Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

The constant barrage of emotional moments is a bit much, but aside from that, I liked the tone of The Rise of Skywalker. There isn't a whole lot to the plot, but the characters are likeable and it looks good, which is about all I expect from a Star Wars movie.

I wasn't really into the first six movies, so I don't have any allegiance to what "Star Wars" is supposed to be. I did like the two new ones, though.

I can appreciate that it's a closing of the arc, but I didn't like how every 5 seconds they hit you with saying goodbye to another big character. There was also a constant barrage of triumphant moments. Somebody described the movie as being waterboarded. Sure you like water, but that's too much water. I kind of agree.

Leia looked kind of weird. I always like Rey's outfit, though. I liked the new droid, but it's kind of weird that they keep introducing new ones.

Moon

I can't really say that I *liked* Moon, but seeing how things played out was interesting.

It seems like everybody I know has seen Moon. Somehow I didn't hear anything about it until seven years after it came out. I didn't really know what to expect. All I knew about it was basically "a guy on a space station, something something AI."

2010

I'm not really sure what anyone was supposed to get out of 2010, the sequel to 2001. It was just kind of weird.

I didn’t really have any interest in seeing 2010 (the sequel to 2001), and I was really tired when I watched it, so pretty much the entire time I was just waiting for it to be over. It was kind of weird.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is one of those iconic movies that you kind of have to see whether you want to or not. I can’t exactly say that I enjoyed it, but it did have a couple of cool moments.

I had seen parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey before (who hasn’t?), but I hadn’t ever watched the entire thing, and it seemed like a movie one should have seen, in general.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a little campy, and I’m still not a fan of the makeup, but there’s something likeable about the characters, and I enjoyed the story.

I got to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in the theater, which was pretty cool, although I had to sit closer than I would’ve liked (even though we got there almost an hour early and there were seats available in the back). It does kind of make you feel like you’re more “in” it when you sit six rows back, I guess.

I’m still not a fan of the bold colors. I guess that’s just the look they’re going for. But the greasepaint aspect is annoying. Groot looked pretty good. He didn’t really stand out as CG. I guess everything is a little cartoon-y, so he blended in. Rocket looked super scruffy.

I do like all the characters, especially Drax for some reason. Mantis’ outift was cool. I liked how it resembled an insect. They kind of lost me in the opening scene. I felt like the level of camp or just the general vibe wasn’t my thing. But I either got used to it or they toned it down, because I didn’t notice it after that.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy has its moments, but the plot is uninspired, the dialogue doesn't always work, and something about the way the character design is executed makes it look like everyone is just playing dress-up.

Everybody said Guardians of the Galaxy was good, but I didn't see the point, and I kind of feel the same way now that I've seen it. It was okay. I always have a rough time with different-colored people (like pink, green, or blue) for some reason. They just don't seem natural. Maybe because they're weird colors. So I was kind of turned off by Zoe being green, and I never got past that or the other weird-colored people.

I forgot that Rocket was Bradley Cooper. I knew he was "somebody," but I couldn't remember who, and I didn't recognize his voice. I saw Vin Diesel's name in the opening credits, and I spent about a third of the movie looking at Drax and going, "I don't think that's Vin Diesel." I had no idea that Nebula was Amy from Doctor Who, so I guess she did a good job with that. All of the makeup was so crazy and over the top, it just looked like everyone was playing dress-up.

I'm glad I didn't see it in a theater. People would've been laughing so much and ruining everything. Yondu's arrow weapon thing was cool. I'd be interested to know more about how it works. The Ravagers didn't seem very scary. Everybody acted like they were intimidated by them or something, but then they all had this "comedic/stupid" thing going on, so it was confusing.

Interstellar

Some cool stuff happens in Interstellar, but I didn't find it to be that engaging.

A lot of people seem to be into Intestellar. And Christopher Nolan. I don't know how I feel about him. I liked Inception at least. The plot of Interstellar didn't seem interesting to me when I saw the trailer. I was super distracted when I watched the movie, and it wasn't engaging enough to pull me in. Some cool stuff happens, but overall it's still just your basic plot of "the world is dying, this guy is humanity's last hope," which I'm apparently not into.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

The Force Awakens really is just like a re-hash of the original Star Wars movies with different actors, and the whole thing is slightly "off," but it was still fun to watch.

I'm not really a Star Wars fan. I made the mistake of watching the first six movies in episode order rather than chronological. Hayden Christensen was terrible. And I didn't get much out of the originals, either. But I kept seeing posts about this one, and I realized you don't get many chances to see a Star Wars movie in the theater, so I went to see it on the big screen.

I'm glad I did; it was worth $3. It's cool that Harrison Ford and everybody is still around to reprise their roles. I don't really see Carrie Fisher as Leia, though; I pretty much just see her as the actress Carrie Fisher. I liked that it felt like a reboot with young actors, although I guess the series in general has been about young people. I didn't recognize Adam Driver at all as Kylo. He looks a lot younger in the movie. BB8 was pretty adorable. His name sounded a little awkward when people said it.

Gravity

You don't see a lot of mundane movies about space, really. Gravity is interesting if you're into that kind of thing, and it does maintain a good level of tension. There are some nice shots, and the soundtrack is fine, but it's not that impressive overall. 

I wasn't really interested in Gravity, but it got so much hype, I had to watch it. I'm not a huge Sandra Bullock or space fan, but it wasn't so bad. She didn't really have a lot to do here, it seemed like. I was skeptical about watching her float around space in a space suit for an hour and a half, but luckily she gets out of the suit and does some other stuff inside spacecraft, too. It wasn't the most amazingly beautiful thing I've ever seen. There were some nice shots of the Earth, but if you've seen any of Chris Hadfield's pictures on tumblr, you've pretty much seen all there is to see (in fact, more interesting stuff than there was in Gravity). The score had some nice moments, but it was mostly unremarkable.

Elysium

Elysium focused too much on the heavy-handed theme and not enough on the actual story elements. It wasn't exciting, believable, or worth watching. 

The trailer for Elysium didn't sell me on it, and neither did Roeper's review, even though he gave it an A-, which is pretty high. It's from the same guy who directed District 9. He really needs to lay off the heavy-handed themes. He's not changing the world with these movies. He's from South Africa, though, so I guess that explains where he gets it.

Pandorum

Great movie. I love Ben Foster. The movie looked good, and it was suspenseful.

Lost in Space

Joey in a feature-length film..bad times. The whole thing was so terribly flat. A few interesting things happened, but that did not make this worth watching.

Solaris

Much more engaging than I expected, but the ending was terrible.