The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

2012-01-27T12:08:00.000+08:00

Wow, I can't believe we're already starting the reviews for the original trilogy of Star Wars movies. Where has this month been going? Does time really go by this fast when you're having so much geeky fun?

Regardless, we press on, yes?

This is part of an on-going series of blog reviews where I finally post my thoughts on all of the 6 Star Wars movies. It's just my little way of celebrating the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace in 3D this February, whether or not this whole 3D translation is necessarily a good thing for the franchise as a whole. I'm weird that way.

Admittedly we're going to look at things with respect to the Special Edition of the movies that was re-released in theaters around the time the prequels started up a well. Purists may argue against this stance, but you have to admit the new version is supposedly closer to George Lucas' original vision and thus merits some study. Plus it's the more commercially available version now, thus it's what more people are going to end up watching whether on DVD or on whatever pay TV movie channel happens to be showing it.

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[TV] Sherlock: Series 2 (BBC)

2012-01-26T12:08:00.000+08:00

I've always wondered by a lot of British television shows run such short seasons versus their US counterparts. This could probably be best illustrated by how the UK version of Being Human only lasted about 6 episodes (depending on how you count the pilot) while the US adaptation of the show lasted for a full 13.

That oddly gets me thinking about the differences between writing poetry, short stories and novels. Each are beautiful in their own right although each requires different skills and techniques to achieve the "maximum effect" in terms of each version of prose or what have you. With the shorter poems, brevity and word use become key to being able to express the message or meaning that you want to without losing too much due to lack of details or more deliberate description.

And maybe that's part of the appeal for a lot of these British shows. Their writers tend to work with seasons (series) between 3-8 episodes long, thus requiring more concise writing and somewhat better action.

And this show remains to be one of the more brilliant ones that I've encountered in a while and I can't think of a US counterpart that has achieved so much with such limited airtime.

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[Google] The 2012 Privacy Policy Clean-Up

2012-01-25T12:08:00.000+08:00

Image by Aray Chen via Flickr

This may be a case of "Be Careful What You Wish For" in terms of Google's recently announced changes to their privacy policies and their terms of service. It all depends on where you stand, I suppose.

On the one hand, a lot of folks have written about how complicated a lot of the various privacy policies are, especially for companies with multiple products like Google. In the previously linked blog post, they detail having over 70 different privacy documents and interrelated terms of service policies in place to manage their different products and services. Thus the natural thrust for many privacy advocates has been to push for simplifying such policies documents and making it easier for users to understand how their personal information is used and for what purposes.

Also, a lot of folks expect the different Google products to play nice with one another. It's not unreasonable to expect that using Gmail should have natural synergies with other Google Apps like Google Calendar and so on and so forth. Until the advent of Google+, the Google ecosystem felt largely scattered with each product sort of living on its own with very limited integration.

The new Google privacy policy attempts to address these concerns by creating one larger policy document that covers most of their products except for a few special cases like Google Chrome and Google Wallet. For the most part this seems like a tremendous step in the right direction since it means only needing to read and study one larger policy document.

The flip side, as other bloggers and journalists are already pointing out, is the fact that part of the changes includes language indicating that Google will now freely use data gathered from all covered products to aid with their efforts to personalize its services based on your user habits and such. It makes sense given greater integration between Google products can't happen unless data sharing happens as well, but naturally this has some people uncomfortable

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[Books] The Sandman: Book of Dreams

2012-01-24T12:08:00.000+08:00

The Sandman series of comic books remains to be a landmark achievement in storytelling and is definitely one of those titles that "everyone" is expected to have read at one point in their lives. And it's not because the comics were so universal, but more because they're just that good and you're doing yourself a major disservice if you wander through life without having read at least one of the issues or have gone through one of its story arcs.

Thanks to my partner, I finally managed to scratch this item off my bucket list a few years ago, but it took some more time before I finally got around to reading this collection of short stories based around the Sandman comics. I can't exactly explain why - anyone with a large collection of books can probably relate the random nature of how one title gets ignored while others move quickly through the pipeline, as it were.

