Off the bat, this is a must watch. Just absolutely masterful in every nearly every regard.

Before I get too much deeper though, watching Shogun really makes me wonder how executives across the film & TV industry manage to keep their jobs. Do they greenlight things because of side deals? Like how does Zack Snyder get anything approved? How many Shogun or Andors get put in a closet never to be talked about? How many pure passion projects with clear auteurs are we missing?

Right, back on track. Shogun is based on a novel and was also a series in 1980 (before my time). It has a clear start and a clear ending, and as a limited series, there’s 1 season with 8 episodes to tell it all. That framing provides motivation, as each episode needs to go somewhere, all while exploring a culture that most of the planet simply cannot comprehend. There are many comparisons to Game of Thrones, at least the earlier seasons. Sure, as much as there are words and characters they are similar… but Shogun doesn’t have dragons or magic or zombies. It’s a period drama.

The setting is authentic to my poor eyes, where everything seems in place and purposeful. Religious/cultural artefacts are everywhere, from chairs, to ponds, to walls. It feels like a real place you could visit. The acting is stellar, with every character having multiple layers to explore. Sanada’s character in particular has to convey complexity through very subtle means, and Anna Sawai just knocks every scene out of the park. You want to see the new definition of believer, there it is.

The only detractor here for wide-spread acclaim is going to be the fact that 90% of the dialogue is in Japanese and the subtitles aren’t the best. You’ll need to infer intent more frequently than not, which is why the acting part is so outstanding. I personally prefer this approach as it focuses you on the actors and not the words on the screen. I guess you could try listening to the dubs, but that’s like watching an action movie without looking at the screen… why take away from the craft?

By the time the final credits roll, you feel that the story is complete, that the larger mission is accomplished, yet there are still threads that could lead elsewhere. It is a satisfying conclusion, where all the characters end where they need to end for their own sake and not the plot’s. I’m still in awe as to what was presented. Glad I had the opportunity to experience it.

Manga is a bit like Steam. There are piles of it to choose from and most of it is meh. There are however the odd flowers in the pile that stand out. Pluto is certainly a flower. There’s a story behind the manga, which I won’t get into aside to say that it’s a re-telling of one of Astro Boy’s series. Well I guess I could add that retelling this is sort of like Frank Herbert allowing someone else to re-imagine Dune with all the same characters. Very hard to wrap your mind around how 1) the rights were allowed and 2) the sheer guts to even attempt this. But it worked!

Netflix somehow (of course they did) got the rights to an anime adaptation of Pluto. It is a ridiculously faithful adaptation, which helps as the manga itself had some amazing framing. It’s also one of the very rare anima where the English voice dubs are very well done! The fidelity here is impressive. And with 8 episodes at nearly an hour each, there’s a ton of breathing room for the slew of characters, yet short enough to not feel like there’s DBZ-level padding.

It is hard to categorize Pluto as it’s part murder mystery, sci-fi, thriller, action, and ethical treatise. The main line is the mysterious murders of the 7 most advanced robot AI as well as a group of humans that investigated advanced AI, which precipitated a giant war. We then get into a cycle of hatred, what happens after robots have the same rights as humans, what happens if you can’t forget, what actually makes a human, emotional cycles, and is it possible to have true redemption. Wall-E asked “what if robots had feelings”, and Pluto is a thesis on that exact question and more.

I realize I am in the right state of mind for this type of existential discussion. Love and hate, and anger and tolerance are all flowing through me like a raging river, beating at my walls of logic. I’m about to close a chapter in my life that has been holding a bookmark for over 10 years. A relationship that at a time I thought would frame my life, but instead I’ve used that to take a different path. I had moved on and not looked back for a while, and it’s time to reflect on the journey’s start.

The best art, regardless of medium, is the one that acts as a mirror. It takes a view on the human condition, pulls it apart, and then puts it back together so that it just hits different. Pluto is an impressive take on the human process of anger, guilt, redemption, peace, and legacy. It hit me square in the jaw.

