Andor: Jedha, Kyber, Erso

 "Do you ever sleep well?"

"No..."

So that's it. Andor is over, and we move immediately to Rogue One.

Much of the episode consists of the gradual process of the Rebellion's leaders coming to accept that the intelligence brought back by Kleya and Cassian is worth investigating, before setting up Cassian on the mission that will be followed up in Rogue One, with his inevitable death. Hence, as he walks to his ship, on what we know to be his final mission, we see that precognitive lady from a few episodes ago, looking at him...

There's more going on than that, though. There's the culture clash between the fierce independence that Luthen represented and the increasingly organised and disciplined rebellion that is developing... and Kleya will have to adapt from the former existence to the latter. At least she'll do so with Vel as a friend.

For the Empire, meanwhile... well, things have a long way to go until they fall apart. But the centre is, perhaps, just that little bit harder to hold. We see the disgraced Paratagaz, allowed to shoot himself instead of face arrest. And we see Dedra, in her prison cell, crying...

Then, finally, we see Bix, with... a baby. Surely not...?

The perfect way to end what turned out to be an even better season than the first. Andor is the best thing to come out of Star Wars for a long, long time.

Andor: I Have Friends Everywhere

 "Revolution is not for the sane..."

I like where this season seems to be going more and more, as we dig ever deeper into both the moral compromises and the personal costs of rebelling against totalitarianism. All this, and it seems Ruby Wax is a big TV star in the Empire...

We see Cassian, with his new disguise, beginning to infiltrate himself into Ghorman and make contact with the rebels, at first disappointing them with his caution. The situation is, of course, highly complicated: the rebels think they're manipulating Syril, but he (with Dedra) is actually manipulating them. This is high stakes ten dimensional chess.

Meanwhile, Luthen sees that Bix isn't doing so well mentally- the constant fear and stress of rebellion takes its toll. But Luthen himself doesn't react well to the prospect of one of his bugs being discovered. The stress of spinning all those plates...

But most intense of all, perhaps, are Wilmon's experiences. He spends so long training one of Saw's underlings, only for said underling to be shot as a traitor... then we get a fascinating scene with Saw, who gets sort of his own version of Luthen's "What do I sacrifice? Everything!" from last season: he knows damn well he will never live to see freedom, so what's the point in maintaining one's grip on sanity?

Utterly gripping television.

Andor: Ever Been to Ghorman?

 "Everyone has their own rebellion, right...?

Yes, I know: I'm well behind on Andor. But I'll keep on at it...

A year has passed since last episode. Cassian and Bix are living in furtive domesticity on Coruscant, finding relative (but only relative) safety in being needles in the mother of all haystacks. But Bix is still troubled by flashbacks of a certain atrocity committed in the name of the rebellion, leading to some interesting debate between the two of them.

Yet this episode is clearly setting up all sorts of skulduggery, and deceptions within deceptions, as the Empire makes its plans ton seize Ghorman and mine it for its resources, rendering it uninhabitable. Hence a year of relentless anti-Ghorman propaganda, hence the Rebellion and the Empire turning their attention to it... yet Luthen can glean little, and the imperial manipulations proceed, with Dedra and Syril's undercover mission seeming to show the first fruits of success.

And it looks as though Cassian is about to go into Ghorman, too, to learn what's going on. I'm sure, with all this dialogue about him protecting Bix, that she'll be fiiiiine.

This is, really, an episode of set-up. Yet there's plenty of nuance and food for thought on the harsh realities and the compromises which must be made when living under tyranny. Superb television, as ever.

Andor: Daughter of Ferrix

 "Everything's all right..."

After last week's extrsaordinary drama it's back to getting all the pieces in order for the final two episodes. It's an episode of prep, not bnecessarily of action. So we get Andor and Melshi- and very possibly no one else- off that prison planet hellhole. We, and poor Andor, learn that his mother is dead. We, but not Andor, see that the funeral is being prepared by Dedra as a trap.

Yet the rest of the galaxy, under the Empire's horrifying totalitarianism, remains a prison. We are reminded of Bix's awful torture. Mon Mothma condfides to Vel how much trouble she's in, and how she will have to accept the betrothal of her only daughter to the son of a monster for the greater good, a particularly harsh example of the kind of brutal moral choices made routinely by Luthien- one of which is revealed to a horrified Saw.

Luthien gets the coolest moment, of course, as his little ship rather awesomely outmaneouvres a Star Destroyer.

It's all character and plot thread development with no fireworks. But the fireworks are coming. And yet again the world building is superbly on theme.

 

Black Panther (2018)

“It's hard for a good man to be king."

This is a hard film to review objectively. It's clearly a significant cultural artifact, far more so than a normal MCU film, and has connected with the African diaspora worldwide for its Afro-Futurism, a big part of a cultural movement that includes works such as Janelle Monae's ArchAndroid, and which constitutes a positive look at the potential of African achievement in spite of a background of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade.

