A few points helped me come to that conclusion. The plot line was weak enough for me to not care at all about the outcome in the movie. It was all over the place. A lot of show but little substance. Lots of little stories put together that never seemed to go anywhere. And what’s worse is the first movie was awesome! An unhinged bad guy who could freeze laser blasts in the air. Kylo-Ren’s boss is an ominous giant, Ray meeting Luke at the end. What a cliff-hanger!
But the second movie. The Terror of Kylo-Ren’s boss from the first movie turned out to be this tiny thing with a lame death, Luke Skywalker was a grumpy old man during the whole movie, who’s most important move was to vanish and die. All of the suspense from the first movie just wasted.
Usually when I go to the cinema I would always do my due diligence and read reviews and watch youtube reviews to make sure it was worth my time. All the reviews I read or watched said it was a great movie with the worst point saying that it ‘subverted expectations’ Now I know what that means.
That movie was terrible. Not only was it terrible by itself, but it was a Star Wars movie. How could they do that to a Star Wars movie! A beloved movie franchise. What would make it worse is the final movie had to somehow try to make up for it, making it bad as well.
One thing I will say is that after that movie, I watched the Han Solo movie (on the aeroplane) with exactly zero expectations. And I was actually happy with that movie. It made for a relatively simple adventure and kind-of back story for Han Solo. It wasn’t anything more than it needed to be, and I had fun watching it.
After that movie and the reviews before watching it, I simply can’t trust any new movie any more. It was a waste of my time and money, I felt much worse for watching it. It destroyed my confidence in movie reviews as well as I can no longer trust them to give me an accurate depiction of how a movie will be any more. Especially not blockbuster movies.
App Recommendation
Skyforce https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.idreams.SkyForceReloaded2016&hl=en_GB&gl=US
This Shootemup game has been one of the few mobile games I actually completed. It doesn’t hurt that I love Retro Shootemups in arcade and console (Truxton, Whip-Rush, Twin Cobra, Aleste all mainstays when I was younger) but this game makes it super accessible with touch controls that make sense for mobile. You just touch the screen where you want to go, if you release the screen then it slows down the game significantly. This allows you to navigate in real life when needed and get back in to the action immediately.
There are only 10 levels, however a huge amount of replayability. You start with a pea-shooter gun, not even capable of clearing the first level. But over time you can collect currency in the game for shooting down enemies, then use that to upgrade your ship. Each new level requires a certain number of Level stars, achieved for completing different accomplishments in each level. I.e. Shooting down 100% enemies, never being hit, rescuing all people. Later levels require replaying earlier levels at harder difficulty levels to earn enough stars to progress. There is a little sense of grinding as to attain the level stars but you have to concentrate hard to have a perfect run through to get a new star, it doesn’t get boring. Especially for a Free game, there are no pay-walls. There is IAP to quicken upgrade times and for more lives, but you get 10 lives per day. Towards the end, the upgrade times end up taking 6 hours, so sometimes you just have to know when to stop for a while.
Interesting to note that the same game was released on PS4 (as a ‘free’ PSN’ title one month) but it didn’t take nearly as much grinding and no waiting times for upgrades. Even after finishing it on Android I played the whole game through again on PS4. A great game. There is even a sequel on Android as well.
Youtube Channel Recommendation
Go With Less https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_OyYOATliIj9xEx6bv2Z9Q
This is an American husband and wife team who talk about their adventures with FIRE (Financially Independent / Retire Early) They stopped working a little over a year ago and made preparations to travel and live without a job, giving regular updates about their plans and actions. For example, they packed up and sold their house, planning to live in house-minding places in order to have a place to stay and also earn a little accommodation at the same time. Unfortunately because of the Pandemic their plans had to change. However, I found it interesting to find other people who live by the ethics of FIRE and see how their adventure has turned out so far. One thing I can certainly say is that there are no two stories the same, so its interesting to see how they get on. At one point, they were actually talking about taking a holiday to Edinburgh. That would have been great because I’d have been just within an hour’s drive for a meetup
