Operation Deep-Freeze

DVD, The Champions (Operation Deep-Freeze)

Opposite in just about all respects is this to previous episode, 'Happening.' That was in the desert of Australia, this is in the ice and snow of Antarctica; that had two of them split off and the other trapped alone in a compelling way, this has the two on their own and the other allowed a minor scene as contribution; that ended with the aversion of a nuclear bomb, this begins with the accidental explosion of the same as if the tension is let out right from the start (and ends with another blast!). They do share similarities, with extensive use of stock footage and indoor sets to represent the natural environment. The post-credits scene establishing their powers is also another to feature a solitary Richard, so the parallels between the two episodes are surprising. It's a shame this one didn't have the dramatic weight of the former, and could be the weakest so far. Sand is far easier to replicate than snow, because sand can be used as sand, but clearly snow isn't going to be actual snow, so it ends up looking like white sand and behaving in the same way, so when Craig and Richard are building a mound to stick a flag marker in, it looks wrong, like they're finding rocks in sand rather than digging out blocks of ice, not selling this environment. The same is true when you see specks of 'snow' on their clothes or sleeping bags in the tent when it should have melted. They can't be faulted for ambition on this series, but this may have been pushing too far. If they'd kept to the constructed sets like the secret base with its log huts and ice-hewn tunnels, the illusion would have worked, as those were very well done, it was purely the trudging through fake snow that showed their limitations.

The villains are a nondescript group representing some neo-fascist regime, they assume, with nonspecific foreign accents and insignia. I suppose it shows what even a small country with ruthless ambition can do in the 'modern' world of the nuclear age - as General Gomez says, a small man with a gun is as powerful as a big man with a gun. The sheer number of the bad guys doesn't help them become interesting players in the events, the closest being Captain Jost, played by Walter Gotell, famous for being the Russian General in multiple James Bond films across the years. Gomez is just a thug, but his subordinate, Colonel Santos has something more to him by his shocking suicide in the wake of failure, though even that is a bit stereotypical. There really were too many characters to keep track of, and for once we get two pages of guest cast credits due to the large number of speaking roles, though even then some are left out. Mills, the bearded guy at Scott Base for one, and Joiner, the bald scientist, is another that aren't credited, and possibly one or two of the soldiers. I was surprised that even the 'Ship's Captain' was credited, though I don't remember who Margoli, Mendoza and Hoffner were from the credits - I thought there was a Lieutenant Beaver, but I could have misheard.

I wonder what the reason was for practically excluding Sharron from the episode, as this is the Richard and Craig Show for almost the entire time, Sharron only getting in for the last few minutes, and then only in Tremayne's office where she sees the danger her comrades are in (people always end up getting shut in cold storage!), and tries to insist on her boss taking action to send a search party for them. Obviously Tremayne isn't going to take any notice of her hysterical pleadings so once he's left her alone to calm down (exiting through the door just along from the automatic main entrance, which I don't think we'd seen before), she goes over his head and rings up to authorise a search. Conveniently there's no end scene for the episode in Tremayne's office, so we never hear what he made of her actions or whether she was punished. You can imagine he'd let her off as she turned out to be right, but with a stern warning not to do it again! Perhaps Alexandra Bastedo was kept busy filming another episode during the production of this one so as to save time and money, a canny way of netting a lot of episodes by splitting up the main cast, I imagine.

Apart from Sharron's one starring moment sensing danger and seeing an image of Craig and Richard freezing to death in a cell, the main use of powers inevitably comes from them: the post-credits sequence has Richard braking on an intuition, before a little girl runs out into the road chasing her ball. The only problem with that scene was that he stops for a few seconds before she appears which makes it seem if he'd kept driving he'd have been past her before it happened, but distances are hard to judge on a screen so perhaps she was further away than she appeared - who am I to doubt the powers of the champions? Richard displays this intuitive power again when he's compelled towards a spot in the snow to discover one of the murdered rescue parties to the amazement of Hemmings, their guide. I didn't remember exactly what happened so I was expecting him to turn out to be working with the villains, perhaps because Jost doesn't attempt to shoot the trio when he can, and because Craig and Richard are concerned that they won't be able to operate as smoothly with him along, but it proves not to be the case. Craig also has a sense that tells him they're being followed, and reminds us of their limits: he says that if their pursuers were camouflaged even their improved senses couldn't see anything. He also hears the sound of skis as the enemies approach. They both use their strength by leaping further than any normal man in order to take down an opponent. Richard pushes in the door to the storage room and Craig rips off the lid of a container of tactical atomic shells, so they had plenty to exercise their abilities.

It's just that there wasn't anything really cool (aside from all that ice and snow, of course), the way they went about things was matter-of-fact. They did get out of range of the radiation blast quicker than they should have according to Gregson, the Commander of Scott Base, but it wasn't a spectacular thing as some of their powers have been in other episodes. There is a bit of violence, such as Jost strangling Hemmings with some rope, the sight of a frozen murdered body with some blood on the front, and Craig head-butting someone, but it's more acrobatic than brutal in general, and things like Santos shooting himself is only implied, we see his subordinate (Major Zerrilli?), walk down a corridor and hear a shot ring out. It's more brutal that Gomez doesn't even inquire further into the suicide or show any surprise, and in fact says he was right to do it, implying a fate worse than death would have been his portion had he been alive.

As usual there is the occasional questionable logic such as the order to dress the 'dead' Richard and Craig in their outdoor clothes to drop off somewhere as a delaying tactic for the authorities to find and put them off course. How were they going to dress them if they were frozen solid - even a corpse would go into rigor mortis, so a frozen corpse would be impossible to manoeuvre into clothes, surely? The other big thing was, on the face of it, a clever way for the pair to blend in at the enemy camp, joining in the general confusion and hubbub of people running around, except Richard ruins it by saying loudly there's 'no sign of them here' as he looks underneath a jeep, but in a British accent! There's also the stock footage of the icebreaker played backwards for the scene where it reverses, but that was just a sensible budget saver - I like the fact that the script has Tremayne and his agents talk of penguins just so they can get in some stock footage of them! In fairness the stock was generally good - the dogs didn't really match up to the ones on set, but it wasn't a big problem, it's just that whenever it cut to the flat, snowy expanse characters were supposed to be travelling through, that the illusion didn't hold up.

This time Tremayne actually takes his men over to the gigantic world map for the briefing about the South Pole - I liked seeing him walk past the other end of the map where you can see the Arctic and wonder if that will be another episode one day! Tremayne was right about the joint venture being a remarkable example of cooperation between nations because this was made during the cold war, so anything that had the US and Russia working together on was special, and I wish they'd played that aspect up, perhaps having a team of different nationalities that Craig and Richard can direct against the one small country that's decided to strike out against the world. The plane set gets yet another outing for the journey into and out of Antarctica, and it's in these scenes that Craig and Richard are most enjoyable, bouncing off each other, though for much of the episode you don't get as strong a sense of friendship and banter. I wouldn't say Sharron is especially missed, but it isn't quite right without her being a big part of the story, even if it does make sense for the three not to be working together all the time - they're three separate agents, just like any others in the eyes of Nemesis, and it makes you wonder what it would be like to see them paired with other agents of the organisation on occasion. As with Hemmings they'd have to be careful how they operated, adding a new level of caution to proceedings. Not that they were particularly cautious: Richard couldn't have looked more strange being drawn to the dead bodies hidden in the snow, and Sharron was melodramatic in her efforts to influence Tremayne, so little wonder if anyone did get suspicious!

