The Last Jedi

Star Wars is dead,
long live Star Wars!

Beware Spoilers

Last year concluded with Star Wars month once more. So I was on appointment to go and watch the latest set of fireworks. I had prepared for this event. The night before I watched the exhilarating Star Wars: The Force Awakens and thought long and hard about the next instalment. The potential of possibilities keeping me awake through the night. It was a unifying experience, as Star Wars fans all over the galaxy lay awake with me - thinking about what next to speculate in their ongoing coverage of Star Wars on Youtube. Non-stop theorycrafting online was having more impact than the actual movie. Ratcheting up expectations beyond anything Disney could possibly imagine. The multiverse is fanmade. Yet, nothing could prepare me for the asteroid field The Last Jedi would navigate with Solo-like abandon.

Everything that flows through Star Wars needs to qualify as dogma.

It's hard to see this film in isolation, so this post is a much about Star Wars as it is about The Last Jedi. It seems just yesterday when I mentioned Star Wars' creativity deficit in my review of Rogue One. For the reason that everything that flows through these products needs to qualify as dogma. As much as I like the fiction, this form of canonization has been the bane to my enjoyment of it. If you only watch the feature films this statement may raise an eyebrow but engage with any other media and you'll notice the patterns. This especially applies to games. Where the intention is to put the player squarely inside the movies. A recent example: Battlefront 2, a game by EA, is symptomatic. In it, like an extra that overslept, the player seemingly walks on set right after the cameras were shut off. But instead of joining the other extras in the pub, shoots them with laser guns. Games, comics, series, they all share the same basic ingredients. Their sheer amount of sincere verbal and visual queues and callbacks to the movies are to me like fingernails on chalkboard. The only technical benchmark is how well the game mimics the movie. The only idea here is: "Hey, remember this?" What once felt like they were classic and original lines from unique characters are banalized as if they are phrases that are said all the time. For events that happen all the time. Said by everyone and their mother, porg and droid.

New characters are also derived from the series' archetypes. Each villain is another Darth Vader, squeaking with prosthetic and oozing inhuman menace. Every mercenary a Han Solo, self-reliant, quippy and charming. Every aspiring Jedi a Luke Skywalker with his head screwed on straight. As they repeat, the franchise railroads itself further and the universe becomes smaller - like a fractal of boring. Then there are the typical themes that have occurred forever. Some of which were concepts in the original movies. Some were solidified, even demystified, in the prequels. Extrapolated backwards in time by George Lucas in desperate need of inspiration. It's the reason every Jedi looks like a Tatooine moisture farmer.

_{Jedi Master Owen Lars, Moisture farmer Ben Kenobi, Tatooinian free spirit Qui-Gon Jinn}

The Last Jedi goes some way at least to setting the fiction free from some of its rusty conventions. As such it may be the best thing to happen to the series. In fairness, Star Wars has almost become a genre onto its own. The Force Awakens was textbook. A new iteration of A New Hope. The Empire Strikes back was the quintessential sequel. So how does this latest sequel hold up? It's rather odd even for Star Wars, like duck that doesn't quack. But in no small way less true to the formula, this needed to be the darkest entry in the trilogy, and The Last Jedi pulls if off with comedic aplomb. Everyone fails! But as Yoda said "The greatest teacher, failure is." Some characters even live to learn from their mistakes.

What does all of this mean? The Last Jedi proposes an answer: it doesn't mean anything.

What does all of this mean? The Last Jedi proposes an answer: it doesn't mean anything. Star Wars has always been a science fiction fantasy ride, but it seems to have been made it out to be something else. A profound reflection on the nature of existence. An elaborate puzzle made by a superhuman genius made to unravel the true meaning of. It never was. George Lucas seems to have bought into the hype too when Darth Vader was made out to be something of monumental significance in the prequels. Even though it was never warranted. Remember, Vader almost didn't survive the original trench run attack. He just so happened to become an iconic villain - and commercially interesting.

_{Remember him? And the other guy?}

George went where the money was and served us another helping of Darth in the form of Anakin Skywalker. The arc from well meaning brat to volatile psycho ended short of having him spout a red tail, laser eyes and fire breath. That's another thing. I'm bothered that Star Wars adheres to fairytale logic that ugly means evil. It's a terrible lesson. For one, some may mistake the good looks of yours truly for outstanding morals and trustworthiness. The prequels fully leaned into the videogame logic of the evil-ugly connection with red eyes, a head crowned with horns and a voice that sounds like a bag of crisps being stepped on. Star Wars forgot that Anakin looked the way he did in Return of the Jedi because of physical trauma and not necessarily because he was a bad man. Before you bring it up the Emperor... when he first appeared in Empire Strikes back he was basically an old man with glasses for eyes. Not a waxfaced vampire that had napped by the stove too long during Star Wars month.

_{First: Snoke, second: Kylo Ren}

The new trilogy gives us Kylo Ren, who's trying his hardest to be Evil but retains the good looks of a renaissance nobleman. Even after his puberal episode in which he tried to score a thousand dark side points by slaying his father. He has a trembling lower lip just like his grandfather at his age. But unlike him has reasons to be peeved. His misdeeds don't impress his mentor: the Supreme Leader Snoke. Soke is yet another old man and yet another victim of excessive heat exposure. He looks like he'd been left out in the sun too long, chain smoking, and when trying to douse his stub in a vat of brine, fell in. The master and apprentice relationship is another well-worn convention that goes back to the very beginning. Obi-Wan, Yoda, and eventually the Emperor. The original Star Wars only mentioned the Emperor in passing. Nothing hinted that he was anything but a politician. Vader himself at that point was nothing more than a "dark side Jedi". Not too important. Again, Vader could have easily chrashed his dingy Tie fighter in A New Hope, no matter how strong the force was with him. Yet when Empire Strikes Back was released, we learned the Emperor was Vader's master and force sensitive. There was no mention of him being Jedi-related however and 'master' doesn't mean 'mentor'. In return of the Jedi, we are informed the Emperor is a Dark Side teacher. A powerful one at that, which is meant to explain why Vader must do his bidding - which somewhat contradicts Vader in the prequels. Does Vader even have free will or is he just a tool? This utilitarian relationship was made a rule in the prequels. "Always two there are", mumbles Yoda. They are given a name too: the Sith. The members are given a title 'Darth Coolname'. The Emperor used to be just the Emperor but is now Darth Sidious. In whose employ are Darth Maul, Darth Tyrannus and then Darth Vader. All are treated as disposable tools.
Neither of new odious duo are Sith. Thankfully it's not Darth Snoke and Darth Ren. There's even the hint at other dark Jedi in the Knights Of Ren. Lucky for us, rebellious Kylo Ren would rather see his master and all that which hints at the old order disappear.

The mentor role is getting a bit stale too, and so is that of the problematic student. In the originals Obi-Wan never marked Luke's age as a problem. Later, Yoda considers him "too old" to be trained as a Jedi. At the time it seemed like an excuse for Yoda, old and tired, to not get back to work. But it also made it seem like becoming a Jedi was a life long commitment from youth. A result of this, there was Jedi preschool in the prequels. Filled with aggravating younglings served with gag-inducing child worship. The only thing to make up for Luke's lack of training was the overabundance of special destiny and his Skywalker lineage. Now take Rey who, at about the same age as Luke was at the beginning of his story, discovers her force ability more or less on her own. No special training required save for some perseverance and experimentation. No age stipulation is made, no guru figure needs to holster her power. In fact, the latest Mentor is the reluctant Luke. In a flashback to the training of Kylo Ren another reversal is shown. The mentor tries to slay the pupil. Frustratingly, we're not keyed in exactly why the desperate act happened. Which is frustrating. But it's yet another sign of Skywalker infighting. On a related note. Vader being Luke's father was a cool twist in the Empire Strikes back. But it set an expectation of hidden family lines. I wanted to claw my eyes out everytime I heard this or that pundit speculate who Rey was the daughter to. Was she a Skywalker? A Palpatine? A Kenobi? Why would anyone want this dynasty mentality? We're allowed to like new characters. No relation needed. How can a creative mind come up with anything new if it is chained to the past? It also doesn't help that force sensitivity used to be portrayed as a hereditary trait. Of course everyone is related, it's basically a requirement.

_{Rey and Mark Hamill.}

Particulary the Skywalkers are strong in the force. 'Being powerful', first uttered in the originals, became a quantifiable property in the prequels. Mi-di-chlo-ri-ans. Anakin even boasts to Dooku, in Dragonball like fashion, that he has "Become twice as powerful as when we last met.". This is yet another videogame-like system that deals in force powers and rock-paper-scissors lightsaber stances, and only stops short of Jedi character sheets populated by attribute points for strength, wisdom, courage and midichlorians. You may be alarmed to learn flocks of fans are already turning themselves into knots, arguing online about the mana cost of Luke's 'Force projection'. They're also running into problems explaining it using the established rules, adding fuel to the fire. In my opinion, the answer to the question "Who's the best?" should always be "It depends." or if I'm being honest "Who the hell cares?". Why bother, what's the use? It all reminds me of when middle aged men discuss the horsepower of their cars to detract from their receding hairline.

