The correct order to watch the STAR WARS movies!

For some strange reason there seems to be profound confusion as to exactly what order you should watch all the STAR WARS movies.  Back in the old days this was not a problem.  It was simple.  You watched STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE followed by its sequel THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK which naturally makes you want to see how this whole space opera ended in RETURN OF THE JEDI.  But then came the extremely unnecessary prequels and ruined a whole generation of Star Wars fans who just do not know any better.  The scary thing is that several generations are going to still be ruined as long as the nerdos out there insist that the prequels are canon.  Potential fans are turned away from the franchise because they started watching the odd and clunky prequels first.  I am here to stop that if possible.  I will show you the way and hopefully explain why you should watch the movies in this particular order.  Get ready for a long, rambling, incoherent rant on this one, folks.

The first movie you should watch is STAR WARS IV: A NEW HOPE.  Why?  This film perfectly introduces the audience to this new wonderful universe through the eyes of our hero Luke Skywalker.  We learn about the Empire and their main henchman Darth Vader.  The Force is introduced as well as Han Solo, Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon.  Ben Kenobi tells us about Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker, who at one time was a Jedi Knight who was murdered by Darth Vader.  This gives Luke ambition to be a Jedi Knight and go after the evil jerk that betrayed and murdered his father.  How Obi-Wan explains his relationship with Luke's father is very important.  More on that later.  Luke is raised by his aunt and uncle which means one of them is related by blood to Anakin Skywalker.  More on that later too.

Next up is STAR WARS V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  This in my opinion is the greatest movie ever made.  Yes, even better than CITIZEN KANE.  It is not my personal favorite in the franchise but it is such a great film that builds upon its predecessor expanding the universe discovering new worlds and characters that are all amazingly memorable to the point of becoming pop culture icons.  The greatest moment in cinematic history with Luke confronting Darth Vader only to discover that Vader is actually Luke's father.  How profound!  How tragic!  This revelation is so damaging that Luke commits suicide rather than join Vader only to survive by sheer luck falling into a disposal tube thingy and dropped out of Cloud City.  He has reached lower than low.  Also another important knowledge bomb was the explanation of the Force by our new friend Yoda who is the very embodiment of what a Jedi is.  It is very important to point out that Yoda does not use a lightsaber and even discourages Luke from taking his weapons when confronting the Darkside of the Force in the swamp.

RETURN OF THE JEDI is my personal favorite in the franchise.  I like seeing how long sagas end and how the characters have changed over time.  This one ended the best.  Here we see Luke can use the Force to his will yet Yoda tells him he is not a Jedi until he confronts Vader.  That is very important.  Just because you have the skills of a Jedi does not mean you have the mind or morals of a Jedi.  We also learn that Leia is Luke's sister.  Luke doesn't tell her right away.  Instead he asks her to tell him about her mother.  Why?  Luke then admits that he has no memory of his mother.  Leia was raised by their real mother and he wanted to know what she was like.  That is not what happens in the prequels.   Near the end Emperor Palpatine refers to Luke's lightsaber as a "Jedi weapon".  He is pointing out that only Jedi use lightsabers.  Vader used one because he was once a Jedi which made him unique.  In the end after dying, Anakin Skywalker appears next to Luke as an older man next to the ghost of Yoda and Obi-Wan to let Luke know that he was okay.

The next film to watch is of course STAR WARS:  THE FORCE AWAKENS.  This is a fun adventure that is a worthy successor to the trilogy. It may not be as perfect or as deep as the original "unspecialized" trilogy but it's missteps are easily outweighed by all the good.  It's worth repeated viewing in the theater.  The following sequels  would come next in the viewing order by what number they come in the episodes.  I am not sure what to think of the stand alone films.  If they are good watch them whenever.  If they are bad consider them fan fiction.  If they make a Bobba Fett movie that takes place after RETURN OF THE JEDI that automatically puts them in the fan fiction category since he died in the Sarlac Pit.

But what about the precious prequels?!!!!!!!

Easy.  You don't watch them.  They do not fit into the saga.  Worse yet they spoil the revelation that Vader is Luke's father, a crime worse than "specializing" the perfect trilogy.  The only reason Disney included the prequels was to sell more toys in my humble know nothing humble reasoning's.  Even though Disney has made the prequels official canon the stories contradict the originals therefore they are not canon.  In case you just missed it I wrote THE STAR WARS PREQUELS ARE NOT CANON!

A NEW HOPE sets the stage for the Star Wars Universe.  You have to pay close attention to everything that is said, implied, or not said.  I know that is confusing but blame George, not me.  Obi-Wan talks about meeting Anakin (Vader!) and he was already the best pilot in the galaxy and strong in the Force and Obi thought he could train him.  Here he is saying he met him in the Clone wars and it is implied that they were about the same age because they also became friends.  The important details that are left out (if the prequels are cannon) are that Anakin was just a child, who was a miracle birth, and Qui-Gon Jinn wanted him trained to be a Jedi.  You would think that Anakin was only a child strong in the Force and a miracle birth would get a mention at least once somewhere along the original saga.  The whole prophecy and Jedi not being allowed to love would also have come up at some point too.  Why is Qui-Gon Jinn training Obi-Wan when we learn that it was Yoda that trained Obi-Wan in EMPIRE?   A NEW HOPE says for a thousand generations the Jedi protected the Republic where the prequels state that it was only a thousand years.  That is a big whoops!