**

Need For Speed Most Wanted

GameCube, Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005), game

The trouble with any long-running series is keeping each update fresh, yet in the same mould - people want to play what they played before, but better and bigger, so when an experience is no longer new, any instalment that comes after has to be a lot better just to be equal, and requires a new gimmick to expand the original experience. The 'Need For Speed' series had a long pedigree (growing longer as we speak, I suspect), but I first came to it on the 'Cube with 'Need For Speed Underground,' (actually the second 'NFS' game on the system, after 'Hot Pursuit'), and enjoyed its mix of racing styles. The sequel, 'Underground 2,' fixed the biggest problem with the first game: that it all took place at night with dazzling neon lights making seeing your way as much a part of the challenge as racing your opponents. Now races took place at dawn and dusk, plus, rather than choosing the next race from a menu screen, you were thrust into the heart of a sprawling city ripe for exploration, experimentation and a more realistic approach. There was the impression of a living city, many cars on the road, some of which you could challenge to an impromptu race, and new modes like the Downhill Drift. Where could the series go from there, and what new addition would make it worth buying?

With 'NFS Most Wanted' they furthered the idea of a living city by including the police authorities and setting it entirely in the daytime. The previous city, full of impersonal skyscrapers and concrete bypasses gave way to more varied locations with countryside, trees, a golf course, as well as the motorways and facilities of a realistic metropolis. The exploration side of things was cut down with nothing to collect, as in 'NFSU2' you could find money, for example, but it was a bit boring just driving around looking for stuff. Instead, learning the layout as if you were a real resident of this virtual world garnered its own rewards, an essential knowledge in evading the police pursuits that would come down on you if you caused too much chaos and damage in your exploits. A loose story (with Judi Durand as one of the voices - she was the computer voice in 'DS9'!), provided a larger scope as you took on the reputations of other street racers to rise up the ranks of the Blacklist and prove yourself against these other malcontents. And the few new game modes continued the tradition of new ways to play. These included Speed Trap races where it wasn't about coming first, but about getting the highest cumulative clocked speed when driving through speed cameras, and the Tollbooth challenge, basically an old-fashioned time trial where you had to get to each checkpoint before the timer ran down. My biggest disappointment was the abandonment of my favourite mode in the previous games, the Drift courses, and that your car could barely even drift at all in-race.

I can see why they did this, because the main focus of the game was to evade capture from the police and if you had the ability to drift as much as in the previous games it would probably have made the game too easy and would have affected the physics of the world. That's what I assume, anyway. The pursuits are what really made up for that lack, as you go from a single panda car chasing to a pack of them, to larger vehicles coming right at you to ram you off the road, to high performance racers, and even a helicopter! The escalation of the experience was very well done, and it became a real challenge to succeed at the various objectives, such as getting through a certain number of roadblocks, dodging speed strips, tagging a number of cars, or just surviving longer than a set period. These objectives, getting harder as you progressed up the Blacklist, made it more than just a simple runaround, which would have become boring once you got the hang of it, and something else added an extra frisson of danger: you were actually penalised for getting caught, whether in money or in the eventual impounding of your vehicle, so there was a serious incentive not to be captured, whereas if you had complete freedom and it didn't matter there'd be little impression of danger.

This pursuit mode added hugely to the gaming experience, making the game pull equal with the previous games in the series where it would otherwise have been merely more of the same racing, just in a new city layout. It was also a whole new experience, with some excellent AI in the police that meant they weren't stupid, although you could fool them - sometimes you could see how they cheated, such as zipping over speed strips without any damage to their tyres, but they did make contact with other vehicles and get smashed up, so it was well balanced. There are few gaming experiences more satisfying than tapping the rear side of a police car and seeing it swerve into a wall, or dodging the incoming heavy vehicles as they plough millimetres past you to pile into the pursuing cars behind and causing a satisfying smash. The longevity of the game, through both this sandbox feel and an added Challenge mode with almost seventy individual races or pursuits to conquer meant that the game was going to be jumping in the optical drive for a long time, and while, like all racing games, it could get boring sometimes after a few hours of play, you soon want to jump right back in and win a few more races. The pursuit could be made easier by heading for the main motorway at the top left of the map, a speedy circuit ideal for dodging or outrunning the authorities, then heading into the golf course to lose them or into the stadium, then pulling into a handy little cool-down spot. But if you were brave, you could see how far you'd get in the city streets, tighter and winding, with less space to manoeuvre around obstacles.

The busy roads were another draw, and there was fun to be had careering into great log-carrying lorries, spreading their load across the highway, or car transporters which would deposit their cargo behind them. I did have the sense of wishing there could be more variety in vehicles, even though there were a lot, but it was only a minor gripe as the city became overfamiliar. I could also find fault with the usual gaming situation of some fences being smash-able, while others stop you dead, and it would be wonderful to play a game where you had the freedom to really explore off over the fields and far away, but then where would that get you, you'd be lost? One road I really wanted to explore was the only one blocked off with permanent roadworks, yet on the map could be seen to snake off into the distance, so I was pleased when that turned out to be the exit point for winning the game!

At first I didn't realise there was an option to select races from a menu as in the first game, instead of driving around the streets to reach races - even with the aid of GPS it could be tiresome, but it was useful to become familiar with the streets. Once I realised the choice was there I understood it was a positive to have the option of both freeform driving or immediate selection. The morality of picking sides against the good guys, and the revealing way the female characters were shot (though these things were somewhat turned around by the end of the game), shows the direction games were headed in, but I didn't really have a problem with smashing up digital police cars, after all it's supposed to be giving you fun gaming experiences that you wouldn't do in real life. Things can be taken too far, but here it was just right, and there aren't really people in the game - you do see police in the cars and the silhouettes of people in other vehicles, but bodies aren't thrown from damaged vehicles to be splayed on the road, there are no emergency services (though there are fire engines in one area), giving a sense of cleaning up after mortal destruction, and there's no indication that your objective or option is to take the lives of innocent people, or of anyone, unlike some games that would become notorious, so it's all good, clean fun, though the story could have been a little more involving in retrospect, perhaps adding in more regular cutscenes (which were done in a strong visual style that wasn't quite real world, but a stylised version of it).

It's such a huge game, taking me around six months to get through, that there was more to it than I even cared to explore, the main aspect being the customisation of your vehicles, or the ability to collect cars. All I wanted was to get the fastest parts and didn't spend time fiddling about in shops customising the look, although to the game's credit, even this aspect could be an integral part of the experience since you could throw the police off your trail and cool your ride's cop-drawing rep by changing the decals, colour and parts. It was good that a performance customisation was available to tweak how your car raced in different environments or styles of races, but even better that I didn't find it essential to do that either, I could just get down to racing with automatic gears and enjoy the arcade nature of it all. Police chases in games weren't new even at that time, with Amiga games like 'APB: All Points Bulletin' or 'Chase HQ' where you were the coppers, or 'Crazy Cars' where you were running bootlegged liquor across the country. Perhaps the legacy of those games was part of the inspiration for this, and I suspect 'Burnout 2' played its part in that regard, too, where it had a police chase mode, though again you were the police taking out the criminals.

All in all, I'd recommend this, even if the earlier games had been played and completed. It's not quite as great a game as 'Burnout 2,' partly because I never had the chance to try out the multiplayer option - it would be amazing if one player could work with the police, while another evaded, or both evaded, any number of cooperative or competitive scenarios could have been devised, though the implementation might have been further than the technology of the time could perform. But having played it to pretty much completion I would say it is the best contender for being strongest of the three 'NFS' games I've played: the first I thought well of for the new experience of underground street racing, the second for its huge city and open racing, and now this for its unique gameplay. I can only hope 'NFS Carbon' is as good. I say 'pretty much completion' because although I got to the top of the Blacklist, beat Razor and evaded Cross, as well as succeeding at all sixty-eight Challenge scenarios (which were challenging enough to make some of the latter races in the main game seem relatively easy!), there is still a life beyond for the game: the Rap Sheet gives you more tasks to achieve in the pursuit mode, and only when you're at the number one spot on all of these categories will the game be finally complete. Even though I've been playing it so long I still have the appetite to try for those, making this a really good game, the best new one I've played in a while.