Or perhaps just Dunbar’s Number. The general concept here is the limit of people through which you can have a stable relationship. Obviously, for each person this will be different but in general terms this floats around 150 people. Past that point, you lack the time/resource/memory to have meaningful relationships. Personal anecdote here, but my kids are the first to be annoyed at the number of people my wife and I know, and with whom we stop to chat. It’s well above 150, but in terms of meaningful relationships, the number is closer.

I bring up this topic because Loki Season 2 + the entire multi-verse structure of MCU brings a flaw to this model. A mutliverse in itself is not super hard to grasp, the concept has been around for some time. Meaningful mutliverses is a harder things to grasp. Like picking which flavor of toothpaste to buy should have a larger impact than say, having kids. Did they all start at the same time? Do new ones start all the time? Do they ever merge? Those are more philosophical in nature, and up until Loki, there were only minor additions to the MCU multiverse.

Loki blew this up and made the pitch that new branches of the multiverse are growing all the time, and a TVA organization is responsible for pruning them to maintain a core reality. Season 1 ended with the explosion of that pruning, and branches growing everywhere – but the stakes made no real sense. This is because we are on the main timeline and the cuts never impacted us.

Season 2 makes this worse because the main driver of weight is that there are people in these other multiverses, and that by pruning these, it’s effectively ending the lives of entire universes. Thanos had weight to remove half the people in 1 universe. The TVA effectively destroyed entire universes multiple times per day. How is Thanos viewed as a villain and not the TVA?

The answer boils down to the ability to relate to a multiverse, in that there are other “yous” out there. And that if you met them, that you’d feel they are as important as you are, even if they’ve only been around for a day or less. No human on the planet can relate to that level of empathy, and therefore the stakes in Season 2 are all but meaningless. Even less so when you don’t see these people in other universes, only a line on a screen.

There’s a reason the comics have gone to great lengths to avoid the multiverse problem, with multiple resets of the universe to simplify the larger world and reset the true stakes. You can’t worry about 62 versions of Spider-Man. You can enjoy it for a small period, sure, but have it be meaningful? No.

Loki is only 2 episodes in, so time will tell where this finally lands. But it would be fair to say that the natural conclusion in all of this is a consolidated universe. When is the question.

Context #1. I like Dave Filoni. He’s a testament to every single geek on what’s possible if you really care about something and want to share that love. He’s pretty much the only reason Star Wars has existed past the prequel stage. There are few people on the planet that know more about Star Wars, and that is both a boon and a bane.

Context #2. When Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas, they reset the entire lore into “Legends” and “Canon”. Now if you weren’t paying attention in the 90s, there was an explosion of expanded universe content, some great, most not. Disney wisely said screw that, drew a line, and then started to selective pick from Legends to bring into canon. Of all the developments in Legends, Grand Admiral Thrawn was by far the standout. Filoni brought that character back in recent years in the animated Rebels series.

These 2 pieces of context are important, because Ahsoka (the padawan of Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars animate series) is a litmus test of your patience of deep cuts. Enjoyment of Andor had much less to do with the Star Wars setting as it did with simply amazing writing/acting. Even The Mandalorian’s first season was like this. Ahsoka is not a great series, the pacing is off, the setting confusing, and most importantly assumes that the viewer fully understands the foundational lore.

Every established character (Ahsoka, Hera, Huyang, Sabine, Ezra & Thrawn… Morgan to a small degree) come with a ton of baggage and miles of history. Character history that is called out at multiple times in every episode, making some interactions confusing. Like heading to a group party and everyone has inside jokes that you simply do not get. The new character of Baylon Skoll (Ray Stevenson, who sadly passed away before the series was released) is the true joy of this entire series, introducing a “grey” Jedi that has just not been seen before.

Now, if you do know the lore, and you have followed Dave Filoni’s efforts to grow said lore, then Ahsoka is a more than decent show! Thrawn in particular is a type of villain that simply has not existed in live-action Star Wars and is a breath of fresh air. The challenge of a cerebral villain is that it doesn’t necessarily translate well to live media. Few people find chess matches entertaining after all… or perhaps more accurately Thrawn is playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. The deep lore cuts here are also fairly crazy. The final cut of Baylon on Peridea on the statue of the Father, next to the Son, and a Daughter statue will mean nothing to folks who have not seen the Clone Wars episodes from 2011.

