After the success of the original Star Wars, ultimately subtitled A New Hope and placed as Episode IV in a larger saga, production on its first sequel began, with the directing reins passed to Irvin Kershner since series creator George Lucas obviously didn't have a very fun time directing the first film. Lucas did still write the screenplay, albeit with the help of Lawrence Kasdan, fitting since the script of A New Hope had its...issues, even if modern critics and series "fans" overlook those today. While Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was a financial success like its precursor, critical reception was actually mixed at the time, although of course that would change in decades to come.

While the Rebel Alliance won the Battle of Yavin IV against the Galactic Empire and destroyed the Death Star, they would be chased into hiding on the frozen planet Hoth (which would really be better named Coldth), where Luke is patrolling on his mount, a tauntaun native to the world. After seeing a probe that the Empire launched on the planet in their attempts to track down the Rebels, a wampa knocks him unconscious and takes him to his lair. Luckily, he uses the Force to get his lightsaber and cut himself loose, maiming the wampa in the process, but collapsing outside, seeing a vision of his old master Obi-Wan, to tells him to go to the Dagobah system to train under Yoda.

Han Solo ultimately rescues Luke and has various romantic banter with Princess Leia, who insults him with her asinine, "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" line, definitely one of the dumbest moments in the Original Trilogy. Darth Vader ultimately finds out the Rebels are on Hoth, but unfortunately for the Empire, the Alliance is ready and begins an evacuation, with the asinine decision to send their fleeing ships close to the Imperial vessels when they have a million freaking directions in outer space to flee, a plot hole other media in the franchise like The Phantom Menace would repeat.

The Empire sends the moronically-designed camel-like AT-ATs to attack the Echo Base (and it would have been nice if we had maybe seen a scene of their actual landing on the planet), and ultimately destroys the energy shield protecting the base, but Luke gets away in his X-wing and Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon. The former crash-lands on Dagobah and meets the crazed Yoda who denies his identity at first, while the latter attempts to elude the Empire, with the Falcon's hyperdrive being damaged, the ship going into an asteroid cavern, Han and Leia developing a romantic relationship.

Meanwhile, Emperor Sheev Palpatine informs his apprentice Darth Vader that they have a new enemy who could destroy the Empire, the son of Anakin Skywalker, although he could become a powerful ally if turned to the Dark Side, which both of the Sith Lords agree to. On Dagobah, Luke trains with Yoda, with the indication that training as a Jedi takes a lifetime, so it's unclear as to how long exactly he's doing so, alongside the Empire chasing the Millennium Falcon through the Galaxy. Scenes on Dagobah like Luke encountering a phantom Vader, decapitating him, and seeing his face beneath the Sith Lord's helmet, somewhat halt the film in its tracks.

Han eventually makes it a point to visit the Lando System Bespin to meet his old friend Lando Calrissian on Cloud City, where he notes that he made a deal with the Empire to keep them away from the mining colony. Sensing Han and the others in danger, Luke breaks from his training against Yoda and Obi-Wan's wishes, and rightfully so, since the old-guard Jedi are obviously selfish a-holes who would rather see Luke's friends die. Skywalker ultimately confronts Vader and loses, the latter offering him to teach what Yoda and Obi-Wan wouldn't and revealing the iconic twist that has been spoiled and imitated to death since the film's release.

In retrospect, Vader tempting Luke with the power of the Dark Side is one of the dumbest moments of the franchise (although things like Obi-Wan Kenobi and "Ben Kenobi" being one and the same, Leia's moronic quotes, and so forth, really take the cake in that regard), since given all the things that occur in the rest of the franchise, he could have far more easily gotten him to join, for instance, by telling him the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise. Regardless, George Lucas wasn't exactly foresightful when creating his franchise, and hindsight is definitely 20/20.

The film eventually wraps after the climactic plot revelation, and while The Empire Strikes Back is, like the other entries of the Original Trilogy, very, very far from the masterpiece critics and fake fans like to make it out to be, it was definitely an improvement over A New Hope. The visual effects, as in all other media in the Star Wars franchise, are superb, with Empire having looked far less like it was filmed in the 1970s (and the digital enhancements improve things), and the music is awesome, the Cloud City theme in particular being really freaking beautiful. However, it's still full of tons of moronic moments that easily prevent it from masterpiece status, yet is nonetheless one of the high points of the OT.

