Bat-ology: The Death of Tim Burton's 'Batman III'

Let's take a break from Star Wars-a-thon, or Ranking the Star Wars movies. I already forget what I called it. Heh. I believe we have "Bat-ology" to still finish too! With Warner Bros' umpteenth reboot of the comic book character on the way in the form of Matt Reeves' The Batman, it's high time we get my remaining opinions on the character and his continuing series of film portrayals out in the open. Fear not! I will catch you up to speed. Entry #1 in Bat-ology, my review of "Batman" from 1989, can be found here, while Entry #2... Returns... can be viewed here. Read these if you haven't or if it's been a while and we'll get you all fifty shades of caught up processing Batman. You may come back when you are all caught up. It's okay, I'll wait. I have a lot of walls to stare at...

*Whistles*

Looking back on alternate history
is weird. Thanks Photoshop.

...welcome back! Well, now that you've graciously taken the time to get caught up, let me just say; it isn't any secret that Batman Returns was a tragically-toned misadventure when it was released to theaters in June 1992. However, much like its predecessor, it was a financial hit, grossing $266 million worldwide. Calm down, Marvel boys, that was a lot of money in the early 90s, and certainly for a comic book movie. While not the pop culture phenomenon that Batman was, appearing on T-shirts, lunch boxes, butt-cheek tattoos and automotive bumper stickers, Batman Returns still also produced a sizable and respectable chunk of change from merchandising as well. It was extremely profitable, which in Hollywood jargon means "WE NEED MOAR". So... why didn't Tim Burton return for another Batman film?

If you've been paying attention to me all this time, as I hope you would (otherwise I just can't sleep at night), Batman Returns alienated a lot of people. A lot of people. Not just the public, but the press too. The Los Angeles Times would print a ton of the hate mail and letters from angry parents received in a column throughout that whole summer, bashing the movie's content and the grotesqueness of their characters, the brutality of the violence and the morbid-ness of the Penguin's devious schemes. Basically speaking, Warner Bros had every right and every intention to make another sequel... but the last thing they wanted was another Batman Returns. This wasn't apparent, though, nor did they want to make the decision right away. They couldn't forget that Tim Burton was ultimately responsible for bringing Batman to the silver screen in a serious light and creating this pop culture phenomenon, so they couldn't just risk cutting ties immediately and going forward with a different director at the helm... at least not at first. So first, they gauged Burton's interest in doing another one.

Burton's sketch for what
Robin would look like.

Burton, meanwhile, following Batman Returns just finished directing a picture for Touchstone called Ed Wood, you might've heard me mention it. It's only my favorite Tim Burton film and one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. Also he produced and storied the stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas as well. Burton had quickly fast-tracked to become one of Hollywood's most creatively charged people, so having him on board for a third Batman seemed like the right thing to do, creatively speaking. So when initial meetings were held with Warner Bros. and Tim Burton in late '93, early '94 to discuss the third film, what did they want the third one to be about?

Well... according to the internet, that all powerful world of knowledge and porn that we have access to in our pockets, Burton's third Batman film was rumored to either involve the Riddler and Catwoman, or Two-Face and Catwoman. At least Catwoman was going to return, given her obvious survival at the end of Batman Returns. Two-Face seemed like the logical choice, given that Billy Dee Williams portrayed Harvey Dent in Batman, so this would have logically included Williams returning as Harvey Dent and seeing him be scarred, turning him into Two-Face. Dent was already considered as the tertiary villian for Returns, a character arc and involvement that ultimately became the character of Max Schreck, Christopher Walken. The ending of Returns where Schreck is electrocuted and killed by Catwoman's tazer would've been what scarred Dent into Two-Face, thus setting up this film. Still, other rumors persisted for the Riddler, too, detailing that Robin Williams was heavily courted for the role and would've been a usual bizarre "Burton-style" Riddle; rumors often dictate Williams would've shaved a question mark into his hair and portrayed the character using that. Later on into the early discussions phase, Rene Russo was discussed as the film's love interest for Bruce Wayne... a role I assume went would morph into Nicole Kidman's role... Not only that, but Batman wouldn't have been alone for the film. That's right, an idea that was floated was the inclusion of Robin, Batman's boy wonder sidekick; and Tim Burton reportedly wanted to shake things up and cast Marlon Wayans as the character. I dug that idea when I first read it online, such a shame it never came to fruition.

