They Didn't Plan a Trilogy

I’m sick right now. Better than I was on Thursday, when every time I sat/lay down, I had difficulty willing myself to get up again, but still not great, what with a sore throat and sore legs and also Young Justice: Outsiders is intense, man.

But I’ll be okay.

Remember a few weeks ago when I said I didn’t think Disney plotted out their trilogy of Star Wars films? Yeah I’m going to talk some more about that.

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What Happens When You Don’t Plot Your Trilogy

Holy fudge, Lucasfilm and Disney should be ashamed.

I want to clarify that this is not a statement as to the quality of The Rise of Skywalker, or the other two parts of the Sequel Trilogy. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie (which it’s not) or that it’s a bad conclusion to the saga (which it is), or that you’re a bad person if you liked it (you’re not). But I talked about how Lucasfilm didn’t seem like they were plotting out their trilogy beforehand, and the more I think about it the more it becomes clear that they weren’t really plotting this at all.

And that’s a damn shame. Because Disney and Lucasfilm went into a major multimedia project without actually knowing where they were going to end up. That’s almost baffling in how stupid it is. Again, that’s not a statement about the quality of the films, or the directors or anything, but to decide to roll into a full trilogy of one of the most popular and beloved science-fantasy properties to have ever existed, and to not have a plan about how this is going to end is one of the stupidest decisions I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen my college roommate set his socks on fire for funzies.

I talked at one point about spoiler culture, and about how there’s this discussion about how we can’t figure out what’s going to happen in stories because the makers of shows and movies and such are trying really hard to surprise us, and therefore we get shocking swerves and twists and cover-ups that are so ridiculous that it’s hard to be invested. Fan discussions about what different elements meant or where characters were going were meaningless if the creators didn’t care about what came before in order to make huge unpredictable twists. To be fair, Lucasfilm hasn’t given us that; as far as I know, none of the actors were lied to about what their scenes were about.

But they didn’t plan any of this from the beginning. So I look back at all the discussion that emerged in the wake of The Force Awakens, about what different backstories might be, about what different characters will be doing in the future, and I can’t help but think it was all meaningless. Because none of this was planned! None of those things meant anything! It was just bits and pieces sewn together in the shape of an over-arcing narrative! Kylo Ren’s “WHAT GIRL?!” or hints that Snoke’s existence or Rey’s parentage and Finn’s relationship with her all meant nothing!

This is nothing short of baffling, guys. Lucasfilm under Disney didn’t have a clue! They were so sure that all of us were going to love The Last Jedi, a film deliberately designed to screw with Star Wars fans! Like, have you met Star Wars fans? It’s one of the most notorious fandoms for being upset about new works set in that universe! And yet, before the film was released Lucasfilm announced that because The Last Jedi was soooooo good, Rian Johnson was going to head his own spin-off trilogy. Whether or not it’s still happening is still up in the air, but there hasn’t been much word, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been dropped into Development Hell.

They announced Rian Johnson’s trilogy before his movie even came out like what the fudge are you doing why would you do this you foolish fools--

The entire thing just screams that Disney, buying Lucasfilm, thought they’d have easy money. Which doesn’t negate the work that directors or actors or writers put into this at all, but it does seem like the higher-ups just didn’t have a clue what they were getting themselves into, and figured that hey, people like Star Wars? We’ll just give them an infinite amount of Star Wars content! Those fans will just eat it all right up, won’t they?

They promised a Star Wars film per year and apparently didn’t realize that, hey! That might get old! And they promised a film per year without actually planning what those films would all be about what the actual fudge--

And like, I get that some people don’t always have the details of their stories plotted out before they start writing, and I understand that things change. I think Carrie Fisher’s death had a huge effect on how Rise of Skywalker and, sort of, The Last Jedi turned out. But even then, I don’t think they had a clue what they were stepping towards. There wasn’t a roadmap, there was just a vague idea that some things would happen and I just…

Seriously, who the fudge decides to make a movie trilogy and hasn’t actually figured out what the Plot is? I don’t see how Rey’s origin would have changed one way or another if Carrie Fisher had been alive to film this final movie. 