Either Aunt Beru is sister to Anakin or Uncle Owen is his brother.  They speak of Anakin as if they know him personally or at least who he was.  Even though these two characters are in the film briefly they give tremendous clues to Luke's family past.  Take this exchange between Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen.

Aunt Beru:  "Luke is not a farmer, Owen.  He is too much like his father."

Uncle Owen:  "That is what I am afraid of."

Interesting.  In the prequels Beru and Owen meet Anakin briefly and afterward Anakin slaughters a village of Sandpeople, kids included.  Is Aunt Beru insinuating that Luke is too much like a violent murder?  If the prequels are canon she is.  That is not the original intent of that scene from Episode IV.  She knew Anakin before becoming Vader and that is how she remembers him.  Also why would Luke refer to them as Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen?  Why not just Mom and Dad?  What is the point of taking Luke who was an infant and tell him about his real father?  It makes no sense.  If everybody was concerned about keeping Luke a secret or not wanting him to follow in his father's footsteps why tell him his real father was Anakin Skywalker?  The smart thing to do would be to let Luke think he was the son of a couple of farmers.  That way Luke will not have the expectation of following in the greatness of his father's footsteps.

The prequels tell a story we know the ending.  We already saw it.  The story of Anakin Skywalker was told through the trials and ordeals Luke faced to become a Jedi.  It was that realization that he was walking in his fathers footsteps on his way to the Darkside that saved him.  Luke Skywalker became a Jedi the moment he dropped his lightsaber.  He chose to trust in good and not hate to get resolve.  In the prequels the council decides.  That's not the way of the Force.  You become a Jedi by your choices and not by the decisions of others.

The prequels ruin everything.  Now Vader is not special because the Sith (Whoever they are.) use lightsabers including Palpatine and have the word "Darth" put at the front of their new names.  The Force is no longer spritual but physical being reduced to microscopic organisms.  If that was the case they would never have called it the Force in the first place.  How does Anakin Skywalker show up at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI when it is established in REVENGE OF THE SITH that it requires super secret training to come back as a ghost?

Remember that one time when Vader Force choked that commander guy for making fun of Vader's reliance on an ancient religion that produced no results in obtaining the secret plans to the Death Star?  Basically that scene lets us know that by the time Vader was being trained to be a Jedi he was one of the last.  People no longer believed in the Force.  Jedi were becoming myth.  There weren't a bunch of Jedi's with a big temple where everyone knew about them.  How could a commander at his age not know about the Jedi who fought so prominently making strategic decisions in the Clone Wars?

You can see how the prequels have changed the intent of many scenes in the original trilogy.  I could go on and on.  When Obi-Wan Kenobi says "So was I when you trained me" to Yoda he is no longer telling the audience that Yoda was the one who trained him to be a Jedi.  Now he is saying "When I was a child I was taught by you the ways of the Force because I had midichlorians in my blood but when I got older I was trained by Qui-Gon Jinn whoever that was."  It's makes a great story bland and that is why the prequels cannot not be part of the saga.  Search your feelings.  You know that it is true.


Jason

STAR WARS EPISODE 7 THE FORCE AWAKENS SPOILERIFIC REVIEW!

THE FORCE AWAKENS has put STAR WARS back on top again.  It has also renewed our imaginations for a universe that has long been put to death by the stiff and wooden prequels and blasphemous special editions.  Now we have another film in the franchise worthy to carry the Star Wars title.  Director J.J. Abrams has delivered a thrilling adventure tale that succeeds in accustoming the audience to new main characters while maintaining the overall look and feel of the original trilogy.  THE FORCE AWAKENS earns its spot as the forth best film in the franchise.

AWAKENS is the Cliffs Notes version of the original trilogy.  There is a ton of familiarity with the story and its characters.  The film starts out like EMPIRE with a STAR DESTROYER sending a ship or probes out into space similar to Vader sending out probes to look for the rebels base.  Then as stormtroopers land on a nearby planet they storm a village with an ensuing gun battle similar to the one at the beginning of A NEW HOPE in Leia's ship.  Later we see a Yoda type character, Maz Kanata, in a bar where she crawls across a table similar to Yoda crawling around Luke's camp in EMPIRE.  Shortly after meeting Maz, Rey (A new character you will like) goes into a dark area of the bar down in the lower levels and finds Luke's lightsaber and has a strange vision of the past.  This dark and foreboding moment of course hearkens back to EMPIRE again with Luke going down into a dark place strong in the Darkside of the Force and confronts what he fears most.  Also A NEW HOPE gets homaged with the lightsaber being kept in a trunk.  Yes, I am thinking that it is why the lightsaber is in a trunk.  The finale of the movie of course ends with the RETURN OF THE JEDI scenario of a group of fighters on foot taking down a shield protecting a Death Star so the good guys can fly inside and blow it up.  We even have Captain Phasma as a Bobba Fett looking character being dispatched in a comical fashion similar to Fett's demise in RETURN adding in the mention of a trash compactor from A NEW HOPE.

