Ms. Marvel, 'Seeing Red' - June 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks – just ask the Americans with their ‘Roe vs. Wade’ cancellation. I genuinely don’t know what they were thinking: if this is just the first step to cancel everything else, including interracial and same-sex marriage – it’s one thing, then we’ll have some sort of American Civil War take II, no problem. But if it is not, however – then it is just pointless aggravation of the American civilian society, one that the D.C. crowd probably does not need, not with all of the Jan 6 hysteria and all. What will come out of it, I do not know, though the fact that the American (Western?) mass media is beginning to downplay this, (sort of), may play some role…

The Ukrainians, of course, are hanged-out to dry, as the Americans still give them minimum aid while extracting maximum publicity out of this; and Finland & Sweden have joined NATO – and Putin does not appear to care about it very much. Erdogan, conversely, have acquired at least some political benefits for himself and his regime – but we are being sidetracked; let us talk about ‘Ms. Marvel’ instead.

Only not, as this week’s episode – ‘Seeing Red’ – is… wait. Let me try again. As people have pointed out to me since my last entry, Clan Destine aren’t InHumans, but are rather human-djinn hybrids with their own story, and Damage Control has its’ own missive as well. Fair enough, but my actual point was that story-wise, Destine is standing-in for the InHumans, and Damage Control – for either S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D., take your pick, please. Here, in ‘Red’, we got more gifted people in-fighting, between Clan Destine, and the Red Daggers, (and Damage Control doing their wild card thing too, I suppose, in the bigger picture), and there’s mention of monsters, and world-changing plots, and government agencies, and-

-and we all have had it before, in AoS. I’m surprised to admit it, but I am rather tired of getting back to AoS in almost every single review of MM – but the truth is that AoS has had its’ initial plots recycled in every later season – and MM has the same problem; in addition-

In addition, lately I got a feeling that Disney/MCU is actually trying to downplay MM – first so that it would not compete with O-B-1, and now – with the upcoming ‘Thor’ film. That may be so, but there’s also the feeling that Disney/MCU is try to actually keep MM under the radar, because it isn’t sure just as to how well it does resonate with USA’s Islam community, (and especially the Pakistanis). The Red Daggers, especially, have a rather assassin-like feeling to them – and that RPG prestige class was based on RL Middle East characters – but we digress.

Here is thing. Disney/MCU is all about the money – it loves to make money, it hates to lose money, and it has figured out that a controversy is one of the best ways to lose money, and so it does its’ best to avoid controversy, as its’ settlement with ScarJo regarding the ‘Black Widow-2021’ shows: it probably could’ve won legally, but in PR terms this would’ve been a (controversial) disaster, and so Disney/MCU opted to settle out of court and give-in first.

So, how does that fit onto ‘Ms. Marvel’? Well, like it or not, but it is controversial – sort of – simply by existing: it is a show about an Islamic community that lives in the U.S., and given that U.S.’ relationship with the Islamic world has never been easy, and after the end of the Afghan cycle, (2001-2021), even more so – therefore, it isn’t too surprising that Disney/MCU has opted to downplay MM rather than vice versa: you never know as to who will get offended!.. Anything else?

No, not really – if Disney/MCU itself is trying to downplay MM, then who am I to upplay it instead? Therefore, let us end this for now – but I must warn you: real life being what it is, (see the opening paragraph), I will not be able to review MM episode 1x05 for RL reasons next week. Ah well, see you all soon all the same! Until then – cheers!

Ms. Marvel, 'Destinied' - June 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: we got one heatwave coming after another, with intermediary thunderstorms to make life more interesting, apparently. Hence, let us talk about ‘Destined’, the episode 1x03 of ‘Ms. Marvel’.

What can be said about it? That finally, after reaching the half-mark of the ‘Ms. Marvel’ S1, we got some excitement here. First, Kamala’s brother got married, and we got a beautiful depiction of an ethnic Islamic marriage…before the Damage Control goons gatecrashed it. This time, though, they seem to be going after Kareem and his mother, who are associated, or simply are, the Clandestine, or the djinn. Pause.