Literal reading of events in a movie are what kill the symbolic meaning of them. It removes a layer of interpretation and some of the magic evaporates. It's what happens when start counting medichlorians. Talk about force powers. Manacosts. The magic of the Myth is lost if we were to recognize that Achilles' armour weighed in at 15 kilogram and Hector's at 20 kilogram. Thanks to the extra mobility Achilles could move around faster and dodge Hector's attacks and was victorious even though he had to land more blows to defeat the extra armour. The rules that build tension dictate that the fight could go either way. The implication then is, for dramatic purposes, that they were each others equal in all other respects. But that doesn't justify pulling apart each aspect in order to quantify them. It's all nonsense that leads to pointless bickering! The point is that Achilles won and Hector Lost. It's what the story demands and no measure of attack can defeat plot armour.

"The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi" said Palpatine. He ostensibly said this because it would mean Luke's power level would exceed nine thousand and neither Vader nor he would be able to stop him from overthrowing them both. What superpowers that would entail was never quite clear to me. It was a vague statement that was left to interpretation. Sith doctrine (possibly no longer canon) however states that a good asset should never go to waste. Sadly, this base interpretation of the originals wasted alot of the symbolism that could have gone into the aura of a Jedi, in this case Luke Skywalker. No, might makes right. It's almost an animalistic law - and somehow thát is the biggest concern of the Emperor, a politician. In fact, it is hard to fathom that Luke's threat would be a physical one. Maybe It would have been better if Luke was considered dangerous because he could become a symbol of hope. "He could destroy us" said Palpatine, which would still be true. If Luke became a galactic paragon of all that is good, he could rally neutral forces to bolster the Rebel Alliance against the Empire. This would make Palpatine a more political/strategic thinker rather than a strong animal that fears a stronger animal. It would also have been inline with the terrifying symbol that was the Death Star. Or even the symbolic might that a person like Darth Vader projects. The Last Jedi seems to reestablish the latter. The resistance wants Luke back as a beacon of hope, to inspire allies and bolster their forces. He seems to be stuck in the old mentality of the Jedi superhero though. He interprets their question as a call of duty and refuses. Ultimately both come to pass. Though it's the symbolic act that matters. Not so much the minutiae of Luke buying time for the desperate escape. The showdown between Luke and Kylo Ren is the stuff of legends.

There are three more stand-out scenes to remember. One is a rare scene has some actual tension building before it happens. The Kylo Ren and Rey team-up. Part of the conflict here has always come from people who would get along but for their political or philosophical differences. This is contrasted against the greater conflict - a battle for how society should function. It would be very easy to imagine Rey and Kylo being the best of friends if not for some differing opinions. But the point is that dark and light don't need to be sworn enemies out for the other's extinction. This scene shows us just that. The scene calls back to when Luke and Vader put the sabers away in favor of more civilized course of action. Neither wanted the other's destruction. It is pretty well established that the dark and light are in a self-sustaining balance in The Last Jedi. Foreshadowing a union rather than a schism.

The second is a bit more political. Not even much of a scene, really. Some nuance is brought to the story with the introduction of the unnamed character of Benicio Del Toro. A mercenary with a surpluss of stat points into competence but less in virtue. A character that doesn't fit into the dark or light system. He shows Finn that both sides are being supplied by the same military industrial complex and therefore he shouldn't care for either side. "It's all a machine, partner. Live free, don't join".

The final scene is short: Rey's force vision about her parents. It's a delightfully weird sequence that tells us more about the force than it does about Rey. It's not logical and that's the whole point. How else to tell that understanding the force is difficult by showing a scene that doesn't adhere to everything we've seen before. It's linked to the universe and not to some need to be a superhero. It's not a mere tool to be used in war.

_{Here's hoping Benicio Del Toro will return to reprise his role.}

All the upsets to the canon seem to come at a cost in storytelling cohesion however. One element I'm hoping does not make a return is the liberal use of deus ex machina. The result of a few too many empty epic moments that can't be resolved in any logical way. A few examples:

• Finn and Rose are hounded by the Kanto Bight police and strand at the edge of a cliff. BB-8 saves the day with a brand new stolen spaceship.
• How did Kylo Ren and Rey resolve their quarrel? Rey steals an escape pod offscreen and flees towards the Millenium Falcon parked outside the current system?
• Finn and Rose are surrounded by a hostile army, about to die. BB-8 hijacks a AT-ST to provide covering fire and an escape vehicle.
• Finn is about to sacrifice his life for the rebels by ramming his ship into the battering laser. Rose comes out of nowhere and rams him out of the collision course. The power of love will save everyone, in the background the First Order breaches the final defensive line.
• The Rebels are stranded on Krait, the First order has land and air forces to put the pressure on. The Millenium Falcon shows up and draws away every flying First Order craft.
• The Rebels are stranded on Krait, the First order has land and air forces to put the pressure on. Luke Skywalker shows up at exactly the right time and place to draw away the land-based First Order army.

There's a built-in excuse for all of these of course: The Force is with the rebels. Or at least a select few of them. I wish fans would discuss the mana cost of the Plot Armour force power.

I'm still waiting for some time-travel or parallel universe nonsense to push things into the absolute Marvelesque absurd.

The fact that backstory is teased in The Force Awakens, or not explained at all, or seemingly postponed to a next - this - movie exacerbates fan theory madness. With no answers or pay-off in The Last Jedi there's actual madness. You could rightly say the fans take their favorite fiction way too serious. But so far that fiction has been playing it straight too. I'm still waiting for some time-travel or parallel universe nonsense to push things into the absolute Marvelesque absurd. Though it may already be there! Seeing as how much and what kind of weaponry the First Order produces, one has to wonder if they're not conjuring them out of thin air. The means to enact a comic book reset or revival of characters are already present too: cloning technology. Before you raise an eyebrow, it's not just comics. In the end the Dune novels had nothing but clones in them, all of whom had their progenitor's memories. Cloning technology and genetically determined force powers? The story could practically write itself, over and over again!

As much as Rian Johnson tries to pry open the door to a brighter future it remains far far away. Star Wars is still basically a black-and-white story about good and evil. The closing chapter of The Last Jedi tries to smooth the creases it so interestingly made. Empire versus Rebels. It doesn't really handle its characters too well either. Rather, it looks inwards and back to the original trilogy. It is Star Wars obsessed with Star Wars - not its denizens. A trait it shares with the prequel trilogy. I'm also sure this will only lead to more navel gazing by the community. It's ultimately unsatifying. In shedding its skin, the snake that was eating its tail seems to have lost more than it has gained. The scene is once again set for the next round. While we wait and speculate.

A looming danger with this sequel trilogy is that it may result in the old status quo.

A looming danger with this sequel trilogy is that it may result in the old status quo. The situation from before A New Hope. I can imagine it now. Episode 9 has the First order grows into the newly formed Empire. A Palpatine hologram, prerecorded or otherwise, congratulating Hux and Kylo Ren on a job well done. In response the resistance has no other choice but to become the new rebellion. Setting the stage like it was just after A New Hope. Allowing Disney to plow Star Wars each and every year. It would be a plan made for economy rather than any passion for telling a story. A wild guess on my part - but one needs to sketch the situation in order to see its horror.
A more definitive ending would maybe play out as follows. Proven to be an inept commander Kylo Ren is deposed and replaced by Hux. After which Kylo joins forces with Rey. The Resistance overthrows the First Order and reforms the Republic. Kylo and Rey establish a new form of Force practice that is neither Jedi nor Sith.

 

I remain adamant: the original Star Wars is the best Star Wars. For as simple as the movie is, it hinted at an immense depth of potential that was gradually made more shallow with each new film. The big twist in Empire Strikes Back signalled the death spiral. It turned the whole plot onto nothing but itself. The recent Force Awakens is the only film in the series that bucked the trend. And yet. In case you haven't seen any of these movies, I'd recommend watching only the first one. Leave the untapped potential to your own imagination rather than watching the later entries. Skeptical? Look no further than the deluge of fan outrcy at the current run. Each voice louder and more indignant than the next, telling us how Star Wars should have been made instead. Solid proof of how it could be the same but different. Many will point to the pre-Disney extended universe on how things should be done. Demanding something new while expecting something old. It's a fools errand. It will never be good enough. Besides, no matter how good or bad things get. No matter how you feel about it. Remember that it's the creator's right to drive his creation into ruin.
 

 

 
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One Flew Over The Monkey House

The Square

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to profit of another man's misfortune and was handed a VIP ticket to a sold-out showing of the movie The Square, from Swedish writer and director Ruben Östlund, at the Ghent Film Festival. Fresh, not quite living up to the meaning of the word, from work I got to the multiplex, which for the occasion looked like something out of a movie. Cast included. Contending for scruffiest VIP attendee was I, as I shared the catwalk with tall blondes, middle-age five o'clock shades, neat suits, smiles and the smell of Indian summer - which wasn't doing me any favors after a days worth of creative pondering.
 
 
Since the ticket was the last minute type of last minute opportunity, I had absolutely no idea what The Square was about. But I rather liked the idea of being surprised. Trying to remedy my naivety was a familiar face from television which I had never seen before. It made a speech that was supposed to lead us into the film. This bothered me. The suggestion bothers me, it puts up a frame that boxes-in one's understanding. I'd rather like to make up my own mind. Nevertheless, the well-spoken entity on the screen told all of us this was a satire on the world of modern art. Being a once-insider of this world, I could feel clouds gathering overhead.