Hitting the same story beats from the originals keeps the new movie from being completely satisfying.   The film makers almost seem too afraid to make something new in case it doesn't look like something that belongs in the STAR WARS universe,  See the prequels for examples of that.  There are many many examples of that in those awful films.

Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey are our new main characters.  Each one is fun and likable with their own roguish quality preventing them from being mere clones of the original main characters.  I feel like the franchise is in good hands following these three.  Of course most of the older characters show up like Han, Leia, Chewbacca, Luke, C-3PO and R2-D2.  Where's Lando?  You can't help but get drawn into the action as you see all of these characters work together throughout the story.  One of my favorite scenes involves Finn, Han and Chewbacca being captured by the New Order.  Fortunately for our heroes, off in the distance skimming the top of the nearby lake in their X-Wings comes the Resistance. My excitement was so overwhelming that when the shooting started I wanted so badly to take up a controller in my hand and partake in the action fighting along side Han and Chewy by playing STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT on my Xboxone because I am a big lame nerd that way.  Scenes like this make the movie great and just about all of them have something memorable to keep the audience interested.  Like EMPIRE, this is a pretty dark story but there is a lot of comedy too that doesn't take away from the drama.  There is a good balance with the tone.  The comedy makes us like the characters and the dark moments make us concerned for them.

In a couple of ways AWAKENS seems to throw out the prequels and t.v. shows.  It states in the opening title crawl that Luke is the last Jedi.  Now I am not familiar with the STAR WARS REBELS show but I do believe that it takes place between RETURN and AWAKENS and concerns some kid learning the ways of the Force.  Is he dead now?  On an artistic level the film falls in line with the lived in look of the original trilogy and not the soft, sterile computerized fake environments that paint the prequels into blandness.  Even the "Special Editions" are not immune to J.J.'s wrath.  In what I assume is a slap to the notion that Han shot second in self defense we are given a scene where Han punches and grabs a guy hiding from a rampaging monster and throws him into the mouth of the beast to save his own skin. Lucas would have had Han help him out instead of flat out murdering him.  One of the first elements shown for the new movie came in a charity video featuring J.J. Abrams on set of AWAKENS.   Out from behind him came a practical effects creature walking into view.  It was a person in a creature costume with additional puppetry to enhance the look of being alive.  It was glorious to those of us that appreciate the original trilogy.  Abrams making a statement.   That statement was simple but harsh if you were George Lucas.  Abrams was assuring the fans that this was not going to look like the prequels.  He, like us, is a fan of the originals.   Abrams is us.  I appreciated his use of alien wildlife to show us a living universe that isn't just a bunch of C.G.I. cartoons added to the background just so the characters can seemingly ignore.  Again Abrams understands how to flesh out this universe with alien biology even adding a little bit of blood just like when that guy got his arm cut off in A NEW HOPE.

One of my biggest concerns comes from this nagging feeling in the back of my head.  It's the same nagging feeling I had after THE PHANTOM MENACE.  I had questions I assumed would be answered by the following films but never were.  AWAKENS has one question I need answered.  How was Luke's lightsaber found? That is a big deal since it was lost on Cloud City along with Luke's hand.  I'm surprised there wasn't a skeleton hand in that trunk too.  Will the following films explain?  We will have to wait and find out.

The one thing I actually hated in AWAKENS was the death of Han Solo.  Its a good moment that builds on the story of Darth Vader wannabe, Kylo Ren.  However, Han is too good of a character to kill off in the cliche of dying for a greater cause.  He is the biggest reason why AWAKENS is so good.  He still can carry himself as the daring lovable scoundrel he was from the original trilogy.  Han should have lived happily ever after with Leia.  No one would expect to see that coming.  I applaud RETURN OF THE JEDI for not listening to Harrison Ford when he wanted Han to die.  I bet Harrison Ford only came back if he could die thus freeing himself from future excursions into the STAR WAR universe.  He has no time with all this wacky sci-fi foolishness.  He would rather keep on making terrible compromise Indiana Jones sequels.  I am afraid the next two sequels for AWAKENS will suffer from his absence.