The book has proven to be quite the delightful experience - a lovely return to the tales of the Endless and somewhat related adventures. And yet the stories don't wade too deep into the established continuity, making the book highly accessible to non-fans of the comics and others.

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[Movies] The Bounty Hunter (2010)

2012-01-23T12:08:00.000+08:00

It's interesting how a lot of what we perceive to be "action heroes" (perhaps based on their physique and initial movie roster at times) tend to make for interesting romantic leads as well. There seems to be a natural tendency to have such actors bounce between those two genres in an effort to give them some sense of range and of course reap the benefits of cross-genre movie marketing.

Gerard Butler is interesting in that regard since he has a pretty diverse movie background to begin with. While a lot of folks associate him with the testosterone-fueled movie 300, he's also the same guy involved in the Phantom of the Opera movie and others. He's probably not a "hardcore" action hero per se, but he does seem to have the proficiency (and the physical build) for it. But at the same time he seems to have a genuine enjoyment for romantic comedies, despite their lackluster performance at the box office.

Admittedly I wasn't in the mood for anything too serious when we sat down to watch this movie. We pretty much just watched it so I'd have something to review for today. It wasn't the most amazing movie by any right and I can see why it didn't do too well.

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[TV] Will & Grace: Season 6

2012-01-22T12:08:00.000+08:00

For one reason or another, my partner and I put on hold our efforts to go through all seasons of Will & Grace, hence the significant delay between the posting of this review and the prior season. But we're finally back on this particular horse less than a year later, and thus the zaniness continues on.

It's interesting how one can just take up the show at almost any point in his history and still be highly amused by the humor. The show still doesn't feel all too dated except for a few odd references here and there, and that says a lot about the strength of the writing involved in the project. And it's hard to think of the characters as anyone but the roles they fulfilled in this epic LGBT series.

I have to admit this season was a little weird for me. Sure, I still laughed at a lot of the jokes and side plots and there were a number of interesting twists to be certain. But overall it still felt somewhat weaker than past seasons, maybe because of some of the constraints imposed by Debra Messing's pregnancy or who else knows what.

While still a great show, this felt like a bit of a miss. Or maybe just a hiccup.

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[Movies] Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

2012-01-20T12:08:00.000+08:00

Continuing my efforts to review all of the Star Wars movies in time for the re-release of The Phantom Menace in 3D this February, we're now on the final prequel movie and one that really had the task of capping off our return to the Star Wars universe in 2005. The whole prequel trilogy was quite the mixed bag, to be certain, but one can't really argue against how it was still a geek milestone that brought the Star Wars franchise back into public awareness after so many years of not being in theaters.

But did we really want things to end the way that they did? Was this the key bridge piece that we envisioned when the opening scrawl of the first movie started and revealed that we were actually watching the fourth episode of a larger franchise and not precisely the first? I figure geeks like myself will continue to debate this question well past the shelf life of these movies given how much the prequels both excited and yet also polarized audiences.

But still, it was interesting to get a glimpse of George Lucas' original vision for the story, even if it turned into a bit of a misshapen mutant thing that screams "Nooooo" a lot. It is a bit of a geek dream - to be able to revisit something you created so many years ago and revitalize the franchise with new material that still fits in the overall theme of things. And whether we thought the story was good or not becomes somewhat beside the point - the movies were made and now they are part of the overall history of the franchise. And that may not be a bad thing in itself.

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[TV] Homeland: Season 1

2012-01-19T12:08:00.000+08:00

One of the things that I probably inherited from my father is a healthy appreciation for fiction involving the military, terrorism and that sort of thing. He was quite the military history nut with loads and loads of documentation about various battles, technical specification of vehicles and the inevitable spy thrillers and the like. And I didn't actually take all that time to read the books he had, but we did have quite a number of conversations and weird nights of watching him play Conflict: Korea or some other related strategy game.