_{Christian, played by Claes Bang. Curator of the X-Royal museum}

Luckily the film didn't start with a comical stint, in which a clumsy museum cleaner makes a mess on the white walls after which it is mistaken by the Japanese attendees for being a poignant statement by a maverick painter. No, it starts out with a cascade of ever louder music, a party, over a black screen that comes to a sudden stop and opens the shot on the lead figure by the name of Christian (Claes Bang). The first scene is of him waking up, presumably the morning after, alone on a sofa. Still wearing his suit. He's late for an interview conducted by Anne (Elisabeth Moss) about the latest exhibition. In the interview he's asked to clarify a highfalutin description of a previous exhibition. You may know the sort of incomprehensible artistic sounding drivel. After some prodding he, with some hesitation, mumbles an explanation "If I place a normal object in a museum, does it become art?" At this moment, I strongly dislike this man who had just confessed that his job was mostly about securing enough funds to buy "important art".
The current exhibition in the story is all about the titular "The Square", which has the function of providing a safe space in which human rights are paramount. This is explained by Christian to his patrons, with great pathos and premeditated built-in moment in which 'spontaneously' goes off script.

_{The X-Royal museum, for the occasion modern art has taken the throne.}

Cut to: a shot of a homeless person.
Cut to: a shot of Christian and people like him, obliviously passing by a street barker asking for donations for a humanitarian cause.
The movie is rather clearly pointing out something. In this very scene, Christian gets robbed of cellphone and wallet as he plays the hero in an orchestrated domestic abuse scene. This kicks off an arc of Christian trying to get his stuff back at any cost. His staff, as well as the the lower class residents of an apartment building, which to him, are all suspect to be the thief he's looking for. All have to bear the brunt of his petty quest. Material wealth in his life takes priority, as does his ego - against which this theft is a great injustice.

At any cost, but to no cost to himself as he scapegoats and guilts his underlings into performing his dirty work. The movie plods along a lovely disjointed pace, we see Christian crack in all the right places for us to peek at the monster inside. From the obsession of his possession, to the disdain to the less fortunate, the utilitarian views he has on his staff, to the childish self-pity whenever his hare-brained schemes fall apart. We start to see the picture of a deeply insecure man who is being lived by the role he desperately clings to. Leeching off the system that has him, in this case, promote a banal art piece that is supposed to encourage altruism. Each time there's a glimmer of redemption and the option to do the right thing, he hesitates and never goes all the way of setting things right. He struts them with a good intention but never takes action. He insists on being irredeemable because a man of his stature doesn't need redemption.

There's a party at night at the museum, sounds like the blind opening of the movie. It's decadent. It has grotesque movements - the dance looks like a fight in its violence. Flabby old women with eyes closed dancing like twenty somethings. Sweat glues clothes that want to come lose of their host bodies. The museum resembles a zoo. It's animalistic.

At this point, the movie was no longer bound to the silver screen, something wonderful had happened.

The chapter ends with Christian and Anne undressing at her place. What follows is the coldest portrayal of two people having sex. They lie to each other that this is a great, meaningful moment but it looks like a cash exchange. A contractual meeting of bodies. There is no affection between these two... but it suits the situation. What else are two rich, well dressed, art minded people to do after a wild party? This is what's supposed to happen. They are being lived by their roles they have chosen for themselves and now, like automatons, are going through the agreed upon motions.
Anna lives in an opulent Baroque apartment with a chimp that draws with crayons. This is a bit of nonsense that many in the audience seemed to find funny. I wondered why I heard laughter. "How absurd, it's a monkey!". At this point, the movie was no longer bound to the silver screen, something wonderful had happened.
Here we must remember that the audience was told upfront that this movie was a parody. This means you laugh at anything you think is intended to be funny. They mustn't have noticed the pattern that was pervading the film in subtle ways. The civilized world is held into stark contrast with the natural. Good manners with instinct. Ego with fear. Bravery with cowardice. A chimp doing art, part of the pattern, foreshadows something we don't yet know.

In prior shots from the museum, we have seen two shots of a video installation with a picture in close up of a muscular young artist behaving like a gorilla. The projection of the video is way in the background, but larger than life and fills the frame. In all cases, the picture of this artist is glaring and breathing at Christian. This is the thread of a second plot arc that runs in parallel to Christian's. The well-behaved, controlled and library-like quiet of the museum also shows its cracks. Behind them is this contained ape-man...
 
A first blow lands in a moment where the high society donors from the off-the-script-speech get shouted into paralysis by the gourmet chef of the museum as they walk away indifferent from his announcement of the fancy dinner that's being served for them. They react like frightened children at the disturbance of the chef's shout. No social norm has been agreed to such alarm and they freeze, unable to respond to this outside signal.
 
Then there's a live interview going on before a similar crowd. A polite affair in which an artist, who dresses in blue pajamas with an overcoat, speaks inanely about his process of bringing mundane objects into the exhibition sphere. The elderly, yet stylish, woman doing the interview politely nods at the beat of every full stop of the artist's sentences. Suddenly an audience member blurts out a string of profanities. A man with Tourettes syndrome disturbs social mores and everyone gets very uncomfortable. They do their best to try and ignore the cascade of sputtered insults. Here again, civil society is upset by a shock wave of human nature.
 
A museum cleaner accidentally vacuums an piece of artwork of piled pebbles. This hit close to home. Something quite similar happened in Ghent when a city cleaner scrubbed the colour mixing strokes from a painting in a public space. The outraged artist fumed at the destruction of his work - a part of which were the sketch lines.

A scene that should make cinematic history.

This story culminates with a scene that should make cinematic history. The rich donors of high, modern art loving society are about to have a gala dinner in an artistic setting. This takes place in a dining room blooming with gold as in Versailles. The middle-age and elderly men brought their young and middle-age wives to this gilt soirée. It's a scene with tall blondes, five o'clock shades, wearing neat suits and smiles. The art is announced over the audio system, informing the crowd of what is to come. A confrontation is coming. The advice is to not falter in the face of adversity. In walks the gorilla artist from the museum for a live performance. He walks on all fours, bare chested, a hunk of pressed and bundled muscle, shouting, braying... The art is loose. Challenging the suits, daring them to engage. "How absurd, a silly monkey-man" and they laugh the unease away. An interesting echo.

But the art persists, threatening with its behavior. Truly an ape, an animal with which there is no pleading. After matters get a little more violent and some would-be heroes are run off. The mood in this kitschy setting turns grim, the entire room freezes. The art has a mind of its own and no matter of stature, riches, power and importance can stop its rampage. It only ends when the patrons realize that they too, under the thin veneer of their suits, are animals.

Terry Notary portrays the ape-man "Oleg" in the film. The Russian artist Oleg Kulik was invited to the international group exhibition "Interpol" at Färgfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden. At the opening, the vernissage, Kulik performed like a dog. He glittered, jumped up, rolled and even bit the VIP crowd in their legs. Kulik said he acted as a representative of the browbeaten Russian people, who now attacked and bet back. The crowd became so scared and enraged that they called for the police. In "The square" there is a similar, charged and offensive scene, but here the performance artist acts like a monkey.
 
from IMDB

Halfway through the film we see that Christian has two small daughters from a divorced marriage. A fact that the plot, like the man himself, kept hidden. They are introduced after the children had to walk home from school because daddy didn't come pick them up. Within minutes of their reunion the monster is shouting down the youngest for banging with the doors out of frustration. At this point, to me, the monster had shed its human skin. I also didn't hear any more uncomfortable laughs from the movie audience either. I had rather hoped the penny had dropped.

The film seems to make a point of showing us what Christian sees and wants to see. More poignantly, what he doesn't want to see. In the fallout of his quest to get back his toys, he has offended an immigrant boy who insists he apologize for calling him a thief (and impugning the boy's standing with his parents). In a verbal kerfuffle the boys ends up falling down a flight of stairs in Christian's luxury apartment complex and is left there, crying out for help. Christian, considering the matter of the apology closed chooses to ignore the pleas and goes back to business as usual. The repeated pleas scoring the scene of Christian sifting through some mail. Till they come to a sudden stop. At this time Christian has a change of heart and digs out the telephone number of the boy, gets voicemail and leaves a message with a heartfelt apology. Yet the message may never arrive. We cannot know, just as Christian cannot.

Meanwhile, in his life as curator, there has also been an upset. A marketing video has gone scandalously viral. While this is mission accomplished for getting the The Square project much needed attention, the violence and imagery of the clip doesn't suit the brushed-up image of the museum. Blame falls to the curator. Only the movie audience knows this issue stems from his quest for his effects. But rather than accept his responsibility and negligence, Christian blames the incident on an "unauthorized release". The opportunity to defend freedom of speech, which is a big issue in Sweden at the moment, is passed by and he resigns his post, to great disapproval of the press. Therefore shifting the blame taking the coward's way out.
The movie finally ends, when a now unemployed Christian seeks out the boy from the staircase incident to apologize. He goes back to the original building where he made his threat and asks around, hat in hand. He's told that the boy hasn't been seen in weeks and is presumed to have moved away suddenly and unannounced. This is ominous news and Christian knows it, but he chooses to believe the hypothetical story and leaves in the comfort that there's nothing he can still do. Opting for the comforting lie. The audience too, is left to think about this as the film ends without a clear resolution.

Most of the entertainment in this movie comes from elements upsetting this staged play of politeness. It's a commentary, not the parody it is seemingly perceived as.

