Musings on Star Wars

Star Wars has always meant a lot to me, and I know I'm far from alone in that. I first saw the Holy Trilogy when I was six, so it's quite difficult for me to remember a time when I didn't love Star Wars. So when they announced that they were going to make more movies, I wasn't quite sure what to think. And when J.J. Abrams was confirmed as director, I was sceptical - Star Trek Into Darkness had just come out and was, honestly, a bit of a mess. I was worried he wouldn't do justice to the films I loved so much.

I'm happy to report that I was completely and utterly wrong.

Ever since the first teaser for The Force Awakens came out a little over a year ago, I'd been very excited. Watching that teaser for the first time, when the fanfare blares and the Falcon swoops overhead, I distinctly remember gripping my desk and trying not to squeal with joy because I was in the office and that would have been embarrassing. From the opening crawl to the climactic lightsaber battle, The Force Awakens is packed with moments like that, and it's marvellous.

It has flaws, undeniably, and it doesn't reinvent the wheel or try to do anything drastically new. But the flaws are easy to forgive in light of how simply, purely entertaining it is - and that's why it doesn't matter that it feels a bit familiar. That's part of the point, arguably, and it's why "Chewie, we're home" was the closing line of the second trailer. Yes, it's familiar, because it does feel like coming home. It's a simple, uncluttered space adventure story whose main priority is to be fun, and it's a huge success.

I can't speak for the experiences of new fans, but I expect they'll have a great time. And as a long-time fan, it had huge emotional payoff (I was welling up every time Binary Sunset started playing) without being dependent on nostalgia to get the job done. In truth, the only thing that can really be considered a problem is the story's overall similarity to A New Hope, but even that feels appropriate for a new beginning to the saga.

The ability to nitpick a movie is insignificant next to the power of the Force. And the Force is awake.

I have many questions about Terminator Genisys

Terminator Genisys is not a film that makes a whole lot of sense. The time travel shenanigans spend most of the runtime spiralling out of control, and that provokes a lot of questions about just what the hell is happening. Here are a few of mine.

Who felt the need for most of the first act to be a shot-for-shot remake of The Terminator?

How many different, mutually contradictory timelines are we dealing with here? Four? Five?

How did Kyle Reese immediately know that Old Arnie was a Terminator if he's never encountered this model before?

How did Old Arnie get back to 1973? Who sent him? Why? When did they send him from? Considering that this is the event that completely fucks the timeline, why didn't they explain it?

How did the T-1000 end up in 1984? Was it the same one that tried to kill Sarah in 1973? If so, why hasn't it been hunting her all this time?

Why do people keep casting Jai Courtney in things?

Why is Kyle Reese built like a brick shithouse? Do they still have protein shakes in the post-apocalyptic future?

How did Old Arnie and Sarah build a time machine in a garage in 1984? Did Doc Brown help them?

Did Terminator 2 happen any more or not? Future John says Judgment Day was August 29th 1997, so I guess not?

I can understand wanting to retcon Terminators 3 and 4 away, but did Terminator 2 have to go as well? Terminator 2 was fucking awesome!

Since Sarah time travelled from 1984 to 2017, does that mean there's a very confused T-1000 wandering around 1991 L.A. wondering where his targets are?

If Sarah wasn't around in 1991 to blow up Cyberdyne, why was Judgment Day delayed until 2017?

How does John Connor even exist in this timeline if Sarah isn't even pregnant on the day that is supposed to be Judgment Day?

Since the only way to make even a little sense out of this film is to have seen all the previous ones, why is there a lengthy prologue explaining the backstory of the future war? We know this already!

Matt Smith (henceforth Doctor Skynet) had clearly infiltrated the resistance long before the final battle, or else John would never have taken him to the attack on the Time Displacement Chamber. That attack must have been months in the planning. So why not just kill John before he even launches the attack to destroy Skynet, instead of letting him and then sending a Terminator back?

If letting its central core get destroyed was part of the plan somehow, why didn't Doctor Skynet sabotage the time machine so Reese couldn't be sent back? Did it want Sarah to be protected?

Why do these movies keep anthropomorphising Skynet? Do they want it to be less intimidating?

If Doctor Skynet wants to ensure its own creation in the "original" timeline, why not send Evil John back to 1997, since that's when the world ended in this timeline?

Why the bloody hell was Evil John building a time machine in 2017? Did he have somewhen else he needed to be?

If yes, why didn't Doctor Skynet just send him there in the first place?

Was Steven Moffat a script consultant?

What was the point of J.K. Simmons' character? I love J.K. Simmons, and "Terminator conspiracy theorist" is actually a pretty neat idea, but did he actually do anything to affect the plot?

Why does an incomplete time machine explode when activated? Shouldn't it just not work?

How does the exploding time machine destroy Evil John but not Old Arnie?

