-making talent and skill, or anything like that - literally, in order of those that I would rather watch in an either-or situation.

So I shifted them around, I moved them into the places I felt comfortable with them being, and it was as I was looking at the top three that I realised there were films missing - and the only way to fix that, was to properly define what a Marvel movie is.

This is gonna get nerdy.

So technically speaking, Iron Man is the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - movies pretty much made by Marvel Studios. Iron Man being the first one, it was in production for a long time before Marvel Studios bought the rights back in the mid-2000s. But we all know full well that Tony Stark is a Marvel character, right? Like, Kirby and Lee concocted him in the mid-sixties. (A grossly simplified history, I know.)

Except those movies officially released by Marvel Studios aren't the only Marvel movies, those being, movies featuring characters that are part of Marvel comics. That throws the doors wide open, which necessitates a bit of a restriction - when we say "movies", we mean anything with a cinematic release. Not straight-to-DVD, not a TV movie.

That means we not only get to include the Main 22 - everything from Iron Man in 2008 forwards to Avengers: Endgame - but also the unexpected smash Spider-Verse, which as I mentioned was my favourite. It means we include the Ang Lee Hulk movie put out in 2003. It means including the rest of the Sony Spider-Man movies - the three featuring Tobey Maguire, and the two featuring Andrew Garfield. It means including all three Fantastic Four movies, the two cheesy ones featuring a pre-Captain America Chris Evans and the new darker DC-like one.

It means the X-Men movies. All of them. From the first one, through the weird reboot of First Class and Days Of Future Past, through to Logan and Apocalypse (and the forthcoming Dark Phoenix). It means including Deadpool and its sequel. It means Daredevil and Elektra. It means all three Blade movies. It means Ghost Rider and Punisher, and their respective sequels.

It means Big Hero 6, which is a Disney movie, but based on Marvel characters. It means the really rather bad Captain America movie from 1990, starring JD Salinger's son (no, really). It means the Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie from 1989, which is as bad as you might expect.

It means Howard the Duck.

Further surprises come in the form of the Kingsman and Kick-Ass movies, both of which were published under Icon Comics, an imprint of Marvel that seems mostly dedicated to letting Mark Millar publish whatever he wants. It also includes Men In Black - originally published by Aircel, which was bought out by Malibu, which was bought out by Marvel.

So what I have is a list of Marvel movies, sixty-one of them thus far, and they have been arranged in order from 1 to 61 - in order of which I would rather watch. That is as technical as the listing got, simple but effective, and utterly lacking in any kind of real objectivity. And still, at times, the fight between movies in consecutive spaces has been a little...

Acrimonious.

There's several I haven't seen yet. I am working on fixing that. What this list has given me is an appreciation for the Marvel movies which are actually well-made - you really don't have a true love for the superb fight choreography in Captain America: The Winter Soldier until you've had to watch Dolph Lundgren trying to be Frank Castle. You forget just how good a Spider-Man Tom Holland is until you watch Andrew Garfield. I mean, bless him, he tried, but. It's just no comparison.

I haven't seen Logan yet. Which is a sin, I know - but I intend on fixing that this weekend. It won't go on the list until I have seen it but I predict it will go in pretty high. I also haven't seen X-Men Apocalypse (ugh) or the sequel to Ghost Rider (UGH) but, again, I will fix that. I don't predict them being quite as high on the list as Logan.

I will spare you the entire list - though if anyone wants to see it, I will put it together and publish it in a comment here. What I will share with you, though, is a couple of the salient points. Remember, this is just my opinion.

• The top five are Spider-Verse, Homecoming, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Thor: Ragnarok. There's not much I'd rather watch than Carole Danvers beating the piss out of literally anything, and those few things are mostly Spider-Man related.
• Infinity War comes in at 17 out of 61 - Endgame got in at 9. They were both better movies than I thought they were going to be, even if they have their structural problems.
• Only three actual MCU movies sit in the bottom third of the list. That bottom third is mostly composed of bad Fox movies.
• I really, really am not a fan of the X-Men or the Fantastic Four.

