Donald Trump is Saruman

This has been a very difficult time for me.  The election has consumed me to the point where I find myself spending less and less time talking about and obsessing over my love of all things geeky.  My conversations regarding the practicalities of the Starkiller base or why Spike is far superior to Angel have been overtaken by conversations of hacked e-mails and the hate speech of Donald Trump.  I wanted to write something about my feelings regarding this election (even though everyone who knows me knows that “I’m With Her”) but I wanted to do it in a way that remains true to my geek heart.  I think I found a way…

                Donald Trump is Saruman.  Now I’m not talking Saruman before the events of Lord of the Rings, I’m talking Saruman during Lord of the Rings; the Saruman who decides to use the Uruk Hai to try to take over Middle-earth for himself.  Trump, like Saruman, sees the potential for a shift in power now that the ring is in play (aka the US election).  Saruman decides to use the evil spawned from Sauron to help him win the ring.

                Sauron is the big evil, the big bad.  In this context he’s Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Anti-Semitism, Bigotry, etc.  Trump is not the big bad but he’s using the instruments of the big bad in the same way Saruman used the instruments of Sauron, to try to win control.  Trump might not be in bed with the likes of David Duke or the neo-Nazis & white supremacists who follow him but he isn’t disavowing them, and he’s using their support to try and win the White House like Saruman is using the Orcs to find the ring and rule Middle-earth.

                Not all of Trump’s supporters are the hate spewing spawns of Sauron, others more closely resemble Grima Wormtongue, but you know them as Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie & Ben Carson.  Like Wormtongue they are servants who are there to weave discord to help favor their master who has promised them favors for their loyal support.  In Grima’s case he was promised Eowyn while Giuliani, Christie & Carson have been promised cabinet positions in Trump’s America.  Somehow I doubt the three of them will converge on Trump and murder him should he fail to win the Presidency but you never know.

                In the end, as we know, Saruman is defeated and we can only hope it won’t take Ents to help defeat Trump on November 8th.  I hope you enjoyed my attempt at weaving the election into something geek related to help bring me back to my roots which are inane ramblings regarding various aspects of geekdom.  Perhaps I’ll find the time one day to explain how Hillary Clinton is like Gandalf.

The Force Awakens Spoiler-rific Review

Even though I wrote the word "spoiler" in the title I'm going to again say it here that this blog will be filled with spoilers for The Force Awakens.  If you have not yet seen the movie continue reading at your own peril.  You've been warned.

I'm going to start off by saying I absolutely loved this movie.  It reminded me why I fell in love with Star Wars as a child.  Any and all issues I had with the film are completely me nitpicking.  It was fun, it was exciting, it was devastating and it left me wanting to re-watch it immediately after the credits started rolling.

After giving some careful thought to how I could review or discuss this movie in any coherent manner, as with most things I love, I can drone on and one and go off on 50 tangents which would make for an awful review, I think I will review the film character by character.

To get things going I'll start with the smallest character, BB-8.  BB-8 was fine, he was a cute little droid ball who really was used to bring Rey into the mix and as a means to sell toys.  BB-8 is set up to be the R2-D2 for the generation that will call this trilogy their own.  R2-D2 is and will always be better than BB-8 and I loved the fact that R2-D2 was so distraught over Luke's disappearance that he pretty much just shut himself down.  Good stuff.

Original Gangster

Finn was a really interesting character for me.  I'll admit that I purposely avoided any and all Star Wars information leading up tot he movie so his origin as well as anything else about him were totally foreign to me until I sat to watch the movie.  His origin, what little we learn of him, highlights the fact that this First Order will take children and raise them to be their soldiers, even going so far as to take away their names.  Adds a bit of darkness to this group of people that wasn't there in the prequels or the original trilogy.  In the prequels they're clones and in the original trilogy they're people who signed up under their own free will...anyway, I digress.

Finn seemed to have a real noble heart and strong idea of right from wrong for someone who has been raised by the First Order.  His lack of knowledge about the world around him based off his upbringing brought naivety to the character which helped usher in the audience into this world we both know from being raised on Star Wars but don't know because a good amount has happened in 30 years.

