Black Gate

Today, nearly fifty years after its release, Star Wars still feels fresh, exciting and entirely organic. It is a naturally progressing story. Everything in it matters, and every moment leads inexorably and inevitably to the next moment, as it should — building to a tremendous climax and satisfying denouement.

None of those things are true about its immediate sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.

For that reason above all others, I rate Star Wars by far the better film.

I am well aware that a number of fans of the franchise — possibly a majority and seemingly in greater numbers every year — feels Empire is superior, including Black Gate‘s own Neil Baker.

I believe they are wrong.

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Read Part 1 here.

#6 – The Force Awakens (2015)

A great way to kickstart the franchise after a dozen years, even if it is a retread of A New Hope. There’s a lot to love in this film; I think it features some of Williams’ best work with recurring leitmotifs that instantly feel like they’ve been part of the entire saga, I love the new principal characters, the action set-pieces are thrilling and tick all my visual/sound design boxes, I really like all the Jakku scenes, especially Rey’s introduction, I can’t get enough of the X-wing attack outside Maz Kanata’s castle — the single tracking shot of Poe Dameron handing the New Order their arses in the air sends shivers up my spine, the respect shown to the Falcon, despite an ugly radar dish, and the unsubtle nostalgia threads woven throughout.

There’s not much on show that I don’t enjoy in this one; perhaps the superfluous scene with the betentacled beasties onboard Han’s hideous new ship, or the petulant Ren stuff, but I mostly get on fine with it all. One personal sticking point for me though is the inclusion of Simon Pegg as Unkar Plutt (he of the measly muffin portions). I used to be a huge fan of his, firstly in Spaced, and then in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, but his ongoing vocal hatred for the prequels and the ‘death’ of Star Wars used to get on my nerves.

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It would seem my film lists and reviews haven’t been controversial enough, because our esteemed leader recently yelled down from the lofty belfry of Black Gate Tower and asked me to expand a little on my current Letterboxd rankings of the documentary series known collectively as The Star Wars Saga.

Essentially the rankings boil down to how the films make me feel, based purely on that initial hit I received in 1977 aged 10, when my world turned upside down.

These films are important to many of us for various reasons. They’ve dominated my life for almost 50 years, and influenced my marital status (for the better), my careers (mixed results), even my kids’ names (just ask my eldest, Salacious).

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We’re back!

The film choices are limited to Prime and Tubi, because I’ve cut back on streaming services, but rest assured, there’s still a lot of rubbish to come. Yes, I’m returning to shark movies, because there are still around 17,000 I haven’t watched yet.

The Reef: Stalked (2022) – Prime

Much confusion surrounding this one. First of all, I thought this was a follow-up to the Blake Lively film, but that one was The Shallows. Then I felt like I recognized certain scenes and panicked thinking I’d seen it before. When I looked at my Letterboxd diary, it said I watched it last week and gave it 3.5 stars, but no review.

But I didn’t watch it last week.

Perhaps they are all blending together.

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We’re back!

The film choices are limited to Prime and Tubi, because I’ve cut back on streaming services, but rest assured, there’s still a lot of rubbish to come. Yes, I’m returning to shark movies, because there are still around 17,000 I haven’t watched yet.

Empire of the Sharks (2017) – Tubi

SyFy and The Asylum, two things that go together like toothpaste and orange juice, or assault and battery. Here they combine to bring us the spiritual successor to Waterworld we never knew we dreaded. In a dystopian, flooded future, humanity ekes out a damp existence on floating towns beset by warlords and theatrical ne’er-do-wells. Warlord Ian Fein (John Savage) has taken a bunch of ladies from one such town to use as labor, and then as food for his collection of remote-controlled sharks.

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Well here we are again.

For this new watch-a-thon, I’m returning to sci-fi, and in particular the elements that I love about sci-fi — forget about story and thoughtful metaphors for the human condition, I just want spaceships and robots and hardware. Bring it on!

Bravestorm (2017) – Tubi

It’s always fun when a visual effects artist gets to make their own movie (see: Godzilla Minus One) and Junya Okabe obviously managed to get his jollies off by shoving everything including the kitchen sink into this giant Rock ’em Sock ’em showdown in Tokyo. The story flies by at ludicrous speed, and along the way claims back everything Hollywood has stolen from Japan, including The Terminator, Pacific Rim, etc.

All you need to know is a bunch of young people go back in time to stop an alien invasion from wiping out the world in 2050, by getting a scientist to build a giant robot to battle the aliens’ giant robot, and then they go back again to recruit the scientist’s boxer brother to pilot the mech. If that sounds as silly as a sausage in a silk stocking then buckle up, baby, because that’s the most sensible part of this whole thing.

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Well here we are again.

For this new watch-a-thon, I’m returning to sci-fi, and in particular the elements that I love about sci-fi — forget about story and thoughtful metaphors for the human condition, I just want spaceships and robots and hardware. Bring it on!

Atlas (2024) – Netflix

We kick off with this recent actioner from the guy who brought us Rampage (2018), San Andreas (2015), and, um, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), Brad Peyton. Brad knows a thing or two about spectacle, and he shovels it on in spades for this one.

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In celebration of the recent streaming series, Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.

This will be an ordered list of sixteen films, four a week, in reverse order, and is guaranteed to enrage you. The Alien and Predator films, and all those in between, are beloved by some, held sacred by a few, and the subjects of intense debate. My opinions will most certainly not align with yours, but I hope to keep you guessing as to my top four!

#4 – Predator 2 (1990)

Strong link, or tenuous as all hell? Fairly bloody strong.

What’s the link? This is the one that threw the chum into the sea of nerds.

What’s it all about? Stephen Hopkins, British music video auteur, fresh off his bonkers stint on the Nightmare on Elm Street series, with the fabulously daft Dream Child, was handed this and must have thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna make the most 1990s film ever 1990-ed in the year of our Lord 1990’. And lo, he made it, and it was good.

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