What may have just started as a healthy appreciation for historical accounts and TV mini-series like Band of Brothers had clearly bloomed into a healthy respect for the genre. While I still don't go out of the way to find new books related to these themes or even new movies, when they do come along, I do get pleasantly entertained from time to time.

Now when this series came along, I had mixed feelings given some of the casting. But then it was already towards the tail end of a lot of the initial Fall network runs and that certainly left us with a little availability in terms of our TV-watching dance card.

But now I totally don't regret having "risked" watching this show - it has certainly paid off in spades.

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[Internet] NO to SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T12:08:00.000+08:00

While I am located outside the US, The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything is firmly against the clearly pro-censorship legislation of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

In line with this, no review or other feature articles will be posted today as a sign of solidarity with the global protest efforts.

[Books] 1984

2012-01-17T12:08:00.000+08:00

1984 is definitely high up on that list of "must-read science fiction" for many people, and is often used as required reading in schools around the world. And now that I've finally read it - and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I had not read it prior, I can totally appreciate why it is considered such a landmark piece of literature by any convention. It's one of those amazing stories that defies temporal restraints given its timeless message and powerful manner of presenting these themes and ideas to the reader.

I can't explain why it took me so long to get around this book. One reason or another delayed me and prioritized other books first. But it wasn't until I had picked up a copy of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 that I finally had a solid reason to read the book first. With Murakami's work meant as a grand homage to this Orwellian classic, it seemed only appropriate that I first read the inspiring material before moving on to Murakami's latest work of genius.

And what an adventure it has been, to say the least. The story isn't over long but it's certainly very rich and extremely thought-provoking. And perhaps a wee bit traumatic, even as a book.

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[Movies] Unthinkable (2010)

2012-01-16T12:08:00.000+08:00

In the entertainment industry, it's often thought that typecasting for actors is a bad thing for their careers. It limits their growth and ends up dictating the types of movies that they get offered by the studios. And for an actor who really embraces his craft, then that may feel like a bad thing since it stifles potential creative challenges or even artistic freedom.

Then you get those actors who just know what types of roles do well for them and they sort of embrace it. This isn't exactly selling out either - you could still see it as them sticking to what seems to work best for them. And depending on how well they perform with that kind of a mindset, you can't really say how things go except on a per-movie basis, I suppose.

At first this felt like another of those Samuel L. Jackson movies where he gets to be a bad ass character and that's about it. It's a rather one-dimensional character aspect when you think about it and he has so many movies where he does precisely that. And yet the story built around his character and the events that they try to depict really did something for the overall narrative.

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[Technicolor Musings] The Need For Gay Families

2012-01-15T12:08:00.000+08:00

Okay, this is not a post about gay marriage, just to get that out of the way. Not that I have anything against gay marriage - in fact it's something I want for me and Tobie more than anything (except maybe a house), but I just wanted to clarify at the onset that this post will discuss something completely different and yet still related.

by Rafael Perez (paintings2011) via Flickr

Now given we are in point in history when gay marriage is not fully accepted around the world (and sometimes terms a threat to future of humanity) and the challenges many members of the LGBT community face in terms of getting their own families to accept their true nature, it's interesting to look at what we do to adapt to the lack of such options. As much as we all want to find a relationship for ourselves, there's still that need for that sort of support structure that families provide to help us through life.

Thus it's interesting how many gay men tend to somewhat organize their friendships and peer relationships into hierarchies that resemble the family structure. And this is all just a fancy way of describing how gay men can have their "drag mothers" or their "gay sisters" or whatever other relationships in reference to their friends. It's an interesting practice that I've seen quite often and it's an interesting way of responding to the needs of the individual for support and reassurance.

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[Movies] Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2012-01-13T12:08:00.000+08:00

Continuing this series of Star Wars movie reviews in commemoration of the re-release of the films in 3D (not that I want to shell out money for this), we now come to the "second" movie in terms of the franchise's continuity timeline.

Okay, that last sentence ended in a bit of a mouthful. I apologize.

