Insulting Idris

I am not one of those persons that think that simply because a black person is present that they should get an award or even be nominated for one. Heck I don't even think that just because a black person makes a movie that it should be lauded. I think the bar for any movie being nominated for any award should be is it well done. Same goes for the actors work. Did they "do their thing" or not. In keeping with that, the fact that Idris or anybody else in Beasts of No Nation was nominated for best anything is a huge problem to me.

I've said before that I didn't think that Idris should have been in Thor. Matter of fact I think any non-white characters tossed into a Norse mythos is an insult that wouldn't fly if it were done in the reverse. There is nothing wrong with white ethnic mythos' not having black (or any other race) characters just as there is nothing wrong with Chinese mythos' not having non-Chinese characters. And yes, I'm kinda bothered that Mike Tyson is in the latest Ip Man movie. No offense to Tyson but reaaallllly?

I'm not even joining the "Straight Outta Compton" crowd. I saw it. I wasn't much interested in NWA when they first hit the scene and I'm STILL not particularly interested in NWA. But if Cadillac Records couldn't land a nomination, then "Straight" wasn't either. "Beasts" was no "Straight". It was better than straight and tackled a serious problem. Heck, I think it would make for a good lesson on the pitfalls of charismatic leadership and poor governance. Idris played the rebel leader to the hilt. Agu performed excellently as well. In fact when I realized "Beasts" had no nomination, I seriously wondered if it was even watched by anyone on the committee. I haven't seen The Revenant. But from the previews I've seen it is a winter Beasts, in a different country, with a different (read: white) cast. You have people in the wilderness, fighting others and the elements. Yet "Revenant" has nominations and "Beasts" does not.

But this is nothing strange to many of us. We do the work, others get the raises, promotions and recognition.

Star Wars: The Feminists F**K Up

So I had high hopes for the new Star Wars movie. I avoided any reviews of the movie in order to avoid spoilers. I thought that with the impressive gains in CGI I would be in for epic scenes. I got that. But that was all I got. The rest had me leaving the theatre highly annoyed and glad I paid matinee money.

I knew that there would be some propagandizing when JJ Abrams gave that interview talking about all the white men in the movie and how he purposely went to diversify the Star Wars universe. I have no problem with diversifying a cast so long as it does not detract from the primary business at hand: Telling a coherent and believable story with due exceptions needed for a work of fiction. What happened in Star Wars was that it turned a great epic from the 70's into a propaganda film straight out the feminist re-education camps called "women's studies" and that is on top of EPIC and I mean EPIC fails in concepts. Lets begin.

Finn:

We meet Finn at the beginning of the movie where his fellow trooper (and by his emotional response possibly lover) is killed by the rebel ace pilot. THEN we find out near the climatic battle that Fin was an ex-sanitation worker (who somehow knows about the defense systems...) So when did the Empire/First Order promote sanitation workers to Storm Trooper? Perhaps this explains why Storm Troopers are such poor shots. And am I the only one wondering why and where all the clones went? They paid a whole lot for the clones of Jango Fett. Are we to believe that they all died between episode 3 and 4?

Finn is also in the JJ world where the women are just as bad-ass, well actually MORE badass (we'll get to that) than the men. I mean this guy reported to an Amazon type, special silver uniform female officer. Yet when he gets to Jaku his first instinct is to try and protect Rey and has a look of surprise when she kicks ass? Maybe it's only First Order women who can fend for themselves. This is the real first clue that you've entered the Feminism zone. There will be no "female in need of rescuing" here. Never mind that such rescuing was the major story ark of the original. Nope, the robot needs rescuing.

About the only thing Finn is good for in this film is to get Ace Pilot off the First Order ship. He's next to useless in combat. He can't fly a ship. He is a poor medic, knows nothing about tools or anything mechanical. Was there anyone in the original Star Wars that was that useless? Finn apparently exists to:

1) Be black.
2) White Knight for Rey who can clearly "take care of herself".
3) Rescue Ace Fighter.
Should Finn not reappear in later installments, I will not be sad.

Before I get to Rey, let me get to the Death Planet.

In the original we could imagine a death star. It was a novel concept but at least it was self-powered. I'll admit that the idea that it had enough fire power to destroy an entire planet was far fetched but it worked. In this movie we get the Death Planet. OK. How does this planet get it's power? It sucks up suns.

Really.

On this basis alone you'd think that every planet in the known universe would be against the First Order. In order to power the Death Planet a sun must be destroyed and therefore every living thing on an inhabitable planet in that solar system and the alteration of the orbits of various stellar entities. At least the death star only destroyed a single planet. And these guys are calling for "order"!

Not only that, but the Death Planet apparently just floats up close to a sun with absolutely no impact on the environment and sucks up what seems to be solar flares it causes.

Smh

And does this is in about 15-20 minutes.

Smh

I suppose solar panels were too much to ask for. Hey at least it was green energy!

Rey:

Rey is the badass with the Samori hairdo. She is apparently very nice with a Bo (staff). She's SO bad ass that unlike Luke and Anakin, she's been on her own on Tatooine..I mean Jaku all by herself! Not only do girls not need rescuing, they DONT NEED PARENTS or ANY FAMILY OR FRIENDS!

After rescuing Finn the ex-sanitation worker turned storm trooper, she gets onto the Millennium Falcon which she has not only never flown before and apparently hasn't flown anything other than her land speeder, but not only flies this thing first try but is doing aerial acrobatics! On her first go! Mind you we never saw how Luke Skywalker learned to fly an X-Wing so we could forgive this but this is the first hour of the film! At least Anakin had years of flying and in his space flight debut he was basically lucky when he destroyed the ship.

Not only that though, Rey knows the ins and outs of the Falcon. A ship she's never been on. No really. Diagrams? Rey don't need no stinking diagrams! She's been crawling inside of downed imperial ships!

But the worst part was her fight with Kylo. Lets get this straight. Kylo is no Darth Vader but he has been trained for many years in lightsaber use and in the force. He knows force grip (which according to lore comes after mastery of push and pull) and what appears to be level 3 mind control (in video game parlance). Level one would be the ability to distract.

Remember that Luke and Anakin, both very strong in the Force didn't master any of these powers until way into the trilogies. Rey however can manipulate minds immediately! How? Why? Because vagina apparently.

Back to this fight though. Rey beats Kylo in her very first time using a light saber! Lets understand how much of an epic fail this is:

At the beginning of the movie. Kylo stops blaster fire in mid flight while simultaneously holding Ace Fighter still. He continues to keep blaster shot still while having conversations and giving orders. Only when he leaves does he stop holding the blast. And let us recall that Kylo trained with Luke Skywalker and his new dark master. Yet he cannot defeat Rey who has no knowledge of Force usage (other than "you will release me") and has never used a blade before. I can tell you that one who has mastered the Bo (staff) does not know how to use a blade. Two different types of weapons.

It took almost everything I had in me to not yell out "bullshit" when this scene ended. That's how bad this was. Was it shot well? Yes. But the story was shit. Total shit. At least the original Star Wars had luke learn to use the Force and to develop his skills. He was constantly told by Yoda and Kenobi that he was not prepared to take on Vader. Anakin lost limb to Dooku.

Here's the worst part though. This film made millions and will likely make billions. This is going to be used to "prove" that the story is "good" and therefore we will get more of this nonsense. I suppose the good thing is that now that Rey has met Luke and can get trained, the unbelievable fights will make more sense. I guess the good thing is that we don't have Jar-Jar and Mitochondria, I mean Midichlorians to deal with.