Frankly, I don't think any amount of prior information would have prepared me for The Square. It really was a good thing that I went in as blind as I did. It's an odd, uncomfortable film. Its characters are scrubbed of humanity till all that's left is their functional meaning. They are like civil servants that represent the state and not themselves - but seen in a keeping up appearances sort of way. His role as curator is where Christian is powerful and effective. Yet when it comes to Christian without the mantle... well, it's not pretty. That's why so much of the curator part pervades his personal life. He's not the only one, almost all the adults in this story are playing a culturally determined character. Most of the entertainment in this movie comes from elements upsetting this staged play of politeness. The art in the film is meant to put a magnifying glass on real world issues. But next to the artistic happenings, every character at play here puts much more stock into illusions and escapism. The art here is the only real world element that is allowed to penetrate the protective upper class bubble. Yet even that is by proximation, a sterile mirror image. As a consequence, the only action is taken is symbolic - which in times of social media slacktivism makes the picture hit another mark. What happens if the real world event unexpectedly knocks at your door? It's a commentary, not the parody it is seemingly perceived as. I did not laugh once during the entire showing, and was surprised some people did. At a couple of times, I wanted to sink through my seat or hide in the palms of my hands but in the end it's this that makes this film rather interesting. It's confronting because there's a bit of Christian in all of us. That is to say, none is without ego or egotistic tendencies. I only hope that it's not to this degree. You'll have plenty of time to think about the happenings in here too. You'll be positively able to stew in it since many of the scenes drag on very long. If you are expecting to be entertained you may be disappointed and the run time adds to that frustration. Some of the movie even feels a little clumsy. In my opinion, The Square has much more value when you look at it as a product of its time. Seen in this light, it itself straddles the line of becoming art.

~

Andromedada

 

It's hard for me to hide the fact that I'm a sentimental sap that will fall for anything infused with nostalgia, it speaks right to my heart. I am also a sucker for fiction that blends social commentary, philosophy and fringe science. It's part of the time consuming information addiction that afflicts my mind. That sounds a bit pretentious, I know. But I'm lucky that there are masterpieces that allow me to indulge in spades. When my heart and mind are being spoken to it's all too easy to get blindsided and, from time to time, I have to deal with the resulting hangover. Here we need to be ever optimistic and seize the opportunity to try and learn from the ordeal, analyse it to bits and then rant about it on the internet. It may well be both cathartic and enlightening.

One of the works I read as a hungry, fledgling bibliophile was Frank Herbert's Dune. It's an amazingly rich science fiction told through the eyes of a fresh protagonist as he learns about different forms of government, culture wars, state and religion. What it means to be human and when humanity is lost. The book became a series. The series went on until it ran out of steam and the author passed away, presumably a happy man. I imagine the Herbert estate enjoyed its fair share of royalties but eventually those must have run out of steam too. So it fell to Brian Herbert to team up with Kevin J. Anderson to write more Dune books. The plot trivialized the events of the original books with its onion-like structure. The story was set 10.000 years before the original books, which is a frighteningly long time to set the stage or hold a grudge. The leading characters were a Harkonnen cast as the good guy and an Artreides in the role of the bad guy. A reversal from the original. If I were to make a stab at why the new books had few interesting ideas, I'd say it was because the authors had to work from Herbert's table scraps. They couldn't stray to far from the original either or risk losing its tone. This is why the Dune prequel books set the stage for events about ten millennia in the future in a universe that seemingly doesn't change much in the interim.

Speaking of serialized science fiction epics, when George Lucas made the Star Wars prequels, he famously said he wanted to make them rhyme with the original trilogy. New scenes would echo older scenes. From both thematic and stylistic viewpoints. Results were disappointing. The proposed rhyming way of composing the new script didn't quite pan out, all style with little substance.
For Lucas, they were a way of having the old work try and write the new. A guiding hand, or a crutch, from the past. To me, the performance a particular rain dance. Make it rain! Make it rain! Revenge of the rain! A creative person is in a desperate position when he falls back on magic. Maybe imitation isn't the method to recapture lightning in a bottle.

Dune prequels, Star Wars prequels. Surely you're starting to see rhymes. The latest verse in this dreadful poem is called Mass Effect Andromeda. It too, rhymes. Let me shine a light as I compose a list of sorts, by no means complete. Though it should give some indication of the issues at least. Bear with me as I rack my brain in an attempt to try and impose some structure in the telling.

~
First things first

_{The first look at Andromeda wasn't bad at all.}

Mass Effect Andromeda is the forth game in the series but not a direct continuation of it. It takes place between the first and second installments and tells the story of a massive private colonization effort towards the Andromeda galaxy in order to safeguard the future of galactic civilisation and the Milky Way species - some of them at least - just in case signs of the oncoming Reaper onslaught, a galactic extinction event, are true.
The expedition consists of a hub station called the Nexus and a number of race specific Arks. All are headed towards a handful of golden worlds. The player is cast in the role of one of the children, Sarah or Scott Ryder, of the human Pathfinder: Alec Ryder. A Pathfinder is an elite scout in charge of directing the colonization effort for his race. He also has the added value in the form of SAM (Simulated Adaptive Matrix), an Ai that acts as a hand holding mechanic and personal deus ex machina. Unfortunately not so much for Alec as he doesn't survive the first mission. The story kicks off as he kicks the bucket and with his dying breath transfers his Pathfinder title and SAM link to the player's character. After that, the player takes all the blame of the initiative's mishaps, is left to solve the crisis and has to make all major and minor decisions. No small feat for someone who has neither the qualifications nor the experience to handle the task.

From there the game doesn't know what to do with itself. When the new Pathfinder finds the Nexus, it is dark and sleepy. Ryder is also the very first of the Pathfinders to find his way to the station, all other Arks appear lost. Before long we're informed that an entire chapter has already come to pass. The target planets are in dire shape and deemed uninhabitable. There was an uprising against the managerial staff, it was subdued and the rebels were banished from the Nexus. These outcasts then sought refuge on the golden worlds to eke out a living on them... and succeeded! Having missed all the action, that is to say: the player doesn't get to experience any of this, it befalls the Pathfinder to create the circumstances to make the golden worlds habitable so that the initiative on the Nexus finally feels the need to actually do something and send colonists.
I case you missed the contradiction: the uninhabitable planets are being inhabited. But for some reason the Nexus is mired in inaction and can't send settles of their own, because their ceremonial Pathfinders who are tasked by paving the way are nowhere to be found. Seeing as though prospecting is less of an issue now, the player is chiefly tasked with fighting hostiles and pressing the magic button that marginally improves weather conditions. The game makes the latter the big linchpin, as only Ryder is up to the task because he's the only Pathfinder with the connection to the enhanced Ryder SAM that solves all problems.

~
Axial twist

_{The launch trailer already has a subtle excuse embedded into it. It also features about 60 percent scenes of the final chapter of the game.}

The game's initial impressions left me puzzled. Maybe suspicions should have been raised when the Mass Effect Andromeda PR spun the initial pitch of the original Mass Effect (ME) into "a game of exploration" in order to to sell the idea that Mass Effect Andromeda would be a game worth your time because it, like its progenitor, would be about exploration. Only this time, Bioware would deliver where the original, according to them, failed.
The problem here is that this exploration angle doesn't show in Mass Effect. Anyone who played it knows it's driven by the narrative, not by a thirst for exploration. The lead character, Shepard, isn't an explorer. He's a military specialist. An operative for the government to investigate and solve issues discretely and by any means necessary. A kind of space Bond. Bond tends to explore a specific kind of hills on his adventures but it's not the same. Shepard could scale hills in a planetary rover called the Mako but it was an optional mechanic in that game that was cut in subsequent games.
Still, regardless of spin: why exploration? Why would you, as Bioware, keep mining for copper when you had struck gold with the original's story and characters? With Andromeda, Bioware doubles down on copper and tries to sell it as an upgrade.

Why did Bioware select exploration as one of the main pillars for the concept of the new game? The answer lies in its design. Andromeda is an open world game and exploration gels best with the trend in mainstream gaming. Why bend your game to adhere to a popular trend? Because it's conveniently puts a mark next to "open world" on the dollar checklist. Why make your own game, when the market dictates what you should make? Winning numbers feel safe.
A bet hastily made however because Andromeda's open world doesn't even function all that well. The directionless design allows one to skip certain parts to do them later. However this game presupposes you actually do the beginning bits at the start. On one occasions I unwittingly skipped a beginner quest because I drove off in the "wrong" direction. After about 40 hours of gameplay I finally discovered this quest and it felt like traveling back in time: The ingame characters voice their amazement at the attacking alien hordes the beginner quest throws at them... even tough they had encountered countless of these aliens, had met their leaders and had bested their champions. My party was appalled by the abandoned outpost and the loss of human activity in the area the quest took place in, wondering what would happen with the rest of the planet... even though they had, by then, already settled the planet with a new city-sized outpost!
I skipped the entirety of Havarl, the presupposed second planet, at the very end of the game's story. Again, the same naive wonderment of my player characters about the alien technology on Havarl struck a false note because they had seen much more elaborate tech by then - including flying, mechanical sand worms (thanks, Frank Herbert)! Please remind me of the point of having an open world as ill-conceived as this one?

~
The small beyond

Open World design?

In the context of gaming, this design concept usually points towards large worlds that allow the players to roam free and explore, create their own stories, interact with the world, its systems, its denizens. It usually also means that mechanics in open world games need to have a mind of their own, work like clockwork that adapts to the the player's behavior and interacts with him or her. Often there's the idea of choice and consequence that interlocks with RPG game design. Story telling in the Open World can be tricky because of its non-linear nature. Especially when the player starts sequence breaking, contingency checks need to ensure the story still flows in a natural way. The clock must not skip a beat.