Now Rey was a great character that I'm excited to learn more about.  She's a strong and capable person who can hold her own.  I loved the scene where she used the force to make the Stormtrooper free her, leave the door open and drop his weapon on the way out.  I also loved the vulnerability they gave the character as highlighted in the scene where she finds Luke's lightsaber and runs from the responsibility of the moment because she doesn't think she can handle wield that power.  And lastly I absolutely loved the reveal that she was the Jedi because all the marketing and trailers made me believe it was Finn.  Seeing her and Kylo fight and her eventually getting the best of him and fucking up his face was amazingly satisfying.  A female Jedi lead character!

"Let go of my hand! I know how to run."

Poe Dameron seems cool but there really isn't much of a character to dissect yet.  We're told his the best pilot in the Resistance, we have no idea where he came from and he's involved in one of the more annoying "nothing to see here" moments when he just shows back up safe and sound and leading the Resistance pilots after seemingly dying in a crash landing in Jakku.  I've formed zero opinion of Poe and I guess I'll just have to see where they go with him in Episode VIII.

Kylo Ren...fuck that guy.  Kylo Ren is exactly how Anakin Skywalker in the prequels should've been portrayed.  He's a young man with power he doesn't know how to control completely.  He wants to be this great dark side power like his grandfather Darth Vader but he seems to find himself conflicted.  We don't know a lot about him other than his real name is Ben Solo. We know that Luke tried to train him to be a Jedi before Ben lost his shit and killed all the other Padawans resulting in Luke disappearing after blaming himself for losing Ben to the dark side.  He belongs to the Knights of Ren and the movie doesn't really explain much about that either.  I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Kylo Ren...the fucker who killed the one of the coolest dudes in the Galaxy.

Fuck you!

Han Solo is still awesome and he's still hanging with Chewie, the coolest Wookiee ever born on Kashyyyk.  He's back to his smuggling ways and has fallen out of the Rebel/Resistance lifestyle.  He's gotten older but he's still the smooth talking, scruffy looking, nerf herder we all fell in love with in the Mos Eisley Cantina.  Han's best moments in the movie come when he's talking with Rey.  You see a real fatherly affection for Rey in the moments when the two of them talk, even when he's trying to play it off that he couldn't care less, but hey, that's Han Solo for you.

I can't bring up Han Solo here without also bringing up "the moment".  As soon as Han calls out his sons name and meets him on that catwalk of the Starkiller I think we all knew what was going to happen next and I think Han did as well.  Seeing Han Solo is Dad trying to help his son, even if it meant sacrificing himself (something any parent can relate to) was something to see because it was a side of Han we've never seen before.   Seeing Han touch his son's face one last time with affection even after his son just murdered him was a scene I'm not likely to forget.

The movie also did a great job with Chewbacca's reaction immediately after Han's death.  Chewbacca growling in anguish as he shoots every Stormtrooper he can find.  Seeing him mourn made me sad.  Much sadder than a grown man should admit.

RIP and may the Force be with you

Now on to some general thoughts:

• General Organa tough as nails and leading the Resistance.  I love that she hung up the Princess moniker for General.  It seems she'll be more of a secondary character now though.
• Enough with giant space stations that can blow up planets.  It's like when Superman Returns came out and Lex was once again doing evil as a real estate scheme.  Death Star I & II were both destroyed by the Rebels and your answer is to just build a Death Planet.  I don't even want to think about the physics involved with destroying a sun in order to fire the weapon and how the hell does it find another sun to destroy to fire it a second time?  Does it move?  I will say I love that it was called Starkiller (the original name for Luke before it was changed to Skywalker).
• Admiral Ackbar!!!
• Nien Nunb!!!
• Where are you Lando?
• I would've liked a few quiet moments in the movie, it was very faced paced.
• Hat's off to J.J. Abrams for capturing the magic of the original trilogy.
• Star Wars is back!!!