For the future of the franchise I really hope the film makers follow the example of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  EMPIRE built it's story on the back of A NEW HOPE without feeling the need to repeat everything we saw before.  There wasn't another big ship star base thingy that needed to be exploded.  The story was more personal.   We are given new environments and characters to discover.  There were no constant sight gags from the first movie to wink at the audience.  I groaned when Fin pulled out the floating lazer ball thingy that Obi-Wan used to help train Luke on the Millennium Falcon.  Please, don't give us more winks, nods, homages and big planet destroying Death Stars.  STAR WARS  was great because it was a new realistic universe to discover.  We need more of that sense of discovery and less "It's like poetry.  It rhymes...." nonsense!

I am excited by the promise of more quality STAR WARS films in the near future.  I just hope it is not too much of a good thing.  Do we really need a ROGUE SQUADRON  movie?  A young Han Solo movie is a terrible idea.   We don't need a movie for every single thing that gets mentioned in the Star Wars universe.  I certainly hope we never see a Bobba Fett movie just to satisfy the fan boys.  Yea, I know he was all cool, mysterious and a total badass but let the poor guy rest in peace as he is being digested for a thousand years in the belly of the Sarlac Pit.

Jason

JAR JAR BINKS IS A SITH LORD FAN THEORY DEBUNKED!!!

Back in the day when I was a kid I saw BEASTMASTER.  I was so impressed by the swords and sorcery opus that I declared it better than CONAN THE BARBARIAN.  Then some time went by and I entered my teens.  On the TBS channel BEASTMASTER came on. It had been many years since I had seen it so I was eager to be reminded as to why I would be so bold as to praise the film so highly.  After about ten minutes into the film my appreciation for the movie changed considerably.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't embarrassed by BEASTMASTER.  It was hokey, silly and nowhere near as perfect as CONAN THE BARBARIAN.  BEASTMASTER had flaws that I was too young and naive to noticed.  I was too amazed by the spectacle of sword play, wizardry and monsters.  Older me became aware of the weaker aspects of the film.  I had grown up.

Then came the STAR WARS prequels.....

I admit that when the prequels came out I loved them.  You could not find a more hardcore defender of them than me.  Jar Jar even made me laugh.  However the prequels bothered me somehow. I would not acknowledge the nagging feeling in the back of my head that formed after my initial viewing of them.  I had questions the films never answered.  What was a Sith?  Are we going to learn more about Midichlorians?  Who was Jedi Cypher Deus? (Name misspelled I'm sure.)  Thanks to my friend from Catchaflick I was shown the Mr. Plinkett review of THE PHANTOM MENACE.  I had to admit to myself that the prequels were terrible and not only that but the "Special" editions were an absolute abomination and a true travesty against the storytelling arts.  It wasn't exactly that hard for me to denounce the prequels because I had the privilege of having the original unaltered STAR WARS trilogy as my childhood.  Unfortunately for the kids of the 90's that grew up in the early 2000's they had the inferior prequels.  That is their childhood when it comes to STAR WARS.  Naturally they are going to defend their childhood inspirations and one way of doing that is coming up with fan theories.  I haven't looked into these because they have no real foundation.  Yet the most ridiculous one seems to be converting people as evident by people sharing the articles about it on Facebook over and over again.  Now there is a Youtube video getting passed around.  Apparently Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord....Say it with me in the best Mace Windu voice you can "A Sith Lord?"

The video or videos (Since there are a few on Youtube and they all say the same thing.) I am addressing assert that George Lucas intended for Jar Jar Stinks to be a Sith Lord all along. Parallels are drawn between Jar Jar and Yoda as both were kooky characters but Yoda reveals himself to be a Jedi Master.  The belief is that in the following prequels Jar Jar would do the same only he would be a Sith Lord. The videos go as far as to boast that Jar Jar Binks is the master of Palpatine!  All of this is obviously absurd and reeks of 90's kids trying to give credibility to their childhood by trying to make Lucas a secretly smart storyteller and not the guy who forever will be known as the man who ruined the STAR WARS saga.

Now I am not going to go into great detail taking each point the videos make about Jar Jar's secret role in the Star Wars universe.  Almost all of those points are pure assumptions and stretches of the imagination.  There is no need for this.  Instead I will point to the movies themselves to prove that Jar Jar was just some dumb character Lucas put in to appeal to children in an attempt to make a movie that appeals to all ages and in turn bring in the most monies of all time.  I knew before watching any of these "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord" videos that two key scenes would not be shown.  These two scenes discredit entirely the bizarre hypothesis of Jar Jar's questionable morality and reasserts George Lucas's original intent for the character.

The first of these two scenes come from STAR WARS EPISODE 2 ATTACK OF THE CLONES.  So Jar Jar is sitting in a room with Chancellor Palpatine and some blue guy with horns lamenting that if only Senator Amidala was there she could introduce legislation to create a clone army.  The intent of the scene is quite clear with Palpatine clearly speaking to plant the idea into Jar Jar's tiny brain to propose the legislation himself.  Jar Jar is being tricked.  You can see Jar Jar realizing that he has the power to propose the legislation himself.  The idea would not have occurred if Palpatine hadn't passively suggested it himself.  Only Jar Jar is dumb enough to fall for such an obvious ploy.  That is probably why Palpatine kept him around as some kind of puppet to pull the strings of when something important needed done and no one else was stupid enough to do it.

