Leia: The Princess of Alderaan


Leia: The Princess of Alderaan (Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi) By: Claudia Gray

Plot:

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY….THERE WAS A PRINCESS WHO BECAME A LEGEND.

Sixteen-year-old Princess Leia Organa faces the most challenging task of her life so far: proving herself in the areas of body, mind, and heart to be formally named heir to the thrown of Alderaan. She’s taking rigorous survival courses, practicing politics, and spearheading relief missions to worlds under Imperial control. But Leia has worries beyond her claim to the crown. Her parents, Breha and Bail, aren’t acting like themselves lately; they are distant and preoccupied, seemingly more concerned with throwing dinner parties for their allies in the Senate than they are with their own daughter. Determined to uncover her parents’ secrets, Leia starts down an increasingly dangerous path that puts her right under the watchful eye of the Empire. And when Leia discovers what her parents and their allies are planning behind closed doors, she finds herself facing what seems like an impossible choice; dedicate herself to the people of Alderaan–including the make she loves–or the galaxy at large, which is in desperate need of a rebel hero.

Review:

Leia is a tragic character. Her entire world and family are destroyed by the Empire. She’s also an amazing character because despite all that she keeps fighting. Her son turns evil, she keeps fighting. Her husband is murdered by her son, she keeps fighting. One of her oldest and best friends sacrifices herself so that the resistance can live on, and I’m going to assume she keeps fighting. At this point it’s like Leia is the favorite whipping boy of every Star Wars writer. It’s depressing.

So let’s dive back into the backstory of this tragic character. Surely, we’ll find something happy and not horrible. Right?

Well, the book starts with Leia depressed because her parents have started blocking her out of things. They are no longer the tight family unit she’s grown up as. Being part Lois Lane she discovers through snooping that her parents are part of a rebellion that is just starting out. They resist letting her join, even though they all know it’s actually worse for her if she doesn’t. The Empire will still kill her if they find out.

While trying to convince them she can help she takes part in the Junior Legislature and comes to the realization that the Senate has even less power than she thought. That the Emperor and his lackeys have set up pretty much everything to go the way they want and even when she thinks she’s succeeding, she isn’t.

During this time she meets her fellow Alderannean (?) Kier who she ends up falling in love with. She thinks she can trust him and that they are on the same page. Kier is good, but he values Alderaan’s safety over the safety of the rest of the universe. I imagine his ghost was screaming ‘Fuck You Leia’ when Alderaan blew up. Because that’s right, Leia’s first love, the boy she gave her virginity to, was freaking killed.

I am not a fan of prequels, knowing what’s ultimately going to happen takes all the joy out of it for me, but I read this because one of the hosts of the Strong Female Characters Podcast repeatably mentioned that it was an amazing book and that it was revealed that Holdo was poly. I was excited about that, so I persevered. I kept waiting for Holdo to be in a relationship or something to clue us in, until finally I came to one little line. Leia says she’s going to stick to humanoid males and Holdo says how limiting. That was it. Seriously. I was disappointed and had hoped for so much more.

I didn’t need a sex scene, I just wanted a relationship or something more than a throwaway line that could have been easily missed. Sure we learned more about Holdo, and that was nice, but she came off as a Sci-Fi Luna Lovegood. There wasn’t much there. Occasionally, we got some insights into her character, but Leia for the most part thought she was flighty and weird. By the end of the book she was a bit more fleshed out, but I would have liked more. Like maybe a book about her life instead of a princess we already know a lot about.

The last line basically took a baseball bat and beat you upside the head with dramatic irony. Leia thinks, she’s got her family, friends, and planet. At least the Empire can’t take that away from her. It was massively eye roll inducing.

Claudia Gray is a great author, and this was very well written, but much like Solo I don’t think this book needed to be made. It took a character with a tragic story and doubled down hard. We got some glimpses into what it was like to live on Alderaan, which made the loss even worse, but honestly that was about it for me.

3/5

Jack Ryan (2018-?)


Jack Ryan (2018-?)

Network:

Amazon

Creator:

Carlton Cuse

Graham Roland

Starring:

John Krasinski

Wendell Pierce

Abbie Cornish

Ali Suliman

Dina Shihabi

Plot:

An up-and-coming CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, is thrust into a dangerous field assignment as he uncovers a pattern in terrorist communication that launches him into the center of a dangerous gambit.

Review:

When I was younger I really enjoyed the Jack Ryan books by Tom Clancy. It’s been a few years so I’m not sure how those feelings have aged, but I was curious to see this and binged it one weekend.

Jack Ryan, John Krasiniski, is a former marine that after a tragic accident was honorably discharged. He went from a stock broker to working for the CIA as an analyst. He has spotted suspicious financial activity and believes he’s discovered someone about to commit the next 9/11.

The number of times 9/11 was mentioned in the first episode was annoying and had the opposite of the intended effect. I almost stopped there because of it, thankfully, it wasn’t really mentioned again.