So in spite of all of this planning and speculation, the movie disappeared into the trades abyss of Hollywood somewhere around late '93 and early '94. All these rumors and ideas ultimately went on the wayside when a meeting between Burton and Warner Bros. kind of fizzled out about a half hour into it, where Tim was pitching ideas. Says Tim Burton:

A depitction of Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face
from the unrealized "Batman '89" comic book series

“I remember toying with the idea of doing another one. And I remember going into Warner Bros. and having a meeting. And I’m going, ‘I could do this or we could do that.’ And they go like, ‘Tim, don’t you want to do a smaller movie now? Just something that’s more [you]?’ About half an hour into the meeting, I go, ‘You don’t want me to make another one, do you?’ And they go, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no!’ And I just said, ‘No, I know you!’ So, we just stopped it right there.” - TB

There you have it. The project quickly switched gears and quite honestly, pulled a one-eighty. It turns out that Warner Bros. wanted a more 'toyetic' approach to Batman, a film they could freely market to families with action figures, clothes, and other assorted capitalistic junk for a pretty penny. Honestly, they weren't going to get it with another one from Burton. Batman Returns, while financially successful, was critically questioned. In the fourth part of the 2005 Batman film series documentary, Shadow of the Bat titled "Dark Side of the Knight", screenwriter of Returns Daniel Waters said:

“It’s great. The lights are coming up after Batman Returns, and it’s like kids crying, people acting like they’ve been punched in the stomach, and like they’ve been mugged. Part of me relished that reaction, and part of me to this day is like, ‘Oops.’” - DW

So there you have it, changes had to have been made and made they were. Gone were many of Burton's dark ideas for the third film, styled to be similar in tone to Returns, and Burton himself also departed the project as director, but stayed on as producer. In Burton's place, Warner Bros. would tap director Joel Schumacher, known for directing 80s hits like The Lost Boys, St. Elmo's Fire, and even The Client that same year, in '94. He and Warner Bros. worked to rethink and reimagine the Batman film mythology, deciding to sort of reboot everything, while keeping it story-wise as a sequel to Batman and Batman Returns. Michael Keaton, meanwhile, at stayed on as Batman well into pre-production, even getting fitted for costumes... but despite quite the potential payday of a reported $30 million offer from Warner Bros. to play Batman in the third film, Keaton left the project after disagreeing with the lighter tone and marketable substance the movie aimed for.

So how did the movie turn out? Were all these switching ideologies, fear of bad response, weird films with grotesque characters traumatizing children really worth completely and radically changing everything and revamping the character, his story, the appearance of the film and everything just to make more money on the matter? Stay tuned for the next Bat-ology!

Ranking the "Star Wars" Movies: #6 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It's isn't like The Last Jedi where it's like you open a Pepsi expecting Pepsi and you end up drinking piss.
This is more like expecting Pepsi and drinking... stale Pepsi from a can that's been out for two days.
It's still Pepsi but... I mean... not really.

Think back to high school again. That's right, I'm using another homework analogy for this. What do you want from me? I don't get paid for this! Now, picture it... that morning rush before first period where a big worksheet was due, and rather than fill it out with all your own answers the night previous, you stayed up all night playing Skyrim and drinking Mountain Dew until you could feel your skin move. Now, you're sitting in the cafeteria twenty minutes before showtime and realize "Hey. That big worksheet? Mine's completely blank!" So what do you do? Well if your answer is "I never had to worry about that because I always did my homework", congratulations nerd; don't you have some surgeries and court cases to be getting to? No, if the answer is the far more realistic "Copy off the smart kid", congrats; you've just figured out how Star Wars: The Force Awakens was produced.

I will admit, though; the cross guard lightsaber
was and still is a cool concept.

I remember where I was when I heard about major events in life; when 9/11 happened, when the United States invaded Iraq, when the Cubs won the World Series... but to a lesser extent, the day in 2012 when the Disney/Lucasfilm buyout was announced and on that same day, Bob Iger stood in front of that camera and announced "Star Wars Episode Seven" to the world, which he said would "be in theaters worldwide in 2015". Well... needless to say, a sequel to Return of the Jedi that wasn't going to be controlled by Lucas? Sign us all up. It didn't even matter that they literally started with a deadline and not a story like a bunch of fucking dummies! Every major production announcement was like another gift; The original trio of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were going to be back, it was going to use practical effects over CGI, George Lucas wasn't telling the story, J.J. Abrams was going to direct, it was going to kick start an entire line of Star Wars films, one per year celebrating Star Wars's big return to the cinema screen after ten years... well technically seven, but we don't count that Clone Wars garbage... and it would all start with this one... and we got EVERYTHING we wanted and because we did, I'm demanding that you go see a movie that billions of people around the world are calling "Okay!" This is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a movie that teaches us that shot-for-shot remakes are still lazier by comparison, but a story-for-story rehash isn't too much higher up the ladder. Let's jump right in.

This must've been their faces when they read the next two.