Lucasfilm and Disney have tried doing some sort of damage control, by releasing an origin comic for Kylo Ren, and by claiming that The Mandalorian would explain the rise of the First Order, but I don’t care. Because assuming that those things will fill in all the blanks (which I don’t think they will), it’s going back and doing the work they should have had done when they released the bloody movies. I just don’t care anymore, because Lucasfilm didn’t care anymore. 

Not plotting this trilogy makes it evident what they were doing when Disney bought Lucasfilm: they’re not doing this to tell a story, they’re doing this to make money. That’s all this was ever about, and if the Sequel Trilogy ever meant more than that, well, that’s because of the cast and crew of individual movies, and not because Lucasfilm was trying to make art. ‘Cause they weren’t. They were hoping to make oodles and oodles of easy money.

I give up on this, guys.

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Final Battles

Apparently no one in this house is sleeping well this week? I thought I was starting to do okay, but I am getting astonishingly tired. Thursday night I had a dream where I had to do this freerunning sequence to escape getting chomped by Killer Croc so that wasn’t… ideal. And then last night I woke up at like 3 in the morning with intense pain in my guts? Also not fun!

Oh hey, we’re going to talk about Rise of Skywalker a little bit. Some spoilers coming up.

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On Final Battles

You know that bit towards the ends of stories where the main good guy fights the main bad guy and it’s supposed to be big and epic and all? We’re talking about that. It’s been on my mind, in part because of The Rise of Skywalker, but also because I’m wrapping up the sporking of Hounded. Both involve final battles that are hyped up from the beginning of the story. Both of them fall flat.

And there’s a connecting reason why.

[To be clear though, The Rise of Skywalker is a much better movie than Hounded is a book. But there is a similar failing they fall into while doing their final battles. Hounded also happens to have a bunch of other reasons as well, but there is one that it has in common with the recent Star Wars.]

I was going through my Star Wars tags on Tumblr, and I found this gem from Dave Filoni, talking about Ezra Bridger in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels: 

“It makes him different than Luke Skywalker, but it’s not like that’s his super power. The best expression of the Force is not a lightsaber fight or other combat techniques. It’s really about your connection to life, to everything around you, and your ability or willingness to let go, to find peace, and ultimately become a selfless part of existence. Luke Skywalker does not use some special ability to save his father. He trains hard, finds discipline, knowledge, but in the end there is no power that aids him, except the power of compassion and love; the act of forgiveness and apparent self-sacrifice is what saves his father from the dark side. Not a lightsaber fight.”

And I think that encapsulates what a really great final battle or final duel should be about: maybe there are powers involved, but what matters most isn’t which character is more powerful. The hero wins because of playing to a strength he or she has that the antagonist doesn’t. Maybe that’s his willingness to throw down his weapon like Luke Skywalker. Maybe that’s his connection to the wildlife of the galaxy, like with Ezra Bridger. Maybe it’s his ability to outwit everyone else, like Artemis Fowl. Maybe it’s her sheer stubbornness, like with Delilah Dirk. Maybe it’s love for her land and her family, like Tiffany Aching. 

And I think a lot of the really good finales highlight how the villain is beaten by exploiting his weaknesses. The One Ring is destroyed in large part because Sauron’s a doof who designed the Ring to corrupt whoever held it, but never considered that someone might resist it enough to make it to Mount Doom, or that they might fight over it when they got there, or that Hobbits were worth caring about. Voldemort loses his final duel because not just because he doesn’t understand things like love and loyalty, but that he doesn’t even bother to try to understand these things because if it’s beyond him he decides it just straight-up doesn’t matter. And of course, Palpatine is thrown down a giant gaping pit because he underestimates Vader’s reliance on him and how powerful familial love can be.

