Marvel Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 1: Introduction and Star Trek (1980-1982)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So, a year or so ago I did an overview series on the DC Comics line of Star Trek comics that were published from 1984 until 1996. At the time I talked about doing something similar with the Marvel Comics line at some point. Well, here I am, ready to dive into the world of Star Trek as published by Marvel. Because there are two eras of Marvel Star Trek, the first from 1980 until 1982, and the second from 1996 until 1998, I have a wider variety of series to talk about with the Marvel run, but not nearly as many ancilliary material to cover, as the Marvel run didn't have annuals or specials. They had one-shots that came out two to three times a year during the entirety of Marvel's second run, and that's it. So this will be a slightly shorter series than the DC one. I also don't have as big a history with Marvel's run with Star Trek than I do with DC's, so chances are the posts themselves won't be quite as long either. With all of that out of the way, let's get into it.

Marvel Comics's relationship with Star Trek began in 1979 when Paramount transferred the comic book license from Western Publishing/Gold Key Comics to Marvel as part of the merchandising campaign for the then upcoming Star Trek feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It's interesting to note that the cover of issue #1 is the first real indication that Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture all take place in the 23rd Century as Roddenberry had been careful to avoid tying the setting to a particular century, which was completely abandoned by the late '80s when Star Trek: The Next Generation started airing.

The writers on this book are some of the best writers that Marvel employed at the time. The movie adaptation was written by Marv Wolfman, who was about to go over to DC and revitalize the Teen Titans alongside George Perez with The New Teen Titans, Mike W. Barr, who would go on to write some of the early Star Trek comics for DC in 1984, Tom DeFalco, Martin Pasko, Michael Fleischer, Alan Brennert, who wrote a bunch of Batman stories for DC in the early '80s, including two that were collected in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, and J.M. DeMatteis, who is well known in the comic book industry. 

The artists on the book are equally the best that Marvel had at the time. At least some of them are to me. Dave Cockrum did the artwork for Max Collins's run on Batman in the late '80s, and co-created Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Mystique among others, alongside Len Wein and Roy Thomas when they revived X-Men, after the book had been nothing but reprints since the late '60s, in 1975. Gil Kane is the only other artist on this list that I'm even vaguely familiar with. He helped revamp Green Lantern in 1959, which introduced Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. He also did the art for the three issue anti-drug story arc in The Amazing Spider-Man in 1971. The other artists on this book are Mike Nasser, Leo Duranona, Joe Brozowski, Luke McDonnell, and Ed Hannigan, who has done some work for both DC and Marvel in the '80s and '90s.

Following the three issue adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the comic continued with its own stories starting with issue #4, following the events of the movie, with Kirk back in command of the Enterprise and the ship on its next five year mission (presumably). From this point on there were mostly single issue stories, though there was one more two parter, which was told in issues 4 and 5.

 Unlike the DC Star Trek comics, I only ever had three issues of the initial Marvel run from the '80s. Issues #11 (pictured above), and #17 were given to me as gifts by my grandmother, and issue #8 was given to me by my sister as a birthday present sometime in the mid to late 2000s. They were good, they just didn't stand out to me the way the DC comics did. Mostly because they didn't add any recurring characters, so not only were the stories bland and uninteresting, but you only had the original Enterprise crew, and maybe Chief DiFalco, Janice Rand and Doctor Chapel as recurring characters. They also didn't do any follow-up storylines from episodes of the TV show, or even that first movie

The series ended with issue #18 in 1982, only a few months before The Wrath of Khan came out. At that point Marvel lost the comic book license for Star Trek, and it was transferred over to DC Comics, though the new movie didn't have a comic book adaptation, so DC's Star Trek series wouldn't begin publication until early 1984, as I covered in that comic book overview.

The comic book adaptation of The Motion Picture had originally been published as a single volume in Marvel's Super Special #15 in 1979, before the movie came out, before being split up into three parts for the comic book series in 1980. Besides that, this series was only ever collected in the Eaglemoss hardcover collection. The series itself isn't hard to track down as I've seen it in comic book bins at conventions, and other geek and comic book centric sales, but the collected editions are probably very expensive given that Eaglemoss is out of business.

And that's the first Star Trek comic book series from Marvel Comics. Next time I'll be talking about DC letting the comic book license for Star Trek go and Marvel reacquirring it in 1996, when I discuss the first series to be published under the now defunct Paramount Comics imprint that Marvel did specifically for Star Trek comics. 

That's it for me for today. I'll be back soon with another review. I'm not sure how often I'll be putting this overview series out, but I'm aiming for once a week for nine weeks. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Way I Watched It Back in 1994

 And I'm back! I wasn't quite sure if this should be a post for The VHS Corner, or just a separate thing because I will be talking about a VHS tape, but I'll be focusing more on the contents of the tape, and what it means to me. So let's get into it.