I wasn’t impressed with Krasinski’s portrayal of the role. The only time I could tell what he was feeling was when he was smiling, but a show about terrorism meant he was rarely smiling. Every other time I was just guessing, occasionally there would be verbal queues but they didn’t match up with what his face was saying. Mostly he just looked like he was there.

There was one whole plot line with a drone pilot that has caused some controversy because of the transphobic joke that was made. I actually missed the “joke” because I’d been fast forwarding through his sections. They honestly made no sense and could have been completely removed. Maybe his character comes into play later on if there’s another season, but for now it was just wtf.

Female representation was mostly disappointing. Cathy, Abbie Cornish, was the best female main character we had and she was mostly just Jack’s love interest. She did end up getting some of her doctor skills thrown in, but she kind of ruined that by getting mad at Jack for lying about his job. We had a French police captain that was killed. Hanin, Dina Shihabi, was good, but her story line revolved around her escaping her husband and being saved once by the drone operator and then ultimately by Jack. It was a bit disappointing.

James Greer, Wendell Pierce, was probably my favorite character. I loved that they made him a Muslim. He was so incredibly competent at his job and he didn’t automatically share shit with Jack because he was the boss, he didn’t have too. He reminded me of Holdo in The Last Jedi in that regard. He was interesting and a badass and if there’s a second season and they hold with what’s been established in the show and books he’ll be there.

Honestly, based on what I remember of the books, they took a fair amount of creative liberties. That was to be expected, though. Jack Ryan is more about connecting the dots and not action. Occasionally action, but normally it’s a lot of discovering information and sending someone else out into the field. To make a TV show watchable and not boring they had to add more, but it would have been cool if they’d added John Clark and Domingo Chavez.

I’ll probably watch a second season, but I hope they make some tweaks.

3/5

 

 

Book Club (2018)


Book Club (2018)

Director:

Bill Holderman

Starring:

Diane Keaton

Jane Fonda

Candice Bergman

Mary Steenburgen

Plot:

Four lifelong friends have their lives forever changed after reading 50 Shades of Grey in their monthly book club.

Review:

I find it incredible that four friends have managed to hold a book club for so long. I think they said forty years but I could be off. That’s amazing.

Each of the women were unique in their current relationship status, all believable though somewhat out there, and all at a crossroads. Really, the fact that they were reading the 50 Shades trilogy had very little to do with the story and seems like someone just thought it would be funny for older women to be reading it.

The movie was sweet and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t one that stuck with me afterwards. I really appreciated watching a romance that wasn’t staring the typical young white woman, though, the only real change was the age of the women. However, there aren’t many romance movies with women of a certain age so that was a welcome change. Maybe as I get older it will resonate with me more. As is it’s definitely something I would recommend, but not a movie I would re-watch frequently.

4/5

Victoria and Abdul (2017)


Victoria and Abdul (2017)

Director:

Stephen Frears

Starring:

Judi Dench

Ali Fazal

Plot:

Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

Review:

I was unaware of Queen Victoria’s relationship and fascination with India before this movie. It was quiet eye opening, though, it’s very obvious that the movie paints things in a very positive light for the queen, though, not actually the country.

Queen Victoria, Judi Dench, is bored with life and basically waiting to die. She hates her children and honestly seems to hate everything about her life but food. Until, one day, Abdul, Ali Fazal, shows up to present a mujer (?) to her. It’s a gold coin.

Fascinated by him, she ends up seemingly becoming obsessed with India. She hires him to teach her everything and finds a new purpose in life. The people around her, especially her son and the heir, are not very thrilled about that, but she’s the queen so they have to get over it.

Judi Dench was amazing, of course, and the story was interesting, but the pacing was kind of off. At first it seemed like this was all happening within a matter of months, but it actually happened over a period of years, but I only know that because of Wikipedia. I feel like they could have done a better job of showing the passage of time instead of trying to make Queen Victoria look like a fat, doddering old person.

Victoria and Abdul was mildly entertaining and presented a new story about an interesting monarch, but it went out of its way to show the titular people in a flattering light.

3/5

Girls Trip (2017)


Girls Trip (2017)

Director:

Malcolm D. Lee

Starring:

Regina Hall

Queen Latifah

Jada Pinkett Smith

Tiffany Haddish

Plot:

When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there’s enough dancing, drinking, brawling, and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.

Review:

Regina Hall has her life together. Dubbed the new coming of Oprah she sells books and a lifestyle stating that women can have it all and that she is proof. Work hard, play hard, love hard. Everything is perfect.

Of course it’s not. Life is never perfect and people who try to sell that are, duh, selling something.

Deciding that what she really needs is to hook back up with her friends she invites them all to the Essence Festival in New Orleans and she rediscovers what really matters in life. Along the way they drink a ton of booze, ogle a lot of men, fight, make up, and just have a great time together.

This movie was great. It showed so well what it’s like when a bunch of women get together, without being degrading or disparaging. It was raunchy but the jokes were funny and not normally made at someone’s expense. I really enjoyed it.

4.5/5