Is Old Arnie a T-1000 now? How does that work, exactly?

Are we really meant to believe that Arnie is 6 foot 6? Come on, guys.

Why would you try to recreate the pathos of Terminator 2's ending and then reveal that Old Arnie managed to survive? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT.

Why do they destroy Doctor Skynet at the end, only for the credits stinger to reveal he's still alive? Isn't that just admitting that nothing of any consequence actually happened in the entire film?

Couldn't anybody come up with a better stinger than "Oh whoops the bad guy's not dead after all"?

Why am I even trying to make sense of this movie?

We Are Not Things: a lesson Game of Thrones needs to learn

*MINOR MAD MAX SPOILERS WITHIN*

If you've been on the internet in the last week, chances are pretty good that you already know about the latest controversy surrounding Game of Thrones, so I won't waste your time recounting it here. Suffice it to say that, while I'm not yet convinced that I'm done with the show - I'd like to see if they can salvage anything from the corner they've written themselves into - any enthusiasm I had for it is basically gone.

And for me, that's heartbreaking. At the risk of being That Guy, I was a huge fan of the books before the show started, and I can still vividly remember the sheer glee I felt when they announced that Charles Dance would be playing Tywin Lannister. I've met GRRM; my copy of the first book has been signed by him; the point is, I genuinely love this story and these characters. And yet, for the first time in five years, I'm not looking forward to the next episode of Game of Thrones.

It's not that I have a problem with fiction including incidents of rape, or wanting to deal with the effects and consequences of it. Nothing should be off-limits in fiction, and exploring the darker side of human nature is absolutely worthwhile. The problem in this case is that GoT is obessed with rape and sexual violence, and with rare exception has only ever included them for shock value, not because it actually has anything to say on the subject.

You'd think they'd have learned after that Cersei/Jaime scene last season blew up in their faces, but apparently not - they're digging the same hole even more enthusiastically than before. More than that, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have decided to change the source material so that characters who don't get raped in the books do get raped on the TV show, and that's just sick. Why would you look at great books like these and think "You know, this is really good and all, but you know what it needs? More rape."

I've had enough. I've defended this show's female characters in the past, writing about how their struggles against adversity are what allow them to become great - but Benioff and Weiss don't seem to be interested in that any more. They just seem to want to brutalise and demean their characters without any regard for the character's arc or how the audience is going to react. I've given Game of Thrones the benefit of a lot of doubt, and stuck with it in the hope that it might be able to learn from its mistakes and do better, but they aren't even trying any more. They've bought into their own reputation as the shocking show that does horrible things to its characters, and shock value is seemingly all that matters now. So thank you, David and Dan, for making me look like an asshole. Much obliged.

I think part of what made this scene hurt so much was that I was still on a pretty massive high from seeing Mad Max: Fury Road, which deals with much the same subject matter but does so in a tactful, respectful way that acknowledges the horror of what its female characters have gone through while never diminishing their agency. The Five Wives, who drive much of the plot, are rape survivors, and the Immortan Joe, the villain, is their rapist. And yet, there's no scene of rape in Fury Road. They didn't feel the need to show us that, because it wouldn't have benefited the story they were trying to tell.

Instead, the very first thing we see the Wives doing is reclaiming their agency by removing their chastity belts with bolt cutters. It's a gesture symbolising their freedom from slavery, and their way of saying they'll sleep with whomever they damn well please from here on. As a man, director George Miller could easily have bungled a story about rape survivors as he presumably has very little experience with this sort of thing - so he hired Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, to consult on the film and help the actresses playing the Wives with their characters.

Miller made the effort to ensure that his film's female characters were treated with the respect they deserved, and that effort deserves to be recognised. Plenty has been written about the magnificent Imperator Furiosa - the short version is that she's up there with Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor on the list of all-time great action ladies. But even though the Wives have undoubtedly been through a horrifying ordeal in their captivity, the film doesn't dwell on it. The performances of the actresses tell us everything we need to know: as we're told when the Immortan first discovers they've escaped, "We Are Not Things." They're never victimised and play a crucial role in their own escape, and are willing to stand up to their rapist to do so.

In one of the film's most striking images, which is saying a lot, Angharad puts her pregnant belly between Furiosa and the Immortan's gun, knowing that he'll never risk hurting his unborn child. It is an astoundingly powerful moment, showing that in spite of everything she's gone through, Angharad actually is "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" - in contrast to the episode of GoT in which Sansa was raped, which used that title in frankly revolting irony. Fury Road isn't perfect, but it still depicts women who refuse to be defined by the horrors in their past and who are always treated as actual human beings instead of punching bags. It makes the effort, and that counts for a lot.

That's the big difference between Mad Max and Game of Thrones. You can have deal with difficult subjects in fiction, and you can do it well. You just have to fucking try.

All images: Warner Bros.