I'm pretty sure I've missed some things because I honestly can talk about this movie and this franchise for an entire month without repeating myself.  Thanks for taking the time to read.  May the Force be with you.

I'm a Feminist

I’m a feminist.  I’ve never said it or wrote it outright but certainly my beliefs for as long as I can remember have been in support of equality for women in all areas of life.  It has always been a belief I knew I had but it has never been one that spent a lot of time thinking about.  That changed when my daughter was born.

Having a daughter has completely opened my mind further to the inequality that exists in even the littlest parts of our daily life and that just makes me angry.  We think of inequality and we think of feminism and some people think of larger social issues like equal wages or women’s fight for the right to vote in the early 1900s.  What I didn’t think about until I had a daughter was the fact that dress up clothes for boys are police officers, fire fighters & doctors, while dress up clothes for girls are princesses & ballerinas. 

 

Can someone tell me why there are “Legos for Girls”?  It’s legos for Christ sake!  For all these years have we been playing with boy legos and didn’t know it?  Holy shit, how did women like my wife grow up to be functional women while playing with boy legos? My daughter is too young for legos but she plays with duplo blocks and likes to make robots.  Everything she builds she says is a robot.  According to society I need to correct this immediately and help her build kitchens and kittens with her duplo blocks.

Which brings me to another thing, why are robots for boys?  Why are robots, cars & trains a boy thing?  My daughter loves cars, trains & robots and as long as she does I’ll continue to nurture that.  Children don’t know boy thing or girl thing…we’ve done that to them.  Adults have decided that a little girl shouldn’t play with a train and a little boy shouldn’t make breakfast in a play kitchen. 

 

Buzzfeed had an article a while back about 21 pointlessly gendered products (found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/pointlessly-gendered-products#.mlKq6zGApJ) and honestly that list should annoy the shit out of you, I know it annoys the shit out of me.  They sell girl microscopes…GIRL MICROSCOPES!  I mean what the absolute fuck does that even mean?  And as you scroll down the list you can see just how insane we are as a people and how far we haven’t come since women gained the right to vote nearly 100 years ago.

I’m going to ensure that my little girl grows up knowing that she can do anything, that “like a girl” is not a put down and that she can play with any type of legos she wants.

Building a Universe in a Hurry

Let me start off by laying a few cards on the table.  I prefer Marvel to DC, I dressed up as Superman a few Halloweens in a row (even had the forehead curl), I think Superman III was better than Man of Steel, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the best thing to happen to comics in my lifetime.  Now that I got that out of the way let me say that I do not like the rushed away DC is building their cinematic universe.

DC is in a bad position because they are nearly a decade behind Marvel with their universe.  Who knows how long the movie going public will clamor for comic based movies? It's only a matter of time before we reach saturation and DC needs to strike while the iron is still hot.  This is why Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice (ugh!) movie is stuffed with superhero cameos, got to make up for lost time but while that may seem like a necessity I can't help but feel it is also a mistake.

This movie has Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman and who knows who else.  Now you may say "hey this worked in The Avengers" and I'd say "yes it did" which may result in you saying "so why is this a negative?" and then I'd reply "because in The Avengers we already had 4 (not counting The Incredible Hulk) movies where we learned about each character and care about them but here we're just supposed to care about Wonder Woman because it's Wonder Woman?".  DC is banking on us giving a crap about these characters just because they're the characters.  Would you want to know what makes this Batman a grizzled & tired crime fighter?  Yeah, me too.

The last thing I'll say is I don't trust the team building the DC Universe.  Goyer's comments regarding She-Hulk "I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could f**k if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could f**k." and the dark and joyless Superman created by Snyder leave me wondering what they'll do to the rest of the DC gang.  Meanwhile, Marvel has Whedon and well...all hail Joss Whedon.

I hope DC can pull it off but outside the Nolan Batman trilogy their track record this decade has been less than stellar.

In The Doghouse

Michael Vick, the Don King of dog fighting, is now a New York Jet.  I'll be honest, I have mixed feelings about this marriage. 