So... why does this list even get maintained? What's the point? Why do book-keeping on stuff which is meant to be fun and enjoyable escapism?

Because it has given me new eyes to look at media that had previously been taken for granted. It gave me a framework to enjoy this new batch of movies in. It reminded me of where we've come from, of places we can go. If you look at the sheer amount of improvement in actual film-making standards in between the 90s Captain America and Chris Evans' performance, it's like a whole different world. It's also a great excuse to go back and watch some old favourites that I haven't seen in a while.

And because - frankly - it gives us something to talk about.

...of course, that means that at some point, I'm going to need to do a DC list...

...but maybe I'll save that for a rainy month.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

2019 Movie Time - #1 Into The Spider-Verse / #2 Bumblebee

So my lovely readers - welcome to a brand new feature.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to watch more movies, this year. So you're gonna get movie reviews - maybe in ADDITION to your weekly dose of whatever you read this blog for.

This being the first of the new feature, I'm going to dedicate the weekly blog to it, as it is the coolest thing that has happened to me this year so far, in its infancy.

I'll make sure these are labelled well and tagged so, frankly, if you don't want to read my opinion on movies both new and old - feel free to avoid them. Otherwise, welcome!

Also I will endeavour to avoid actual spoilers, and if you want to talk to me about spoilery things you probably know where you can find me, but be warned - I may infer things in the review which you may prefer to not know when you walk into the movie. Reader, beware.

So without further ado.

#1 Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

I have been hype for this since the first trailer.

Why, you ask? Well, because we've had - in the past 20 years - seven movies featuring three different Peter Parkers, and if we're fair, only half of them have been good Spider-Man movies. Spidey is great, and I love him, but - it wasn't until Homecoming that he actually changed up, stepped into the modern age.

So imagine my joy when I see that this one? This one is about Miles Morales - whose existence is hinted at in Homecoming. It's just a throwaway line, but a fan-pleaser.

Miles is a teenager from Brooklyn. He's from an intersection of multiple worlds. He's witty. He's funny. He's awkward, but not in a truly cringeworthy way until, well, certain things happen.

He, of course, ends up in the same shoes as Spider-Man. But he isn't the only one.

I'm not going to go into specific plot details - it's a good plot, and there's a lot of neat twists. The characters that you think you know really well, turn out to be a little different, and... I can't think of any way in which that turns out to be a bad thing. It's a very aware movie, too. Lots of injokes, lots of easter eggs. Love letters to various bits of Spider-Man's history. Yes. Including the Japanese show.

Why is it such a good movie?

For one thing - I laughed. I laughed a lot. I laughed myself into a coughing fit, with tears in my eyes. It is genuinely very funny, visually and verbally witty. If you don't come away from the movie loving Miles, then part of you is dead. If you don't laugh, then MOST of you is dead. The comic timing of the movie is superb, too - edited together in a way that modern comedy movies can't really hope for.

The action choreography, too, is fantastic. The agility and motion is just absolutely pitch perfect. Spidey moves and jumps and swings and twists and turns with the best of them - and the brilliant kinetic motion of the entire thing isn't just reserved for when he has his mask on. The bad guys he ends up facing off against (I am not telling you who they are) make a great counterpoint - for the most part, serious and solid sluggers, who provoke the Spiderpersons to acts of acrobatic mayhem just to stay ahead of the game.

Which in a movie animated like this, looks absolutely spectacular. It's 3D animated - and yes, people will hate it immediately for that. You will probably forget that partway through. The texturing, the mix of different animation styles for the individual characters, the way everything looks and feels on screen - the only complaint I have is that there's a lot of flashing interspersed throughout the movie, so it's really not great for those who are photosensitive.

I really liked the soundtrack. Loved it. The score and the soundtrack alike, in fairness. There's a few standouts, but the songs themselves - while great - are that much better in the context of the scene that they're used in. There's some neat surprises in there, too.