****

The Ties That Bind

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (The Ties That Bind)

A wild goose chase, yes, but a modestly fun one, if maybe not that wild, very little chasing and no goose to speak of. Just like Vala it continually subverts expectations and is never quite the episode you think it's going to be. Or maybe Vala isn't a good example (I'm not sure she's a good example of anything, unless it's a crook, a thief, and a vagabond), because she's lied and twisted everything so much that you always expect it, that is the expectation! But she does it again when she tells some phoney story about being stoned and cast out by her own village to try and get in Daniel's good books, and that merely because she's bored, and I actually believed her for a moment, I thought it was a genuine vision of the real Vala, but the truth is we see the real Vala all the time, she doesn't have a filter, nor does she conceal anything once you get to know her devious nature, and that's why she works so well opposite Daniel, because he's world weary enough that he never believes her and she makes him weary. Witness the funny parting when you know she was going to steal something, Daniel knows and takes it off her. Then, like a magician using sleight of hand and a diversion, she wants a goodbye hug and of course you know she's snatched it back off him, but what's fun is that he knows it too, and she doesn't get away with it. So their interplay is fun, to Vala just a game to entertain herself, but for Daniel a bit of a chore when he has to put up with her for even longer than anticipated.

Yes, she hasn't gone away yet, the parting is such short 'sorrow' as the effect of the bracelet technology, which they were finally free of, continues even without the bracelets being active and connected, probably something to do with using the other Ancient tech when they visited the Ori. So Vala's back - I had to wonder how she got back, because surely she'd have collapsed in the same way Daniel did when they were too far apart. I assume she felt some early signs of illness and hop-stepped it back to Earth again. Because if there's one thing for sure, she certainly didn't have any friends to assist her if we go by the catalogue of associates she's ripped off or left in the lurch, and this is the episode where we meet some of them. First up is Wallace Shawn, the scientist of another planet whom she robbed the bracelets from in the first place and who may have the answer to their little bond. Why does he always seem to play lecherous old men? He's most famous for being slimy leader of the Ferengi, Grand Nagus Zek throughout 'DS9,' and a crook in 'The Princess Bride' - okay, so the dinosaur in the 'Toy Story' films is a departure, but then he's not old! The bond for the solution to their bond is a necklace that belonged to his Mother, which Vala also heartlessly stole, so that leads them to Inago, a post-Goa'uld Jaffa trying to make a living as a trader in weapons and artefacts (doesn't anyone care about a trader being held up at gunpoint in a marketplace? You'd think the local constabulary would have been alerted when they pull out weapons!). He wants a power coil which ended up at some monastic place, and lo and behold the hypocritical monk there, Caius, is also a former associate and demands his ship back, which she'd 'borrowed.'

Again, it seems this story is going to be a straight-up 'swap the items until you get what you need,' but then the Lucian Alliance get introduced to Earth and the SGC, though Vala had encountered them before (and they would go on to be the main opposition/compatriots of 'Stargate Universe'), with their flotilla of stolen ex-Goa'uld ships and their mercenary band. So then it becomes a sort of heist to get back Caius' ship and the chain goes on until we get back to Shawn's character who thanks them kindly then suggests there's no way to remove the bond keeping Daniel and Vala together, but he thinks it'll probably dissolve of its own accord in time! It's a fun, if largely uneventful episode in terms of important doings, or it would be, except that it introduces both an enemy that will be integral, and other concepts such as the post-Goa'uld existence of Jaffa, struggling to live, as well as the struggles with budget Stargate Command is under. That last is the most ripe for discussion and further exploration as it mirrors the real world production of these two shows that were now being made side by side, with 'Atlantis' getting the attention, the budget and being considered the new hope for the franchise, while 'SG-1' can't even, well, get SG-1 together! I wonder if it was a comment on the realities of TV production by the writers, couched in the in-world realities of an old programme no longer seeming very relevant any more compared to what the Pegasus Galaxy could offer.

It's quite sad, really, if not entirely surprising, since the military/civilian tension had always been there from the beginning, ironically mainly exampled by Dr. Jackson as the outside voice. Now he's the insider and the General says they're going to have a civilian watchdog put on them to make sure things go as they 'should,' when you'd think, because the military is beholden to the government, the SGC would be at the top of the list for requiring money and autonomy - they even mention that Dr. Weir's Atlantis project is civilian run. It's something that would rise to a head by the time of 'Universe' when power struggles between the two sides were a regular occurrence. I like that things haven't, even four episodes in, settled down to the way they always were. I don't like that Colonel Carter has yet to show up in person (and even then only on a video in the first episode), but this must be why Vala has been afforded so much exposure - she's still credited as a Special Guest Star, after all. But in reality things don't reset and go back to normal, especially after such a series-ending season ender, with this season almost an afterthought, a chance to see what would have happened after those events of the Goa'uld's defeat (though they do say that there are still Goa'uld out there, they're just a lot less powerful without their Jaffa soldiers). A bit like if 'Voyager' had continued for an eighth season and we saw them back on Earth or doing missions for Starfleet. Oh how I wish we'd seen that!

Teal'c comes back, but only as a favour to Daniel, not for the benefit of Mitchell, who still holds out hopes of getting the gang back together. Each episode you think this is going to be the one where we see Carter, Daniel and Teal'c working under Mitchell, returning to the business of exploration, visiting the thousands of remaining unexplored 'gate addresses in our galaxy, and they keep putting it off. But not in a padding way, not in a treading water way, a way that increases the anticipation for that inevitable happy event. And in the meantime, Vala is great fun, even when she is messing things up. She does redeem herself a little by pulling some tricks on the Lucian ships that come after them, and she's so often in high spirits and having fun you can't help but be swept along with her, although Daniel is intelligent enough to discern her psychology, and though fooled for a second, he's quick to see through her every move. It's like a tennis match or some kind of game, and she's a tricky customer, but we're with Daniel as he deals with her.

As well as Wallace Shawn, there's another fairly prominent Trek actor in the mix, none other than Surak himself, Bruce Gray (he'd also played a recurring role of Admiral Chekote, if two episodes can be classed as that, in both 'DS9' and 'TNG'), as the guy holding the purse strings firmly closed against the SGC, charging them to operate on thirty percent of the budget, basically because they're pretty much irrelevant now. All it needs is some new discovery to band the SG-1 team back together, get the powers-that-be invested, and Mitchell's problems will be over. Or just beginning, as he finds out what kind of adventures these veterans are used to. Maybe they'll keep Vala for a bit longer, and I hope they do because she does work well with the cast, even if she can be a little too much sometimes. With a civilian observer that could shake things up even more and while the formula of the series has yet to settle into something familiar, although the wry humour and well-judged physical comedy is still there, we're four episodes in already, and it doesn't feel like it, so the time isn't being spent unwisely or lacking in entertainment value, and that's the important thing.

***

Happening

DVD, The Champions (Happening)

In the first episode all three of them were lost or captive, but even then, they separated. In the second episode it was Craig who wound up captured by the villains. In the third, it was Craig again, then it was Sharron, and now, in the fifth episode, the formula continues with Richard separated, stranded, and eventually trapped by a villain! Okay, so their powers are more acute when we see them having to contact each other or search for one of their number, but it would be nice to have an episode where they all work together and in proximity the entire time. But the formula has worked pretty well so far, so it's not a bad thing. What isn't such a good thing is that this is the first episode you get the impression their imagination and vision exceeded their budget as we get indoor sets standing in for the Australian Outback (or Simpson Desert to be precise, according to the big map that opens each episode). Indoor, sand-covered sets or the bunker are the only locations used, for the most part, and so the production does come across as a bit scrappy - when Richard's pushed out of the helicopter we see a stiff dummy drop out which might have been better not seen at all, just use an existing shot of the chopper rising up and zoom out of it as if it's his point of view (though it did look as if the chopper footage had been filmed for the episode). Then there are the backdrops which are clearly painted and you can even see a stage door over which the scenery is painted behind the 'Joe's Motel' billboard which brings to mind something like 'The Truman Show' - none of it is real!