From a football standpoint if he can stay healthy and all the planets align he might actually help Geno mature on the field and can help out at a position that has been lacking on the Jets since Testaverde left.  A lot can go wrong but for once the Jets have a viable option at QB...maybe.

From a human side I don't like it all that much.  I love animals, I love animals more than people and what he did is disgusting and unforgivable but at some a man has paid for his crimes, right? Granted depending on where you live paying for your crimes means dying (am I right Texas?) but Vick has served his time and has, unlike many, many people, actually turned his life around. 

We're used to seeing football players get into trouble with the law and have it become a repeatable issue: carrying illegal weapons, drug possession, shootings, DUIs, vehicular manslaughter, spousal abuse, murder, etc.  And as completely disgusting as his actions were, he hasn't run into any trouble since.  You can argue that he is a role model for turning your life around after making mistakes.

Now some "fans" have decided that they can no longer root for the Jets because Michael Vick is on the team, and whatever, if you're the type of person who can stop rooting for a team that easily I'm fine with you no longer being a fan of my team.  And if you don't root for a team with questionable characters I suggest you stop rooting for any team in any sport.

So while I'm not going to run out and buy my dog a Vick Jets' jersey, I'm not going to burn all my jerseys either.  Hopefully this will be good for the team in the long run and to be honest that's all I give a damn about...but I still don't like it very much.

Agent Coulson Should've Stayed Dead

Agent Coulson should have stayed dead.  Back when the Avengers came out I never thought I would have said that, but I realize now that by resurrecting him for Agents of SHIELD it completely sullied what his death meant.  Considering I'm still not over Fred dying in Angel or Wash dying in Firefly this revelation of mine is a pretty big deal.

Agent Coulson's death in the Avengers was the push that the very separate heroes needed to come together to as a team.  It was a heroes death, he didn't get sliced in half like Anya in an almost blink and you'll miss it moment.  Not only that, but by bringing him back it sullies the impact that a character's death should have, something comic books generally fail to realize. 

It is surprising to me that someone like Joss Whedon wouldn't realize that bringing someone back from the dead would cheapen the impact of the death.  As I've already mentioned, this is the man that is responsible for deaths of characters that I still have not gotten over and it has been years.  The death of Coulson in the Avengers put a dose of realism into a movie about thunder gods and gamma irradiated scientists.  The heroes can win but sometimes it comes with a cost, now that Coulson is back, that cost doesn't exist.

It is still possible that Agents of SHIELD will make this mistake worthwhile (it won't), a hook or a twist that will make me change my mind (I doubt it), but right now I can't help but wish that the last time we saw Agent Coulson he was slowly bleeding out.

Agents of Y.A.W.N.

I want to love Agents of SHIELD, I really do.  I was super excited for the show when it was first announced and even more excited to know that Joss Whedon would be at the helm.  Sadly, the show has failed to live up to the hype that surrounded it prior to its release.

I have watched every episode of this show, including the most recent episode that was said to shed some light on how Agent Coulson was murdered by Loki in The Avengers yet somehow was starring in the show.  So in the eleventh episode we finally found out how Agent Coulson survived and it was not really worth the wait.  I watched 11 hours worth of television to find out how Agent Coulson survived and now that I know I should have just made something up cause it would have been more interesting.

My trust in Joss Whedon has taken a major hit.  I would gladly trade you Agents of SHIELD for a few more episodes of Firefly, hell I'd trade you Agents of SHIELD for a Dollhouse TV movie.  Unfortunately that isn't a deal I or anyone else can make, ABC has shelled out a lot of cash for this TV show (as evident by some of the CGI work) that we're getting at least one more season but hell maybe that's a good thing.

It is entirely possible that the entire first season will just end up being one big growing pain and come season two it'll take off like a bat out of hell, minus Meatloaf.  If that's the case, I'll be happy for it because I love Marvel and I'm a big fan of Joss' work but I'm not holding my breath.  ABC looks to be sticking with the show, I just wish FOX would've done the same all those years ago...sigh.  Browncoats Unite!