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Another meme I did regarding the Legacy Media, which is an absolute joke today:

I've mostly been into the Star Wars franchise as a teenager but only really watched the films in the Original Trilogy, not bothering with the original Expanded Universe material until later on (and they've pretty much been invalidated due to Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm). I knew that the OT movies were labeled Episodes IV through VI as a larger saga, and I naturally took excitement at the announcement of the prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It really polarized the hell out of critics and fans who believed the OT films to be untouchable (which I've long found to be BS), but I still have a good appreciation for it and have really gotten into heated debates about the merits of the Prequel Trilogy since their release.

Episode I opens with the Galactic Republic threatening to tax trade routes, which pisses off the Trade Federation and causes them to blockade the backwater planet of Naboo, with Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum sending Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to resolve the matter peacefully. Upon release, fans whined about Yoda being the Jedi Master who instructed Kenobi, but keep in mind that in the Original Trilogy, Obi-Wan lied to Luke and contradicted himself (the decanonized Expanded Universe material indicated that he trained under Yoda as a youngling before becoming Qui-Gon's apprentice, so that could still be in the case in the new canon material).

Queen Amidala, actress Natalie Portman's star-marking role, and the democratically-elected monarch (?) of Naboo, rages at Viceroy Nute Gunray, the ethnically-stereotyped leader of the Trade Federation (representing Asians), for his blockade, and confers with Senator Sheev Palpatine about what's going on, and the Federation proceeds with its invasion of the planet. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan flee the Federation ship they infiltrate to the planet's surface and meet the ever-polarizing character Jar Jar Binks, the Gungans representing Africans in terms of ethnic stereotypes (but personally, I find Donald Duck and Lisa Simpson to be a million times more annoying).

The Jedi go with Jar Jar to the underwater Gungan city of Otoh Gunga to meet their xenophobic leader, Boss Nass, voiced by BRIAN BLESSED, who tells them to piss off and sends them on their way through the planet's core to Theed, Naboo's capital, where they flee via ship. Despite having a million freaking directions to flee in space, the queen's starship moronically flies near one of the Trade Federation vessels (a plot hole bequeathed from The Empire Strikes Back), sustaining damage, but a group of astromech droids lead by none other than R2-D2, the sole survivor of the repair efforts, helps them get away to safety.

Damage to the ship's hyperdrive leads the queen's starship to land on the desert planet of Tatooine, where the party meets a young slave boy named Anakin Skywalker, who with his mother Shmi is enslaved to a Toydarian junk dealer named Watto, representing the Jews in terms of ethnic stereotyping. Qui-Gon tries to buy parts for the ships, but as Tatooine is outside the Galactic Republic, his money is worthless; at the same time, the rogue Jedi Master senses that the Force is strong in Anakin, doing a blood test to determine that his midi-chlorian count is off the charts. The Force having a biological basis has been another point of contention for series "fans," but this makes sense later on in the Prequel Trilogy, and even the Original Trilogy hints that the Force may have a strong biological basis.

True to Obi-Wan's word in the Original Trilogy, Anakin is indeed a "great pilot," and really excels at mechanics and Tatooine's resident sport, podracing, preparing for a huge race that serves as a brilliant homage to Ben-Hur, which he wins, and consequentially, his freedom from slavery, although his mother is left behind in the bargain with Watto. The enigmatic Sith Lord Darth Maul harasses the party as they began to leave for Coruscant, but they eventually get there, with the Jedi High Council determining that Anakin is too old to be trained in the Order given his inner demons and Oedipus complex.

In a session of Congress that plays out like a galactic version of C-SPAN, Queen Amidala and Senator Palpatine call for a Vote of No Confidence against Chancellor Finis Valorum, but their petition is shot down, which leads the queen to go home and get the help of the Gungans in repelling the Trade Federation from their planet. Queen Amidala plans to have the Gungans serve as a distraction in getting the droid armies out of Theed so she and her team can infiltrate the capital, after which the battle on the plains of Naboo plays out. One thing I found particularly odd is the Gungans' forcefield system, which the droids can't shoot through yet can oddly walk right on through.

