(trailer review) - The Acolyte

 

I think it goes without saying that the Star Wars franchise is in a state of flux. There have been some good movies which had no structure or plan to stabilise the franchise for great storytelling and the TV Shows have been the same. The TV shows have been small stories with particular characters where the story could have been fleshed out more with better execution. For example, I did not mind 'Ahsoka' although there were some small execution problems with it. 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' was exactly the same, but the execution was even worse and the storyline was fairly poor in comparison with some crazy antics, not to mention 'The Book of Boba Fett' which was borderline terrible for many reasons. I enjoyed it or I could say, I could see where they were going with it or wanted to do, but failed. Out of the TV shows, the 'Rogue One' prequel 'Andor' was great. 'The Mandolorian', is great (although some people have issues with it, issues I do not agree with). Season 7 of 'The Clone Wars' was good, the spin-off 'The Bad Batch' is also very good. The throughline problem with it all is the execution. Soo much lore and stories to mine but it is executed badly with no real foresight. So when a trailer for ALL of these shows looks great, especially this one, in the back of your mind in recent years, you can not help to start thinking, "but is this going to be any good?"

This trailer is good and it is great to see Carrie-Anne Moss, Trinity to all you Matrix lovers, doing a 'Force Push' and close-quarters combat. It is really good seeing her in scenes like this. This is only a teaser trailer, so there is not a storyline attached to the trailer as such, but we do understand that the Jedi are being killed off and it looks like it is going to be a murder mystery "detective" story with (maybe) Carrie-Anne investigating. The quality of the visuals looks great and seeing a vast number of Jedi drawing their lightsabres harkens back to 'Attack of the Clones' when all the Jedi were fighting in that arena. Hopefully, the show will dig deeper into the lore so we can understand what makes a lightsabre yellow or what type of Jedi use it. This is meant to be several years before 'A Phantom Menace', so hopefully we are very removed from any events from it. If this show ends up being, 'The Rise of Palpatine', I will be very upset, we do ot need that. Let's tell more stories not connected to The Skywalkers as Star Wars has a vast amount of lore and history it can go into to tell great stories.

(trailer review) - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

First of all, I'll just get this off of my chest before anyone thinks that this "completionist" has completed and watched all the Mad Max movies...I have not, but I will, I will at some point. I just want to say, are we not cloning humans yet? Have we got there in our technology? It is 2024 and we are not cloning humans? Are we not cloning George Miller? He is 79, still making films and I kid you not, watching Mad Max: Fury Road was so good, although I did not go back to the cinema to watch it again, I thoroughly enjoyed it and just thinking about that movie brings joy to my heart. I will watch it whenever it is on. Why are we not cloning him? Visually stunning, chaotic, absurd, manic and a lot of fun! I will never forget the moment I saw the guitar man in Fury Road. My heart was filled with so much joy because I was viewing something I did not think I wanted in a movie and this trailer, this trailer...THIS TRAILER, looks like George has doubled-down on those insane ideas and I actually cannot wait to see this!

So this trailer gives us a little more than the last trailer. It would seem Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) gets kidnapped and taken away from her family and friends only to work with The Immortal Joe to possibly, take down the antagonist played by Chris Hemsworth. It is likely The Immortal Joe kidnapped her also and is using her as one of his top people, henchman as it were. The visuals here are, Fury Road dialled up to 11. There is a wide shot with what looks like hundreds of vehicles driving in the desert from a birds-eye view and it looks amazing. The colours, the stunts, that road rage and anarchy, the deaths. However, the shot that really sold me on this trailer and the film is a, Chris Hemsworth who has played Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who wears a red cape, is seen here, wearing a red cape, standing on a chariot that is being pulled by 3 biker-less motorbikes and he turns it with reigns like an actual chariot with horses. Like, what? How insane is that? I absolutely love it and I have to see this in Imax, I just have to. If not, Superscreen. Hemsworth is killing it also! Absolutely killing it!

(trailer review) - Rebel Moon: Part 2 - The Scargiver

Blimey, where do I start? Zack is an incredible director and out of the (possibly) 15 movies he has directed (maybe a little more), I have seen 13 of them and really enjoyed 12. It is really like that for me. I truly enjoy a Zack Snyder movie but part 1 of Rebel Moon, while I will not say it is trash, it is very hollow. A chopped-up and rushed movie that does not get anywhere with lots of exposition, stagnant dialogue and weightless characters with a protagonist with the charisma of a grape. In my review, I also stated the film felt like a part 1 as opposed to other movies which were a part 1 that came out that year AND maybe part 2 will be better. This trailer does look really good!

First of all, what are you doing with a blue glowing sword thingy with someone heading towards you, shooting, fighting and messing up all your troops and you are simply walking backwards with your sword in hand not trying to attack? Are you not attacking because you do not want to hurt your fellow troops or are you simply waiting to be tagged in? It's a stylish sideways "hallway fight" that seemed a little silly or choreographed in a way you could see the problems with the fight and scene. Secondly, where are the characters? Did all the other characters die in the first movie after she recruited them? I just cannot remember. I just do not know. I am not sold but, I am going to watch it because I enjoyed the first part even with its problems. I am sold on the visuals (it's Zack Snyder, but of course I am), sold on the robot fighting and I think the best bit in this trailer, is the sliding down diagonally and fighting at the same time. I really feel like I have not seen that in a movie before. Falling and fighting, yes, but sliding down and fighting, I do not think so. Anyway, let's just hope this part two heightens and lifts up part 1 like Dune part 2 did for Dune part 1.