The Open World leads to another coveted check mark that goes hand-in-hand with it: a crafting system. Here it's expansive to the point of confusion. Item and inventory management was streamlined out of the first Mass Effect games for not being part of the core gameplay. So why include it? Because crafting in games is hot. Crafting is all the rage. So get ready to mine and craft all over again.
It's the insistence on an open world that gives this sort of extensive crafting system legitimacy. It gives players the opportunity to roam the vast boring world in search of truffles like the pigs they are. This is the next game, after Dragon Age Inquisition, in which Bioware not only fails to replicate the quality of its own past games, but also of those of the other developers they hope to copy. Namely: Bethesda's Skyrim and apparently, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The proof is all over the map. On which icons are scattered as if a designer sneezed on it. The player's task is to drive to these icons and pluck, collect, shoot or talk them out of existence. Unless they are fast-travel points, in which case you must unlock as many as possible in as little time as possible lest you run the risk of wasting even more time driving around, cleaning up Andromeda's mind-numbingly dull worlds.

~
Vroom vroom

The driving is done in the Andromeda variant of the aforementioned Mako: the Nomad. Which is sold to us as a superior alternative. Even though it lacks the Mako's massive cannon and machine gun - remember: the first game was all about exploring! Instead Nomad has two swish driving modes, "fast for plains" and "slow four wheel drive for anything above a slight incline". The functional-tank-combat-gameplay from the original Mako was replaced by abysmal-switch-gear-gameplay that comes into play anytime you leave the road.
The gear switching mechanic is a feeble mask for the the missing combat gameplay which couldn't be present because of, you guessed it, the open world. You see, the game expects you to get out of the vehicle from time to time for some third person action gameplay to deal with combat encounters that are strewn about the maps. Adding cannons to the vehicle would allow you to blow away those encounters in short order and thus would also bypass the entire on-foot combat gameplay that defined the series.

Driving, driving, driving, driving.

The lack of real world logic "tanks are better at dealing and taking damage" gets in the way of the flawed gameplay-inspired logic "explorers don't need guns because they don't get into combat, but combat is fun so get out there and risk you life anyway". The original Mass Effect used the Mako sequences as a palette cleanser. Andromeda forces its boring vehicle on you because it's the only viable way to traverse the open world without feeling the need to stab yourself in the eye with a biro.
The bulk of the gameplay consists of getting unrelated quests from generic, seemingly identical NPCs, then checking the map, then driving out into the wasteland to resolve the icon. The map UI is clumsy but necessary... The driving, always the driving. Switching gears. Getting out to pick up the essential minerals you supposedly need. More driving. Getting to a dead end that results in more driving. Avoiding combat encounters because they only waste more time. Detours mean more driving. Driving, driving, driving, driving... Then you close the game because real life intrudes your gaming habits. Staying within Bioware games, Star Wars The Old Republic drove this much better with efficient zones and quests that drove directly into the main storyline - better voice acting and animation and driving too. It was hands drive a better Mass Effect game than Andromeda.
Know what would have been a true superior exploration tool? A flying craft. There's plenty of them about too: civilians have them, merchants and enemies have them, anyone but the Pathfinder team has them!

~
Blah blah

Bioware remembered that if Mass Effect had loads of dialogue in it, the new game needed loads of them too. So they took on the dumb work of giving voice to everything save the furniture.

The original Mass Effect came with a universe that exaggerated the world as we know it today. With people and cultures that range from being in development to warlike to the scientific. From Empires to matriarchies. From pirate paradise to police state. From cerebral to brain washed. A very wide spectrum of human existence enlarged to a galactic scale. The balance of power, the relationships between individuals and species shone true every conversation the game allowed you to have. Every dialogue built on your understanding of this universe. It even came with a healthy dose of subtle humanist impulses, to my great delight - this is what sets this property above all others. My post on Mass Effect 2 dove into that topic.
Not so in Andromeda. Bioware remembered that if Mass Effect had loads of dialogue in it, the new game needed loads of them too. So they took on the dumb work of giving voice to everything save the furniture. I say dumb because it seems the mission statement went no further then to "write dialogues". The result is hours upon hours of babble that never goes beyond the petty history of the characters you meet. Because of that they're all boring in the same way. What is the point of having the Patherfinder hear an Asari pilots say she likes flying her shuttle craft? Well, the point was look like Mass Effect. Unfortunately Bioware has developed an appetite for their own foot in doing so. Enter the character called Hainly Abrams.

Appearing like any ordinary NPC but with an introduction that goes a little like this: "Hi, I used to be a man, but I came to Andromeda to be a woman, because that's who I really am."
Where to begin. A problem with this is that transsexual people don't really identify as their born sex and thus don't go announcing it like that to strangers. For all intents and purposes, a trans woman is a woman. Only to a special kind of outsider would it appear that "This man wants to be a woman!". By making this sound so important, it's literally the only topic Hainly talks about, the writers seem to imply that trans people are only important because that in lieu of any other character trait they may have. It's even one of her motivations for traveling to Andromeda. The original game portrayed a galaxy that had moved past these kind of petty fears. Now we are to believe that transphobia is so threatening in the Milky Way that fleeing in this way seems like an attractive proposition. Hainly Abrams is like a diversity trophy Bioware has awarded themselves.

~
Argle-bargle

Now, let's just for the sake of argument agree that exploration should be front and center of a Mass Effect game. Then why is there so little to discover?

Now, let's just for the sake of argument agree that exploration should be front and center of a Mass Effect game. Then why is there so little to discover? The encountered aliens are capitalist, bipedal, breathe oxygen, have two genders, communicate in the same way as humans, are Buddhists, are Imperialist, use pistols, rifles and shotguns that are identical to human designs, use Arabic numbers, use digital data. The list goes on and on. Things are so familiar that I was surprised to find that the Alien leader wasn't an orange buffoon dressed like an envelope stuffed with soppy oatmeal.

Why are the aliens you encounter in Andromeda more human then some of the original races? The Krogan, Salarian, Volus, Geth, Hanar, Turian and Elcor are all more alien in design than the Angara and Kett. No explanation is given why these are so close to humans, require the same living environments as Humans, have a very similar societal structure as humans and are at roughly the same technological level as Humans. Keep in mind that these are races from another galaxy about 600 years in the future. I won't even ask where there are birds in Andromeda.
The current conflict between the two Andromeda races is immediately of capital importance to the Milky Way races. Instead of observing the situation, the humies wade into the fray with next to no resources.

Andromeda introduces two new Alien races to the stage. First, the Andromeda natives: the Angara. Cuddely, big lipped, big eyes. There can be no doubt that these are the good guys.

_{The Angara}

I kept calling them: fish-people. Not only do they look like fish, they seem to have their character traits based on, what would be typically linked to, the star sign Pisces: emotional, spiritual, insecure, whimsical, hard to define... Sure enough, perhaps not surprising, after a cursory search I found out that, indeed, the Andromeda galaxy is seen in the Pisces constellation. Maybe it takes an old hand in astrology, no I don't advocate it, like myself to notice and uncover this. "What are the aliens from the Pisces constellation like? Why, like Pisces of course!". This is yet another shortcut and nothing more. Being emotional doesn't even do anything significant for the functioning of the Angara. It only makes them slightly whiny. They aren't a race of berserkers that fight harder when they are angry. There's no 'dark side comes with power' connection. It's just another throw-away character trait that is bolted on top of this race. To me it also undermines the scientific inspiration of the originals if you start basing new story elements on pseudo science.
The Angara have female spiritual leaders for a society that seems written by Margaret Mead. A big incentive for fighting for the Angara, the game seems to suggest, is to prevent their pure way of life to be lost.
First contact with the Angara is a laughable affair too, Ryder literally simply walks out the ship alone, unarmed, unmasked, and shakes the alien leader's hand. A small handshake for man, a large gesture for mankind.

True to life, ugly appearance means evil nature.

Secondly, the Andromeda invaders: the Kett. Ugly, bony, slant eyed aliens. True to life, ugly appearance means evil nature. There can be no doubt that these are kill on sight bad guys.
Everyone hates hates hates the Kett with a burning passion. Within minutes of arriving in Andromeda everyone is willing to lay their lives on the line because they hate the Kett so much. No diplomatic outreach is done, no effort is done to make contact. It's guns a-blazing from the word go. Later in the game Ryder learns of the Kett motivation, at which point the hate goes supernova.

_{The Kett}

The Kett seem, quite blatantly, like an amalgamation of the Collectors and Reapers from the original trilogy. They use similar methods and motivations. The collectors harvest bio-matter from existing species to create a new reaper in the shape of the current dominant race and call it salvation. The Kett collect live specimens of species to comically mutate them into more Kett and call it exaltation.
Then there's the Remnant, also referred to as Rem Tech, a neutral faction of drones and automatons that seem to guard and maintain the planets in Andromeda.
There's also an unseen adversary at work in Andromeda. It is suggested that the Remnant creator's race was wiped out by it. Work of the Reapers? Visual hints seem everywhere!
I was expecting a late game twist that would reveal the Reaper connection, linking the Andromeda galaxy to the Milky Way as both would be under supervision of the same super race, experiencing the same cycles. This would set the tone as it did in the original trilogy. Yet this is not the case and the game never expands on the origins or nature of the Remnant - too bad, as I found it a major incentive for the duration of the game. This mystery was almost the sole reason I kept playing. I was suspecting a Reaper reveal around every bend. But there was nothing - not even an alternative explanation. A bitter disappointment.