It has been thirty years since the end of Return of the Jedi, the end of Darth Vader and the Emperor (LOL) and the end of the Galactic Civil War. The First Order (Basically the Empire... but not really... but yeah really) seeks to eliminate the New Republic. The New Republic? You never see it. Don't bother. Well... you see it once before it gets blown to smithereens, but I digress. The Resistance, backed by the Republic and led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), opposes the First Order. Leia searches for her brother, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who has gone missing. Who is the Resistance? Why does the New Republic need them? Don't they have their own military? I hate to break it to you, but these questions are NEVER answered. I haven't bothered reading the 'extended lore' Disney shoved down our throats about the possible backstory behind it either. If you can't explain it in your movie, don't even bother trying to peak my interest. All-contained stories in movies died a long time ago. Now you have to see the movie, but to get your answers on certain plot points you have to read four comic books, watch one TV show, buy six action figures and collect fifteen different posters; capitalism at its worst.

Pretty sure this scene of them finding Luke is just like
how they found Mark Hamill to ask him to be in the movie.

Anywho, way off topic here; The movie opens on the desert planet Jakku, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) receives a map to Luke's location from Lor San Tekka (Max Von Sydow), and yes, they never say his name. You either have to read a book or wait for the end credits. Stormtroopers commanded by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) raid the village and capture Poe, while Kylo kills San Tekka. Poe's droid, BB-8, escapes with the map and encounters a scavenger named Rey (Daisy Ridley). Kylo tortures Poe using the Force and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187 (John Boyega), disillusioned by the First Order, frees Poe, and they escape in a stolen TIE fighter. Upon learning that FN-2187 has no other name, Poe gives him the name "Finn". Catchy, I like it I guess. As they head to Jakku to retrieve BB-8, they are shot down by a First Order Star Destroyer and crash-land. Finn survives and assumes that Poe died in the crash. He encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order tracks them and launches an airstrike. In actually a pretty cool scene, Rey, Finn, and BB-8 escape the airstrike and steal the Millennium Falcon and escape the planet. The Falcon is discovered and boarded by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Gangs seeking to settle debts with Han attack, but the group escape in the Falcon. At the First Order's Starkiller Base, a planet converted into a superweapon (what kind of superweapon? Oh well just one that can destroy entire planets is all), Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) allows General Hux (Domnhall Gleason) to use the weapon for the first time. Snoke questions Kylo's ability to deal with emotions relating to his father, Han Solo, who Kylo states means nothing to him. We all know that's a lie; you can just already tell he's going to flip back to the good side.

Harrison Ford's plan to succeed in this movie.
1) Make 30x more $$ than everyone else 2) Phone it in
3) Profit.

Aboard the Falcon, Han determines that BB-8's map is incomplete. He then explains that Luke attempted to rebuild the Jedi Order but exiled himself when an apprentice turned to the dark side, destroyed the temple, and slaughtered the other apprentices. This begs the question why Luke would even want a map to exist so people can find him if it's "exile", but fuck what do I know? The crew travels to the planet Takodana and meets with cantina owner Maz Kanata (Lupitya N'yongo), who offers assistance getting BB-8 to the Resistance. Rey is drawn by the Force to a secluded vault, where she finds the lightsaber once belonging to Luke and his father, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). She experiences disturbing visions and flees into the woods, confused and terrified. Maz gives Finn the lightsaber for safekeeping. Why did Maz have it? Where did she get it? How long has she had it? Just how significant to the trilogy is Maz? Guess what, me bucko; all of these questions are NEVER answered! Except the last one, I can answer that... not very.

...and in the Seventh Film, God created meme and it was
good. (Abrams 12:15)

Anywho, the heroes on TacoTuesday or whatever the planet's called watch as Starkiller Base destroys the New Republic and its fleet. Goodbye, we hardly knew ye. The First Order attacks Takodana in search of BB-8. Han, Chewbacca, and Finn are saved by Resistance X-wing fighters led by Poe, who survived the crash. Where did he go? How did he get off the planet? Why didn't he go back for Poe when he awoke? All these questions are NEVER answered either. I sure hope you like your Star Wars movie you waited ten years for. Half the time I expect Ashton Kutcher to leap onto camera and tell me I got punked.... was that a dated reference? I'm sorry. Speaking of dated references, Leia arrives at Takodana with C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and reunites with Han. Meanwhile, Kylo captures Rey and takes her to Starkiller Base, but she resists his mind-reading attempts. Snoke orders Kylo to bring Rey to him. Discovering she can use the Force, Rey escapes using a Jedi mind trick on a guard. How did she know how to do that? NEVER Answered. You're catching on.

I did like the slower, down-to-Earth duel that couldn't
have doubled for a choreographed dance routine.