The second damning scene comes from George Lucas's not canon "Special Edition" fan fiction versions of the original trilogy where scenes and special effects were added to make them flow with the prequels.   One such scene that has been added to was at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI where a series of shots showing different planets rejoicing the demise of the Empire are shown including Coruscant and Naboo.  During the shot of Naboo as the camera pans across the rooftops of the city if you pay close attention and listen very carefully you can see and hear (With great horror I might add.) the one and only Jar Jar Binks standing next to a steeple joining in the rejoicing by proclaiming "Mesa fwree!"  I poop you not!  Here we see the end of Jar Jar's story.  He sounds, acts and dresses exactly as he was depicted in the Star Wars prequels.   Heck, it looks like he hadn't aged a day in over 20 years!  I guess the Force kept him young, right?  He is the same character.  No change.  Why act silly now if it was done all along for an act?  Why is he happy to be set free from the evil Empire if he himself set it up and is evil?  Jar Jar was just supposed to be a loony Chewbacca replacement  that accompanied our main characters in their adventures through the prequels.   That is all.

Thankfully the creators of STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS have come out and stated that Jar Jar Binks is not in the new movie.  The Jar Jar theorists believed the wacky cartoon abomination would play a pivotal role in the sequels.  Good grief!

I guess now the Jar Jar theorists will have to make up some story that explains the RETURN OF THE JEDI scene.  Good luck with all that.  While you guys are at it try explaining why Qui-Gon Jinn (Name probably misspelled but who cares?) is training Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Yoda which was established in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Or why was Yoda using a light saber in the first place if he was an all powerful Jedi?  Why use a lazer sword when your very being is far more powerful?  Its like using a wooden stick to fight your battles when you can just use the gun in your holster.  Or what was the ultimate point of evil Jar Jar manipulating everyone anyway?  To create Darth Vader?  To create the Empire?  Why?  The theorists don't cover that topic.  Whoops...

In closing my advice is to grow up.  Learn from Lucas's mistake.  Here we have a great example of the difference between good and bad storytelling in film form.  Its okay to like or love the prequels but don't make elaborate excuses for them.  I love all kinds of bad movies.  BEASTMASTER RULES!!!  I just don't believe that they are secretly smart that only a few people understand.  Accept and move on.  No more fan theories, please.

As the old saying goes, "80's kids had THE NEVERENDING STORY.  90's kids had THE NEVERENDING STORY 3."

Jason

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT

Two of the scariest horror films ever made are in the 'found footage' genre.  THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY are the go to examples of how it is done right.  I do like the sub genre.  The problem is that there are too many of them flooding the market making the gimmick an immediate turn off to any movie that uses it now whether it is good or bad.  Once you see that you are watching a BLAIR WITCH knock off it is hard to maintain interest. Us horror enthusiasts are all too familiar with this style.  Been there, done that. Sometimes the film makers try to add digital special effects to their found footage movie in an effort to actually show us something.  C.G.I. is too noticeable and betrays the reality the found footage genre tries to reenact.  The audience response is immediate disbelief followed by boredom.  The worst thing about found footage is that it can hurt what otherwise should be a good solid horror movie.  That is where THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT comes in.

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT touches on a real life fear concerning haunted house attractions and the possibility of genuine horror actually happening in those houses.  Are the fake dead bodies displayed gruesomely for our thrills really fake?  How stable mentally are the employees at these yearly events?  Do they have criminal records?  Five friends go on a road trip to film haunted house attractions throughout Texas to explore these questions.  They search for the scariest house possible going off the main roads and into the back woods attractions.  They tempt fate searching for something a little more dangerous following word of mouth for an attraction that moves about never staying in one place.  The five thrill seekers do interviews with employees at the various haunted houses they go to.  As the documentary crew explore they learn that there is a potential danger and seedy shenanigans that could be going on without public knowledge.  This is the real underlining strength of the film.  This is the real horror that the film builds upon.  The concept of not knowing if the guy behind the mask in the dark put there to scare you is a normal guy having fun or a psychopath ready to snap and unalive you at any moment is truly frightening.  After watching this film you may think twice about going to a haunted house for the rest of your life.

Sabotage!   Someone sabotaged this film.  That is the only way I can explain it.   Whoever was the super genius who decided to shoot HOB found footage style sabotaged this film.  There are some terrific Halloween costumes the killer's wear that are amazing.   Some are so good that they hint that the killer's may possibly be of the supernatural variety.  The Doll Headed girl is horrific.  Truly she is the stuff nightmares are made of.  She is amazing to look at but not for too long.  The make-up effects artist that brought her to life deserves an Academy  Award.  The other killer's dressed as various psycho killer's and clowns are equally menacing and do manage to stand out from one another.  That is hard to do since once you have seen one bloody killer clown you have seen them all.  The found footage style mires and blurs the monsters of the film hiding what could have been iconic characters to make this film stand out from the flood of other horror.  The set pieces from the haunted houses are probably wonderfully horrific in person but shot found footage style they too dark to see the details.  The camera shaking about doesn't help either.  I really wish the cinematography of the film looked like the awesome movie poster.  The poster is oddly beautiful in a dreadful kind of way.

THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT is worth a watch.  There is truly a scary premise that hasn't been fully explored yet concerning the unsavory character of Halloween attractions.  Having to explain over and over again why things are being recorded is rather annoying but if you can get past all the found footage stuff you will find a good horror mystery.  If you haven't watched a ton of horror movies this one may rank higher on your list.  As for me I found the movie to be an entertaining but flawed exercise in the genre.  If it wasn't for the found footage aspect and rather obvious ending this could have been a modern horror classic.  The talent is there in the story, make-up effects and set pieces.  The makers just decided to hide it all with dark shadows and shaky cam.  Strange.

Jason

Why 2015's FANTASTIC 4 bombed.

So everyone seems to hate the new FANTASTIC 4 movie. But why?  Its not a bad film at all.  Read my review here. I didn't think it was going to be any good either but I went and saw it out of morbid curiosity and gosh dang it I liked it.  I think it is unfair how maligned the film has been received. Nobody went and saw it yet everyone talks about how bad it is.  The professional critics have been extremely negative but when have they had any integrity?  So what is the deal?  Why all the hate?  I figure I would use this post to try explain the poor performance and hostility toward the FANTASTIC 4.  I don't think it has anything to do with all the supposed behind the scenes troubles.  All productions have problems. I could be wrong but I do believe that those stories didn't come out or become big until the early word was that the film fantastically sucked.  The studio had already announced a date for the sequel indicating FOX had high hopes for the franchise.

The Fantastic 4 franchise maybe big in the old days in the comic book format but nowadays the mainstream audience probably doesn't even know what a Fantastic 4 is.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe started off strong by casting Robert Downing Jr. as Iron Man.  His appeal spreads across two major demographics in the mainstream audience.  I am not talking about fans of comics or movie fans.  I am talking about average movie goers that simply want entertainment.  He is sexy for the ladies and funny for the guys.  Chris Evans as Captain America is sexy for the ladies and an action hero for the guys.  The same can be said for the male leads in THOR and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.  THE HULK doesn't have a sexy funny lead and that movie didn't do so well.  Its a shame really.  Now look at the new FANTASTIC 4.  Miles Teller is not the macho sexy funny actor with the broad mainstream appeal.  He is an excellent actor and despite his youth is the right choice for Reed Richards.  He got snubbed for an Oscar nomination for WHIPLASH which is an excellent film by the way.  Also in today's world the powers of the Fantastic 4 may not be as appealing.  Having the powers of a Stretch Armstrong seems a little silly.  Being able to turn invisible or flaming into a human torch and being able to fly is kid stuff compared to today's more deadly heroes.  The Thing is another name for Hulk as far as mainstream audiences are concerned.

The entire approach to the new FANTASTIC 4 is all wrong.  We do not need a down to earth, realistic as possible origin story of these characters.  We already have an origin story.  When Spider-Man got rebooted it did not do so well as the originals.  It was too soon and audiences didn't want to slog through the same old origin story hooplah.  Who wants to see the same movie twice?  We want to see our heroes at the height of their careers.  There seems to be endless build ups to potential bigger stories that never come to fruition.  The newer Spider-Man films are examples of that.  It took two movies to tell a love story of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy with a hint of things to come.  Those things never came.  The new FF movie spends almost the entire run time on their origin.  Only at the end do they become the Fantastic 4.  It is too forced with Dr. Doom making an appearance only to be killed off too easily and quickly for a villain that has such a huge reputation in the comics.  FOX doesn't care. Only name recognition matters. The movie seems to be ashamed of the comic books opting for a more realistic approach.

The biggest contribution to the FANTASTIC 4's failure is the Marvel fans themselves, the very people FOX supposedly wants to see this film.  There appears to be a concerted effort by the Marvelites to push for the supreme failure of this film.  I have seen Marvel fans implore people on Facebook and message boards to boycott the film in hopes of it's demise forcing Fox Studios to give up the rights to the film version.  Even without the geek-roots social media campaign there seems to be a desire for all comic book fans, myself included, to see Fantastic 4 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Just the thought of the movie's failure to possibly get FF into the M.C.U. is more than enough temptation to avoid the theaters like it were the D.M.V.  There is no need to get into the bland marketing campaign.  It wouldn't matter if the advertisements dazzled and amazed.  No one wanted Fox to put the movie out.  They wanted Marvel Studios to do it.  As of the writing of this post the "Tomatometer" at Rotten Tomatoes has a score of 9%.  That to me is extremely unfair.  Me thinks that people rated it low without seeing the movie first.  I can't prove that of course but the Fantastic 4 is a far better movie than WOLVERINE or THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.  Heck, BATMAN AND ROBIN has a score of 11%!