Except, for some reason you soon find yourself being immersed in Richard's plight. Despite the old chestnut of amnesia, things hang together rather well, and I don't know if this was Brian Clemens' influence, he who created 'The Avengers' and various other TV shows, and even had a hand in 'BUGS,' the modern equivalent of 'The Champions' when I was growing up in the Nineties, but it's the characters that shine forth and make you forget about any shoddiness at the production level and draws you in like it could be a stage play. And everyone knows that in a stage play the sets are almost immaterial to the drama created by the players (see 'Spectre of The Gun' from 'Star Trek' for an example of how sets can be unimportant and stylised). And so it was here. I wouldn't even say the sets were shoddy, they probably had a deal of work put into them, with interest in the landmarks, sizeable enough that they don't feel constrained, and good direction all papering over the obvious lack of an outdoor, naturalistic setting. I imagine the sets were expensive really, and the episode put me in mind of an old 'DS9' story called 'Progress,' a similar tale of an old man that refuses to leave the area of some new project that will effectively destroy everything that is his home, and only one person can persuade him to leave. It's not quite the same story, but there are a lot of parallels, not least of which is an impressive house, or in this case, Joe's Place, a bar that is empty because, and get this, there's nobody there.

That's the kind of humour that comes from the mouth of one Banner B. Banner (his Mother didn't have much of an imagination, apparently), and no, this isn't the kind of radioactive test area that this Banner would be turned into The Incredible Hulk in, nor is he a doctor. Far from it. He's a grizzled old Outbackian, or whatever you call them, a colourful fellow with equally colourful language - a couple of swearwords he gets away with you wouldn't expect to find in a Sixties TV show! But, though his accent wanders from Aussie to almost Irish or American, he's a fun guy to be around and has a lot more life than most of the guest cast have been imbued with so far on the series, and I think this genuinely must be Clemens' mark. Mind you, he doesn't have to deal with many characters, as there's only Banner, General Winters and Major Joss, the nasty villain you can have a touch of sympathy for in that he bravely, and without question, accepts his superior's decision not to send another chopper to get him out of the coming blast radius. I like a villain you can respect, and we haven't had that many of them so far. He's a soldier (in both attitude to death, and skill - he isn't fooled by Richard's diversion to try and get around him, firing both sides of the bomb tower), and therefore ready to die (plus he's played by Michael Gough who went on to play Batman's butler, Alfred, in the Eighties/Nineties films).

Having such a small guest cast means Tremayne gets to come along on the action along with Craig and Sharron, so that adds a further positive spin on things. When Winters (whom I assume was an Australian General, though he didn't have much of an accent), suggests Nemesis are a pessimistic lot, Tremayne says they always expect the worst, then when it's only half as bad they feel they can deal with it! It's typically modest, but reassuring of the man in charge and I only wish we'd been allowed more of him, though it's always a pleasure to see him out of the office. The bunker from where the test site explosion for a clean bomb is controlled, is a busy place with a lot of extras contrasting strongly with the majority of the episode where we're in the 'wide open' spaces of desert and only two people: Barrett and Banner. The memory loss allows time for things to heat up, otherwise Richard would probably know exactly what to do too quickly. But because we meander a bit it gives the ending a good buildup and Joss the time to prevent any sabotage of his sabotage. I must say, the Australians didn't do a very good job of making sure everyone was out of the test area. Was it really enough to make sure everyone knew about it, surely they should have enforced the evacuation? That's why Banner is still there, he refuses to leave and doesn't believe they'll go through with it, but they don't know he's still there! Maybe he half thought they would and so he might as well die there as somewhere new?

The old man looks like Worzel Gummidge, drinks like a fish, and has a laid-back attitude to life, but there's more to him than that, which speaks to the good writing - when he helps Richard discover his forgotten identity and they stumble on the body of the man he shot during the scuffle in the chopper (I assume he was the Aston from the credits, as although he doesn't have any lines, this scar-faced character is the only other person you could pin a name on, unless you're counting 'Razor Red' the codename for the superior Joss speaks to on the radio), he quickly assumes the worst about Richard, who then proceeds to try and rescue him from a snake and gets beaten down for his trouble, then bitten, before Banner shoots the thing's head off! But when Richard eventually comes to in the grave Banner's burying him in, the old man shows great remorse and regret - he was sure Barrett was dead and you see a different side to the old goat. His musings about how nice the grave would have been, and the colourful poem he planned to put on the headstone only endear him to Richard and us more. Obviously we don't want Richard to get blown up, but we don't want that to happen to Banner either so the drama does a good job of making us care about the situation they're in, Richard shaking the truth out of his host: there's a bomb in the well that's going to go off soon and they don't have time to escape.

The rising tension is well handled as just as Richard finds out what danger he's in, Major Joss shows up to protect the radioactive addition that will spread death for fifteen hundred miles or more. We never know the motives behind this terrorist, or perhaps Soviet powers' plot, but it's enough to know that some foreign faction wants to cause this chaos. One of the best uses of their powers in the series so far is when Richard, pinned down by Joss' rifle from behind the billboard, uses Banner's hunting knife as a throwing blade, homing in on Joss' heartbeat with his superior hearing and blasting that knife right through the billboard to take out the enemy! Clemens' inventiveness again, I'm sure. The quick cutting between Richard's intent face, the image of the board as we glide across it, and Joss behind it, was excellently done and it's probably the best moment of the episode. There are other examples of their powers being used, but as often is the case, they are inconsistent: the biggest flaw is that Richard doesn't seek to communicate with the others. They get occasional pictures of the hot sun, sense confusion, feel when he's been bitten, and Craig even takes cover against a wall in the bunker as Richard's shot at, but they never directly communicate until Craig sends pictures of which wires to cut to deactivate the bomb. Much of the episode this can be explained away as Richard not knowing who he is or that he has these abilities, plus he didn't know how relatively close they were. I suppose actual speech needs to be within hearing range, even for the champions.

Hearing, or a sixth sense of danger, is another power that is inconsistent: when Richard first enters Joe's Place and relaxes with a drink and the blast of air from a fan, he knows Banner's approaching by a sense of danger and hears the creak of a rocking chair outside so he's prepared when Banner sneaks up on him. But in exactly the same circumstances, when Joss creeps up on the place and is able to steal Banner's gun and bandolier of bullets which he'd left out on the porch, he doesn't sense or hear him. That could be because he was distracted since he'd just remembered who he was and was discussing it with Banner, because when he goes outside he does sense the danger hidden behind the billboard. All three of the gang get a brilliant use of their powers in this episode, another reason why it's one of the better examples so far: Richard's knife trick is one, but Sharron has the ability to restart Richard's heart just by pumping her hands together, which was a terrific and personal moment that she should have the sensitivity to do something like that. And of course Craig's moment of greatness is in relaying the cable cutting order that saves Richard and Banner's lives, so it's some good stuff here. Craig's earnest ferocity that the General explain the schematic of the bomb's deactivation leaves he and Tremayne puzzled, but unable to refuse him even at such a critical moment as mere seconds before the countdown to detonation is complete.

