Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 7-9

We’re back to Voltron and they’re back on Earth, it’s finally time to address the controversy as we move into...

Praise4Media #64 - Steven Universe: The Movie

I’ve wanted to talk about Steven Universe for a while. I did a small section in an editorial about it but I didn’t do it justice. I like Steven Universe, a lot. But it handles it gem characters better than most of its human ones. With some exceptions, of course, human characters come off as one-note, which is understandable given that there’s already a sizeable cast of characters, the problem is when episodes focus on these characters, where the conflicts seem forced at best.

The other problem with the show as it stood is with how they treated the main villains. And I’m just gonna put up the spoiler banner for not just this movie but whole main plot of Steven Universe.

The Diamonds, who created an empire of mass genocide and destruction, valuing only their own creation over the lives of everyone else are pacified by the end of Steven Universe. It’s got all the markings of a rushed redemption arc, and with Steven Universe future being half way done and barely touching on the diamonds, I don’t see much changing. And the question becomes whether you should redeem someone who’s responsible for mass genocide.

Good redemptions: Peridot, Zuko

Bad redemptions: The Diamonds, Kylo Ren (we will be getting to that – although Vader also counts here), Kuvira

The difference, the ones that are good take time, the ones that aren’t are generally rushed and tend to ignore the magnitude of their actions (for the purposes of this, I'm ignoring the comic Korra book that helps elaborate on Kuvira)

So, now that the wars are over, what’s next for Steven Universe? Here’s my take on Steven Universe: The Movie.

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 4-6

We’re back with Voltron: Legendary Defender, when we last left the crew, they were struggling with their lions, which are low on power and find it’s been years since Voltron was last seen. Can things get better, let’s take a look at the next 3 episodes.

RageLite review - Solo: A Star Wars Story

So… Was anyone really asking for a Han Solo origin story?

The main crew of the Millennium Falcon are iconic characters. Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, even Lando Calrissian to a lesser extent, but the one with most potential history to explore is Han Solo. How did he become the man he was in the Star Wars films?

This project has been in development by Lucasfilm for some time, even pre-dating the Disney buyout. But production issues kept it from getting its feet off the ground in one form or another. Lawrence Kasdan was initially hired to write the story, he’d been involved in writing the original trilogy, but duties were passed to his son Jonathan as he was picked up to write the Force Awakens. Jonathan Kasdan had written a few episodes of Dawson’s Creek and wrote and directed In the Land of Women and The First Time, both of which are niche films that received mixed reviews and didn’t make much money.

Originally penned as directors were Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hot off the heals of the highly successful The Lego Movie, unfortunately creative differences with the studio caused them to leave and be replaced by Ron Howard. Lord and Miller would go on to be hired by Sony for Into the Spider-verse, so don’t feel too sorry for them. Ron Howard would go onto to reshoot most of the film, inflating the budget to nearly $300m

The film was released in a crowded May-slot with the likes of Deadpool 2 and barely off the heels of Avengers: Infinity War; it ended up making only $393.2m at the box office, the first and only Star Wars film to make a loss at the box office.

But let’s take a look at the story we ended up with and see if it’s a worthy addition to the Star Wars timeline

Netflix Retrospective - Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 7 Episodes 1-3

We’re finally back to Voltron, with the controversial season 7. I’ll get into detail about the nature of said controversy through my review. This still had a high critical rating, with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and enjoyed high audience ratings, although a slight dip from previous seasons. We’re back to 13-episode seasons, so let’s spend the next 4 weeks breaking this season down.

Pixar Playlist #9 - WALL-E

Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist

Wall-E is the 9^th film in the Pixar library, and back in the director’s helm is Andrew Stanton, who had directed Finding Nemo as well as co-written the Toy Story films and A Bug’s Life (though we won’t hold that against him) he was also came up with the plot with Pete Docter, and wrote the screenplay with Jim Reardon, who worked on the Simpsons as well as Tiny Toon adventures.

This film presented a unique challenge, as the main characters had a bare minimum of dialogue and they’d have to other ways to convey the information through the visuals, as a result, this film was their most complex since Monsters Inc, requiring 50,000 more storyboards than the usual 75,000 for a Pixar film.

The animators used silent films as a reference for getting their characters to emote without words, but their job was made even harder given what they were animating and the limitations that came with it. R2-D2 was apparently influential in that regard.

The budget for this film was $180m, another increase and more akin to the norm as the Disney era continues, the film made $533m at the box office, less than Ratatouille did but enough to be successful, this film was applauded by critics and audiences with ratings of 95% and 90% respectively. But where does it rank on my list? Let’s take a look.

RageLite review: Captain Marvel

We’ve got one more MCU film to look at before we get to the big one and that’s Captain Marvel.

We got a teaser for her at the End of Infinity War and people were anticipating her solo outing that would follow up on this. But then Brie Larson had some feminist opinions and the idiots of the internet started spreading fallacies and garbage about her, and if you are one of those people, please stop reading now. I could spread more colourful insults, but you’re not worth the effort.

For those of you who are still reading, you’ll be pleased to know this didn’t affect the bottom line, the film made over $1bn at the box office, being the first female-led superhero film to do so. Yes, it beat out Wonder Woman. It got a reasonable critical reception, a 78% rating with an average 6.8/10 score. I’m not gonna bother with the audience score because of everything I just said in the last paragraph.

The film has 5 writers, which is not usually a good sign. They include Meg LaFauve, who had been involved writing Inside Out and Good Dinosaur for Pixar, Nicola Perlman who was a writing consultant on Thor and co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who wrote the Tomb Raider reboot film, she also wrote the screenplay with the directing duo Anna Bolden and Ryan Flek, who and written and directed several smaller films prior to this. Does this approach pay off? Here are my thoughts:

Praise4Media #63 - Venom

How do you make a Venom story without Spider-man? Easy, there are hundreds of venom comics you can adapt for that? How do you make a Venom origin story without spider-man? Now that’s a trickier question.

When the Amazing Spider-man 2 was filmed, it was intended as a springboard for spin-off properties, in theory not a bad idea but it was handled so clumsily it brought down the reception of the whole film. The Amazing Spider-man 2 made decent money, but not enough for Sony executives to be satisfied, so they reached a deal with Marvel to bring a new version of the web-head into the MCU.

But the idea of spin-offs wasn’t dropped entirely, they were just distanced from any spider-man legacy. So, we are back to our original question: How do you do a venom origin without spider-man?

Grappling with the answer to this question is Jeff Pinker, who co-wrote the Amazing Spider-man 2, Dark Tower and the modern Jumanji movies, Scott Rosenberg, who did an uncredited revision of the first Raimi Spider-man movie, and also the modern Jumanji films (also Kangaroo Jack), and Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote saving Mr Banks and unfortunately did the screenplay for the original 50 Shades of Grey movie. I will never dignify those movies with reviews, so never ask. So mixed bag there then. Directing the film is Ruben Fleischer of the Zombieland films. Wikipedia says he’s directing Uncharted but with the way that project’s going through directors I’m sure if it hasn’t already, it will have changed in the 2 months between me writing this review and it being published.

The film had a budget of $116m and surpassed expectations, making $856m, more than half of the live action Spider-man films made, though less than the more recent MCU outings. It certainly created a divide between audiences and critics, with critics giving it a 29% Rotten Tomatoes rating with an average 4.42/10 score and audiences giving it an 80% rating with an average 4.02/5 score. So, where do I stand? let’s take a look…