I will close with a final thought. Disney (and more specifically Dave Filoni) have been going to great efforts to bury/retcon/move past/justify the Skywalker sequels (Ep 7, 8, 9). A new expanded universe is being constructed, which is adding a very large amount of complexity and nuance. The lack of linearity in the story telling is bringing to light the exact same issues that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is experiencing. If you can’t understand a storyline without having invested dozens of hours of previous content, that is not a sustainable model. Filoni is building a beautiful, integrated, and consistent world. But he’s not the target audience.

Right. This was weird. But the wrong kind.

Reminder, this was the actual promo trailer for the first Ant-Man.

Ant-Man is one of the most unique Marvel superheroes because a) he doesn’t actually have any powers, b) he’s average at best, and c) is generally naïve about the world in general. An everyman superhero in a world of folks flying around. It feels like he wins through sheer luck.

The first two movies were more heist films than actual superhero films. Sure, there’s a sci-fi part to the larger elements, but they were still grounded in the “real world” with human problems. I will say one of the good things about this film is that you don’t need to watch 85 Marvel movies/tv series to understand what’s going on. Nice.

Ant-Man 3 is not this. Ant-Man 3 spends all of 10 minutes in the real world and then goes 100% green screen in a trippy reality jump that never grounds the people. Ant-Man 3 is not a caper (except for a 10 minute CGI-a-thon that struggles to land). Ant-Man 3 is not a comedy, it’s borderline a war/guerilla movie. Ant-Man 3 lacks villain logic (Loki did this much better). And Ant-Man 3 has made-for-TV CGI.

On this last point, which certainly made the rounds. Rarely have I ever met any artist that was happy with a mediocre result. The artists here had to do almost all the lifting. I can’t fathom the pressure of timelines to get this done. Hats off to what was able to be put out.

Ant-Man 3 ends up being a shining example of the excess of the superhero genre, the tonally deaf response to more spectacle. CGI is not the means AND the ends. Ant-Man 3 is a mediocre because it goes against the first 2 movies and the set up that Paul Rudd put in place. He’s not a superhero, doesn’t want to be. Not sure how that message was lost along the way.

I took a month off from pretty much everything, work included. Helpful for mental clarity and overall health.

I did spend a fair chunk of time in FF14, with a goal of getting a bunch of alt jobs up to 50, and getting some more to 90. Island Sanctuary and a bunch of other unlocks too. It’s enjoyable. Cleaning out the bags and sorting some stuff around gave me 7m gil too, so no complaints.

This particular post is more of a mental note on Netflix’s penchant for cancelling shows on cliffhangers. More specifically when an action moves from meme to reality. It would appear that cancellations are based on completion rates, not hours watched. So less people watching, but for longer stretches. If people aren’t watching episode 8, then why make a 2nd season? In the isolated space, this does make sense. But nothing is isolated.

For years now, Netflix has cancelled multiple series that fans enjoyed and provided zero context as to why (still don’t). Nature abhors a vacuum, so people have all sorts of ideas why. Standard cable cancellations are extremely black and white… the ratings are poor.

Netflix has conditioned people to do 2 things: binge watch, and expect something “good” to be cancelled. Combined, this results in people not bothering with a series until it is well established… at least the 3rd season, before binging the entire thing. I’ll raise my hand that I’ve done this. Something looks interesting, and the first/second episodes are ok, but I don’t want to bother for something that is going to be axed.

The binging part is also not helpful, because the peaks are so high and short. In the olden days, a season would end, you’d have a couple months, maybe a year to wait, and the new season would start. Stranger Things is interesting because the gap between seasons was 1.5 to nearly 3 years. Compared to something like the Boys, where the time between the final episode and first of the new season is around a year. It’s a very weird system where a show gets cancelled the first week or 2 after launch, rather than allowing it to be digested.