This leads to one of the most hard to explain 'coincidences' of the series: Tremayne saw with his own eyes Craig demand the exact method of deactivation, pausing each time to shut his eyes, then the bomb doesn't go off and Craig rushes off to check the test area and says they might even run into Richard! How could anyone not be suspicious of such a sequence of events? Okay, so it's unlikely anyone has the ability to send a telepathic message to prevent the detonation, but once they found out that the metal control box had been pried off (another good moment of Richard displaying his physical strength), and manually disconnected from the bomb, and that Richard was the one to do it, surely questions would be asked? Tremayne is a very rational man, though, and it's possible they somehow covered up exactly what happened and that's one reason why Craig and Sharron wanted to be first on the scene, as well as to see Richard was alright. It wasn't as blatant a thing as if Craig's original plan had been put into action: he was willing to risk being gunned down in the bunker when he saw the only chance for Richard was if he went wild and wrecked the machinery, and that could have been an amazing scene to see him tear the place apart, but it's even better when he's about to go crazy and pull two technicians out of their chairs and he gets a picture of the fuse box that Richard's found, stopping him just at the moment he begins to act! Sometimes the absence of action can be more powerful than the action itself.

It might have been the time to come clean to Tremayne about what happened to them in 'The Beginning,' if only to save Richard's life, but then they have the hidden civilisation to think of, too, and if Tremayne knew the secret he'd be duty-bound to inform his superiors, whoever they are, and it would put him in a difficult position. Plus, it would sound like a cockamamie story and would take time to convince Tremayne, who would then have to convince Winters to stop the test, so it would be just as risky. Tremayne isn't necessarily always the most sensible, either, his temper getting the better of him perhaps, because it seemed a little silly that Richard's last assignment was to check out the likelihood of any saboteurs trying to tamper with the test, then he disappears, but Tremayne doesn't see any connection because Craig's too insistent about the fact that the helicopter is an important link and there are helicopters being used in the test area! So he won't authorise a search of the area because it's too big and would take too long. That's about the only part where the reality falls down and Nemesis, or the Australian army, look a bit lazy in their thinking. Then again, Richard was a bit cryptic, too, in his phone call to his boss (does Tremayne record every phone conversation?), saying that he's onto something so mad he can't say what it is, but he should have just said that these guys were trying to turn a clean bomb dirty!

The other inconsistency I found was in Richard's strength - he peels off the metal casing on the fuse unit, he throws a knife hard enough to smash through a board, but when he's in the chopper fighting with Aston and Joss he doesn't seem to have superior strength, but about equal. The same whenever he deals with Banner. It also shows the vulnerability the champions have when he's killed by a mere snake - they aren't invulnerable, although he does land on his back from falling out of the chopper and survives, so resilient, at least. It's odd they chose to use Richard and Richard alone in the post-credits sequence where they show an example of their powers, since we'd already seen he was in the Outback solitary and injured so it didn't fit to see him in a London building that's on fire. What interested me is that we'd just seen him fall a distance and survive, but be damaged, and then in this sequence he makes a leap from several storeys up to escape the flames, and lands on his feet. You can see that he wasn't in control when he flew out of the 'copter as he unbalanced, so couldn't land properly, and that must have made all the difference.

The title is somewhat ironic when you consider that not a lot actually happens, just as the bad joke of Bad Joke Springs is that the well is dry, but then, as I said before with Craig's almost attack in the bunker, sometimes the lack of happening can be more powerful than much. The weight of danger does hang over the episode because it's such a major destruction that is coming, something that no amount of hand-pumping is going to bring Richard back to life from. It's like Chernobyl, the ghostly streets of a once busy place, only this is before the bomb goes off. It's an effective use of such a small group of characters and in only a couple of settings to craft a doomsday drama that has a sizeable scale to it even with the modest budget of such a series, and added to the more intelligent characterisations, makes it work. Brian Clemens, I salute you!

***

The Experiment

DVD, The Champions (The Experiment)

Perhaps my earliest definite memory of watching the series was staying at a relative's house in the mid-Nineties and seeing this particular episode, which understandably stayed in my mind. It's the inevitable moment when our champions' skills, strengths and abilities come up against equals in a test of daring and quality. At least, that's what you'd think a story about mentally adjusted humans designed to… do something or other, would mean. Watching as an adult, unfortunately, shows up a vast array of flaws in this stylish entry in the series that I'd never thought about before. It doesn't live up to its premise, for starters. It's supposed to be a collection of four intensively trained opponents for the champs to take on. We see from the opening sequence how powerful and ruthless just one of Dr. Glind's specimens can be: the Craig lookalike jumps clear over a tall fence at The Ministry of Technology Research Unit, bounds through the grounds taking on both unsuspecting, and fully prepared, guards, with no trouble, chops a gun in half, dodges rifle shots in a narrow corridor, and shows himself to be practically unstoppable. The numbers are on Glind's side, with four against our heroes' three, but there really isn't much of a match, except when all four take on Craig and Richard when they come to rescue Sharron.

As usual, one of the team is separate and ends up being caught in a web of intrigue, Sharron lured in by the curiosity of testing her unique abilities against similar competition, something she apparently can't refuse (note that she's ordered on leave by Tremayne without a warning about what he's suspicious of, and just has to react as it unfolds!). Cranmore's plausible explanations about the whole project lead her on, but this is where one of my questions come in: we're told the four trainees Sharron meets are from some of the world's top intelligence agencies (Marion Grant of DI6, British Intelligence, Susan Francis of CIA, Paul Lang of DI5, and Jean Girou of the French Sûreté), discovered by their files, it suggests, and handpicked to take part in this special project. But if they really were from these organisations then surely they'd have far more compunction than to work with a man whose end goal appears to be some kind of global domination. I say 'some kind' because he never makes it clear what his intents and purposes are, perhaps that was for the best. And perhaps they were from the agencies, but didn't have all the facts. They were, after all, almost guinea-pigs that Glind felt he could dispense with in his quest to create something that wouldn't burn out after a short while, and they certainly hadn't been told of the impending brain-dead conclusion they'd be facing, as that's what turns them on Glind.

The pitifulness of the aftermath of each of Glind's experiments gave the episode a chilling twist and added depth to what otherwise would have been a simple super-soldier plot. The fact that these vibrant, unstoppable specimens could go from fully charged action heroes to childlike drooling on the floor, and finally, in the case of some, dropping into brain death, gave them a tragic edge of shock and showed how superior the champions are. Because they didn't merely have some mental gymnastics done to the brain (explained as a modified electroencephalogram!), or intense physical training, but some deeper surgery that completely altered them. We don't really know exactly what happened to them, which I suppose is why Sharron was able to fool the lie detector when she's asked how she got her powers. But I was never sure whether she was fooling it or just telling the simple truth because technically she doesn't know exactly how she got her powers, yet she does know she got them from a special, secret civilisation in Tibet, so it becomes semantics over whether that constitutes knowing how you got your powers. I tend to assume she had the ability to lie without a machine being able to see through it, as it's basically about controlling the respiration and heart rate, biological things that we can assume she does have power over, whether consciously or not.

The question remains over how Dr. Glind managed to find out about the Nemesis agents' powers, when even Tremayne and his staff don't know, and they have access to all the mission records! Maybe you can fudge an explanation that because of Glind's interest in such studies, which he'd carried out, he'd been allowed limited access to all agent files, or maybe he had a mole in these organisations and he was just looking for evidence to prove his theory before stumbling across some unexplained happenings, his suspicious mind putting everything together to make… a bit of a mess! Because his motive for taking Sharron, while it could be said to partly be the ultimate test for his new recruits to go up against her, was to use her as bait for Craig and Richard who would inevitably come and rescue her. But how would he know that? There must be other Nemesis agents when you see the size of their building! And why does he want them all to come to him? So he can kill them, as they're apparently the only thing standing in his way when he uses his experiments for whatever nefarious plans he has. How would he know they are the only agents with such advanced powers? It is pretty ridiculous when any thought is put into it. It's more of the modern thing of manipulating story so it can reach climaxes or set-pieces, rather than being a logical progression.