Anakin Skywalker finds himself in the midst of all the chaos that ensues on Naboo, taking refuge in a starfighter with R2-D2, although he accidentally takes it into space, becoming the accidental hero of the day and showing his early genocidal tendencies by taking out the Trade Federation ship and its alien crew, disabling the droids the Gungans are fighting against. "Now this is podracing!" I think demonstrates Anakin's inherent Dark Side tendencies in treating war like a game, which pretty much proves the case later on in the Prequel Trilogy era.

In the meantime, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan take on Darth Maul with his badass twin-bladed lightsaber, in which the latter ultimately takes the quick-and-easy path to becoming a Jedi Knight and becomes Anakin's master, to the chagrin of Master Yoda, who is ultimately proven right since Kenobi turns out to be a terrible teacher in the long run. Senator Palpatine succeeds Finis Valorum as Galactic Chancellor, which of course eventually bites the Galaxy in the ass, and promises to watch young Skywalker's career with "great interest," a bombastic ceremony in Theed concluding the film.

As usual, composer John Williams rocks the music boat with his soundtrack including of course the iconic main Star Wars theme and its occasional variants throughout the film, with tons of original melodies as well, many of which utilize vocals, in the case of the battle against Darth Maul. I've also begun watching films to their ending credits nowadays, with the concluding music at the very end being really haunting, ending with Darth Vader's iconic respiration, a chilling reminder of how an innocent boy like Anakin can succumb to evil, and giving me tears just to think about as that's pretty much been the story of my life.

The visual effects are nice as well, and while nitpicky critics have complained about "stupid conspicuous CG bullshit," I really can't tell the difference, with the worlds and effects being beautiful. Some have complained about the alleged superiority of the technology compared to the Original Trilogy, but it's not nearly as bad as in, say, the Star Trek franchise, and Star Wars has been far more about the characters and worlds anyway than the goings-on of starship crews. There are further a lot of questionable, sometimes lampoonable, plot elements, but the OT films aren't ones to talk in that regard, as the Family Guy parodies brilliantly point out.

All in all, I think that "professional" film critics and so-called "fans" dislike The Phantom Menace for all the wrong reasons, the wrongest being that the original films are absolutely perfect and among the greatest films of all time. It's definitely far from a flawless film, but...no amount of gaslighting or having the crap beaten out of me will convince me that movies with "twists" like Obi-Wan Kenobi and "Ben" Kenobi being one and the same or dialogue like, "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" are "masterpieces." As George Ball said, "Nostalgia is a seductive liar," and to rephrase it in Yoda's speech patterns, "A seductive liar, nostalgia is."

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I'm reposting my reviews since I'm going through the Skywalker Saga films again.

The Phantom Menace actually feels way better in retrospect due to things like this:



And all that tariff stuff, but I don't mind.

From thefridayfive:

1. How often do you typically shower/bath?
Every few days.

2. Do you prefer showering or taking a bath?
Definitely showering since my bathtub is too shallow for baths.

3. What's the longest you've ever gone without a shower/bath?
Maybe a week?

4. What's your favorite personal hygiene product?
Playing favorites is narcissism, so I'll pass on this question.

5. Do you shave your legs and/or beard? If so, how often?
My beard yes, since I prefer a clean-shaven face (and am the only clean-shaven male in my family overall, period, since having a beard's a pain in the ass), and I shave whenever I have an important outing. My legs? Fuck no.

I moved slightly more libertarian in the first test since the last time I took it (and I left out all the historical and contemporary political figures from the official "certificate" you can get on The Political Compass since I really doubt its accuracy regarding modern US politicians, especially regarding the forthcoming elections).

My closet match the last time I took the 8 Values Political Test was Liberalism (though I consider myself more classically liberal since modern liberalism too frequently borders on illiberalism given the general close-mindedness of many leftists). I'm definitely overall socially liberal (though I still remain open-minded to social views provided they're not illogical and offensive), but am still touchy about many issues like the A-word.

My latest results from The Political Compass. Really cool quiz (mostly philosophical questions), and I recommend everyone take it. Nicola Sturgeon (nice name, by the way) is a Scottish nationalist, and since I think it's okay if the Scots have their country to themselves and support Palestine's statehood, and given historical things like thinking Lincoln should have just freaking let the Confederacy exist in peace instead of illegally invading and laying waste to them, I'm not surprised.

1. Rice or potatoes
Either or.

2. Fish or red meat
Either or, again.

3. Salad or cooked veg
Cooked vegetables, period.

4. Cake or ice cream
A combination of both is ideal.

5. Drinks
Mostly water and fruit juice.

6. This makes this sound better in her words.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

5. What annoys you despite most people finding it acceptable? And what about the reverse -- what do you like that most people don't?