Maybe people shouldn't rely on a score to tell if a movie is good or not.  Just see it for yourself and decide.  Be a movie lover and not a coward too scared to like something the cool kids may not like.

Jason

FANTASTIC 4 (2015) is actually good!

I remember seeing the trailer for the new FANTASTIC 4.  I couldn't help but laugh.  It didn't take a crystal ball to know that this movie was going to fail. And fail it did!  The trailer depicted a bland colorless film that was going to use the tired old superhero movie formula of telling an origin story but confining the comic book element to a realistic Christopher Nolan approach with our heroes finally appearing in costume in the final act when the movie is over.  There was nothing new here.  It was also obvious that this movie was made just so Fox Studios could keep the movie rights to the FF franchise.  Worse yet there was an embargo on reviews for the film before opening day.  Were any of us surprised?  Of course when the embargo lifted all the reviews were negative. Despite all of this I had a strange desire to see it.  So I did.....and....I....liked it.  WHAT?!!!

FANT4STIC(?) tells the origin story of the Fantastic 4.  That is a good idea to start off a franchise......if it was the year 1999!  When it comes to comic book movies we no longer need to spend an entire movie telling a story we already know the ending to.  We have had two Spider-Man origin movies as well as a Ghostrider origin, a Green Lantern origin, Wolverine had one, Superman and Batman both had one Punisher too.  Enough already.  Nowadays it is extremely painful to sit through a trailer for an origin story let alone an entire movie.  That is the first big problem with this movie.  Oh, yea I said I liked this movie.  Maybe I should start with the positives.

The story is a good telling of our hero's origins.  This is more of a science fiction film rather than a straight up super hero film.  That's a good start.  From what I have been told (I am no expert on the Fantastic 4.) our heroes are more like explorers of science rather than traditional super heroes like Spider-man and Captain America.  All the actors are great in this movie.  If anyone complains about the acting ask them to compare them to Sandra Bernard in HUDSON HAWK.  That is an example of bad acting.  As a bad actor myself I can tell you with absolute authority that the acting in the new FF is good.  Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell and Reg E. Cathey are terrific portraying a make shift family that formed from the tragic event that gave them their powers.  These people are a genuine family.  That is very important and ultimately what FF is all about.  This is probably why I like this movie so much.  I sympathized with them.  When they suffer from their trip to the alternate universe or whatever that place is, I care what happens to them.  I want to know how they are going to deal with their physical changes and how their personalities have changed because of it.  Don't let the negative people who probably never even saw the film as evident from the box office results say that the acting sucks.  It doesn't.

When he finally appears, Dr. Doom is quite a scary presence in the film.  Ignore the internet memes.  Toby Kebbell is not given much to do with the mishandled back story to the Fantastic 4's most iconic villain.  But as a testament to his acting ability he has made Victor Von Doom, a flawed jealous driven individual, likable.  He has a too brief scene drinking at the lab with Miles Reed Richards and Johnny Storm.  The three are building a short lived camaraderie that works.  This scene emphasizes the tragedy of losing Von Doom in the chaos of the alternate dimension planet thing.  They lose a real friend.  When he returns as Dr. Doom he lives up to his name.  Walking through corridors of the army complex killing soldiers left and right with "Force" powers is truly frightful. He is a monster that wants to return to the alternate world to build life his way.  I kind of like that even though I would have preferred a more accurate to the comics story of Dr. Doom.  I think the end fight was really good too even though it is extremely predictable.  Apparently the Fantastic 4 was too busy doing science stuff to watch the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movie.  If they had they would know not to attack Dr. Doom individually but together as a team.  Watch more t.v., kids.

Like all comic book movies there are some changes.  Reed Richards is young, Johnny Storm is black.  So what!  None of this detracts from the movie.  Even Dr. Doom's origin isn't terrible.  Its just different.  There is a lot of negative to write about with this movie but it is not a terrible movie.  Its way better than THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and THE WOLVERINE.  Those two movies have more problems than the new FF movie but receive all kinds of praise.  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES shows that Joker defeated Batman in the previous film since Wayne stops being the Caped Crusader.  I don't think the creators of TDKR meant to imply that. Wolverine in THE WOLVERINE pretty much just beats up some old guy in a supped up wheelchair after having his own butt handed to him by a bunch of ninjas. FF didn't bomb because its a bad movie.  There is more to it than that.  Give this movie a watch.  See for yourself.  If you had lower than low expectations like I did going in you may just be surprised. I plan on writing a part 2 to this review dealing with the problems of this film and the circumstances that I believe led to the box office failure and poor review scores but that is for another time.

Jason

2014's TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is 'TURTLE-BLE!'