I’ve reached the point now where a good 90% of Netflix series are of no interest to me, because the time investment just isn’t worth it (Archive 81 is a good example). Honestly, the only reason I still have it is because the kids get to watch cable series that have been ported.

Hoping that the numbers Netflix collects can be coloured with the behaviors they’ve instilled on their client base.

I love Dark. Without hesitation it’s the best representation of time travel I have ever seen, and one of the best sci-fi series ever. It closes every single loop and thread with focus. It is a LOT to digest the first time through, especially since it’s in German, but it also sets a seriously high bar for any future series.

1899 is a new series from the same writer/producer group from Dark, and takes a similar mystery-box approach to storytelling. The general plot is about a group of strangers on a steamliner heading from Europe to New York, each trying to escape some event. A main point is that a sister ship in the line was lost at sea 4 months ago, and quickly in the first episode that ship is found.

The characters are varied, with multiple layers, and multiple languages. I think Netflix made a mistake in the “default” run for this series as dubs are an absolutely horrible way to listen to this series. I’ll offend a few people here, but if you need dubs to understand what’s going on, this series is absolutely not for you. It’s a really important part that the characters don’t all speak the same language, and that gap is a plot point. I will say that one of the challenges here is that there’s a lack of empathy with the main character and that there’s a tad more exposition here than I would normally enjoy.

Where Dark had an absolutely astounding soundtrack, 1899 suffers from remakes of classic rock songs that really focus on the anachronistic aspects of the show. It’s sufficiently eerie during the main parts of the story, it’s the bookends that aren’t as good. Heck, I still listen to the Dark soundtrack because it’s so effective at getting the paranoia across. In this series it feels distracting.4

The plot itself is complex, without getting into large spoilers. There’s a gradual slow reveal of bits that just feel off, and that builds in pace over time. It takes a while to tell what is real and what is imagined in any psychological themed series, and 1899 doesn’t break that particular mold much. With only 8 episodes, the mystery box is opened by the end of episode 5. The last 3 episodes are almost horror sci-fi in peeling away the layers of this box.

I enjoyed the first season, even with high expectations set by Dark. I’m still amazed that series like this are even greenlit in the first place. Happy that we can get content that requires the viewer’s attention!

What’s really tough here is that 1899 compares poorly to Andor in terms of writing/production, which is horrible timing in the streaming wars. If you take the step back and look solely at what Netflix is able to support in terms of series, 1899 comes out way above the rest. Resident Evil, Archive 81, Locke and Key, Warrior Nun, even Sandman compare poorly to what’s presented here. I am hopeful we get a 2nd and 3rd season to close out 1899. Though with Netflix, it feels like a throw of the dice.

The season finale of Andor came out Wednesday. Superb. Just an amazing all around story, with absolutely stand out performances, writing, music, cinematography and weight. I’ve been thinking a lot about why this series is good, and I’ve got ideas.

First though, there are “blocks” of content, if not better articulated as “eras”.

• The original trilogy
• The Expanded Universe
• KOTOR
• Prequel trilogy
• Clone Wars
• Sequel Trilogy
• The Disney Universe

The beauty of the original series is that it dealt much more with the mystical, the portions that were not shown on screen. The final arc of a large and mysterious world. You remember the characters much more than the action.

The expanded universe was largely inaccessible to the public. Unless you were a super fan, Thrawn means nothing to you. Mara Jade even less. These books/comics focused primarily on the recesses of the universe, and there was some insane junk delivered in those years. There’s a reason that all of this was retconned when Disney bought it…a right mess with some minor bright spots.

KOTOR decided to just ignore every movie and most of the EU to time travel to the “wizards everywhere” phase. The best parts of here are not related to the Jedi, but the power struggles and lore of the Sith, as well as the overall good/bad aspects of the universe. Understanding why Revan took his path is truly amazing.