Fine details - there's things they didn't need to get right, that they did. The texturing on the characters, on the suits. Little background bits that you don't really think about. Phrases that characters use. How seamlessly Miles slips into Spanish when spoken to in it. The things in Miles' room, in his possession. The fact that Steve Ditko gets literally name-dropped in the movie in a salute to the creation of Spider-Man as a whole, as does Brian Michael Bendis, the creator of Miles Morales himself. The fact that Brooklyn LOOKS like Brooklyn. It FEELS like Brooklyn. It's enough to make you believe that they cared about this when they made it, not just to entertain kids.

The thing that Spider-Verse does so well is that it draws you into believing.

A big thematic of Spider-Man's is that, when the rubber hits the road, he finds what he needs inside himself to keep going and to get back up. Tenacity. Digging deep. Being on the lowest ebb, grabbing a double fist full of whatever it is that drives him, and carrying on. You've seen it in the setpieces of the movies - stopping the train, holding together two pieces of a broken ferry, trapped under the rubble. You are taken on that journey with Miles, and when he falls, and when he digs deep, you dig deep with him. You believe in him, with all your heart.

If that's not worth price of admission, I don't know what is.

#2 Bumblebee (2018)

So you would know if I hated this one because you'd get another blog like these two - the one shouting about how terrible Age Of Extinction was, and the follow-up about how awful The Last Knight was.

This isn't one of those.

I've said a similar thing to this about several movies and games in the past, but it bears repeating: I get the impression that the people that put Bumblebee together took a list of the things wrong with the other movies and then set out to fix them one at a time.

What problems, you might ask? Especially if you're unaware of my absolute venom toward the Bayformers movies.

Well, for one thing: this one acknowledges that the Transformers themselves are actual characters.

They have personalities. They aren't just two-bit throwaways. They aren't just there to spit out a couple of lines and then, poof, gone. Like - okay, I want to avoid spoilers, but the Decepticons actually have a personality in this one. They aren't just hurhur evil. Well. Okay. Dropkick kind of is. But the fact that he forms a contrast with Shatter? The fact that they are different, but work together, and communicate, and have plans? That their plan is a deception?

Bumblebee himself goes through an actual character arc. As does Charlie, the human that finds him. They find each other, and they develop in two similar directions. Not the same, though. Not the same at all, even if a key part of what they do is to find out who they actually are, underneath the battle scars.

You learn more about the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, and what is going on IN that war, in the first ten minutes of the movie than the five that preceded it. How is it even possible? How can you go through five movies, and not detail the thing that brings the Cybertronians to Earth in the first place? ...unless you don't care for beginnings or origins, and you just want to show Shia or Mark reacting to them being here. Which was always the problem. Framing Transformers as a disaster movie.

A focus on the Transformers being actual characters in the movie means that thought is given to how they approach things, and how we see them do things. Which means that the fight and action scenes get blocked out better. They're not just a blurry mess - and fully two thirds of the other movie fight scenes were blurry messes. You have these primary coloured characters with distinctive personalities and combative styles, and you can make out what they are doing. You can SEE what they are doing. You aren't left wondering what the hell just happened.

Optimus Prime - yes, he's in this movie - goes HAM, at one point. Just full-blown 1986 movie You Got The Touch Megatron Must Be Stopped HAM. ...does he talk about ripping anyone's face off? Does he tear anyone in half? No. No, he fights. No brutal merciless slaughter. He's fighting against big odds. He's throwing himself into the thick of it to save his people, because that is what Optimus Prime DOES.

It's the first live-action Transformers movie about the Transformers, that seems to remember who they are.