Now given how the first movie certainly generated a strong reaction among the fans, it's funny how a lot of us still trekked back to the theaters to catch the next installment. Are we that stubborn? Do we put that much value in the franchise as a whole over the immediate experience of a really bad prequel? Or are we just that starved for decent science fiction entertainment outside of superhero movie remakes that we go see almost anything with spaceships in it?

I exaggerate I know, but I think you can appreciate that I'm coming from a good place. Or at least a rather geeky one.

So upwards and onwards to the review proper!

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[TV] Downton Abbey: Season 1

2012-01-12T12:08:00.000+08:00

I tend to think of period dramas as a bit of a mixed back. At times they can be wonderfully engaging and they really get you to emotionally invest in the lives of the characters and the history of the period. In other cases, they become long, dragging and difficult to associate with given the cultural differences developed over time. And I don't have a clear formula as to which ones fall into the category of shows that I'll most likely enjoy versus those that won't get even a third of my attention on a bad day.

I became increasingly curious about this show after the buzz the show generated over various blogs and eventually among some of my online contacts. I can appreciate smart and witty series, even if there are no Great Houses, interstellar empires or other such elements involved, mind you. It really depends on how well the whole thing comes together.

With little expectations from this series other than some excitement over seeing Maggie Smith in a TV series, I came in without a clear idea of what I was getting into and left pretty much hooked on the series. Stellar stuff.

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[Call Centers] Before You Resign...

2012-01-11T12:08:00.000+08:00

For Philippines companies, or at least Philippine call centers based on my direct experience, January is typically one of the highest attrition periods of the year. One can possible attribute this to how the start of the year is perceived to be a good time for new beginnings and brand new starts. Or there's that "conventional" piece of wisdom that claims that people stay until January in order to ensure they get their full 13th month pay and any other bonuses awarded at the end of the year.

by Jimmy Tyler via Flickr

Regardless, there's certainly a significant number of folks out there (possibly including you), who are thinking about finally leaving your job in search of the proverbial greener pastures.

So as sort of my public service contribution to the industry, here's some food for thought that you may want factor in as you figure out what exactly you're going to put on your resignation letter.

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[Books] Ilustrado

2012-01-10T12:08:00.000+08:00

When you come across a book by a Filipino author that proudly proclaims on the cover that it is the recipient of the Man Asian Literary Prize, that has to mean something, right? It was enough to get me curious about the book to be certain, although I was a tad skeptical still. It's definitely not the typical kind of fiction that I'd pick up, but hey, we should support our own and all that, right?

It's always tricky to base things on awards alone. I don't automatically trust the opinions of literary circles since what they seem to like and appreciate seems to defy conventional logic and sensibilities. It's not quite as bad as in movies where a greater number of film reviews still reflect how the movie works in the "mainstream". Something just gets crazy among the writing award-giving bodies that makes them seem like they're not in touch with reality.

And that's what this book felt like to me - a crazy drug trip trying to pass itself off as good literature. It may have hit some of the right buttons with the folks behind the award/s, but it really didn't work for me.

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[Movies] Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

2012-01-09T12:08:00.000+08:00

After watching this movie, I posted a status to my social media networks about something I term as "the new Rocky paradigm". What this means is the fact that I have come to accept that because of my partner, Tobie, I've come to accept the reality that I do enjoy romantic comedies. My geek self wants to reject this idea in favor of my science fiction movies and epic fantasy stuff, but there's no denying it. I suppose this comes with being in an awesome relationship and all that sort of stuff.

To my credit, it has to be a smart enough romantic comedy to merit my full appreciation. There are far too many movies out there that replace story with the price tag attached to the actors involved, which seem like such a waste of time. The romance part is fairly easy enough given the right chemistry, but as always its the comedy that requires more thought on the part of the writers.

And while I'm not particularly a big fan of Ryan Gosling or Steve Carell, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit.

Plus it's like an expansion piece for the never ending movie game that is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

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[TV] Queer as Folk (US) - Season 3

2012-01-08T12:08:00.000+08:00

My recent post about O Bar had me thinking about this show again and the on again, off again efforts to post reviews for all seasons of the show. Ideally I should re-watch the season before posting a review but then my dance card together with my partner is a tad full at the moment, so I'll just have to do the best that I can with this one based on memory.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I watched the entire run of this show more than once. It was a bit of a thing at the time, I suppose.