So, in real life, the djinn are a part of Islamic – or proto-Islamic – mythology; their role isn’t too different from the various demons and such in the Christian mythos; they were blamed for everything bad and unknown and mysterious, their shapes were often poorly defined – there are even some version of the djinn who are more akin to the doppelgangers/evil twins of the modern Western mythology; and the Quran mentions them, but not necessarily in a good way, either. Also, you can call them genies or jinn instead, and they often weren’t as nice as they were in Disney’s ‘Aladdin’; in the ‘original’, ‘1001 nights’ ‘Aladdin’ the jinn or the djinn were really powerful entities, able to destroy cities and armies, and built palaces, and to take them across the world…basically, compared to mortals, the djinn are almost all-powerful, but the forces of the Lord, (or Allah), can route them, if necessary.

…And none of this applies to the djinn ‘depicted’ in ‘Ms. Marvel’, aka Kareem and his mother, whose relationship with Kamala has become more ambiguous by now. Rather, the ‘djinn’, or the Clandestine of MCU seem to be surrogate InHumans, and I got nothing new to comment about that here, because of predictability. In Marvel Comics, Kamala ‘Ms. Marvel’ Khan was an InHuman, and was regularly associated with them, even though she never was a part of Black Bolt and Medusa’s court, and she has her own storyline; separate from the InHumans’ main one – usually. There are always crossovers, you know!..

In MCU, there are InHumans, actually, but because their TV series was insipid, nowadays MCU pretends that they never existed, a fact further enhanced by the fact that AoS was a clusterfuck, and has already been largely replaced by S.W.O.R.D., as well as by Damage Control. Hence, we got surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D. chasing surrogate InHumans, because despite all of the proclamations that MCU’s ‘Ms. Marvel’ is original, in reality it is just a rehashed version of the comics, because Disney has problems with original – just look at the ‘Lightyear’ movie: while it isn’t bad, neither it is truly great.

…And the same can be said about the ‘Obi-Wan’ series; I was not going to talk about it, but, since it has finished, I might as well – the show’s predictable: Obi-Wan got his shite together and kicked Vader’s ass, while Reba’s storyline was also neatly wrapped-up. Sadly, while Obi-Wan has won a clear and a decisive moral victory, he did not kill Vader; since Vader has become Palpatine’s chief enforcer by now, (though yes, technically, he is Palpatine’s apprentice – but does anyone believe that?), his death would’ve caused a major butterfly effect… so ‘Obi-Wan’ the TV series doesn’t kill Vader, and everything from now on till the events in ‘The New Hope’ will be (mostly) canon. Did I mention that Disney has a problem with originality? Well, it does, and in case of ‘Ms. Marvel’, it is also in denial, both regarding originality and the quality of ‘Ms. Marvel’ it is rather trite and unoriginal, but it is also beautifully depicted, complete with the ethnic angle: hooray for that!

…Otherwise, however, this is it for now. ‘Ms. Marvel’ S1 is halfway done; we will just have to wait and see as to what will happen next. See you all soon!

 

Lightyear - June 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about our main man known as Buzz Lightyear. The 2022 film, known simply as ‘Lightyear’, seemingly throws everything else that we knew about BL out of the window… only it does not. In the cartoon series ‘Buzz Lightyear of the Star Command’ (or something along those lines), there were a couple of episodes with an evil, Zurg-like Buzz… who came from an alternate universe. He appeared on the show irregularly, but was still defeated, but he was still Buzz. Therefore, what is the point?

The point is that ‘Lightyear’ is set in an alternate universe, that is what! Until now, the ‘Toy Story’ franchise’s installments, (a heterogeneous bunch in their own right), were set in one universe – let us call it ‘Universe A’. But ‘Lightyear’ and all of its’ associations, are taking place in a different universe – ‘Universe B’, one where sexual minorities and important characters, played by POCs appeared in the early 1990s, unlike, say, our universe, where they, (and especially the former), didn’t. Therefore, all that we knew about BL from the previous ‘Toy Story’ installments is not really relevant anymore – it is a different Buzz, with a different crew, in a different world. ‘To infinity and beyond’, indeed – to infinite multiverses! Anything else?

Aye, I met an opossum earlier this week. Real life might suck, but sometimes it does deliver. Pause.

Let us try again. Until I met it, I thought that an opossum was just a variant rat, especially since I have seen the latter, both in pet shops and in the wild. Same for mice. However…

Let us start with mice. They are the smallest out of this bunch – I could easily hold a mouse on one finger. The rats I saw were two or three times bigger than a mouse – the size of my head, (the males were usually bigger than the females), and I would need one, or both, of my hands, to hold one, (we are talking about pet rats here – wild rats, especially Norway rats, should be avoided). And the opossum was two or three times bigger than a Norway rat – it was the size of an average house cat or a small dog, and the one I met was distinctly unfriendly, so no physical contact with this one either.