Those set-pieces, where we see the various powers used, were worthwhile to get to, just as the opening sequence showed us some superhuman action. My favourite moment in the whole thing is actually relatively simple, but it shows off a power in a very unique way: when Sharron plays high-speed catch with her fellow trainees, Craig and Richard are outside and they all carry out a fleeting conversation where the camera zooms in on Sharron's face during a moment after or before she's thrown or caught the ball, and has milliseconds where she can pause to make a quick answer. It's so good because it's superhuman but in a subtle way. It shows the other agents don't have the super-hearing or split-second skill to hear or speak in the way she does. I'm not sure why it's not just telepathically done in the mind rather than having to actually speak, but in this case they were in proximity so it made sense, though I'd have thought mental speech would be more useful in the kinds of escapades they get up to. There's the usual Sixties obsession with telepathy, clairvoyance and ESP to explain how Glind chose his subjects, but they never really display any of that. It's said to be what these people had that made them stand out, but it doesn't go any further than that.

The icy unfriendliness Marion displays toward Sharron makes for some interesting dynamics, but the four agents in the experiment aren't very well defined, to the extent that only she is even credited at the end! I've noticed this as a trend in the episodes that not every speaking character gets their name in the credits, which is a shame. David Bauer, who played Glind, is awarded the honour of appearing on the same slide as the main cast, usually reserved for just them, so perhaps he was a special guest star, or the equivalent. But there are others who don't get a credit at all: Renfrew, the Nemesis tail sent by Tremayne to keep an eye on Sharron (with a nicely filmed car scene where Cranmore loses him in the built up streets), along with the soldier in the control room whom the credited 'Officer' talks to about the intruder. I don't know how they worked out the hierarchy of the credits since the Barman is credited, while the first super-spy we see is not. And Dr. Farley, played by the great Nicholas Courtney (of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart fame in 'Dr. Who'), does get his name in the credits. Perhaps it's merited on the number of lines a character gets?

This is a good episode for Sharron as it shows her gamely going along with the tests and the oddity of it all, while also knowing her powers are suspected. She doesn't fly into a panic when her taxi driver, Cranmore, turns out to be more than that (he claims he's from DI6, but if he really was why would he be helping Glind?), nor does she refuse Marion's challenge to a peremptory fencing match - she seems to be at a disadvantage in that, but whether that was because she was ill-clothed for the match, wearing heels and a skirt, or she was purposely trying not to show her abilities, I don't know. It could be that we're supposed to be surprised that Sharron could be shown up by this 'ordinary' woman and it does show how advanced Glind's training is, but it wasn't filmed in a way that made it certain one way or another, and the doctor himself bursts in to stop it in short order as deviating from his specific instructions (I imagine the fencing was done by a stuntwoman under the headpiece as Sharron moves expertly and has a very professional stance, and I'm not sure Bastedo was that terrific an actor to be able to change so much!).

Another Sixties trope is the all-powerful god of the computer. Just feed it information and somehow it will be able to extrapolate a solution to any problem. I can see that computers must have seemed magical back then, and they've proved amazing, have changed society in the following decades, but all Glind's faith is in the unerring power of this computer to devise the perfect way in which his new breed can kill the champions, and what does it come up with? Knives! It makes sense from an action perspective as we want to see our characters engage the enemy in hand to hand combat, and Richard gets a gash from the sting of a knife blade, but it makes no sense at all for the story! Glind would have been better off, if his main goal was to kill them, by just having assassins hunt them down and shoot them! Instead, we see how flawed is this computer's idea of the best, most efficient mode of dispatch, by the way Craig and Richard survive. Okay, so they were trapped in a room, and only Sharron's cleverness in opening the mic while Glind expounds on the throwaway nature of his people, saves them, but they apparently killed Paul Lang in the fight (which takes place in the ubiquitous staircase room), so I'm sure they'd have pulled through eventually.

The violence, while sometimes cartoonish (in the fight it's really quite funny when one of them jumps at Craig, swings on him, then is thrown off again!), can sometimes be quite surprising: the most memorable example being when the first spy under the care of Dr. Farley, is killed by Cranmore with a silenced pistol and you see him arch and writhe in pain with red holes on his chest where he's been plugged multiple times. The collapse of the brain-dead trainees is also mildly disturbing, although the 'Swan Lake' finale of Susan was a little melodramatic, if a flourish that somehow fitted with the episode. Interestingly, this 'American' loses her accent once her mind is broken as she sings 'London Bridge is Falling Down' in an English one. This mirrors when the first spy is found in the lift at the Research Unit, a squad of guards ready for action and you're wondering what's going to happen, only for the doors to open and reveal a childlike man singing 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and pointing his gun in mock shooting. It's very well done, as are the use of filming tricks to emphasise the abilities of these people: in the first sequence the guy is sometimes shown in slowed down form which adds grace and fluidity, and a sense of power to his movements as he dashes around the Research grounds. Later, when Sharron and the others are doing high-intensity activities like catch, it's sped up to silly proportions to demonstrate their agility and reflexes. One thing the episode fails in is that by showing us artificially created 'champions' it makes the main cast look less special. But then they've never been portrayed as superheroes, they are just very good agents that now have an edge that make them even better than they were before. It was their training and experience that made the difference, not just powers. The new agents have only been training for three months, but apparently were selected for their 'nose for danger' and a sixth sense. I like that the series doesn't go the (now) expected route of lauding their powers as the thing that makes them who they are, as too many superheroes do, but rather their abilities leavened with their innate goodness and hard work is what gives them their status.

Drama is what helps the episode overcome its many questions to create something pretty good, whether that be the extreme reaction Craig has when Sharron is gassed, the car he and Richard are in squealing to a halt (just as in the first episode we saw Richard's stumble on the rock face mirrored in one of the others losing their balance), the death of Cranmore as Glind's servant when the new breed surround him and his time is up, or the subterfuge of Glind, it all makes this stand out as a good story. It's nice to see Tremayne out of the office when he travels to Oxford to visit Dr. Glind as being an expert on people with abilities, and also the taxi ride where Sharron's being tailed is clearly all filmed for real, none of that back-projection, whether it was in the taxi or the external shots, which helped lend the episode an air of quality that some failed in. Glind is always plausible, even when his motivations are ridiculous, he has a manner about him that has authority in it, but also he doesn't come on too strong. If only he'd modified his ambitions and plans he might have got somewhere. He even puts Tremayne off by saying that film can lie: the angle of the shooting, the lighting, the speed of the filming, and that it was this that influenced the guards' impressions of a super-spy at the Research Unit. Exaggeration, an overly dramatised version of what they thought they saw, he breezily dismisses, having had experience of such matters, while secretly being at the heart of it all.

I'm not sure why Craig and Richard had to travel all the way back to Nemesis HQ to report to Tremayne when they could just as easily have made a phone call, but I'm not surprised there was no usual end cap in his office where the three agents fob him off about something, because it would seem too much for even him to ignore. He was already wondering why Sharron had been picked for the experiment so an intelligent man like him, when faced with the report of what Glind had achieved, couldn't fail to begin to see the light regarding his people. That may be one reason why this story was done a little too early in the run, because now what can they come up against? They've defeated opponents of equal strength and agility (although it's never explained how these people could do the physical things they were capable of - three months training, no matter how rigorous, would seem preposterous as a preparation for superhuman feats of physical performance!), so where else could they find an equal threat, except from each other, which they got around to eventually. I wonder if 'The Interrogation' should have been a direct follow-up to this episode as it would amply warrant such an investigation after all that had transpired here. And much did transpire - I couldn't keep track of all the powers we see exhibited by both our characters and the guests, but strength (Sharron pulling open a locked drawer or ripping off the straps binding her to the chair), agility (dodging bullets!), mental powers (fooling the detector; communicating), all get their dues. And Richard gets grumpy after Craig beats him in a Judo match where they wear coverings over their heads as a test of instinct.