And that’s not what happens at all in Rise of Skywalker, which ends with Rey getting a power boost from ALL THE JEDI in order to defeat Palpatine, who is ALL THE SITH! Or something. The climax is not Rey acting upon her own character strengths, it’s not built on exploiting the Emperor’s blindness to compassion, it’s just… MOAR POWAH. Yes, the bond between Rey and Ben is an important factor in getting to the final battle, but the actual fight between Rey and Palpatine is a straightforward competition of who can be more powerful.

Hounded has a bit of a similar problem. The book tries to tell us that our lead, Atticus, has been ‘hounded’ by the Irish god Aenghus Og for over two thousand years, which would mean something if the antagonist had a personality, or motivation, or a presence on-page for more than two chapters. And when they do start to fight, Atticus has been given a power boost by another god, and he’s like, “Oh no worries! Turns out that I’m a better duelist than him anyway! He hasn’t learned any new tricks for two thousand years!” Then he cuts off the enemy’s head and that’s that.

No! Absolutely not! I do not care that this is the first book in a series or the author’s debut novel. This is not how you portray stakes, and Kevin Hearne should have known this since he was a high school English teacher!

I’ve seen some critics refer to these sorts of endings as resembling a video game. Which I get: at the end of a video game, you have gained a lot more power and skill than you had at the beginning, and you can use those in a fight. But in a well-done video game, defeating the final enemy should never be easy, and in any case, all those skills and levelling up you did are the result of work. You gained those abilities and learned how to use them over the course of the game.

Rise of Skywalker was largely, I think, the result of a corporation desperately trying to cobble together a movie that would appease everyone and that explains a lot of its questionable narrative decisions. If you don’t have time to write a decent and complex final battle with a villain that has had no presence in the trilogy up until this point, you might as well just pull something out of the Force’s armpit and use it to tie up the Plot with a bow. But that’s not much of an excuse, considering there’s no reason that the movie had to be released in December of 2019 other than that Disney/Lucasfilm wanted to release a film that year. It easily could have been given another year of development and people would have gone and seen it, because it’s Star Wars you morons. Of course it’s going to be a hit.

Hounded doesn’t even have a semblance of an excuse. It’s dumb.

I wouldn’t say that these victories don’t mean anything, because in Rise of Skywalker the death of a Satanic fascist lunatic and his armada is certainly something to be celebrated. On a world level, and on a Plot level, they’re very important. But it’s difficult to make it work on a character level when it’s not something the story has prepared the protagonist for. Yes, this film establishes that Rey has been trying to contact the Jedi masters of the past through the Force, but that’s barely touched on, and isn’t a continuous thread throughout the film. And it’s not as if she’s trying to tap into their power, like she does at the end because she needs to in order to match Palpatine.

Rey is an interesting and complex character! Make her final victory against Palps be actually about her and then you’re actually cooking with fire. The final battle then becomes not just the battle for the fate of the galaxy (which is important, sure, but on a narrative level it’s too big to really empathize with), but vital character development for our heroine. 

Final battles shouldn’t be decided by convenient power boosts. They should be character victories: something that shows that this individual’s strengths and how he or she has grown as a person over the course of the story, and his or her understanding of the villain.

And it sure as fudge shouldn’t be done the same way as Hounded does anything.

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Books I Read Last Year

Hello! I am tired this week. I haven’t been sleeping that well, and for whatever reason, Sleeping!Me is plotting to make me freeze by throwing off the comforter blanket so I wake up colder than usual. It’s very frustrating.

Anyhow, I told you guys I wanted to talk about books that I read last year. And like, part of the problem is that a lot of the books I read last year I’ve already talked about to one extent or another? And that… worries me, because I don’t want to be too repetitive to the, like, three people who read these Notes.

So I decided to do this as a sort of awards-type thing, where I give out awards for books and serieses I read last year in totally arbitrary categories. And to be clear, these are I books I read last year, not books that were released last year.

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Best Superhero Comic: Kingdom Come by Mark Weid and Alex Ross

In today’s world, in which it seems like everyone’s trying to do a storyline that makes superhero stories darker or more politically complex, it’s invigorating to read a story that handles these issues, all the while affirming that superheroes are, at their core, about helping people. I think that’s lost sometimes. People blame that on DC because of the battle at the end of Man of Steel, I think, but there’s a tendency in Marvel as well to try to tell stories about superheroes where we ask questions like “Why do there need to be heroes?” and that’s… not really why we read superhero comics, is it? 