The second point are the teeth. Mice and rats are rodents; you put a mouse and a rat alongside a squirrel, a chipmunk, a marmot, and, say, a beaver, and they will all have baseline similarities to each other, especially in the teeth: huge incisors, no canines, and some premolar and molar teeth. The ‘professional’ carnivores and herbivores have different dental formulas, but you still can, usually, figure out which tooth is which. The opossum doesn’t really have this differentiation; from what I could see: all of the teeth in its’ jaws looked mostly the same, not unlike the teeth on a saw, (sorry for the lame pun). Obviously, an opossum is a competent biter and chewer in its’ own right, and I had no intention of having it bite me – it looked quite formidable for a creature the size of a small dog – but I’m guessing that it was a very different biter and chewer from a rodent. Then again, the opossum is no rodent, but a marsupial – it is proportionally closer to the kangaroo and the koala than to rodents or to us. Though keep it mind that among the marsupials, the opossum family – most of which live in the American tropics, and only one species – the common opossum – lives in North America instead; the point is that the American opossums are treated separately from the rest of the (Australian) marsupials, but let us move on…

The final topic is the tail – in the earlier days people assumed that the common opossum’s tail was prehensile, like a spider monkey’s but to me, it certainly didn’t look like it; it did look a bit like a rat’s, or a mouse’s, tail – long and hairless, but it also looked fairly thick: maybe the opossum uses it to store fat for the winter or something, The point is that the opossum has authentically surprised me, and I have certainly enjoyed observing it. Real life does suck, but sometimes – not so much.

This is it for now, see you all soon!

Ms. Marvel, Crushed - June 15

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else entirely – this week’s episode of Ms. Marvel. Named ‘Crush’, it is about Kamala’s crush on Kareem, whose mom may or may not be a supervillain – isn’t the MCU fun?

Well yes, yes it is, save that so far, little else is going down in ‘Crush’ – MCU is going with a slow burn here, possibly to avoid competition with ‘Obi-Wan’, whose penultimate episode has also aired on this day. There are similarities between the two shows: in ‘Obi-Wan’, women are clearly in charge, save for the titular character and Darth Vader; the show could’ve went with just the original female characters, but they tried already something similar in the SW sequel trilogy, and that didn’t go down too went, so now they’re trying a subtler approach – and there already are mixed reviews towards the show. Fun!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, is trying… something similar, actually. Both the titular character, her mom and grandma dominate the show, at least to a point. Since Islam is actually a quite patriarchal religion, there is… a female character, (not related to the Khan family, but still a family friend), who is planning to challenge, or is challenging already, some sort of a mosque board for more gender variety – or something along those lines. Now what?

So far, there is no obvious indication as to how this plotline will go in the future episodes: Disney/MCU obviously has no intention of alienating the Islamic community…but neither does it want to be retrograde and upset the progressive community…so yeah, Disney/MCU is going to handle this politically correct, politely, and perfectly poised – the 3P, you can call them.

On the other hand, we still got the Damage Control duo, as they canvass the area, trying to find that elusive masked vigilante. (This takes place in a world with Sokovia accords, remember?) So far, they do not appear to have much success, but then again, they appear to be mostly annoyances right now… which is appropriate, since now? Kamala is not much of a hero, either.

Oh, of course, she is well intentioned, and she is already doing ‘the right thing’©, but, sadly, the scope is rather underwhelming – period. Again, this isn’t surprising, she isn’t a hero yet, she is only learning, but this does leave her behind on all the excitement and the drama, when compared to ‘Obi-Wan’, where the latter tries to be a telenovela built along the lines of the ‘Rogue 1’ film… or the ‘original’ ‘SW: Legends’ novels… Everything old is new again, put otherwise.

‘Ms. Marvel’, however, does not do that, but tries to be original – to a point. The problem is that while Hulu’s ‘Runaways’ – remember them? – actually did go mostly original, at least in the first two seasons or so – ‘Ms. Marvel’ does not. In fact, it tries to multitask, as it tries to entertain with Kamala and friends’ teenage antics, as well as to promote the Islam-American community, (at least the Pakistani aspect of it), in the best possible light. I.e., ‘Ms. Marvel’ the show fluctuates between reality and fiction, without settling on either, and consequently it risks ending-up flat-footed instead.