***

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

DVD, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) film

I don't really care.



That could have been my entire review, and essentially it is, so if you don't need to know why, or individual thoughts, feel free not to read on. I don't know whether it's an age thing, but these Disney 'Star Wars' films are for children, not for me. They are Disney Princess, full of cute woodland animals and Mogwai-Furbie-Minions. And I always liked the Ewoks, so that wasn't even a problem for me. It's just that there is no story, merely a collection of old characters to provide the dressing on a remake of 'The Empire Strikes Back.' It's not nearly as acute as Episode VII, there are only bits and pieces taken from 'Empire,' enough to see the glaring parallels, except that that film and its stablemates either side were strong in the way of story and character, and Disney's version isn't.

I can honestly say I'm glad I didn't patronise my local cinema to watch this one as I did with 'The Force Awakens' when there was still some hope, a small one, that they could pull off a new trilogy of films, when in fact they have become only the central tent-pole in a new Empire set to run and run. I wouldn't have been disappointed because I had no expectations after VII, I could see that I had changed to no longer be able to accept a new version of an old thing that I cared about, even with the trappings of the old thing. There are too many characters and the structure is not sound. I think they want to be 'The Lord of The Rings' which was an anomaly in being able to mount a play with so many characters (though even there, they cut some that had been in the book), and that had the inspiration of JRR Tolkien as a bedrock. The villains are a confused bunch and I must have Jedi ability to see into the future as I saw what was coming with Ben Solo, or Kylo Ren. There's a third film to wrap things up so he's not going to turn good yet (if at all), and taking out his master, Supreme Leader Snoke, as inventive as it was (though I thought Snoke would be back considering how dead he already looked!), was just the inevitable Sith way, as much as he wishes to be rid of Sith, Jedi, Rebellion and all, and start again as he claimed. I suppose it chimes with the relativistic times we live in where good and evil aren't 'supposed' to be that simple. But any theme like that doesn't really get exploration, the franchise isn't made to examine the big questions.

General Hux is a laughable parody of the traditional sneering English villain, so much so that I wondered if he was deliberately that parodical on purpose. How can you take seriously such a man? Snoke lessens in stature in more than just the apparent magnitude of his person, no more a giant than Yoda, though I will give them credit that his eyes looked very real so I don't know whether they used a mix of CGI and prosthetics to achieve the look. Yoda, too, in his brief jaunt to chat with Luke, looked indistinguishable from puppetry, which though sounding crude is actually high praise when so many creatures are now so 'real' yet false because we know they can't exist, that whenever real stuff is used it stands out. But he should have been luminous as we saw at the end of 'Jedi.' Only now we can't refer to 'Return of The Jedi' as merely Jedi without confusing it with this, 'The Last Jedi.' A minor annoyance I'll admit, but the film was pitted with such minor irritants. Except I really wasn't irritated because I just didn't care. And I was so detached from the story I found myself wondering if that was Laura Dern. I'm sure it's Laura Dern. At least… I think it's Laura Dern. Is it Laura…? It is Laura Dern! I like Laura Dern, she's been in some good films: 'October Sky,' 'Jurassic Park,' 'A Perfect World'… See what I mean, the mind wanders onto other things because this thing doesn't compel or captivate.

I must be passed it, it's the only thing I can come up with, except… I do still like films and have seen films I like recently so I know I still like them. I can't say there was nothing I liked in this film, it wasn't like I hated it, it offended me, or I was disgusted with it. It didn't provoke any real feeling at all, just came, passed across my eyes and went. I wouldn't even level the accusation at it that it was a mere action ride since there were plenty of scenes between characters, I just wasn't interested, in large part. I liked the graceful use of the Force by Leia to pull herself back inside after being sucked out in a blast that kills the command crew. I genuinely thought at first that she'd been killed off, perhaps her scenes in Episode IX would be flashbacks? It is hard to believe that a person could survive being pulled into the vacuum of space, but then the Force is strong with her and this is about the only time we've ever seen her use it (women weren't allowed to use lightsabers in the Eighties and now that Leia's old it wouldn't be seemly for her to be leaping about the place cutting swathes through the enemy - I suppose?). It was an unexpected moment of beauty in a bland film. I also liked her and Luke's meeting, despite the awkward contemporary dialogue about she's changed her hair which doesn't sound like the kind of thing they'd have said, there was real affection there. I liked seeing Mark Hamill as Luke and getting to be a Jedi in battle once again - he moved just the same, the same tossing of the head, whatever it was you could see the old Luke still in Hamill's movements!

I wanted Rey to fight Snoke's Imperial Guard, especially when she and Ren team up to take them out. There appears to be an unwritten rule (or maybe it is written), that all who use lightsabers in these new films shall remain grounded. Literally, you don't see Jedi jumping about, maybe the acrobatics were one of the things about the prequels they chose to dispense with, along with all-CGI characters in all-CGI environments, both choices I can get behind, though it wouldn't do any harm to occasionally allow one of your main heroes to pull off a leap or backflip (see Episode I for how to do it). I liked Luke doing his impression of Neo in the battle against Kylo Ren, even though it turned out to be a Force projection of himself that apparently so drains him that he has to die as a consequence. If he was going to go out I'd have preferred he was really there so he could have pulled an Obi-Wan, put up his 'saber, and vanished with dignity rather than falling off his rock back home on the island. And does this mean Kylo will be offing Leia in the third film, since he's taken out one of the original characters in each film so far? If they end up making more films (they won't), I should think Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2 must watch their backs!

Talking of the ancillary characters, they really are background now. Gone are the days when the films were orchestrated around 3PO and R2, and sadly, this film follows on from Episode VII in making them redundant, so much that it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if they hadn't been there at all. Comedy droid BB8 is what the cool kids want nowadays, but he, or it, can never replace R2, who was always the real hero of the saga. I noticed in the credits that he wasn't 'played' by Kenny Baker, so I guess he must have died before this film was made, sadly. I can see why they might have cut R2 out of the picture more in deference to the memory of Baker, but in a way it would have been a greater tribute to put R2 front and centre again, especially as the actor wasn't seen and it wasn't the same kind of performance as Anthony Daniels', whose unmistakeable voice is heard again. Even Chewbacca was played by someone else, maybe Peter Mayhew just wasn't up to it any more? At least Frank Oz is back once again to give us a good Yoda (my favourite character of the entire saga). He surprises a bit in his irreverence towards the Force, or at least the ancient tomes that Luke threatens to torch and he really does, but there's a lot of symmetry with his original appearance in 'Empire' in his joviality. Admiral Ackbar is also back and I believe the original actor recorded lines before he died at the grand age of ninety-something, although Ackbar is another that gets pulled into space, and not having Jedi powers, is gone for good.

John Williams' music can rarely be bettered, and nothing makes 'Star Wars' feel more like it should than this. But even in that case, the purity of the story isn't there so the purity of the themes becomes like wallpaper to a crazy, messy mashup. I cannot recall one theme that wasn't from the original trilogy. That may be because I've heard those original themes so many times they're embedded, but I can assure you that I will never reach a point where I've seen these films anywhere near as many times as those. They simply aren't appealing to me on any level, and even the key links to the originals have little effect because the overarching story and characters they're squashed in with means nothing to me. I really, honestly don't care if I never find out who Rey's parents are. It's not that I'm not curious, and clearly they're not going to be junk traders left in a pauper's grave as Kylo Ren tells her, it's just that it's no great mystery. She's clearly a Jedi and it's the story of the Skywalker's so she's probably a Skywalker, and if not, what does it matter? Just technical details: we know she's the Luke of this trilogy, we don't need to know more, but they're dangling it out there like a huge carrot to keep us guessing. They play with the idea that she and Ren could be siblings because of the fact that they can communicate, presumably through the Force, and we also see Luke and Leia do the same, so the parallels are there. Except that's a blind alley because Snoke reveals it was he pulling them together in that way. There's no romantic attachment between them as you might expect with teen characters, but it's not clear why they're drawn together unless it be Rey's destiny to pull Ren away from the Dark Side.