At the Resistance base on D'Qar, BB-8 finds R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), who had been inactive since Luke's disappearance. Why? Yep. You get it. As Starkiller Base prepares to fire once more, the Resistance devises a plan to destroy it by attacking its thermal oscillator. Using the Falcon, Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrate the facility, find Rey, and plant explosives. Han confronts Kylo and implores him to abandon the dark side. Kylo seems to consider this, but ultimately refuses and kills his father... finally acknowledging one of Harrison Ford's contract demands that's been in existence since The Empire Strikes Back. Devastated, Chewbacca shoots Kylo once... why he doesn't keep shooting is beyond me... and sets off the explosives, allowing Poe to attack and destroy the base's thermal oscillator.

The injured Kylo pursues Finn and Rey into the woods. How he got from all the way over the chasm to well out into the woods, basically doing a giant circle around Finn and Rey and cutting them off, so damn fast is... well, if you don't know by now, start over again. Finn fights Kylo with the lightsaber to protect Rey before Kylo knocks him unconscious. Rey takes the lightsaber and channels the Force to defeat Kylo in a duel; they are then separated by a fissure as the planet's surface begins to splinter. Snoke orders Hux to evacuate and bring Kylo to him to complete his training. Chewbacca rescues Rey and the unconscious Finn, and they escape aboard the Falcon. As the Resistance forces flee, Starkiller Base implodes. On D'Qar, Leia, Rey and Chewbacca mourn Han's death. R2-D2 awakens and reveals the rest of the map, which Rey uses to find the oceanic planet Ahch-To (Gesundheit) in the Falcon. On Ahch-To, Rey finds Luke atop a cliff on a remote island. Without a word, and I mean with zero talking whatsoever, she presents him with his father's lightsaber... and BAM! End credits.

"J.J.! Those are real explosions!" "I am many things,
Daisy, but a George Lucas I'll never be."

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is both a lot and nothing at the same time. It feels like a weird tease of a movie. Just as soon as plot points are getting ready to be revealed, getting ready to be explained; something happens or the characters just flat out don't tell us. It was wanting to set up this new groundbreaking trilogy of Star Wars and while it did, it didn't really count on its two sequels retroactively making it look like a completely clueless dumpster fire of a movie. The giddy fanboy moments are still giddy fanboy moments, but I find myself anticipating them as like milestones throughout the movie more than I feel like just enjoying the movie. Like "Okay, here's Han and Chewie's big reveal... now I just have to make it until the whole 'Luke's lightsaber in the basement' reveal." I still like the movie, but much better in 2015, 2016 and early 2017 when I didn't really know where things were going to go.

The movie is decent, but it relied heavily on copying the 'hero's quest' arc made famous by Star Wars '77 a little too lovingly, resulting in a carbon-copy movie. An unknown farmboy (girl) comes across a droid carrying a macguffin, recruits a wise-old sage and ventures to different locales until eventually locating the good guys and then joining them in their big battle against the battle station that destroys shit. See? A little too lovingly copied. Remember our analogy at the beginning? The smart kid says "You can copy, but you have to change the answers so it doesn't look like it". That's what this movie is. Safe, but uninspired. Action-packed, yet somehow dull. Adventurous in all the same ways... like driving the same road to work every day. To sum up Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Give it a try I say, but don't be fooled by the promises it's going to make and be on the lookout for just how many questions go unanswered.

...all that money invested in a puppet-suit that has seven
seconds of screentime.

Now that we've already done all of the Sequel Trilogy films on the bottom five of the list (oof), it's time to give them an analogy of their own; The Force Awakens is like when your buddy invites you over, promising that new cutting-edge video game you want to play and all the sugary shit you could want to eat/drink during... The Last Jedi is you getting to the house and realizing his game console is twenty years older than you thought and his family is strictly vegan, complete with a fridge full of celery and prune juice... and The Rise of Skywalker is you two coping with his bald-faced lies and just relegating yourselves to sitting up in his room in dead silence talking about the game you could be playing and the stuff you could be eating/drinking. Yep; may not be solid, but it's the one I'm sticking to. Three uninspired carbon-copy movies of adventures that already exist... except you know, not as fun...

Look on the bright side! At least next time we're kicking off the top five, right?

Ranking the "Star Wars" Movies: #7 - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Ugh. I guess it's now or never.

Have you ever had homework due on a certain date, and you've blown it off and postponed working on it and kept putting it off further and further until it became the absolute last possible time to work on it, so you just threw a bunch of shit into a Word doc and then submitted that as "the best you could do", praying you at least get a C or something so your parents won't yell at you and make you go to summer school to retake the class like the pathetic numb skull you are?

Oh yeah, also. This fooled nobody.