There was another TV show that tried something similar, and it was AoS, (the first 2-3 seasons). This show actually introduced a Russian – or a quasi-Russian villain; there was actually a mini-story arc, set in Russia, which caused Hunter and Morse to be taken ‘out of commission’ – they were supposed to get their own TV show, but instead they were taken outright out of MCU. Ouch!

‘Ms. Marvel’, on the other hand, does not have excessive characters, (as AoS did during the first half of S3), but it did have a reference to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the series’ premiere, apparently. Can’t say that I’m too surprised, as S.H.I.E.L.D. is still supposed to be a part of MCU, it’s just that due to real life issues Disney/MCU can no longer fit it, (at least for now), so now we got Damage Control running around, (and not amounting to anything yet). It will be interesting to see as to what exactly MCU will do with this development, and how does S.W.O.R.D. will fit in, (remember, Photon took over S.W.O.R.D. at the end of WV?). Indeed, Photon and S.W.O.R.D. should be appearing soon enough, since Kamala, Carol, and Photon are supposed to all appear in the 2023 MCU movie ‘The Marvels’, right? Because if Photon will be removed – and she is the Afro-American character here – this will be a PR disaster and Disney/MCU hates that…

For now, however, this is it. See you all soon.

JWD - June 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the JWD film instead.

Without getting too deep into spoilers, it works. The movie works. It entertains its’ viewers well enough, and the movie critics hate it. Why?

Because there is no deeper meaning in it, not really, no bigger picture, especially by MCU’s standards. JWD sought to be the endgame for the latest JP/JW incarnation, to show the viewers a world where humans and non-avian dinosaurs coexist, and I would say that it had succeeded at doing so, too. The problem, of course, is so what?

No, let me reiterate the above statement: by 2022, the viewers have become quite sated on dinosaur-related films and such; the recently released ‘Prehistoric Planet’ may’ve stabbed JWD in the back by setting the bar much higher than JWD aspired to – it seems to be an entertaining movie rather than anything else… and it is a self-contained universe as well.

These days, the multiverse seems to be the key to success, as Ms. Yeoh’s ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ movie shows loud and clear, and JWD does not deliver on that level – in JWD, the story is wrapped, there’s no mid-credits or post-credits scene, no anything else. Fair enough, and the rest of the movie is not too evolved either.

Instead, JWD seems to try to milk the nostalgia for the old JP series and with some success at least; whereas J-Ro’s Newt Scamander films tried to add some new material – at least - into the Wizarding ‘Verse… with mixed success, but still it tried. JWD did not try at all; instead, it just went by the numbers and did what it did before with its’ movies, starting with JP3 – and can you blame them? Their source material is two sci-fi novels, written by the late Mr. Crichton, and nothing more; the fact that the franchise managed to make 6 movies rather than just one or two is remarkable enough!.. Anything else?

…JWD aside, people have already talked to me about me glossing over the Damage Control people in the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series premiere. Fair enough, but again, let us turn back to AoS. I know, I know, but for me, AoS did introduce Damage Control into MCU – literally: Damage Control first appeared in the AoS’ S3 episode, when Daisy teamed-up with Mack to save the latter’s brother Reuben, who fell-in with the Watchdogs, (MCU’s take on the KKK, aiming towards the InHumans rather than POCs), and Mack and Daisy had to rescue him – and Damage Control had to clean up the mess at the end of the episode. AoS being what it is, neither Reuben Mackenzie nor Damage Control re-appeared ever again in the series, (though Reuben’s role was taken over by MCU’s Flint – maybe), and Damage Control has surfaced-up here, in ‘Ms. Marvel’ – and so far it appears to be S.H.I.E.L.D. at its’ worst.

Listen again, AoS is the one MCU property that got out of hand and/or out of control, and no one was sad to see it go, not even the cast; there’s no indication that MCU will be rebooting S.H.I.E.L.D. any time soon; unfortunately, AoS is very popular with its’ fans, and since it has ran for 6 slash 7 seasons in a row, it has become quite well-known and well-established as well. So what?