It's somewhat weird to consider the fact that I never got around to watching the original UK version of Queer as Folk despite my general enjoyment of the series. I guess it has a lot to do with how this version of the show has a mixed bag of memories attached to it and how I don't quite feel ready to mess with that. Whether I like it or not, a large part of my coming out and forming my gay identity involved this particular show.

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[Movies] Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

2012-01-06T12:08:00.000+08:00

When it was announced that Lucasfilm would be re-releasing all of the Star Wars movies in 3D starting February 10, 2012, I figured that it would be fun to do something to mark this little event in geek history - not that I feel overly compelled to pay extra to watch the movies again just for the sake of 3D. And given how things go, the Geeky Guide just happens to not have reviews for any of the Star Wars movies. Weird.

So starting today and continuing on every Friday thereafter, I'll be reviewing each of the Star Wars movies in "chronological" order with respect to the saga's internal continuity and not their original release dates as movies. I'm sure it's going to be a rather interesting experience for all of us.

And yes, I have noticed that I don't have reviews for all the Star Trek movies either, and I promise to rectify that before the new movie comes out in 2013. Honest. There is the new movie coming out next year after all, so that requires some appropriate preparations. But I digress.

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[TV] American Horror Story: Season 1

2012-01-05T12:08:00.000+08:00

In the course of writing these reviews, I constantly go back to the fact that I don't handle the horror genre too well. So you'd think this show would be a totally bad idea for me, but then there's something about TV horror that helps keep things reined in within my tolerance level. Plus it's TV, so it can't be all that bad, right?

Of course American Horror Story is from the same guy who brought us Glee and Nip/Tuck, so that's a weird place to come from in terms of something with "horror" actually in the title of the show. But the trailers actually showed a bit of promise and the early buzz seemed generally positive (albeit cautiously) as well.

So my partner and I have the show a go and while it seemed like yet another confused mess at first, over time the story oddly began to grow on us. While I won't go as far as it being a totally great show that I'd recommend to most of my friends, but the show does have its odd appeal that helps it work.

But I'm not sure if I could say that this is actually a "horror" TV show though.

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[Gadgets] Personal Tech Considerations for 2012

2012-01-04T12:08:00.000+08:00

by Major Clanger via Flickr

It's the start of another calendar year and a lot of folks like to use this time to set resolutions for themselves, revise their life targets and basically try to set up a plan of action for the year. And while I already opted to participate in this practice by posting my 2012 goals on my personal blog, I figured it might be interesting to do something similar here, but for a specific sub-section of my geek resume that tends to be somewhat lacking.

In case you readers haven't already noticed, I'm primarily a pop culture geek and not so much a technology geek. It's hard to explain why this is so since I do love and support almost anything Google-developed and I do spent most of my life connected to the web. But on the flip side, I've never been one to obsess about gadgets, primarily since I'm such a cheapskate in this area while more of my money goes into Transformers and DVDs.

And while I don't see myself totally increasing my gadget spending this year, there are a few things that I want to consider in order to move forward. So perhaps you guys can help a fellow geek out in terms of how to accomplish these gadget goals for 2012.

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[Comics] The Simpsons / Futurama Crossover Crisis

2012-01-03T12:08:00.000+08:00

I picked up this compilation during one of the holiday says over at Fully Booked. At 20% off for most titles, it seemed the best time to venture into graphic novels that I wouldn't normally pick up at full price.

To be fair, I have a history for collecting Bongo Comics, so this purchase wasn't totally unrealistic. Back at the height of my comic book collecting period, I actually snagged the first few issues of The Simpsons comics, Itchy and Scratchy and Radioactive Man, given my love of The Simpsons. I had always found the comics to be a wonderful translation of the sensibilities of the animated show, so I was pretty sure the writing behind this piece would be somewhere in the same neighborhood.