The prequel trilogy is quite bad, with a few exceptions. It’s a spectacle for the eyes, no doubt, and the stunt work is practically a dance. And the pod race never disappoints. Yet the writing is atrocious and the editing even worse. Midichlorians are a ridiculous addition to the mystery, and by the end you’re actively rooting for the Jedi Council to be wiped out due to ineptitude. The need to explain everything in logical terms goes counter to reason people liked Star Wars in the first place – fantasy.

Clone Wars provided a medium to tell the hidden stories of the world, which effectively became Expanded Universe part 2. It’s somewhat ironic that the Anakin character in these stories had more complexity than the films, given the budget and attention. This is pure fanfic and goes to great lengths to focus on the characters rather than the events. You could tell this was led by passion.

The sequel trilogy is a pure money grab, and a reskin of the original trilogy. The Force Awakens is a bad attempt at remaking A New Hope and skipping all the bits that made you invested in Luke and the rebellion. Then again, it’s set up as a mystery box from a director known for mystery boxes – you want to know what comes next, not so much what’s going on now. The Last Jedi feels like an alternate cut of an existing movie, more to prove a point about how the universe keeps moving and how insignificant the rest of the stories are. It’s a movie of extremes, purposefully testing assumptions. Rise of Skywalker is like Marvel’s Avengers but with Star Wars paint – where you simply have to put your brain in a drawer and let the spectacle go forth. The teleporting lightsaber still makes me want to vomit.

The Disney Universe is much more complex. Rogue One is fascinating because for the most part you can’t really tell it’s a Star Wars movie. It focuses on the little people doing big things and paying a tremendous price for it. Solo didn’t work because it was telling a story no one really wanted to hear, about a character everyone thought they knew, with details that removed the mystery surrounding them. Obi-Wan barely passes the bar here because the same actor played the role, but it’s fundamentally flawed for the same reason as Solo. Mandalorian works because it’s not about things we know about, and goes to great lengths to not explain things, letting the practical and logical story just flow. Star Wars is the setting, not the purpose (with some exceptions). Andor is very similar, in that the story isn’t so much about him, but the people around him. People will remember the Ferrix brick because it’s not a prop, but a believable part of that world’s culture. It’s focused on the people and the reality of their actions – not on some hand waving space wizard.

I’m hopeful that we can get more grounded stories from the Star Wars universe, where the threat is ever present due to their size, not their magic sticks. Where a person can try their best and still fail. Where the bad guys are hard to tell from the good. Guess we’ll see.

I like Star Wars. I used to love it, back in the Extended Universe days (c’mon, Thrawn!). The prequels were a really hard sell, and the sequels are a just painful to watch. Clone Wars was amazing. Mandalorian hit the perfect itch because it went to great lengths to show what the world looked like without Jedi. I saw a couple episode of Book of Bobba Fett, wasn’t for me. Obi-Wan is all about Ewan McGregor, but it’s a story I just can’t care about.

Back when Star Wars Galaxies was around, way before NGE, the Jedi were next to impossible to find. KOTOR’s success had little to do with the actual Jedi character, but with the companions and world building around you (HK-47 is infinitely more interesting than Bastilla).

The problem is fundamentally with the Jedi and both their wilful ignorance and complete inability to solve anything without their magic sticks and super jumps. Jedi were cool when it was just Obi-Wan and Yoda, and you had no idea what was going on. It was the mystery and mysticism that made it work. I won’t lie that the Battle of Naboo with Darth Maul was cool as all heck, but apparently Force Speed only works when Jedi are being shot at.

I am full up on Star Wars now. I could care less about Skywalker. So color me jaded when I heard about Andor, yet another Star Wars series to fill in another retro-active gap. He’s dead Jim! What kind of story can be told when you know there are no stakes at hand?

Well, it seems that you can tell an extremely good story. One that is lead by a crazy good cast, ridiculously amazing writing, music that is better than most movies, and a villain you can empathize with. Andor in any other setting would be amazing, in line with any noir sci-fi you can name. It tells a story of the middle folk in a galactic war, the organizers without any real power but searching for answers. The light show at the end of episode 6 is something that will stick with me for years.

I still like Star Wars. Perhaps if we can get more Andor and less The Rise of Skywalker, I may love it again………