The presence of the Kett highlights one of the story's biggest flaws: that the exploratory force was sent out without a military grade escort! It seems that no contingency plan was made in case Andromeda was inhabited and the Milky Way invaders were met with a fighting force.
This short-sightedness in the fiction again hints at a spoiler later in the game where the player, in order to meet the opposing military force, begets an army of Remnant machines. The glaring lack of military hardware is filled in with this, literal, deus ex machina one can see coming hours away. How else is the threat to be neutralized? Well, maybe this neutral faction hardware we've seen everywhere in the game can be of use.
At least the Remnant army is a plot point that gets resolved. One that doesn't is that the gene-splicing Kett could and would provide the cure to a deadly genetic disease that afflicts one very important story character.
The entire plot line is harebrained to start with. Alec Ryder uses the Andromeda mission to flee from the human Alliance in the Milky Way for fear of repercussions of his illegal work on Ai. This Ai is the aforementioned SAM, who's made in order to help with finding a cure for the player character's mother who turns out to be alive and with the colonists, in cryosleep under a pseudonym. Wouldn't it have been a better to put her in cryo in the Milky Way while research goes on there and not in the resource and facility starved Andromeda Initiative? The plot point is never resolved, but I assume SAM would be used to magically bend Kett technology to magically create a cure. The problem here is that Alec Ryder has no way of knowing in advance that there will be a gene splicing race in Andromeda. His bet to find a cure in Andromeda seems much worse than it would in the Milky Way.

~
Paragon babysitter

Why is the main character so interested in these strangers? Why wouldn't the Pathfinder bring in professionals from the initiative instead of vagabonds and rogues who've done nothing more than meet him?

As established before. Andromeda is all about exploring. So right off the bat it seems uncharacteristic to have the entire crew dropped into your lap within the first hour of the game. You don't even have to look for them. No tie-in quests. No build up, no explanations. No attachment. All of them appear as unwarranted tag-alongs and as a player you'll feel more like a babysitter than a leader. You'll need to listen to their worries, feelings and petty nostalgia. All of which are unprompted. Why is the main character so interested in these strangers? The only reason he's invested is because the plot tells him to. The dialogues tell starry-eyed, soppy and unrelated stories that don't convey any other message than "care for me!". A pathological tactic from the Bioware writing team that backfires the moment boredom sets in. After that the dialogues feel like a waste of time. Besides, why wouldn't the Pathfinder bring in professionals from the initiative instead of these vagabonds and rogues who've done nothing more than meet him? Being desperate for attention and a place in the world isn't exactly a token of competence.

I think I really pissed that one off, maybe because I shot him in the face!
-Andromeda humour

It also doesn't help these characters that all of them are profoundly unfunny, even when they really try to be the opposite. An example of what passes as funny according to Andromeda is companion Liam Kosta's line from the first mission: "I think I really pissed that one off, maybe because I shot him in the face!" This is the actual tone of a character that Bioware, in publicity, described with flowery language like this: "Every team needs its idealist, and Liam is ours."
That's quite the departure from the norm. for instance, Mass Effect 2 which was pretty grim at times nevertheless left room for humour and self-deprecation. You may remember Mordin singing. Humour proved a charm impossible to lift.
Somewhat easier are Mass Effect 2's loyalty missions, they make a comeback in Andromeda. These are meant to forge a bond with another characters that is so strong they'd fight harder for you. Essentially it's an abstraction from how people bond in real life. You share experiences and become friends through thick and thin. The end of Mass Effect 2 puts the player's relationship with his companions to the test.
Unfortunately, Andromeda trivializes the loyalty mission for nothing other than to unlock that companion's final skill tier in their skill tree. Some missions, like Liam's, have a motivation so out-of-the-blue that I can't for the life of me remember what it's relevance to the story was, what brought it on, or what was the result of it. All I remember is that it was a reckless tumble that risked the team's lives, gained no one anything and many people died. After this Liam wasn't promptly discharged but was simply told not to do it again.

~
Characters within characters

_{Cora Harper}

Your second in command is Cora. She's like a military gargoyle that spouts hardball military copy paste encouragements like "on your feet soldier! We are Asari commando's we don't get lost, we find a way." She's established as uncompromisingly hard as nails. She idolizes her Asari mentor, whom she has never met in person. She values her advice even over yours. "She'll have a plan" is repeated like a mantra. Setting up a plot twist so predictable a desiccated potato could could have seen it coming. We ultimately get to meet said mentor and of course she turns out to be a cheat and an unapologetic egotist.
After learning her mentor is a fraud, even though her textbook lessons were actually sound, Cora, in the good old military tradition, starts blubbering like a child. I guess she wasn't much of a commando anyway if she didn't actually learn those lessens as she keeps telling everyone her mentor has a plan - and she, evidently, doesn't.

In order to have a character come up with a genius plan, the author must come up with a genius plan.

This is a bit of a trick to detract from the fact that, in order to have a character come up with a genius plan, the author must come up with a genius plan. It's much easier to say "She has a genius plan" and then have it as an off-screen event. Easier still to not have to do it at all.
Cora's character takes another dive when she becomes extremely clingy if you romance her. She dreams aloud about settling down, having a home with white picket fence and about eighteen children. Her love for Ryder is pure projection! She's willing to abandon her defining characteristic just to become a mommy - effectively a different person entirely. The game didn't let me break up with her at that point. So I guess the message is: if you have a nice evening out before the suicide mission and make it through, there's a contract waiting for you! Have some fun, but prepare for marriage afterwards.

_PeeBee

I did take a bit of a shine to the chirpy Asari crew mate, PeeBee. She's a young, happy go lucky, bumbling yet genius tech-literate archeologist. She loves loves loves ancient Aliens. She's also a bit naive and needs an occasional common sense update and a tight leech. If you think this all this sounds familiar you're not wrong. She too is a shortcut character. The game tells us she's a rogue scientist, but she's little more than a childish tomb raider. She's basically a poor man's Liara from the original game but with a twist in her personality. Instead of the brooding, shy introvert Liara, she's an outgoing laissez faire extravert. The single switched personality trait is common in this game. Maybe to make something feel both fresh and familiar at the same time?

_{Vetra Nyx}

Andromeda finally introduces female Turians to the world and one has to star in a prominent role. Vetra tries to fill the shoes of a gender swapped Garrus (ME). In stead of a jaded police agent who tries his hand at managing a crew of heroes, she's a jaded would-be mother to her orphaned sister who tries to be a hero.

~
The rest of the crew

_{Nakmor Drack}

Drack (Andromeda) is a crusty old Krogan with a cheery slant. He's an optimist about the Krogan colony and wants to work with the other races.
Wrex (ME) is a crusty old Krogan with a mean streak. He's a pessimist due to the genophage and mistrusts the other races.

_{Jaal Ama Darav}

Jaal (Andromeda) is an emotional outsider alien written by someone who read the definition of 'emotional' in a dictionary. He's unassuming and oddly rational. He amazes the other crew by being so different, but not really. Is amazed by human customs. Talks with an African accent.
Javik (ME) is a rational outsider alien who doesn't know the meaning of the word emotion. He's sarcastic and jaded. He amazes the crew by being so different. Is amazed by human customs. Talks with an African accent.

_{Liam Kosta}

Liam (Andromeda) is a human soldier with a sentimental streak. Family is very important to him. Clings to the past. Wants to break the rules to get things done.
Ashley (ME) is a human soldier with a sentimental streak. Family is very important to her. Clings to the past. Wants to do things by the book to get things done.
These characters are very different because they are of the opposing sex!

There's much to lament here. When you'd ask a Mass Effect fan what their favorite part of the series is, I'd wager a top answer would be the characters. Much like it would be for fans of a series of which Mass Effect took inspiration from: Star Trek. It's the likes of Kirk and Spock, Picard and Riker, that keep people coming back for more. There's a simple soap-like appeal to seeing what's next for your favorite characters. How they will be put through the wringer next. It doesn't really matter if they are in a space battle, meeting an alien society or experiencing a Sherlock Holmes novel on the holodeck. It's all about the characters we've grown attached to. A base requirement is that these characters aren't animated cardboard cut-outs. They need opinions, wants and desires and flaws. So it was with the original Mass Effect cast. Only this time you were up there in the wringer with them. You'd talk to them about it afterwards, but you'd stay to hear their story and perspectives.
Yet, we must remember that EA has pushed the PR narrative that Mass Effect is all about exploration, much like Star Trek was much about exploration. I'm sure you remember Kirk collecting copper ore samples on all those planets.
In fairness, Star Trek actually was about exploration but of philosophical ideas. Star Trek took inspiration from Socrates, Plato, Kant, Sartre, Kierkegaard and humanism, to name but a few. Mass Effect followed and became another rare source to inform us of human progress. I for one like that this type of knowledge can be presented in a creative and entertaining way. It awakens the flame of curiosity, a quest for truth that will surely lead our own civilisation to the Star Trek future we could have.
 

~
Money mutes

Why was the game even made?