Well that's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; a movie that teaches us it is much better to play it safe, be lazy, do nothing inspired, half-ass everything and turn it in to cut your losses rather than actually gambling on the hopes that you know exactly what the fans want for a conclusion. My expectations going into the theater were entirely lukewarm (pun intended). I had no prior feelings I was going to witness something groundbreaking or stunning; I knew they were in deep shit with the unfortunate passing of Carrie Fisher prior to filming and especially when they announced Palpatine was going to be the end-all baddy again. I was one of the few that didn't immediately fire a load into his pants when I heard that news. I just shuddered in utter disbelief, like "oh we're going to really do this, aren't we?" God, this movie could've been so much better, and the fact you watch it and it doesn't even feel like they tried is the saddest part. Forty-two years down the drain, Lucas's entire plan for the series completely shot to hell. Any semblance of a cohesive story got tossed out the window when, in an attempt to just save face and go the easy route, they retconned most of The Last Jedi and just rolled up with a quasi-sequel to The Force Awakens to frisbee at the frontdoor of theaters and drive off with all haste before anyone could drag them out of the cars and beat them senseless. Yawn. So... is it worth really taking apart the final episode in the now-called "Skywalker Saga" that doesn't even feature one single Skywalker kicking ass? No, but I'm going to do it anyway because I am long overdue. Let's get this over with...

"Hey J.J., I thought I chucked this. Want me to chuck
it again?" "Hell no, man. That wasn't even funny the
first time."

Following a threat of revenge by the revived Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, who was surprisingly okay with shitting all over the end of Return of the Jedi by coming back), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) obtains a Sith macguffin-or-something, leading him to the uncharted planet Exegol. There, he finds Palpatine, who reveals that he created Snoke as a puppet to control the First Order and lure Kylo to the dark side. Why he went through all that trouble when he himself could've just said "Hey, I'm me; Palpatine. Come to the dark side or something..." is beyond me. Could it be because they had no idea who Snoke was and Rian Johnson just decided to kill him off? Yeah. Palpatine unveils the Final Order—a secret armada of Imperial Star Destroyers—Somehow infeasibly hidden under Exegol's surface and able to be levitated all by Palpatine himself—and tells Kylo to find and kill Rey (Daisy Ridley) who is continuing her Jedi training under Resistance leader Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher's CGI recreation). Meanwhile, Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) deliver intelligence from a spy that Palpatine is on Exegol; Rey has learned from Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)'s notes that a Sith macguffin-or-something can lead them there. Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, BB-8, and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) depart in the Millennium Falcon to Pasaana, where a clue to one of those macguffin-things is hidden.

"I know now what it's like to be made out of computer
data. I know what Peter Cushing felt... or... processed."

Kylo initiates a Force bond with Rey to discover her location; he travels to Pasaana with his warrior subordinates, the Knights of Ren. Gee, nothing like waiting til the last minute to reveal where they were, who they were. Don't get your hopes up, though; they do literally fuck-all. With the help of the elderly yet suave Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Rey and her friends find the clue—a dagger inscribed with Sith text, which C-3PO's programming forbids him from interpreting—and the remains of a Jedi hunter named Ochi and his ship. Why is there a Jedi hunter in a time when the Jedi were extinct? Seems to me like it completely mutes your profession. Sensing that Kylo is once again nearby, Rey goes to confront him. The First Order captures the Falcon, Chewbacca, and the dagger; attempting to save Chewbacca, Rey accidentally destroys a First Order transport with Force lightning. Believing Chewbacca to be dead, the group escapes on Ochi's ship.

They ought to call this trio; the Troupe of Having Nothing
To Do Whatsoever.

The group travels to Kijimi, where a droidsmith extracts the Sith text from C-3PO's memory, revealing coordinates to a macguffin-or-something. Rey senses Chewbacca is alive (Hang on while none of us are shocked), and the group mounts a rescue mission to Kylo's Star Destroyer. Rey recovers the dagger and has visions of Ochi killing her parents with it. Kylo informs her that she is Palpatine's granddaughter (Hang on while all of us picture Palpatine's 120-year-old wrinkly grey ass getting its freak on). The Sith Lord had ordered Ochi to recover Rey as a child, but her parents hid her on Jakku to protect her. General Hux (Domhnall Gleason) saves Poe, Finn, and Chewbacca from execution, revealing himself as the spy. Sure glad he didn't succeed in killing any of the heroes the previous adventures, eh? What a... twist? He permits the group to escape on the Falcon, but is discovered and killed by Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant, your cheque is in the mail). The group flies the Falcon to the macguffin-or-something's coordinates on a moon in the Endor system. Ah the last saving grace of a movie with no story and nothing to fall back on... just give us nostalgia so we're numb to what we're watching.

"No, no; this is Star Wars. The No Man's Sky movie
auditions are in the next studio over."