There are times when it seems like the story’s going down the road of being harsh on the ideas of superheroes, or in its depiction of iconic characters like Batman, but in the end it’s remarkably hopeful. It’s hopeful in regards to Superman and to humanity. I wasn’t expecting to be wowed, considering how other Elseworlds stories I’ve read have gone, but this story manages to blend dystopian future, superhero reconstruction, and Biblical apocalyptic imagery into one coherent and fun-to-read story, and that’s really cool and I wish more comics were like this.

Best Horror: American Vampire by Scott Snyder

I was kind of between this and Locke and Key but I ended up on this because I haven’t gotten far enough into Locke and Key for me to really love the Plot. It’s good, but American Vampire starts with vampires in the old West, and that’s difficult to beat.

I’m not a huge horror guy, nor a huge vampire guy, but I do like historical fantasy, wherein the author puts the supernatural in a historical setting. American Vampire starts with a story about an outlaw that gets turned into a vampire. The twist is that Skinner Sweet turns into a new breed of vampire, making him not just a threat to the lawmen trying to put him down, but also to the other vampires, as no one yet knows his weaknesses and limits. 

Interspersed with this is a story of vampires in the Hollywood of the 20’s, and the young actress, Pearl, who gets wrapped up in this shadowy conspiracy. And the books take off from there, covering different periods of history in the wars between vampires and vampire hunters. I would like to see more world-building, and in-depth demonstration of how the vampires of this world work, but that’s my only main complaint. The plot and characters are usually excellently written and loads of fun to read, which is great in any kind of comic. 

Young Adult: Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Phillippe

I read a lot more teen books than I expected to this year, and some of them weren’t even explicitly genre, which was more of a surprise. This one was… well it’s fun. It’s funny. It’s got a likable protagonist. It’s not going to throw down any major plot twists, I think; there’s not a plot point or character beat that’s going to shock you. But it’s genre savvy, which is more than I can say for some other high school teen books I read recently (One of Us is Lying comes to mind here).

And part of the reason for that is because the protagonist is explicitly a character who has seen a lot of teen movies set in the US so he has his preconceived notions of what high school is going to be like when he moves to Texas. So being a snarky kid, he tries to make the whole thing a parody of a high school movie, because that’s the kind of guy a lot of us would like to be in these situations. Except this book points out, “Hey you know that’s actually really a dickish person to be, right? The one who refuses to take his classmates seriously as real people and doesn’t engage with them on anything more than as cliches he sees and despises?” It’s not a huge revelatory novel, but I like that it deconstructs this mindset.

And it’s funny. That’s important too. I can’t stand teen books that aren’t funny.

Young Adult Fantasy: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

I tried picking up Marlon James’s Black Leopard, Red Wolf and I just… didn’t get into it. So I finally decided to pick up Children of Blood and Bone, a YA book I’d been seeing everywhere with a similar premise (high fantasy in a world based off of African rather than European culture), I wasn’t sure if I’d get into it. But I did, and it was cool.

Mind you, it does feel, plotwise, very much like Avatar: The Last Airbender (something the author said she realized after she wrote it). But it is refreshing to see a fantasy that takes its cues from a different mythological and cultural tradition from the ones we’ve constantly seen over and over again, especially in an original world.

It was good, I liked it, I had fun, and I want to see much more from this author and from this world. 

Science Fantasy: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Hey! What if I told you there was a book series about two characters dimension-hopping through different Alternate Universes, dripping with ship tease, witty dialogue, dragons, fae, and all the characters really love books? Yeah, that’s the Invisible Library series in a nutshell, chronicling the adventures of Irene, an agent of the interdimensional Invisible Library, which collects unique books from alternate worlds and grants its employees power over The Language.