What a lazy and horrible title for this post, isn't it?  You probably clicked on this post just to mock the writer of such a title and you would be right to do so.  But let me ask you this.  Does the new TMNT movie deserve a better effort?  I think not.  What a way to mess up a potentially terrific franchise from the start!  You would think that a movie about teenage mutant ninja turtles would be full of originality and with today's special effects the look of our heroes in a half shell can finally be made to look right.  Nope!  This movie is a rehash of what we have already seen before which is fine to establish key elements of the Turtles but then you realize that you have seen all of this in recent movies from the past few years as well.  Heroes in a half shell?  More like heroes in a half-assed story.

I am going to get real stupid when describing the plot so bear with me on this one.  I want to show how stupid the story is by being stupid myself.  So  a rich guy and a ninja watched THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and THE TRANSFORMERS and decided to be bad guys and put a thing on top of a building that makes a poison cloud to poison the city for the sole purpose of being rulers of the world and really really rich.  They are already rich but whatever.  Don't pay attention to that part of the story.  Teenage mutant ninja turtles show up and stop them.  There are some hijinks that happen along the way, some weirdo shows up in what looks like an inflatable Whoopi Goldberg costume but very little in the way of real character development or bonding occurs.  We the audience are never drawn into the story.  Maybe we are amused by the colorful special effects and flashy camera work or distracted by the haphazardly strewn random shots of movement that make up most of the poorly staged fight sequences.  In any case it looks like a wreck..

The good news is that the turtle characters are each unique individuals.  Each one stands apart from the other in personality and design.  Other than their disturbingly too human faces they look great.  There were a couple of times Michelangelo actually said something that made me laugh.  He is the funny one.  That is what he does.  Leo is still the leader.  Don wears googly goggles to indicate that he is into high tech gadgets and stuff.  Raph is still the wannabe loner that loves his brothers too much to be apart from them.  They are likable enough to give me hope for a better sequel.  The turtles are fine except for one glaring problem.....

They are not ninjas!!!

Remember when us Turtle geeks were in an outrage because supposedly the studio was making the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aliens instead of mutants?  I remember.  Studios love jacking up important details of characters from comics and cartoons when making a movie version of them.  It happens to them all but this was too huge of a change.  Apparently that whole story was a lie or the studio changed it back to not upset the target audience.  Now that the movie is out and I have seen it and had time to ponder it I have realized that the 'Ninja' part of the Turtles is not true at all.  Master Splinter isn't a master of anything.  He found a book of martial arts in the sewer that was probably written by Napoleon Dynamite and suddenly they are well trained ninjas.  What would a rat know about ninja stuff?  The only thing I know about ninjas is that they wear black pajamas and have their butts handed to them by Michael Dudikoff.  Its a good thing Splinter didn't find a cook book.  What would motivate them to train so hard and become martial artists anyway?  Its not like they had any connection to Shedder or expected him to show up sometime in the future.  He was just in the same building they were kept in before they became mutated.  The foundation to build a strong character confrontation is absent.  They have no past together.  When Shedder and Splinter meet for the first time down in the sewer they act like they know each other but we know they don't.  The whole scene has no effect except to highlight the badly written first draft story.

Shredder poses no threat to the Turtles whatsoever.  The movie hyper sizes everything.  The Turtles are pretty much four Hulks running around with super strength.  There is no reason for them to have martial arts training.  Their mutation has made them super strong and super fast.  Shedder who is trained in martial arts and ninja stuff could do nothing to them.  Thankfully he is really really into the TRANSFORMERS movies and made himself a fully functioning Megatron suit.  If he hadn't happened to make that suit he would be no adversary.  Why would a ninja who relies on his own physical abilities create a robot suit?  No reason. I guess originally Shedder was the white dude.  That would explain the suit sort of.

There are all kinds of weird moments that don't make much sense when you think about it.  Splinter gets mortally wounded and the Turtles decide to get the ooze that transformed them because that will heal him.  Since when did the ooze have healing powers?  I could be wrong but the ooze was never considered something that could heal.  It just mutated you into whatever thingy that could be made into an action figure and sold in stores.  In TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2: SECRET OF THE OOZE was the secret that the ooze had aloe vera in it?  Did I miss that part?  I think it would be funny if the Turtles got the ooze to Splinter and tried pouring it down his throat and he said "Why are you feeding me toxic waste?"  That is what the ooze is anyway.   Another time Raphael is the only one not captured by Shedder.  Raph goes to save them but when he finds them Shedder shows up as Megatron and beats the poop out of our turtle hero.  Instead of killing or capturing Raph, Shedder just abruptly walks out of the room like some kind of badass.  Maybe Shedder was just caught up in the moment to realize that he just left Raph alone to free his brothers and eventually ruin Shedders plans.

People need to stop blaming Megan Fox for the film not being very good.  She does a fine job with what she is given.  Her character is given plenty to do even if we the audience don't care.  She is just a victim to the bad script.  Hopefully in the next installment things will come together with a more pleasing outcome.  Hey, at least they have casted Steven Amell as Casey Jones in the next installment.  That's a good start.

Jason