Not only did EA miss the point of the franchise, they also missed its audience. One important question is starting to make a contour over the background noise: Why was the game even made?
Original Mass Effect was a product of its time. It had no claim to fame. There was risk involved. But there was a sense of optimism not just in the gaming industry but in the culture at large. As problems in the world started to crystallize: sectarian violence, climate change, a dire political climate... and with it opinions and solutions were also formulated. Critical voices ratcheted up the volume.
Some of that ended up in pop culture, sometimes even through games. At least two games that I played dealt with some serious issues and injected them into the mainstream. Mass Effect (November 16, 2007) and Assassin's Creed 2 (November 17, 2009). Which is to say, tear down the myths and walls surrounding people. To unify under a common humanity and move civilisation forward. Even if the message was simple, at least they had something to say. The developer put the grand idea, some idealism, above big money.

There's the belief that everything will work out and that confidence is a viable substitute for competence. As long as intentions are good, good things will happen.

New Bioware glorifies religious beliefs, valuing mysteries above understanding. The player can only tacitly voice his criticism. "Agree to disagree". It aims not to unify, but to protect and let stand old divisions. Don't offend any sensibilities! Shepard (ME) called people living beyond the grave: "Oh, zombies?". New Bioware calls out the amazing creator behind the universe's beauty. Old Bioware had a name for old gods: Reapers.
The scientific and technological basis of the original game seems to have given way to something quite different. It seems informed by a simplistic sense of morality. It seems to have one simple message: that everything will work out fine and that confidence is a viable substitute for competence. As long as intentions are good, good things will happen. It's like an adventure film made for children in which we can already tell from the first minute that every paragon of virtue will make it out unscathed. It's simply magical!
But imagine if there wasn't a second invader in Andromeda which our heroes could liberate the indigenous aliens from. Even though the end result is the Initiative gaining the upper hand over the Angara. Their domination is presented as liberation and cooperation. The initiative is only good when contrasted to a greater evil.

We got this!

A resolute "We got this!" is repeated ad nauseam by the cast. It's how I imagine the creative process developing this thing must have been like: overwhelmed by aspects of game development, struggling to see how everything should fit together, not understanding science fiction, fumbling character building, botching world building, misunderstanding open world design... but having a chipper attitude about it all, confident that it magically will work out in the end because the intentions were pure and honest.
A creative person is in a desperate position when he falls back on magic.

~
In defense of pitchforks

Andromeda hardly tries to earn the price of admission. To briefly summarize: the projected colonization planets turn out to be duds. Luckily for our heroes there are ancient technological planet size engines, called vaults, that conveniently turn the planets into the perfect habitat for humans somehow. Never is it explained why the planets became unstable. Never is it explained why there are vaults at all. Never is it explained why the vaults are broken. Never is it explained why they respond to SAM and the Pathfinder. Never is it explained why the Pathfinder is so important to begin with. Is it because he's the only one with a scanner? Or is it because of the deus ex machina causing Ai? Never is it explained why humans are the standard of living in another galaxy. It's an incomprehensible mess.

At the heart of Mass Effect is a suggested answer to the Fermi Paradox: the Reapers.

So Andromeda poses that all planets are human planets. But when a mouse sees a chunk of cheese wedged in between a plank and some metal wiring. Does it ever stop to think it may be a trap constructed by a higher intelligence? So I thought it would fare our Milky Way colonists. What if they found a table set for a reset? For Mass Effect veterans trying to make sense of it, it would seem that all of this points to a pre-made condition in order to steer evolution in such a way that would allow the Reapers to step in and reset the galactic table. Which is a theme at the heart of Mass Effect. A suggested answer to the Fermi Paradox: the Reapers.
Andromeda even had the ideal topic for getting creative with for real world issues, given the state of the projected golden worlds: Climate change. And it's not just the planets, conditions on the Nexus are dire too, limited resources pose a pressing issue yet never does it occur to anyone to recycle their garbage. Andromeda's comment or solution to this problem? Press the magic button that was enabled by the magic calculations done by the magic Ai in your lucky lucky head. Whenever the word 'magic' falls, I mean to say that none of this is explained within the fiction. The reflex to explain things in a creative way is completely absent. Contrast this with the original game that went through extreme lengths to explain itself and its inner workings in minute detail in its codex. Andromeda is content to leave much to the imagination. It has to, because much of what happens in this game doesn't make much sense.
The gaps in it's fiction is easier to understand when we consider Andromeda is a game where, lacklustre as they are, game mechanics are considered more important than story. The result is a ramshackle skeleton of open world mechanics that tries to fit the clothes of a much tighter gaming experience and comes off looking ridiculous. It's made from a checklist, not from inspiration. It's arrogant and wastes the player's time thinking what it has to offer is worthwhile. It spends capital it didn't earn. It keeps questions unanswered for a sequel that will never be made. It teases DLC that will never see the light of day. It seems it was assumed the Mass Effect label would sell no matter what carries it.
Its biggest attraction remains the concept of the return to Mass Effect. Something so nostalgia driven it has become the best argument for, very simply, playing the original trilogy.

~
Mass Effect is brilliant

_{Not Andromeda.}

In my lifetime I have played the original Mass Effect seven times. I discovered it by happenstance and picked it up almost on Bioware's pedigree alone. What happened next blew my mind. It happened in what seems to me now a lifetime ago. Indeed everyone who worked on it has since retired or moved on. it's a new world now but that doesn't mean it has to be open to be any good.
Which is what you'll find when you're introduced to Mass Effect proper. To me it's one of the best games ever made. So, I'd recommend you play that instead of Andromeda. Much like you'd advise anyone interested in Star Wars to watch the original trilogy. Or to stick to the Frank Herbert's books when it comes to Dune.

Another Star Wars Story

Rogue One

Beware Spoilers

A Star Wars Story is the first instalment in the Rogue One trilogy. Inspired by the blockbuster Star Wars movies made by George Lucas it is directed by Gareth Edwards. Set before Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, It tells the tale of how the Rebellion got the plans to the first Death Star. A key character in this story is Gyn Erso. She is the daughter of the weapon's architect and is the only one who can retrieve said plans to expose a fatal flaw in the station's design.
Right of the bat I'm annoyed by the subtitle. Will every side story need that little bit of extraneous info? This is a story of Star Wars, unlike all the other's you've seen and heard.
Rogue One opens up well enough, evil space Gandalf Orson Krennic, director of the death star program, comes to reclaim the last peon to finish the construction of the battle station. True to tradition the progression of the big project lags behind schedule. Much like every governmental program in history, in any galaxy. Krennic seems amicable at first, but a lie escalates the whole affair into cascade of shouts, violence and death. Unstoppable like a wedding band of a past marriage circling down the drain of a sink, slippery and inexorably as it slips towards its sewery doom. What I mean is that it happens too fast and is really tragic.

_{Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso}

From there the story is pretty straight forward as the film takes the universe into wider focus. Showing the state of the universe. Once again, the Empire are clearly space Nazis. Oppressive, , exploitive, ignorant. It has all the (correct) traits it had in Star Wars: A New Hope. I say space Nazis, but the Empire could quite clearly be some other state found in the world today.

_{Jedha is the site of an ancient Jedi Temple}

Our eye travels to Jedha, a planet whom's culture resembles a mix of eastern and middle eastern, its veiled and robed freedom fighters branded terrorists by the invaders. In the streets storm trooper in parade ensure the populace that they are there for safety and employ justice as their means. Two minutes later there's blaster bolts blurring the lines, rebels shooting rebels, concussion explosions, thermal detonations and a lone child crying out in agony.
All this, only moments before the Empire blows the place up with a moon-shaped drone. Sorry old chaps, all we needed was fuel!
It's a bit on the nose. We all get it.

~

Yes, this is a war movie.
Should come as no surprise, it's right there in the title! But it's quite unlike the prequels. There the troops fighting the war are either throw-away battle bots or throw-away clones. In the clone wars only the heroes actually mattered. In Rogue One the heroes are the throw-away troops (sadly, in more way than one). This rather sets the tone to tragedy. Don't bring you children to watch this movie if you were expecting Jar Jar's silly antics. Don't expect the plucky bantering of Solo vs Organa. Don't expect old fashioned romance of rogues and princesses. Funny lines are rare, involve guns and shooting people and are made by a robot on a suicide mission. These aren't the swashbuckling space adventures of old man Lucas, this is war. This is World War 2, this is the Vietnam War... in space! The rebel forces even look the part. If the movie tried to make a point about war, it even gets a little twist here.

_{Walks on snow, sand, forest ground and surprisingly: water}

Oddly, it also has a few of war game elements to it. One I'm thinking of is one scene set in a tropical beach locale... By the way: add that to the level 'theme list' too after: space, desert, ice, lava, swamp and forest. So this one scene takes place in front of a hangar bay: closed doors, an open space and then some chest high crates for the rebels to crouch behind. Ideal for dishing out potshots with the witless Stormtroopers as they run out from their spawn closets and into the enemy crossfire. This fight takes ages before Empire troops wise up and attack the rebels from one of their three exposed flanks. Akin to virgin players experiencing a round of Battlefield, not aware of their surroundings. A handful of Stormtroopers would have done the job but Command sends in a handful of AT-AT walkers, I guess to show that Rogue One speaks fluent Starwarsian, but more on this later. I laughed out loud when I saw the setup of the scene, because it reminded me of the silliness of simplistic, video game inspired action sequences. It broke my suspension of disbelief. That's not how combat works, especially not in a "war movie".
Sure enough this tactical error on the rebel's part costs them the match, but this foolishness doesn't take away one iota of drama as almost all of them die a hero's death. At least they would have, if I could remember their names and/or character. Their last utterances absorbed by their still unvanquished colleagues, just moments before they too are slain.