Cogman knows she’s essentially telling stories about stories, and she takes absolute joy in doing so. And this very easily could have burst into a very cumbersome story about a dozen different characters and worlds and such, but instead it’s almost entirely filtered through the point of view of our lead, Irene, and her personal struggles. Yes, the fate of the Library and the worlds she visits are sometimes at stake, but those are important to us because they’re important to her, and she’s a fantastic character to be stuck with for several books. It helps that she doesn’t really do anything stupid for the sake of Plot, like so many other fantasy protagonists do. 

Children’s Fantasy: The Squire’s Tales by Gerald Morris

The Wings of Fire books almost made it, as did Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky. Call those honorable mentions. But I just couldn’t get over the fact that the Squire’s Tales books by Morris are really, really funny. Maybe it’s because I just read a lot of Arthurian stuff recently, but seeing Morris both lampoon and celebrate these stories tickles me. 

So many of the King Arthur stories you read are laser-focused on the big-name characters. Which is fine for an epic, I suppose. But Morris likes to make his main characters the ones that aren’t the big-name heroes, or used to be the big name heroes but weren’t after Lancelot stole the spotlight. The squires, the ladies, the knights that aren’t Lancelot--these are the subjects of the novels.

And the books are happy to illustrate just how ridiculous or plain bonkers Arthurian legend get sometimes. Why is there a random knight that guards a river and refuses to let anyone cross unless they fight him? Why do monsters just pop out in the woods for no reason? Where are these people in England that they can’t find where they’re looking for? Why is Kay letting himself get beat up all the time?

If you like King Arthur stories, you have got to read these books.

High Fantasy: The Faithful and the Fallen by John Gwynne

Fun fact! The library says the first book in this series isn’t anywhere in their system. Except I read it after finding it on the shelf. And it’s still there. So.

It’s been a while since I really got into a high fantasy series like this. And there were some bits in this one I didn’t like as much; the majority of the world it’s set in, for instance, is baffled by the invention of the shield wall, because it’s dishonorable or something. But overall it was good, and it had a very interesting question that I’ve seen more from fanfiction authors than from traditionally published ones:

What if you’re led to believe you’re the Chosen One… and you’re not? At all?

Because we’re given multiple points of view, it’s not clear who the Chosen One will be until part way through the first book, but it becomes radically clear that the guy who thinks he’s the Chosen One isn’t, even though he’s clueless to it. And because he’s buying into his own hype, he starts doing more and more monstrous things in the name of the Greater Good, being blinded to the things that he starts doing wrong. 

What’s infuriating is that the moment he found out it was too late was a cliffhanger, and the library doesn’t have the next book! Or maybe it does, and it’s just not listed. Who knows anymore?

Mythological Fantasy: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Oh hey, a dystopian future novel that’s also a fantasy about Navajo mythology? [thumbs up] Rock on, my dude.

Trail of Lightning is bleak. It’s unflinching in its depiction of how difficult life is on the reservation, regardless of an apocalypse happening. But it’s also remarkably hopeful, in that our lead, Maggie despite constantly hunting monsters that rip people to shreds, despite not having many close relationships, despite living in a world that’s basically been destroyed, just. Keeps. Going. Because there’s work to be done, and someone’s got to do it.

And hey, it’s cool to see a fantasy series that’s based on a Native American belief system. Many times I’ve seen white authors try to tackle the topic, to varying degrees of success; many just throw in ‘Coyote’ as a trickster figure and leave it at that. But as Rebecca Roanhorse actually is Navajo, this feels more authentic, and while I always appreciate an exciting story, I appreciate it more when it teaches me about a culture and belief system I know very little about to begin with.

Historical Fantasy: The Age of Unreason by Gregory Keyes

I know I’ve raved about this series, and it’s kind of everything I wanted when I started Quicksilver and didn’t get there. But GUYS THIS SERIES IS GOOOOOOOOOD

Set in the early to mid-1700’s, and featuring alchemical magic as discovered by Isaac Newton, this series starts insane things like an immortal Louis XIV, and Cotton Mather teaming up with Blackbeard, and Peter the Great attacking Prague with an airship fleet, and Isaac Newton making an invisibility cloak. And it’s all going to crap, because there’s a race of spirit-angel-things that want to wipe out humanity! 

