Journal, Reviews

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It’s been a week. If you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet, I completely understand. Theaters have been packed. This review may spoil some things, however, so by all means click away from this page now.

Still reading?StarWarsTheForceAwakens

Still?

Okay, then.

Before I tell you how awesome it was, let me get something out of the way. Star Wars: The Force Awakens does NOT take my top spot for 2015. The Martian set a very high bar. Look at it this way: Star Wars: The Force Awakens was amazing, and restored my faith in the cinematic tradition and my hopes for the franchise. The Martian, however, gave me hope for humanity. The Martian penetrated all the way to my soul and changed me a little. Star Wars: The Force Awakens simply made me very, very happy to have seen a movie.

Don’t get me wrong, however. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was an amazing and powerful film. The Star Wars prequels made so many terrible mistakes that they ruined the franchise for me. That I again have interest in, and hope for the Star Wars franchise is close to miraculous.

An examination of the craft of film making is in order here, but I need to see the film a few more times to cement my thoughts. For now, I’ll summarize.

Everything the filmmakers did wrong with Episodes I, II, and III were done right (or simply not done) in Episode VII. More amazingly, almost everything that was done well in Episodes IV, V, and VI was done better in Episode VII.

And I mean “better.”

Not “bigger” or “louder” or “more.” BETTER. 

  • The emotional highs and lows? Better.
  • Connection with the characters? Better.
  • Special effects? Better.
  • Practical effects? Better.
  • Comprehensibility of action? Better.
  • The cantina music? Beeeyeah no. I like the original better. But give me time.

That said, Star Wars: The Force Awakens suffers from a story structure problem, likely  the result of a decision to move away from the Campbellian Monomyth, or at least obscure the Hero’s Journey a bit. On the upside, it makes the film less predictable. On the downside by stepping outside the syntax of Western cinema, the audience may end up confused. There are several places that feel weird, moments about which my inner writer is complaining. I don’t think those problems are accidents are oversights. I think the writers are experimenting, or perhaps playing the long game. I’ll reserve judgement for now.

The film’s biggest weakness, to my mind, is that Star Wars: The Force Awakens cannot escape the legacy of the films that came before it. In 1977 Star Wars changed the face of science fiction forever. That level of surprise at what a film can be is impossible to deliver again. In 1999 Lucasfilm tried to incite a similar revolution in the industry, and they gave us some of the most reviled blockbuster movies of all time. Like it or not, that’s also part of the legacy behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

In short, we remember having been amazed, and having been betrayed by this franchise. We cannot help but compare Star Wars: The Force Awakens to six other films.

Me, I think it stands up really well.

 

Food, Journal

Hot Cocoa Almond Deluxe

During the early part of this year I posted “Hot Cocoa, My Way.”

Here’s the concoction I came up with this morning. It’s more complex, but the basic principle is the same: start with cocoa powder, and go dark.

  • 1/2 c Hershey’s cocoa
  • 1/3 c sugar
  • 1 tbsp Agave
  • 1 tsp Terva siirappi
  • 2 tbsp tar syrup liqueur.
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tiny sprinkle cayenne
  • 1 dash nutmeg
  • 1 dash salt
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 dash allspice
  • 3 cups Silk brand “light” vanilla almond milk.

Put the cocoa, sugar, agave, tar syrup, tar liqueur, and vanilla in a pot with 1 cup of the almond milk. Bring to a slow boil while whisking and stirring with one of these flat sauce-whisk thingies. Start slow so you don’t throw powdered cocoa everywhere. Once everything’s wet, go crazy. Foam is fine. You want it SMOOOTH.

Add the spices, and simmer until the alcohol in the liqueur and the vanilla has boiled off. Ten minutes? Dunno. With the exception of the cinnamon sticks and some foam, the stuff should be very, very smooth. If you have a silicone spatula, you’ll probably want to scrape the sides and whisk that stuff back in.

Mix in the rest of the almond milk, and gently whisk everything together. Let it stand so the cinnamon sticks can steep for a bit. The longer it stands, the cinnamonnier it gets. You can get some real bite to it if you’ve got half a day to kill.

When it’s done, it may be cold. Bummer. You can heat it back up on the stove, or just microwave it a cup at a time.

This stuff is *strong.* You may want to cut it with more almond milk, or even just water if you’re a real light-weight.

If you don’t have tar syrup or tar liqueur, you have my sympathy. I’m almost out of both, and I haven’t yet found anybody importing it (besides my friends from Helsinki.) You might be able to get by with a drop of liquid smoke, and more maple syrup. I know that’s what I might be reduced to in a few short weeks.

Announcements

A Week of Feeling Famous

On Monday my friend Rodney posted “Hiding from the Mariachi” to the web. I linked to it, but neglected to mention that it was the first of a five-part series of blog posts that were kind of sort of all about me (except for the one which was all about Sandra, and which says a thing which indisputably the most important thing said during the entire series.)

Here are the links to the full set:

Take care with the Photo Essay: It has spoilers. The new maxims aren’t spoilers, so you can dive right into that post, no worries. It probably can’t compete with The Force Awakens for folks’ attention, but at least you can tell your friends about the maxims without making anybody angry.

I like this series of interviews and essays because yeah, they’re about me, and my ego doesn’t really get tired of that, but also because Rodney’s essays are always insightful, and having that insight aimed my direction is cool. I encourage you to read the stuff he’s written that is NOT about me, because frankly, that’s where he really shines.RodneyMBliss.com has all of it.

Writer, Illustrator, Consumer