Therefore, for a while now MCU is in a quandary – they had intended to use S.H.I.E.L.D., but because of real-life issues, they are unable to. Consequently, they tried to use something else – S.W.O.R.D. in WV, but WV has had its’ own problems, most notable – the imbalance between Wanda and Vision: WV was supposed to be a TV series about both of them, but instead it turned out to be mainly about Wanda instead, who would go on to become the antagonist in the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film – and that particular movie had no sign of S.W.O.R.D., of the new Vision, or of captain Photon, even though they played important roles in WV. Still, since the upcoming 2023 ‘The Marvels’ film is supposed to feature all of them – Kamala, Carol and Ms. Rambeau – the odds of the Damage Control introducing/re-introducing S.W.O.R.D. into MCU are very good. We will just have to wait and see as to what happens next.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

Ms. Marvel, series premiere - June 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so here is a shout-out to Mr. Nicklaus Brendborg: this learned worthy, while writing – and publishing – his treatise on old age, aging, and immortality, talked about – well, mentioned, really – the naked mole rat. That is fair enough, but he implied that the ‘ordinary’ rats and mice used in labs are its’ relatives. Yeah, no – the terms ‘rat’ and ‘mouse’ are very broad; the term ‘mouse’, for example, includes not only the various rodents, but also the so-called marsupial mice – distant cousins of the kangaroos and the koala, and close cousins of the quolls, the numbat, and the extinct Thylacine. By contrast, the term ‘rat’ includes several genera, including, obviously, the naked mole rat, as well as several of its relatives from the parvorder (or infraorder) Phiomorpha, but the ‘true’ rats aren’t closely related to them; this parvorder actually includes the Old World porcupines, (not the ones found in North America, but the ones found in Africa, Asia, and sometimes even in southern Europe); proportionally, the naked mole rat is a much further relative to the lab rats (derived from the black and Norway rat stocks, mainly), and lab mice, (variant house mouse, primarily), than we are to the apes. For Mr. Brendborg, a man of science and philosophy, to make such a mistake slash generalization is just rude and wrong – so let us end this rant for now, and turn onto ‘Ms. Marvel’, the series’ premiere.

So, what have we here? Last time, when we have talked about the ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ series, we talked about how Disney was playing it safe with SW now, producing new content that is only fan-approved. Whether that is a good long-term strategy is another matter, but this is what Disney does with SW. And what about MCU?

First, in ‘Ms. Marvel’, Disney is playing it safe, again. The series’ opener, ‘Generation Why’, is an introductory chapter through and through; in it we meet Kamala Khan, a modern young woman with a strong personality and personal values, whose relationship with the rest of her family is loving, of course, but there’re some pesky personal issues that initiate the rise of a conflict between them – a generational gap or whatever the modern term is… Wait a second…

…In ‘Encanto’, we have Mirabel Madrigal, who is a teen/young adult, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up.

…In ‘Turning Red’, we have Mei-Mei, who is a teen, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up.

…And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, (the TV 2022 series), we have Kamala Khan, who is a teen, who is a good person, (some character flaws notwithstanding), who loves her family and vice versa, but due to some pesky personal issues she and the rest of her family end up fighting…before making up – wait, what?

…Without a doubt, there are some differences between our three protagonists; i.e., Mirabel is the only one without powers in a power-ful family, (pun intended, sorry), while in Kamala’s case it is more of a reverse, (so far), and Mei-Mei and her mother both have powers to turn into giant red pandas now. Conversely, though…

In ‘Encanto’, the Madrigals are depicted – each of them is depicted – in a unique and a standout way, to a point where Julietta and Pepa’s families don’t appear to be very closely related at all, from a physical P.O.V.

In ‘Turning Red’, the citizens of Toronto – for example, Mei-Mei and her friends – are depicted in all of their multicultural glory, where each and every one of them is unique, in a standout way.

And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, we are about to meet the citizens of New Jersey, all of whom are depicted in a way that promotes America’s multicultural glory, with its’ characters depicted in a unique, standout way, each and every one of them…

Again, there are differences – ‘Turning Red’ and ‘Ms. Marvel’ don’t display the same high level of individualism as ‘Encanto’ has, but their levels are high enough…and then we come to the religious issues. ‘Encanto’ takes place in Colombia, (late 19^th century-first half of 20^th century, most likely), so the odds are that it is a Catholic, rather than a Protestant or Orthodox, community, though that is only a minor element in the movie. ‘Turning Red’… yeah, this one is a bit fudgey, but there are religious-cultural elements as well. And in ‘Ms. Marvel’, we learned from the trailers and the teasers, that Islam will be playing a BIG role in the TV series. Ergo-?

Ergo, while being something of a variation on the theme of a politically correct progressive young woman main character, ‘Ms. Marvel’ is also a propaganda piece, (unlike ‘Encanto’ & ‘Turning Red’, presumably): it aims to show ‘the life and times’ of a Muslim family in the U.S., how it lives, (as a unit), and how it functions, (as a unit), how it is both same and different from the WASP American families, and so on. So-?

