Revisiting

I found an older post of mine about what I considered the top five songs of the 80s recently.  I don't normally like making lists, but five years or so ago when I made that, I had younger kids who always liked to see how I ranked things, so it made sense at the time.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I made it, though.  Most of what I picked, being new wave synthesizer pop music (because that was my favorite kind of music from that era) will still be OK.  Not ranked, but all in the top five then will remain: "If You Leave" by OMD, "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order, and "A Little Respect" by Erasure.  I think picking "Behind the Wheel" from Depeche Mode wasn't really the best choice; I'd swap out "Never Let Me Down Again."  And including "Animal" by Def Leppard because I wanted some hair rock band work was nothing more than tokenism.  Clearly, I think a-ha's "Take On Me" is a much more iconic song of the decade and deserves that slot more.  Besides, if I did have a hair band rock song on it, I wouldn't even pick that one, I don't think.  One hit wonder Autograph with "Turn Up the Radio" would be a better choice, or "Bang Your Head" by Quiet Riot.  "Livin' On a Prayer" by Bon Jovi is probably even more iconic than either, though.

I also rewatched the two episodes that are so far available for The Mandalorian again the other day, and I saw Overlord DVD's review of the first episode.  I do kind of agree with Overlord, but also kind of disagree with him.  I disagree with Overlord that hitting predictable beats of a spaghetti Western is necessarily a bad thing. I actually kinda like that they did that, actually, and while maybe it's not quintessentially heroic space opera, it's still very much one of the elements that was integral to Star Wars. I think part of Overlord DVD's complaints are that he doesn't think the spaghetti western vibe (including the music) is really appropriate for Star Wars, which I very strongly disagree with.  I do agree with him, though, that as far as spaghetti westerns go, this isn't the most exciting plot or characterization that we've seen.  If the show doesn't improve, it'll be seen as ultimately pretty forgettable.  As ODVD says, part of the context is that we're so jaded by having had bad Star Wars thrust at us that we are so happy to have something that isn't insulting and sucks that we think things that are mediocre are incredible.  But that won't last.  I liked all of the prequels and even The Force Awakens the first time I saw them too, although I was aware of the worst of their flaws.  As I saw them again, the flaws become much more obvious, and I wondered that I was even able to have the gilded view that I did watching it once.  I blame my nearly life-long love of the franchise and my desperate desire to see good space opera and fantasy which gilds my view and makes me only see the good parts the first time through.

After a while, the flaws become impossible to ignore, though.  And "after a while" usually means, "the second time I see it" if not even earlier, as I think about watching it the first time.  The prequel trilogy I now see as badly paced, badly scripted, badly cast and in some cases, badly conceived, with way too much deus ex machina and chumping of cool villains that you actually find interesting, but which Lucas then ruined.  Not a complete loss, but mostly badly crafted.  The Force Awakens is a highly derivative plot with unlikable characters who have no chemistry or charisma, a blatant Mary Sue in the form of Rey, and the pointless and needless humiliation of Han Solo just to screw with the fans.  It's actually better crafted, at least in some ways, but much more badly conceived and it much worse than the prequels because of it.

Likewise, the Clone Wars TV show isn't quite as good as I remember.  When it is good, it is, but it's really only good about half of the time.  Granted, the rest of the time it's more likely to be mediocre than actively bad, but still; it's not the franchise saver that I initially thought it was either.  Same thing for the Old Republic games: Knights of the Old Republic and Old Republic itself, of course.  While there are some elements of pure genius in them, there are also loads of really tedious, idiotic and banal crap all through them as well.

The Last Jedi I never thought was any good, even the first time I saw it.  Although I do recognize at least one or two action sequences and some visual design as not bad.  And I never thought Solo or Rogue One were anything better than OK.

Anyway, here's some comments given on the Overlord DVD video that're pretty pertinent, I think.  I liked them and agree with them, at least.

Joshua Crane
Star Wars feels like reconciliation with a cheating spouse. The suspicion will always be there.  Even when Kennedy leaves, I'll always have my shields up. 

sinistavoicez
Yes, you're jaded. I'm jaded. And it is justified. The end.

Angus Podgorny
The plan here is to lure you in with zero SJW content, and then start blasting you with woke SJW scripts toward the end of Season 1. 

Angello Hector
SafeWars: The Mandalorian
When we yearn for something new, but what we get is not too risky, but is better than most of the stuff we've been getting 

kerrick001
I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that Star Wars fans have been so abused at this point, we are just happy to see something that doesn't blatantly suck. I'm a grouchy old man. I liked it better when there was only ONE Boba Fett who was a badass bounty hunter.....not a whole race of them. I liked it when there was ONE IG-88 who was a psychopath droid.... not a whole line of "Bounty Hunter" droids. I liked it when freezing someone in carbonite took a whole room full of equipment and they didn't even know if it would work. Now Boby Fett 2.0 has the Carbonite3000 in the back of his ship......meh.. 

Editor note: there were always a whole race of supercommandos, of which Boba Fett was merely the only representative to appear on screen.  Although that's been kinda weirded out too; Lucas has clearly said it, in dialogue even, that Jango and Boba Fett were not actually Mandalorians, even though they had Mandalorian armor.  Sorry; fanboy nitpick...

Joel Gawne
"The Mandalorian" is the Star Wars equivalent of Imperial Rations.  Your overlords recommend that you take it, because its all you're getting this year. 

Intel Kore
A young, innocent boy was separated from his family at the US-Mexico border. He went on to become The Mandalorian. If there was a wall we'd never see this show! 

RobotShlomo
I can't help but think we're being set up for a bait and switch.