Rey retrieves the wayfinder from the remains of the second Death Star, but she is met by Kylo, who has again tracked her down (this script sucks) as he destroys the macguffin-thing and duels her. In a dying act (a perfect example of art imitating life... *ba dum tss*) Leia calls to Kylo through the Force, distracting him as Rey impales him. Sensing Leia's death, Rey heals Kylo (What?) and takes his ship to exile herself on Ahch-To (Still stuck on the Force healing thing). There, Luke's Force spirit appears so that Mark Hamill's family can eat for a few more decades and he encourages Rey to face Palpatine and gives her Leia's lightsaber... which he had even in death, I guess? Rey leaves for Exegol in Luke's X-wing fighter... which had been underwater for probably fifteen or so years, but still somehow flies (Because science?) using the macguffin-thing from Kylo's ship. Meanwhile, Kylo converses with a memory of his father, Han Solo; he throws away his lightsaber and reclaims his identity as Ben Solo. You know, conversing with memories is often the first sign of dementia and/or schizophrenia. Consult your doctor if you too start conversing with your memories. Also, Harrison Ford literally rolled out of bed to film what was probably a $3 million cameo. Anywho, back on track, sensing Leia's death and Ben's return, Palpatine sends one of his superlaser-equipped Star Destroyers to obliterate Kijimi as a show of force. The Resistance, led by Poe and Finn, prepare to attack the Final Order fleet.

"I have been rejuvenated! My thirty-seventh master plan has
finally succeeded... I sure hope it doesn't backfire on me."

Rey transmits her coordinates to R2-D2, allowing the Resistance to follow her to Exegol. There, she confronts Palpatine; he demands that she kill him for his spirit to pass into her. Lando brings reinforcements from across the galaxy to join the battle. Ben overpowers the Knights of Ren (Oh yeah, I forgot they were there) and joins Rey, but Palpatine drains their power to rejuvenate himself. He attacks the Resistance fleet with Force lightning and incapacitates Ben. Weakened, Rey hears the voices of past Jedi, each of whom also probably got some tasty paychecks from their appearances) who lend her their strength. Palpatine attacks her with lightning, but Rey deflects it using Luke and Leia's lightsabers, killing Palpatine and herself. Ben, I guess, uses the Force to revive her at the cost of his own life; Rey kisses Ben before he dies (What?). The Resistance defeats Palpatine's armada (fucking somehow), while people across the galaxy rise up against the First Order. The Resistance returns to their base to celebrate. After the celebration, Rey visits Luke's abandoned childhood home on Tatooine (in one last vain attempt to bring forty-two years full-circle) and buries his and Leia's lightsabers, having built her own. A passerby (probably some woman with dementia who wandered onto the set by accident) asks her name; as the spirits of Luke and Leia watch, she replies, "Rey Skywalker." Oh I get it Disney... Rey takes the last name of Skywalker so that technically you can continue to use your stupid "Skywalker Saga" moniker to refer to all nine episodes in one boxset?

"Hit lightsabers if you're gay!" "What?" *Clash* "Heh."

Well I'm sorry Disney, but that is cheating of the highest order. It was adorable and calculated when Rose took Jack's last name to avoid Cal in Titanic, but this just seems cheap. Just like the whole movie. One rushed school project turned in at the last possible second. The trope of having the heroes go to some planet for a macguffin/person only to be chased off the planet by the First Order happened one too many times. Rey is still fucking boring, Poe and Finn have a Batman & Robin type duality to them but they're basically just the same character who probably became two characters through cellular mitosis. We never got to hear what Finn wanted to tell Rey, either. What was up with that? God, it just feels like we've been robbed. If The Last Jedi would've just stuck to the formulaic way of making a Star Wars film, we wouldn't have had this problem. Maybe we would've had a far more lovable ending to a franchise that had nine episodes with differing themes, storytelling, and practically different universes altogether. Star Wars honestly deserved a pretty euphoric ending, but it is what it is. This is what we got, so take it or leave it. There's hardly any character development, some tropes are reused constantly, too much reliance on macguffins and item quests, shoehorned nostalgia to distract us from the real suckass bits of the movie, and to top it all of; Palpatine? Really?

Lando really be out here wearing the same outfit since
Solo. Come on, man. Get some Kohl's cash together.

