The Acolyte - Star Wars flipped on it's head

The Acolyte - a fun and entertaining Star Wars show that flips a lot of things on their head.  [SPOILERS AHEAD!!]

First, lets acknowledge the dialogue was painful. Shouting character names should not be dialogue unless its a romance, or very rarely.  This show suffered from overload of "Mae" and "Osha" and a smattering of others.

The action was amazing.  And the acting and cinematography was a mix of ok and bad.

Highlights - Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) as a Jedi!  

Manny Jacinto as an early Sith.  Wow

Witches of Dathomir - interesting, curious, but not spectacular.  Amuxing for sure.

Problems - Many, lets look at a few.

Amandla Stenberg as Osha and Mae, twins.  There were a lot of problems here, but to summarize - the tension and arc were not very interesting, and there was no logical payoff at the end.

I like the Meka-Nek idea and Mae's mission to be turned dark, but I feel like they were positionee as essential to the story & then unresolved.

The little bodiless droid (a first) was mind-wiped without even a tear.

Flips Star Wars genre on its head - don't know if they broke canon, but they definitely ignored some accepted Star Wars premises:

Jesi Sol was messed up and did things that should've had him booted from the Jedi.  He wasn't booted, tho, and as a result a lot of people were killed.  Sol was sort of the bad guy.

Manny's 'the Stranger' was great at killing herds of Jedi with his weird helmet -- hopefully the helmets will get more explanation in future as helpful vs Jedi -- but couldn't kill Sol.  

Why not?  Didn't make sense to me.

Osha flipping to Dark - how could she not?  Sol's betrayal would be enough to infuriate anyone, no?  Destroying her family, separating her from her sister, etc.

The force-choke death was a cool end, but didn't think would work on a Jedi, tho.

Loved the light saber color change, had no idea the alignment affected the color.  Cute.

And then there was the Leader Green Jedi with strange makeup, Vernestra Rwoh, played by Rebecca Henderson.  She reports to Yoda, she's handling & misrepresenting Jedi intrigues, and literally shows that Jedi can't be trusted.  That was the final flip for me.

Summary - I enjoyed the show, but I dunno -- I feel like Acolyte didnt exactly understand what it was doing.

The Arrow, "Spectre of the Gun" S05 E13 - superhero fantasy tackles reality

The Arrow has been a longtime fav of mine -- its cheesier than the Flash, has excellent archetype characters (supersoldiers, nerds, alcoholic cops, vile despicable villains, and kung fu), a unique present/past flashback format, and the ongoing moral quandry about killing bad guys.  (And I love Vigilante, looking forward to him joining team!)

I also forgot to mention there are a lot of minorities -- even though the main stars are white.

*SPOILER FOR EPISODE*

Recently Oliver Queen became Mayor, which makes the entire show far less plausible (if thats possible), but it runs parallel to the Batman mythos pretty closely.

Last episode, something different happened.  Something I had never seen in Superhero TV shows, and I've been watching a lot of them.  The moral dilemma of the show was gun control, multiple sides of the argument were presented, actual FACTS were included (Curtis, "I'm black and three times more likely to get shot."), and the issue was resolved in a (vague) legal compromise.

Curtis and Felicity had the most awkward, but excellent discussion, about debate and argument between friends, how rudeness is destroying political discourse.

Rene's story was perfect for the episode -- who knew he was married with child ??? - where he shoots an intruder with his gun (locked and loaded in a safe), but the intruder's stray shot kills Rene's wife.  Wow.

The villain, a man who's family was killed by gun violence so he was lashing out at the city that had failed him (by not controlling guns?), that was a bit more awkward.

The show was awkward, a big departure from the norm, and it stuck to it's guns (intended metaphor).  And somehow, it sure felt like they were taking a shot at President Rump, even if they never said Trump, Orangutan abortions, mysogynist racist douchebags, or Hitler's protege.

Keep up the good stuff, Team Arrow!!

Revision3.com - application sent!

5 minutes ago, I sent off a resume to Revision3.com, an internet TV site here in the Bay Area that is chock full of exciting new content. They have an ad out for a Director of Programming, and that seems like a great fit for my skill set. I also tagged up the CEO's blog and also emailed one of the show producers to show how interested I am in working with them.

Synchronicity is running high right now at the start of the year. I feel in my bones that this year is going to be full of big moves for me, and that they will pay off.

I have worked hard on a bunch of projects in the previous few years, and hopefully will work much harder on the upcoming years. Money is not my goal, fame is not my goal --> my goal is to work and create incredible results.

I think Revision3 has a lot of excellent raw material already 'in the can', but my left-field type of thinking could really take everything up a notch. That said, I am not only focussing on working at that company (since I have not heard anything from them yet), but at any internet media company that is producing exciting content that takes the chance to deviate from standard TV.

At the heart of it all, it's an 'alt.' thang.