The central conceit of the character of T'Challa has been, of course, for 52 years, that he's the king of a fictional African nation- Wakanda- that secretly defies all African stereotypes to be the most technologically and socially advanced nation on Earth. It's an African paradise, yet the cause of a central debate between the traditional view of the late T'Chaka- Wakanda is for the Wakandans, not for all Africa or the world, and it must be protected; and the view-,expounded with militancy by Erik Killmonger, that Wakanda must share its bounty with the world. This is an interesting central dilemma, but one fundamentally divorced from real world concerns. And, while it's good to see a positive portrayal of Africa and Africans, it's also a little disturbing to see Wakanda presented as a mish-mash of various West African, East African and South African cultures, not all of them Bantu, as though they were the same- and they are not; sub-Saharan Africa is huge and impossibly diverse. I'm not sure that the message that African cultures are pretty much the same is fundamentally a positive one, whatever the merits of the film's upbeat message. Is it only white and Asian people who are allowed to have distinctly different ethnic identities?

Still, the film works as entertainment in the traditional Marvel mould, and Chadwick Boseman's lack of charisma is well compensated for by an awesome and largely female cast. Ryan Coogler has made a film that looks superb in every way, with nothing in the visuals that I can fault. But, much though I enjoyed the film, with its black female Q, its James Bond pastiche antics and the big final battle with war rhinos(!), the film is merely good, not great.

Fantastic Stan Lee cameo, mind, though obviously bittersweet...

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

"I've got a bad feeling about..."

"Quiet!"

"What...?"

I really am a long way behind on the Star Wars films considering I claim to be a fan. This is actually the most recent I’ve seen and I only saw it last night; I really need to get a move on, especially as this is really quite superb.

Part of what makes this film so good is a combination of a fast, action-filled plot that never feels slow; this is a fast-paced action film in the Star Wars universe. But there’s something else, too; all the “main” Star Wars films up to this point, good and bad, and including the prequels that I will blog one day, may have been full of droids and starships but we’re essentially stories told within the fairytale mode. This is not.

Hence we have characters, with arcs, but they are secondary to the plot, and there’s a constant mood of grittiness and a focus on just enough downbeat realism. This is the Star Wars universe, and the theft of the Death Star plans is pretty damn pivotal, but these people lead hard lives based in the reality of resistance to tyranny, not myth. So Jyn- a very different part for Felicity Jones after playing Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything- has had a harsh life, and her character arc is to reconcile with her father, who had once seemed a traitor, and lose her apolitical cynicism to risk everything in getting the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance. Wonderfully, the blatant weakness in the Death Star which allows one hit to destroy it is a deliberate piece of sabotage by her father Galen. But there’s never much hope; idealistic, good people can be heroes without being fairy tale heroes.

Take Cassian; a hero of the rebellion, certainly, but one characterised by the kinds of difficult moral choices that always define resistance against tyranny in a world that is real, not fairytale. When we first meet him he shouts a man in cold blood for the greater good. His mission to kill Galen is secret and cynical, although in the end he doesn’t shoot. And his big speech, where he agrees to join Jyn in her mission, is about how he and his mates have done terrible things, but all in the name of the empire.

We also have K-2SO, the Marvin the Paranoid Android of Star Wars, voices admirably by Alan Tudyk; the blind warrior monk Chirrut, a standout performance by Arizona Ahmed as Bodhi, and a few other heroes who undertake a deeply entertaining, exciting and doomed mission. This isn’t a fairytale and no one is getting out alive. A brilliant film.

Except... well, the CGI resurrection of the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin just looks weird, and is a troubling can of worms to open. And the CGI restoration of Carrie Fisher just looks wrong. But these troubling aspects can’t take away from the fact that Nuneaton’s own Gareth Edwards has given us something very special. The codder done good.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

"You're the first king we haven't eaten."

This is a psychologically brilliant and delightfully weird film, as you'd expect from the creative team of Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers. It's an odd commercial proposition at first glance, though; it doesn't seem particularly kid-friendly for a film based on a children's book. Still, apparently it did well. And is, incidentally, brilliant.

The creatures are, primarily at least, based on prosthetics rather than CGI, which is in itself a triumph. And both the direction and the cinematography are both highly accomplished and rather subtle, making this film look, stylistically, a bit like an art house flick.

But the real triumph is the characterisation of the creatures, which is quietly very dark and more than a little Lord of the Flies. None of them are happy. At least one of them, Judith, is clinically depressed. They are childlike, in a way, but the contrast with Max's innocent enthusiasm is stark. They pay a heavy price for their wildness.

Even the island they live on is slowly turning to desert; entropy. This links thematically to the lesson at school, earlier in the film, where Max is taught about how the world will inevitable end. What, then, is the point? 

There's political allegory, too. Max is appointed king on the basis of his imaginative claims, but, inevitably, the reality is that, like all politicians, he governs in prose.

This is an extraordinary and unexpectedly deep film, and well worth seeing. Just don't expect a typical Hollywood kids' film.