It's not like they're doing anything new, really. Although they didn't follow the structure as closely to 'Empire' as VII was to the original film, the elements are there: 'join me, and together…' says Ren, while Rey resists. At least they didn't have her shout "NNNOOOOOOOO!" like 'Star Trek Into Darkness' redid the end of 'The Wrath of Khan' in cardboard style. But she does go into a dark place just as Luke did during his training, and he's teaching her, only it's against the ways of the Jedi because he's lost his faith. I guess this is what people were getting so upset about - I heard bits and pieces and almost assumed Luke went over to the Dark Side somehow and maybe Rey would have to redeem him. But no, he was just disillusioned and somewhat selfish in his old age. When he died I wasn't moved at all. Partly because we know he'll show up as a Force ghost to provide assistance when needed, just as Yoda did here, but he already did that without being dead so he didn't need to peg it unless it was for some grand emotional moment. Yoda's death in 'Jedi,' sorry, 'Return of The,' is as powerful now as it ever was because those films were far better in the writing and even acting. Not that I have anything against the actors, but it's surprising how many teenagers fill out the cast and I'm not impressed by any of them, they're mere players on this stage. The only character outside of the old faithfuls that interested me was Benicio del Toro's counterfeit hacker whom they need to get aboard an enemy ship for some reason, though the quest to find a guy like him was really just an excuse for a sequence where the rich are beaten down for being extravagant, an action sequence straight out of a Disney cartoon, and the message of 'free the animals.'

Del Toro stood out because he was a real actor amongst, dare I say it, amateurs? It's harsh, but 'Star Wars' has never been known for its great acting roles. They built suitable characters for the actors out of mythical archetypes in the original trilogy, and it worked well. The prequels not so much, and the new ones likewise. I like Laura Dern, but I didn't understand the messaging her General Holdo character was representing. Were they trying to redress a balance from the old films that it was all men and no women? In which case are we supposed to be on her side or Poe Dameron's when he points out the weakness of her 'planning' and takes matters into his own hands? Are they making a critique of the Han Solo type character for a modern audience? Am I thinking too deeply about a film that is all surface and ephemeral? I couldn't help but notice that almost all the enemy were male (and mostly English in the traditional stereotype of American filmmaking), while a very high proportion of the goodie Rebellion was female. Another statement? I couldn't but reflect that one reason this film doesn't work as a good story (and I get that it's the middle film in a trilogy which is often a difficult path to tread, though 'Empire' managed it expertly), is that it has the appearance of one designed via marketing. Films are there to make money so you could say that all films are designed this way. Except they aren't. Creative vision is the most important aspect of a film, not ticking boxes or making sure there's a strong Asian character to appeal to the burgeoning Chinese market.

Not that it's bad to have an Asian character, just that she was put in that position to make 'X' amount of dollars, not because the story demanded it. Too many films are made this way, that the needs of a global market are put at the top of the tree, regardless of story. Why not make the majority of the cast Asian, that would make a statement! Because they're still steeped in the American mythology and way of making films. Mark Hamill is the top name, understandably since he was the star of the originals, but at the same time he is the pivot on which the story rests. He's not quite the Obi-Wan because the saga is the Skywalker story. Most of everything else around him is designed for its own purpose, not to serve that story. Maybe that's part of my lack of connection to these films? Not the makeup of the cast, but the use of them in which to tell a compelling story. They're stuck in both a 'Flash Gordon' pulpy fantasy universe, which is one of the things we love, while also trying to be contemporary and relevant, and perhaps those two styles don't mix well enough. Of course any of this would be irrelevant if the narrative held the interest. I genuinely felt bored in places, and that's partly because it may be that we've seen all that 'Star Wars' can do and now they're just remaking the same kind of action scenes as we'd seen long ago in a film series not far away. You can just pop in those original films and see them as often as you wish, you don't need to settle for marshmallows when you've got good, solid chocolate sitting on the shelf. They're both sweet, but one is more satisfying than the other.

It's all about creating a set-piece that we haven't seen in the series before, and they did a reasonable job with the salt flats battle, but it's not even slightly enthralling compared with the battle of Hoth. At first I though the rattling old ships they were using were discarded B-wings, but I think they were actually just mining rigs. The visual explosions of the red salt under the white surface was certainly different, but in the rest of it, it's the same old, same old, just inferior. Maybe new viewers who haven't yet seen the originals (though all children should see those first before they get any other 'Star Wars' indoctrination), will be impressed thanks to modern visual effects, and that's sad. Only because if you like something enough you want others to like it as much and see it in the place of esteem you hold it, another reminder of mortality perhaps that new things come along and supercede that which was so special and important at one time. It's also galling that things can be made that so closely match that thing from the past that it's merely an alteration or update in terms of developments of visual media, rather than the story, the method of storytelling essentially never having changed since story first came into being. When it's about technical advancement over anything else it's boring. The same could be said about the original 'Star Wars,' that its effects and sets, props and costumes were the big draw, just continuing a tradition going back decades in film, but that marriage of everything coming together at the right time is what has set its place in history. But each new generation will find its own things to be pleased with.

There are still films that impress and inspire me: 'Interstellar' is a prime example of the kind of film I hadn't really seen before, but the older you get, the harder it is to be satisfied with the tweaked sameness of a majority of films. I'm sure it's an age thing: if I'd seen this trilogy twenty years ago I'd have been all over it, lapping it up, but you grow jaded, it's life. So when things are celebrated so much and break money-making records it just adds to the disillusionment of modern cinema and my response to it. Of course they were going to make it for younger people, children and teens, because that's the market where they can make most money and 'Wars' has always appealed to youth, whether it be the actual young or those recapturing their childhood experience again. It just isn't for me, it's not universal, but it is connected to something that was for me and did appeal so it's a strange place to be in. Even the filmmaking way is different, I didn't notice the familiar cuts and dissolves, and they were a part of the technical structure of older films, to be sure - it's like in Episode II when they started throwing in zooms and jump cuts in the battle sequences because they could. It's not wrong, just uncomfortable. Or the swearing that's been introduced. It's only for the modern audience, not important or necessary (they could even have made up alien swearwords if they'd wanted to get the essence of such a moment without actually resorting to the words). I wonder why they did that?

I wonder at a lot of things, like the diverse ecology of such a small island as the one Luke lives on, but I'm not going to go through and nitpick all the niggles here and there, I don't have the energy or inclination, something that a film that enthused me would have been subject to simply because I wanted to think about it and reason out any oddities. I'm surprised I had as much to say about the film as I have, considering that at the time it didn't make me think, didn't engage with me, and didn't bring me along. But now that I think of it, why is the Millennium Falcon even in there? Without Han, Chewie isn't really a character, just a large bear creature reduced to being a pilot and shuttling Rey around. There's not a good balance in the cast, they don't seem like a little band of hopeful adventurers, only pawns in a marketing strategy to fill in time until the conclusion. The most excitement I felt was looking through the credits and seeing Togo Igawa, Paul Bazely and Ralph Ineson were in small roles, all of them guest stars in an old TV series I loved, called 'BUGS.' Old is the word when that's the only thing to create interest. Too old to learn the ways of the Force, I am. Anticipate Episode IX I do not. So why give two stars I do, after all said I have, and my minimum rating of one star appropriate would seem? Because still nice it is those old actors to see, and a time of enjoyment remember.

**