Honestly, George should've stuck to his guns and left it at I-VI. Sure, the prequels were garbage at the time, but the sequels have certainly improved them by comparison. George had to be at home with each new sequel release laughing his ass off. Star Wars is the story of the downfall of a longstanding government through one man's corruption and lies, who also caused a fall from grace for a truly heroic man loved by many people, a period of darkness in the galaxy with no peace and oppression on all sides, only for that same corrupted, fallen hero's son to rise up and conquer the man who tore the galaxy apart and redeem the actions of his father and restore democracy and peace to the galaxy. That's it. That's Star Wars. The sequels struggle because there was no more story to tell. No where else to go. Return of the Jedi had the final note, and while the Second Death Star was a shameless rehash in and of itself, it still had a much more euphoric ending for the saga. More on that later.... but since the sequels exist, we have to talk about them and include them. Disney's money whoring Star Wars out has left us with Rogue One and then a bunch of iffy/buttass ones. Look, Rise of Skywalker, to sum it up, is one bland collection of "okayness". It does its job, but very poorly, and Palpatine's "final death" doesn't feel anymore definitive than falling into the Second Death Star's reactor and vaporizing, and it further solidifies the shameless capitalism that was behind making these films, demonstrating the carelessness with cashing in Star Wars's popularity by making a truly derivative, uninspired, lazy trilogy of films and having the balls to claim they continue the story of Star Wars. It's just a rotten, damn shame. Honestly, skip Rise of Skywalker, unless you just really want to know where I'm coming from..........

A Review of "Child's Play" (PLUS: Some Updates)

Real talk: Andy was a real trooper for even wanting to be in the same room as that thing.

Gosh. First COVID-19 really messed up the year, and now we have racial tensions and rioting in the streets. If I didn't say any better, I'd say it's about time for the Rapture. Say your prayers and pack your undies; we're all going to Hell. I took the month of May off following "Rockython" and now I'm back. Just like a worn out franchise, I keep coming back for punishment. However, first I'd like to sit here and rattle off some updates about the blog and where it's headin' in the months to come. I'd like to first address some longstanding, still-yet-unfinished series':

• Ranking the Star Wars Movies is still ongoing. It will be finished, don't worry. The holdup is that I haven't had the inclination to really rewatch Episode IX to figure out where precisely it ranks in my personal list in relation to the remaining films. Like Episode VIII, I just cannot sit through that movie.
• The Room, Part 3: This one has been on the shelf for over a year. I started out with a weird structure to the review, stepping through the storylines that go nowhere and some trivia to start us off, but now I just have zero desire to continue reviewing it in that style. I was kicking around the notion of "rebooting" the review and just doing it normally.
• Bat-o-logy: I still have to review the rest of the Batman saga. I figured I'd try and get it in (heh) before the summer ends. We still have Schumacher's two movies and then the Nolan trilogy.
• Halloween 2K20: I have a plan for this year's Octoberganza. More on that as we... you know... approach October. Stay tuned.

Now that the updates are out of the way, I pose this question; what's scarier than HORROR movies in June? No, no; don't look at your phones and read the news. That's cheating. Don't go outside; that's cheating too. No, the only thing scarier than horror movies in June is picking the wrong horror movie and punishing yourself. Now, it had been years since I watched what I'm here to talk about today and while I thought it was at least creepy back then, now I find it reprehensibly laughable. Today, we're here to talk about Child's Play; a movie that teaches us that the hauntingly primitive CGI used for the original Toy Story wasn't as scary as a rubber animatronic ginger kid voiced by Brad Dourif.

"I hope this is a Nintendo. Andy doesn't know this,
but I never learned to read."

So the movie starts out in the only place scarier than Hell; South Side, Chicago. Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) a fugitive and serial killer, is chased through the streets by homicide detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), who shoots him several times. Ray's accomplice, Eddie Caputo (Neil Giuntoli), escapes in a getaway vehicle without him. Ray breaks into a toy shop and, realizing that he is dying, performs a Haitian Voodoo spell to transfer his soul into a Good Guy doll. What's a Good Guy doll? Imagine Tonka Joe, only as a kid... a ginger kid... a frightening caricature of a ginger kid. The store is then struck by lightning and explodes. Mike survives the explosion and re-enters the shop, only to find Charles' dead body and the doll by his side.

The following day, widow Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) unknowingly purchases the doll—which now calls itself "Chucky"—from a homeless peddler as a birthday gift for her 6 year-old son Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent). Later that evening, Karen's best friend Maggie (Dina Manoff) babysits Andy while Karen is working late. After Andy’s bedtime, Maggie finds Chucky sitting in front of a television tuned to an evening newscast about Charles Lee Ray. She returns the doll to bed but is then hit in the face with a hammer and falls out a window to her death. This of course raises so many questions about how Chucky can maneuver quickly enough, hoist up a frying pan and knock Maggie out of a window before she even realizes he's there... but I digress. The police arrive and search the apartment and Detective Norris deems Andy a suspect. That's right; this guy has the balls to accuse a little kid of Murder One. I sure hope he knows just how fucked he is trying to get those charges to stick. Before going back to bed, Andy claims to the police and his mother that Chucky killed Maggie, having seen traces of flour on Chucky's shoes, indicating he was in the kitchen.