If anything, we've all come to appreciate how the Matt Groening products employ a particular brand of humor that is never afraid to cross the boundary into meta storytelling and of course a lot of satire of current events and popular culture. And in this particular crossover epic, they made sure to explore a lot of different comic book tropes along with all the usual gags and antics that we already associate with these characters.

In other words, it was pretty fun.

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[Movies] Drive (2011)

2012-01-02T12:08:00.000+08:00

Car movies aren't necessarily my thing. I suppose it's because I've never really bought into car culture (either blame my homosexuality or my love for Transformers - take your pick) and so movies like The Fast and the Furious never really grew on me. To be fair, I did enjoy a few of them, but I never really went out of my way to watch them either.

This movie came to our attention because of a friend who had seen it and was thoroughly impressed with the full production. And while I don't see the physical appeal in Ryan Gosling all that much, I do acknowledge that he's become quite the respected actor in recent years given the types of projects he takes on and the level of skill he brings to the table. So that's how the movie got added to our "To Watch" list, in a manner of speaking.

This was one of those great movie experiences where I walked in knowing little to nothing about the movie and thus walked away being totally surprised by the movie. And while surprise alone is never a guarantee of a movie being good or not, it certainly helps one better appreciate all that went into the production. And man, this was indeed a surprisingly good movie.

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[Technicolor Musings] Why I Support O Bar (Whether Ortigas or Malate)

2012-01-01T12:08:00.000+08:00

For my gay generation (and remember your gay years do not correspond to biological age), my primary peg for what gay culture might be like was the US version of Queer as Folk. And you know what that means - rampant sex, hot guys and fantastic dance clubs just to name some of the more memorable elements. And like many other gay men like me, I wondered if there was anything like Babylon here in the Philippines - a place where I could celebrate my homosexuality and find like-minded people.

In many ways, I initially found Babylon in the form of bars like Bed, Club Government and Club Mafia Manila. They were all fun places to drink, dance and watch a heck of a lot of cruising going on and that was all good. Almost every weekend was spent at one bar or another as me and my friends tried to make the most of our Saturday nights. Admittedly, it was rather tiring and a lot of times I ended up begging off bar trips while my now ex-boyfriend would still go out and hit the club scene.

Still in Queer as Folk parlance, not everyone looks for Woody's, which seemed like a much straighter bar that just happened to have gay men in it. And for a budding gay man, it was hard to see the value in a place that almost seemed confusing and hypocritical in terms of what gay culture seemed to be.

Ever since I found Tobie, I've come to find that there's a perfect balance between the overwhelming experience that is a bar like Babylon balanced with the kind of casual openness that a place like Woody's tends to foster. And that place is O Bar - an experience that stretches from Malate to Ortigas. And I have to admit that it wasn't quite what I had been "trained" to expect from a bar after over six years of going to Bed Malate and such. But in time the place grew on me and then I really figured out what makes the place so amazing.

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[Movies] The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

2011-12-30T12:08:00.000+08:00

As a last holiday-related review, I finally took the time to watch the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, despite all the bad buzz about the TV special even among die hard Star Wars fans. But you know how people are when they come across a train wreck of a movie like this - you just can't help but stop and stare and see what the fuss is all about.

Finding a copy wasn't nearly as hard as finishing the show, I have to admit. It wasn't totally horrendous - but it was rather boring with significant pacing issues. I meant there are bad movies that are painful to watch and this was just a bit of a struggle to finish. I'll try to pinpoint precisely why this was so in the course of this review, which is my normal manner of trying to process something as weird as this.

It helps to appreciate that a lot of the "holiday specials" that are forced upon franchises, perhaps save for Doctor Who, tend to twist the characters into weird new ways that seems contrary to how they are normally depicted in the franchise's main movies, TV shows or whatever other medium it gets featured in. It's something that gets demanded of the franchise by the studio executives and is not typically driven by a true creative imperative.

And you know how that goes - once the demands of the business supersede the franchise's creative integrity, then you get some weird stuff instead.

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