Saving Private Ryan is another war movie. It too had nameless soldiers that died in puddles of their own viscera. We did feel for those men, so what's the difference? Well, in the preceding shot we saw them getting seasick, puking, praying, getting themselves ready, fighting nerves. They were human beings, relatable. We would do the same things if it was us in those troop carriers. It makes the troops into nameless but unique characters. Rogue One barely even does this with its leading characters. This is one of its weakest points, in my opinion. For starters, I thought the antagonist, Orson Krennic, was a more interesting character than the protagonists: Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor. The two ambassadors to China, Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus, while not bad on their own, felt tacked-on. Their scenes may have been more believable without their near jedi-like feats and aimbots. The pilot Bodhi Rook was introduced 3 times one third of a time.

Oh.

_{Also starring: Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Riz Ahmed as Bodhi Rook, Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang as Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus (source: www.imdb.com)}

It feels like we are to care for too many characters at any given time. The focus from Jyn Erso is diffused by the presence of all the others. Cassian, the ambassadors. Then there's the sarcastic robot, the defected cargo pilot, and the extremist freedom fighter. I have to look up their names because I didn't remember them. I feel that some of these could have been cut from the story to benefit the protagonist, because as a result I ended up caring for none of them. No time is given to make them really stand out in any memorable way. You won't find anything close to a blowhard, laser brained Han Solo. There's very little sci-fi fantasy going on here. The only one is Darth Vader, who is a larger than life villain. All the first billing rebels keep it very real. They're very serious and bland, 'gritted teeth' isn't a character trait.
I even have a bit of a problem with Jyn's motivations. At first she wants to deal with neither the Empire, nor the Rebellion. She even states that she kind of likes the order the Empire has brought. Her father dies due to a rebel bombardment. In a turn of events that are now lost on me, she is willing to sacrifice her life for the rebellion. It seems to me that the Death Star's threat is largely overstated in Rogue One. It's weapon of terror, not a weapon of mass destruction - yet, and only becomes so because of rebel actions. We as an audience know it will blow up a planet. That's why we buy the argument why she would make the sacrifice. Jyn doesn't know that she should. I'm not sure what's in it for her other than proving to the Rebellion that she can get the plans. Or revenge for what's been done to her. Or that her father told her so, would he have wanted her to die for it too? Seems like a big price to pay.

Does the rebellion really have that few pilots and squadrons? The Rebellion seems tiny!

In any case 'new' characters are about to fulfil their destiny. Dramatically introduced, shot from the back as they speak, letting us wonder... Ah, CGI versions of Tarkin and Leia on vacation from the uncanny vally, are here to accept the baton. Known quantities are here, because it's Star Wars.
I could have done without the X-wing pilots that were pasted in from A New Hope though, for some reason they specifically shrink the size of the universe. Does the rebellion really have that few pilots and squadrons? The Rebellion seems tiny! The many cameos also shrink the universe.
We could say that the ideas of X-wings and Tie fighters limit the scope too, but I think that isn't as much of a problem. Ordering in bulk saves funds.
This stems from a greater problem with Star Wars as a whole, and that is that the visual and ideological vocabulary of this universe is rather limited. Especially after the Disney acquisition all extra world building from the expanded universe was deemed non-canonical. So we're back down to brass tacks. Logical, how else could you expand upon the existing films? Forget the Ebon Hawk, there's only the Millenium Falcon. But this means we need to stick with what we know: X-wings, Tie fighters, the Imperial walkers, etc. Only small elements expand this vocabulary: like the newly added hammerhead corvettes, which - to my knowledge first appeared in Knights Of The Old Republic - a role playing video game.
Another new element, another tweak, is the black elite death troopers with their distorted voicecomms. So elite that they need to mask their communications from any bystanders? But the sounds they make with the scrambled grunts and wheezes, sounding very much like the combine soldiers from Half Life 2. Talking as if they had swallowed a white noise Morse code machine. It works very well, the result is an other-than-human appearance, which instills fear and makes one uneasy. Nice to see the an addition to the Empire that instills fear (and isn't Darth Vader) next to the comically incompetent regular Storm Troopers. Those almost look out of place in a war movie.

_{Death Troopers, as the name suggests, are scarier than regular Storm Troopers}

This is one of the downsides of the Star Wars vocabulary, change too much and it starts to sound different and unfamiliar. It makes some sense to pick and choose from the former expanded universe to see what fits well enough to carry over.
This, if nothing else, is something that could be attributed to the prequel trilogy: it quite literally expanded the universe, there was a smattering of ideas thrown into the mix. Even going too far some cases (mi-di-chlo-ri-ans).

~

Rogue One is subservient to Star Wars: A New Hope in every way.

Rogue One is subservient to Star Wars in every way. I don't think this movie can work without A New Hope existing. Compare this with last year's The Force Awakens, that movie carries more weight and is allowed to come up with new ideas. In contrast, R1 is slanted towards Star Wars fans, panderingly so. "Remember how awesome this or that was?" So while it can't come up with much new, it can elaborate a bit on vested ideas.
Remember the Force? Here Rogue One sheds a bit more context on how it still exists under the Empire. The line in A New Hope "Your sad devotion to that ancient religion" suddenly makes more sense now. With the passing away of the Jedi, the force has changed from the practical to the mystical, and with the mystical comes religious belief. It validates the common use of "may the force be with you" too. A common use of well-wishing and wishfull thinking, which starts to sound hollow the more it is used, and turns into just something people say.

Remember Darth Vader? Because I simply can't let this post go without mentioning Darth Vader. Neither can any Star Wars movie, really.
I find that the position Vader is put in interesting if a bit problematic. There's a clear discrepancy when it comes to Vader in Rogue One and Vader in A New Hope. In the former he's met with fear and respect because of his acumen, in the latter he is mocked for being a relic and a bully.
In A New Hope it comes as a surprise that he force chokes the general. Didn't this general know that Vader is a big deal? Didn't he see the prequels?
Of course we need to remember that A New Hope (1977) was written as a stand alone. There had been no mention of the Sith. The concept of the Sith didn't exist in the movie. The Emperor might as well been a force-less tyrant. Vader at that time was nothing more but a 'Dark Jedi' in comparison to Obi Wan, a 'Light Jedi'. Both follow the same "ancient religion". Vader also doesn't have much more use than being a strongman for the Empire. A special unit, a powerful tool. A commanding officer, an ace in the hole. He seems valuable, but still expendable. Only by sheer luck does he survive the end of the first Death Star.

DARTH VADER!!¡!

In Rogue One (2016) we have the entire prequel (1999 - 2005) baggage to consider. Vader is regarded as the stand-in person of the Emperor. Which he is in a way - he's Sith royalty. He's the one who should, if all goes as to tradition, replace Palpatine by way of regicide. Therefor he is much more akin to the crown prince of the Empire, if the prequel stated goal of the Emperor is for the Sith to rule the galaxy.
In this story it seems pretty much affirmed that Vader's power is well known. In a callback to Return Of The Jedi, Tarkin even warns Krennic that he is the more amenable of the two, shielding him from Vader's ire should things go awry with the super weapon.
But then, in Rogue One, he is also shown here in the super unit, strongman role of ANH. Granted, its awesome to behold. Not only that, his opinion matters when it comes to military and political issues. Krennic asks Vader if he is still in charge of the Death Star project - over Grand Moff Tarkin. Who's really in charge here? Did Vader get demoted in ANH for failing to get the plans back, so now Tarkin gets to hold his leech? Did Imperial military command campaign against Vader with propaganda for being a costumed clown? It seems to me that connecting the dots from 'awe-inspiring' to 'ridiculous' could be very hard.
Honestly, I do like how the movie portrays Vader as an unstoppable, unnatural force. Why he should be feared. That red light saber igniting , which it thankfully only does once, is a sign of an impending slasher scene... in space!
Quite a contrast with the 'hands on hips, assessing the mess the boys made on the blockade runner'-Vader we see mere moments later in ANH. Presumably the battery on his suit runs low that late in the day. In short, the final Rogue One scene with him is straight out of a comic book. It is awesome, exclamation mark, exclamation mark.

~

_{Some (battle)scenes feel very much like those in Return Of The Jedi}

I was surprised to see the movie ends mere moments before A New Hope Starts. Accept the new cast of characters and keep rolling. The old cast... well I had a feeling they would be expendable and I wasn't wrong. No lose ties means no breaks in consistency. The Death Star is a convenient way to clean up the mess the movie makers made in Rogue One. No stone is left unturned to ensure that none of the new characters make it past the credits and into Episode 4. It's a tease too, since it doesn't blow up any planets yet. That reveal is left to the main attraction.
I liked the plot's simplicity. No obvious plot holes. Nor unexplained mysteries, which would be fine for a "new" story, but would makes this one ask questions that would remain unanswered in ANH. In fact I thought it felt very much like the final part of Return Of The Jedi, minus the Luke storyline. There's a space battle happening as ground troops complete their mission.
Ultimately Rogue One rectifies one of the sleights you could make against the story of A New Hope, "why would the Empire let be such an obvious flaw" by answering "It was done on purpose". Which is one of the best reasons to excuse yourself of anything is saying you meant to do it like that all along. In this case: embed a subtle flaw into the Death Star Systems.
To me A New Hope always felt a bit more unique to the rest of the trilogy, and therefor a bit more distant when compared to its sequels. If nothing else, Rogue One helps to tie its spiritual second act to connect with more with the universe it spawned. Makes it feel like a focused chapter in the bigger story.
Just don't think of it as a snake eating its own tail...