Astonishingly well-researched, this is the best kind of thing to do with speculative fiction dealing with historical periods and people in the real world: take as much of it as you can, stick it in a blender, and see what you get out. It’s weird, it’s funny, it’s terrifying, and it’s constantly surprising me with how many tiny little things it packs into the story. 

Sequel Series: Gods of Blood and Powder by Brian McClellan

A good sequel series doesn’t just say, “What happens next?” Often, it takes a slightly different track, picking a character who wasn’t in the spotlight in the first book and gives him or her more time to shine.

[points to Gods of Blood and Powder] That’s what this does. It has several main characters, but the one we’re familiar with is Vlora, who was a supporting character in the Powder Mage trilogy. There’s also two other characters: a legendary war veteran-turned-convict, and a spy who has more angles to his country’s situation than the reader is first let in on.

It doesn’t try to make everything a callback to the original trilogy, which is something a lot of sequel serieses don’t do very well. Yes, those events are important, but they’re not necessary to what’s going on right now, in that you don’t have to have read the previous books. It helps, but you’ll still be okay if you just start here, because most of the characters are original characters and the old ones are in new situations anyway.

It’s also one of the few high fantasy series I’ve read where guns are a thing.

Nonfiction: We Fed An Island by Jose Andres

Hey, you remember that time a massive hurricane hit Puerto Rico, and it sucked? And also the government screwed the pooch in trying to send relief? Yeah, this is about that. Which is frustratingly relevant after the earthquake (which was nowhere near this scale, but still).

Jose Andres is a cook. He wanted to help people in Puerto Rico after the hurricane. So he flies to the island and starts working on feeding people. But instead of being able to just get food and cook it and hand it out, he ends up having to compete with several other organizations, many of whom have no idea what they’re doing and have no experience with disaster relief. And then there’s a bunch of red tape for no apparent reason, people misinforming the public as to what was actually happening, and difficulty getting food around.

I liked the Andres made a point to say that a lot of the screwups were done by people who really did want to help, but were in over their heads in what help they could provide or the kind of crisis they were dealing with. It’s a reminder that a lot of the problems in the world aren’t caused by deliberate malice as much as ignorance, poor planning, or outright stupidity. And then you have some people who don’t care at all. Screw those guys.

I’m hesitant to say it should be taken as complete 100% truth, but I think it DOES do a good job of displaying how disaster relief works, and how it very often doesn’t.

Picture Book: We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins

It’s a book about a dinosaur who goes to school, and frustratingly finds out that all her classmates are human children! And she’s not allowed to eat them.

It’s a picture book. It’s not that deep.

Honorable Mentions:

Forever Evil by Geoff Johns

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

Locke and Key series by Joe Hill

Wings of Fire series by Tui T. Sutherland

Onyx Court series by Marie Brennan

Delilah Dirk series by Tony Cliff

The Time Quartet by Madeline L’Engle

Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Derkholm Duology by Diana Wynne Jones

Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo by Ben Costa and James Parks

2020 Update

So I don’t have a Note this week, but I think once I see Rise of Skywalker I’m going to have Thoughts, from everything I’ve heard, so expect that/those Note(s) sometime. But until those potential Notes are written, some thoughts on what’s to come:

-Best Books I Read in 2019

-Favorite Books By Genre

-Favorite Movies of 2019 (probably not this considering I didn’t go to the movies that much)

-Eagles in Assassin’s Creed

And that’s kind of all I got. The reason I’m not doing a ‘Movies I’ve Seen Last Year’ is because I don’t really have a way of recording all of the movies I saw last year, other than checking the reviews I’ve done for the currently-down Movie Munchies, which isn’t really a comprehensive list by any means. I like all the ‘best of decade’ lists I’ve been seeing, but I don’t think I can put together one of those. In any case, I tend to measure the decade as ending in 2020?

I’m open to suggestions for other Note ideas, but that’s what I think is coming up for the next few weeks.