"Now Andy, don't feed Chucky after midnight or else
you'll get sequels."

The next morning, Chucky orders Andy to skip school and take the Chicago "L" train downtown. This scene made me uncomfortable, watching a young Andy travel on the "L" train alone. Kinda gut wrenching thinking what could happen to him, but it's all okay because while Andy is distracted, Chucky sneaks into Eddie's house and kills him by causing a gas explosion. Andy is once again deemed a suspect and is placed in a psychiatric hospital after again claiming that Chucky is responsible for the murder. Later on, back at her house, Karen picks up the Good Guys box and a pack of batteries drop out. Karen realizes that Chucky has been functioning without them. Unnerved, Karen starts a fire and threatens to burn Chucky, causing him to violently spring to life in her arms. He attacks her before running out of the apartment. Karen chases after him, but Chucky escapes. Karen goes to the police station and explains what happened, but Mike does not believe her. Karen finds the peddler and asks for more information on where he found the doll. As the peddler attempts to sexually assault her, (another true horror taking place in a movie about a killer talking doll) Mike rescues her, and the pair forces the peddler to admit he took the doll from the demolished toy store. Karen again tries to convince Mike that the doll is alive, but he refuses to believe her, insisting that he killed Charles Lee Ray. After driving Karen home, Mike is attacked by Chucky, and in the ensuing fight, Chucky is shot, and his wound inexplicably bleeds and causes pain.

(Pictured): Michael Bolton before he kicked heroin
to start a musical career.

Chucky flees to his former Voodoo instructor John, who informs him that that the longer Chucky stays in the doll, the more human he will become. Chucky demands that John help him reverse the spell, but John refuses. Chucky tortures John into revealing that in order to escape the doll, Chucky must transfer his soul into Andy, the first human he revealed himself to. That's... an oddly specific rule. A little too coincidentally forced that it has to be Andy. But hey, I guess when you write yourself into a corner, you write yourself into a corner. Chucky kills John and escapes. Karen and Mike arrive shortly afterward. Before dying, John tells them that although Chucky is a doll, his heart is fully human at this point and vulnerable to fatal injury. You know, unlike if he were a doll and they could just drop him into a smelting pot in a steel mill or something. Maybe park a car on top of him? Cook him in the microwave or run over him with a lawnmower?

Chucky arrives at the loony bin where Andy is being held. Chucky kills a doctor, and in the process Andy escapes and flees home. Chucky follows him and knocks him unconscious. As Chucky prepares to possess him, Karen and Mike arrive to stop him. Chucky slashes Mike's leg but is then tossed into the fireplace by Karen. Andy drops a lit match in it, burning Chucky. "I thought we were supposed to be friends to the end, right?", to which Andy retorts "This is the end for you!" That shit is worthy of Schwarzenegger. Anywho, Karen and Andy leave the room to help Mike, who by now is contemplating retirement from the force after getting his ass kicked by a fucking doll, but a charred Chucky escapes the fireplace and chases Andy. Karen shoots Chucky several times and he is again presumed to be dead. Mike's partner Jack arrives at the apartment, initially refusing to believe the trio's story. Chucky's body bursts through an air vent to strangle Jack. During the struggle, Mike shoots Chucky in the heart, finally killing him... until the six sequels come out... but that's a different story altogether.

"Alright, before we roll cameras, I just want to ask
one last time. Are we sure there's no kid inside
this thing?"

Contrary to my gripes, Child's Play was a lot of weird fun. Obviously as the sequels would come out, they'd realize what comedic tropes they were and play up the comedy more than the actual horror aspect. I'm surprised these things are still called "horror films". Still, even for being super young, Alex Vincent carried the lead role quite well. Catherine Hicks, that mom from 7th Heaven, did a decent enough job but I felt like she overacted quite a few times. Chris Sarandon was convincing enough as "Your Typical 1980s Police Detective" but watching him get served by a child's plaything was just too hilarious. I wasn't joking; I hope he retires from the force. There's not much else he's going to be able to accomplish after getting heckled by his fellow cops like that. Last but not least, the star of the show who'd go on to voice Chucky all the way to 2017, Brad Dourif, gives a dynamite yet hilarious vocal performance as Chucky, and a visual performance as Charles Lee Ray, Chucky's former persona. I'm glad his voice work was a great as it was, because boy the animatronic puppet they got for Chucky in 1988 sucked dong. Watching that puppet and then springing forward to watch Cult of Chucky and the puppetry there, you can see the huge leap in quality.

If you haven't already, give Child's Play a watch. Just don't be like me and wait until October to actually watch a horror movie.