First question: probably people online taking an eternity to respond to cyber communication, which I've experienced very frequently in my involvement in the furry fandom when conversing with artists that don't bother to use instant messaging services, showing birthday gift art I've to for other furs (and it's even worse then they read my messages, then don't reply, yet have time to do other shit like post journals, post on Twitter/X, or fave other artists' works), and mostly recently, conversing through my current psychiatrist's patient portal (although the last psychiatry service was better at keeping in touch, and they even called me a few times in my darkest times), but more often than not getting no response or acknowledgement at all. I would never do that to people who kept in touch with me online. Even when I had a full-time job and several hobbies, I still had time to keep up with most of my cyber haunts. To me, timely responding to things like that is common courtesy.

Second question: probably video games that are rife with tons of basic quality-of-life features such as helpful in-game maps, suspend saving, frequent save opportunities, in-game tracking of playtime you can easily view anywhere, not just at save points (which seems endemic to many Japanese RPGs like Grandia, which I'm currently working on, maybe a some Western RPGs like the Soulsbourne games where you can only view it in the start menu), the ability to pause the game anytime while stopping the in-game clock and actually muting the music (since I sure as hell don't like fiddling with my remote or risk missing an important phone call or conversation, and my need to use the bathroom is a bit higher than it used to be), hints on how to solve puzzles even if it means paying money and not have to use the internet after getting stuck for a long time, and clear direction on how to advance the main storyline and even sidequests (since even today there are still way too many cases where there's helpful hidden content but no way in hell to discover it without using the internet--and since video game player's guides mostly aren't even made anymore, it really makes me question the logic of developers pulling that shit). Oh, and I would consider adjustable difficulty to be another QoL feature that would actually make games accessible to any audience, not just the "hardcore," since as a disabled gamer, accessibility is one of my biggest concerns whenever playing games that I try to reflect in my reviews. If the masochist gamers don't like things like that, they should have the option to turn them off instead of having developers force their one-size-fits-all difficulty and idea of "fun" onto all gamers that may not normally enjoy some of the bullshit mainstream video game reviewers consider "masterpieces" regardless of how deeply flawed they actually are.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

2. Should book burning be outlawed?

Fuck no. There are tons of books I'd gladly incinerate, such as masturbatory political hagiographies/autohagiographies (thanks for introducing me to the terms, Logan) and political nonfiction masquerading as "literature," much of which could easily qualify as fiction, specifically fantasy or horror, depending upon the tone.

Logan also mentioned banning flag burning, and a big hell no to that as well, for a few reasons. First of all, America was founded upon treason, "dissent is the highest form of patriotism," and in regards to American Independence Day, "treason is the reason for the season" as Jesus is regarding Christmas. Second, I consider flag worship, particularly the Pledge of Allegiance, to be a form of idolatry, which is a big no-no in my Christian faith (hey, it's not nearly as bad as not being vaccinated for "religious reasons"). Some observations as well. Burning other countries' flags in America is in many respects considered worse and xenophobic, and most of the strongest supporters of illegalizing U.S. flag burning have a few paradoxical other views, for instance being among the biggest defenders of the Confederacy in the so-called "Civil War" (though I think resisting illegal military action by another country is perfectly fucking reasonable), and vice versa.

That's my view, folks. Take it or leave it.

Art by CueBean on Twitter of my main OC in slime form.




Art by Miaval on Twitter of G. Remy, which I plan to do a color version of.




A recolor of an old lineart for which I traded with DraggyJDragon and colored with FireAlpaca.

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I was really down in the dumps at work to the point where I muted a friend on Twitter to whom I had gotten somewhat close on Twitter and chatted with many times on Telegram due to them tweeting something that upset me, and me seriously considering verbally assaulting them when they posted a "What would my warning label be?" meme (but knowing what the consequences would be, I refrained), and requested the artist from whom I commissioned a piece to semi-celebrate their birthday replace their character with another one of mine, and I began to write in my random writings journal at work a Dear John letter, but it sort of morphed into what I could very easily use in whatever autobiography I ultimately write, given the shift to various different subjects. Physically writing things is definitely far more therapeutic than typing them, and I feel much better as a result.