It has a contiguous plot. A plot that makes sense. A plot that has a beginning, a middle and an end, and I would hesitate to identify any single scene that you could cut out and not change the film. And while you get the same "oh god I have to hide these giant robots oh god they are acting out" scenes as from the FIRST Bay movie? We've already established who Bumblebee is. We have already established his character. We CARE about him, and so we care about him not being discovered. And it's... charming. It isn't just tasteless jokes about how clumsy these warrior robots are, or how Ironhide (an Autobot) wants to kill, like, everything.. It's legitimately funny. It provokes laughter.

Because it isn't tacky, which is the word I would stick (harhar) on the others.

There's no jokes about dicks, balls, arses or anything similar. You don't get a long shot of a pair of wrecking balls, and then - just in case you missed the subtext - have a highly annoying and sleazy character that you objectively hate explain the joke to you. I'd struggle to spot random racist bullshit, which is pretty prevalent throughout the rest of the series. Similar on sexist bullshit. Less jokes that middle-school me would have laughed at but that high-school me rolls their eyes at in sheer embarrassment. Ironically for a movie set literally twenty years before the first one in the series, it is far more progressive.

And you know the very, very best thing about this movie? Better than even the soundtrack (which is excellent and ALSO dropped a very special thing in there JUST FOR ME which actually brought TEARS to my eyes)? Better than even the fact that the bot designs don't look like absolute shit any more? Better than even the cinematography, which in various places is gorgeous? Better than how this movie brings the late eighties LITERALLY to life, with a bunch of technology that I remember being around when I was a little kid?

It's the fact that by the time it is over - without a doubt, those first five aren't the canon any more. This is a new, fresh beginning. This is a nod to the past that steps into the future. The future in which Optimus Prime rips off people's faces and demands that people know what his name is, is gone. The hand of fate smoothing the sand of time clean.

Not only did I love Bumblebee - I am excited for the next movie in this franchise. And I know there will be one, even if Travis Knight doesn't direct it.

There you have it.

First two movies I got to see this year at the cinema, and they were both bangers for different reasons. I was more invested in Bumblebee, but I was more surprised by Spider-Man. Both of them are going to end up on my shelf.

Who knows where our journey takes us next, dear reader? Who knows. We'll see.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

Killmonger (WARNING: Black Panther Spoilers)

So if the Marvel movies have one problem - narratively - it's their villains.

Non-recurring and vaguely uninspiring mwahaha-merchants are nothing new. Just look at Shakespeare (Don John from Much Ado About Nothing) or our current political situation (Zing). The movies have, in fairness, mostly been about the main characters - so the villains have taken a back seat, simply due to time constraints.

I mean...who even was the bad guy in Thor 2? What was the point of that?

That, however, is changing.

Be warned, below this line, there's gonna be a bunch of spoilers.

Now, my undying love of Black Panther has become obvious to anyone that has spoken to me since I went to see it. For which I feel the need to apologise. There's a lot of reasons for this.

The characters in this movie are just superb. They have presence, they are distinct individuals, they have strong looks. Without going into detail about all the African cultural touches - I mean dude's lip plate is amazing, you check that out, his lip plate is one of the coolest things I have ever seen in a semi-main character in a record-breaking movie - look at the four leading ladies.

The legendary Angela Bassett as Queen Mother Ramonda. Beautiful, resplendent and strong. Zulu head dress, covering white dreadlocks. A woman that carries herself with grace, dignity and wisdom. Letitia Wright playing Shuri, now officially the best Disney princess. Brilliant, warm, a technical genius, unashamed to be young, undyingly brave. Lupita Nyong'o putting in a sterling performance as Nakia. Spirited, vivacious, smart and competent. Like James Bond but actually interesting and not a horrible sexist boor. Danai Gurira playing Okoye of the Dora Milaje. A ferociously loyal and devoted warrior, whose skill with a spear and raw martial prowess would put most of the cast of Civil War to shame.

Not one of them sexualised. Not one of them tokenised. Not one of them objectivised. They all shine, in their various forms and ways. They all have their moments. The movie isn't afraid of showing them being better than those around them.