So nothing. This week’s episode – ‘Generation Why’ – was pretty much just that: an introduction to yet another politically correct progressive young woman character, and another introduction to a politically correct and properly presented Islamic-American family. People, who like this sort of thing, will like ‘Ms. Marvel’; those who do not, will call it ‘Woke’, and will not. Such ‘soft power’ may be better than the ‘hard power’ that Putin’s Russia is trying to execute in Ukraine, but it has its’ own flaws – but that is a discussion for a different time. Is this it?

…Wait! There is more! There is the Avengers-con! And the magical bracelet from one of Kamala’s grandparents! (A person has two parents, but four grandparents – and we are talking a standard nuclear family here, anything more derived, and we get much more confusing numbers). And Bruno! But we do not talk about Bruno- wait, sorry, wrong Bruno. In ‘Encanto’, Bruno is a seer, (with a strong moon symbolism, but we will not get into it here). In ‘Ms. Marvel’, Bruno is just a teen/young man, who got friendzoned by Kamala so hard, that even the crappy Avenger-con feels sorry for him. No, seriously, there is a feeling that Disney/MCU is poking fun at itself – first there was the Avengers musical in ‘Hawkeye’, which was nothing more than window dressing in that series, and an unnecessary one at that, and now we get the Avengers-con, which was the weakest part of the episode, and as for the ‘magical bracelet’… well, we already talked about it: between AoS and ‘InHumans’, the InHumans became especially toxic and anathema to Disney/MCU, so Kamala will get to be something else other than an InHuman. Good for her!

…For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

'Obi-Wan' - June 7

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but we will be talking about the marvellous Ms. Khan, and some other fictional topics, later this month, but now – we’re obliged to talk about ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ the TV series: what about it?

Nothing in particular, that is what. Whatever Disney does with MCU is one thing, whereas SW found itself in a bit of a hard spot after the ‘Sequel Trilogy’: it had released a trilogy of not-so-good movies, (and several that weren’t so bad, but still not so good, in the meantime), and it had split the fan base, which resulted in the latter wondering if they should bother with SW anymore or what. Since Disney had no intent of making a money loss this big, it did something about it – but what exactly?

…It abandoned the SW films, and instead focused on comics and TV series, subtly rebooting, redesigning, and twisting the already existing SW material to suit their values, that is what. It seems to be doing the same thing with the Marvel characters as well, such as Kamala Khan, but we will talk about her another time, right now, our topic is Obi-Wan Kenobi…

…Well, no, not so much precisely, as there is also ‘The Mandalorian’ to consider, as well ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. The former was praised, the latter not so much. Why?

Because the latter did not go anywhere, but rather just stayed in one spot: ‘The Mandalorian’ developed the SW universe further, while ‘The Book’ did not; in fact, these days most of SW TV series do precisely that – they develop the SW universe further. They also only bridge the gap between the prequel trilogy, (SW films 1-3), and the original trilogy, (SW films 4-6), leaving everything else open. More precisely, the Disney/SW conglomerate are playing it safe; they’re upgrading and tweaking old material, while not adding anything new; they are adding new characters, but they’re second fiddle to the already established ones, whether from the movies, such as Boba Fett and Obi-Wan, or from the older series, such as the characters from the ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ cartoon… So what?

So nothing. When Disney/SW made the sequel trilogy, they were authentically making something new; whether well or poorly is another story, but it was still new, through and through. Now, however, they’re just tweaking and updating the old stuff and playing it safe; working with what already is, or even was, not making anything of their own, of the what-there-could-be variety, because it is risky, and can – and has – result in money loss, both literally, (fewer fans paying fewer monies for the movies), and figuratively, (fewer fans means fewer people to spend monies for the movies). Disney, regardless of whatever its’ guise is – SW, MCU, and so on – is a money-making machine, first and foremost, and whether it is progressive, regressive, or anything else is secondary – but this is more of an MCU issue instead, so we digress.

Well, yes, but ‘Obi-Wan’ is not too different from ‘The Mandalorian’ TV series, or the ‘Rogue 1’ film – it is successful filler material, (unlike the ‘Solo’ movie, which was a decisively unsuccessful one), but nothing more. As such, I doubt that I will write anymore about it anytime soon.

Therefore, for now, this is it. See you all soon!