The titular character himself. King T'Challa, the Black Panther. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and heavy is the burden of the secrets of those who came before. This story is a classic one - the trials and tribulations of the new ruler. I mentioned Shakespeare earlier, and let's face it, the actual plot of Black Panther wouldn't be out of place (in broad strokes) at the Globe four hundred years ago.

But of course, every good classic story of a ruler trying to make the right choice requires a sufficient foil.

Killmonger's first scene on screen is powerful in and of itself: a young black man in a museum, looking at looted African artefacts, asking a perpetually dismissive and presumptive white woman where they are from. He declares his intention of taking a particular item, and when told by the aforementioned white lady that it isn't for sale, he deploys some weapons-grade truth.

"How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?"

Doesn't stop him taking a mask from the same case as the Wakandan item in question, but then - Erik Killmonger has been raised and trained to have little respect for any kind of authority except his own, since his father was snatched away from him.

What's his plan? He plans to buy his way into the Wakanda that he was denied by the previous king, with the body of Wakanda's most wanted criminal, a white man who thieved their natural resources under claims of their being savages. Once there, he plans on challenging the king of Wakanda for his rightful claim to the throne, being that he's the king's cousin - royal family severed from the line by his father's betrayal and the old king's murderous response.

Then when he claims this position - by right of ritual combat, an art that he has perfected over years of CIA-funded covert operations and regime destabilisation - he's going to take all that super-advanced Wakandan tech, and send it out to those struggling under the suppression of others.

Is he doing that because then he'll rule the world? Well, sort of. Because he is hoping that Wakanda will stop being a small secretive nation, and become something far bigger, far wider. A Wakandan empire, slaves throwing off their shackles and becoming their own masters. He literally states:

"The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire."

The means by which he won the throne become the means by which he will win the world - and whatever his intention, it becomes rapidly obvious that the driving force of justice and reparation has been pushed through a filter of the same imperialism that granted him his training.

It's a truth we all know, now. The dirty wars fought in other places using other lives as pawns, supplies and support thrown behind the side of the population we want to win. Iran-Contra was a scandal, but nowadays we are better informed. Hell - Rambo 3 is about the US literally funding, training and arming the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet invaders.

No prizes if you can guess who that funding, that training and those weapons got used against in the early 2000s.

Why is he an excellent villain? Because we can partially sympathise with his motives and his methods. We understand why he's doing what he's doing, and he's not just evil for the sake of being evil. His entire life has led to the point in which he joins the film's narrative. We know that it can happen.

He could have set out on this journey to bring down King T'Chaka and his entire family, to burn Wakanda down around the royal family as a punishment. He could have had the goal of doubling down on Ulysses Klaue's initial foray into Wakanda, to steal as much Vibranium as possible and sell it to the highest bidder - probably making himself a billionaire.

Instead, he did the harder thing - the more admirable thing - the thing that a lot of us may have tried and failed to do. He decided to enforce change, to force the society that made him who he was different, so that people like him wouldn't have to exist any more.

How easily could he have been the protagonist?

In his final scene - as he is shown the sunset over Wakanda that he was promised as a child - he kneels on the ground, breathing ruined, thoroughly beaten by T'Challa in combat. T'Challa, who in Civil War showed that in victory he is both gracious and wise, suggests quietly to his cousin that he can still be saved. Erik's response is blunt and raw.

“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage.” 

Erik Killmonger - his bare chest covered with the ritual scarification of hundreds of kills - is a warning. The path of the righteous isn't just to do the right thing. It is to learn from your past, to strive toward your future, but to be mindful of where that future is leading you. To know the casualties that might arise from your actions.

And like any good hero - any real hero - T'Challa can take a lesson from this conflict. He learns. A thought he was forming before becomes a full-fledged plan, and the doubt he had in his ability to be king fades as he takes hold of his new drive and new responsibility.

And so Erik Killmonger, whose goal was to bring Wakanda into the world stage and to lift up those who need it most - achieves his goal, even in death.

There's your villain.

Are you taking notes, DC?