Because yesterday was the 30th Anniversary of Power Rangers, my dad got out the VHS tape you see in the picture above. On this tape is five episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that were recorded off of YTV and Global by the mom of a classmate of mine at OCTC sometime between March and April 1994. Two of the episodes were on YTV and the other three were on Global during its Kids TV block, which was around for most of the mid '90s, from at least 1993 until at least 1997, if not 1998. In honour of the 30th Anniversary, I watched all five episodes, including the commercials, channel identification titles and the "Today on Power Rangers..." segments for the three episodes that had them. I say only three, because two of the Global episodes are missing the entire opening sequence and the first five minutes of the episodes. 

The episodes on the tape, in the order they were taped are "Island of Illusion Part I", "Switching Places", "A Pig Surprise", "Birds of A Feather" and "A Star is Born". "Island of Illusion Part I" and "A Star is Born" are the two episodes that were taped off YTV, and both have Tommy in them as the Green Ranger. "Switching Places" was the final episode to air before "Green with Evil" started, and the other two are both post-Green Ranger, with "Birds of a Feather" airing right after "The Green Candle Part II", and "A Pig Surprise" airing two days after the show's original two-part finale, "Doomsday". When I was a kid I would usually fast forward through the commercials whenever I watched the episodes on this tape, but last night I did the opposite. Last night, I watched the episodes the way I would've had I just watched them on TV back in 1994. I watched every commercial, every identification card, and every "Today on Power Rangers..." segment because that's how I watched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back in 1994.

I've seen all five of these episodes on DVD tons of times, but they hit different watching them on this tape, because the commercials and station identification title cards were just as much a part of the experience and the memories as the episodes themselves. Like, for example, on the Global episodes there was a commercial for The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show because 1994 was the year that Global started showing episodes on Sundays at 5 pm in addition to the ones they showed every Saturday at 5 pm. And I always watched The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show on Saturday night without fail, no matter where I was. 

On the first episode on the tape, which was taped off YTV, there was a commercial for the YTV Achievement Awards which were hosted by Tarzan Dan, who was the host of the original YTV series, The Hit List, which was the station's entertainment show, geared towards teenagers, and Weird Al Yankovic. Yes, as crazy as that sounds Weird Al cohosted the YTV Achievement Awards in 1994, AND appeared in the commercial for it. Like, that's insane. You wouldn't have that these days. There was also a commercial for YTV Kids Night at Pizza Hut, where you could get Power Rangers glow in the dark tattoos. 

The Global episodes had more commercials for other shows Kids TV aired. Aside from the The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show commercial, there were commercials for Eek! The Cat, Tom & Jerry Kids, Inspector Gadget, Animaniacs (which aired on Saturday mornings right after Power Rangers), and reruns of Alvin and the Chipmunks. I used to watch all of those shows when I was a kid. The only show that YTV showed a commercial for was the 1991 animated series based on Rupert the Bear, which was a character in a British comic strip. Of course I watched Rupert all the time whenever I had access to YTV, so seeing that commercial brought back memories as well.

Honestly, watching those episodes last night made me feel like I was back in 1994, sitting in my living room, watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Global and YTV. Which is why I didn't fast forward through the commercials. I just wanted to feel like I was back in that time, watching the show the way it was meant to be watched. On TV. I love DVDs and VHS tapes, but for TV shows they weren't meant to be on those formats. Especially cartoons. Which is why shows like The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers weren't remastered when they were put on DVD. Plus the DVDs and VHS releases don't have all that extra stuff like station identification logos, the commercials, and, in the case of MMPR, the "Today on Power Rangers..." segments before the opening credits. Though for some reason for "The Green Candle Part I" Hasbro included the "Today on Power Rangers..." segment on version that appears on the official Power Rangers YouTube channel.

Yes, I can see all of this stuff on YouTube, but it's not the same as seeing that logo for YTV's The Zone back on my TV screen before and during an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Or...

...seeing the various Kids TV logos before and during episodes of MMPR. Especially because Kids TV is where I watched Power Rangers the most since we didn't have cable at home, and YTV removed Power Rangers from their lineup between the first and second season, replacing it with Rugrats after reruns of Batman (1966) in September, 1994. Which explains why I don't remember seeing Rugrats when it first started airing in 1991, because it didn't start airing here in Canada until September 1994. 

I think that's going to be it for me here. I have a "Reminiscing About YTV's The Zone" post in the works for another time, but today I wanted to focus specifically on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers because of the VHS tape my dad got out for me. I'll be back with a comic book review sometime tomorrow. Nothing too fancy, just a single issue review. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The VHS Corner: My Childhood Barney VHS Collection (for Barney's 35th Anniversary)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I hadn't planned on doing a blog post today, letalone two, but here I am, because I just found out that today is the 35th Anniversary of Barney the Dinosaur, so I decided to finally do my VHS Corner post on the Barney VHS tapes that my siblings and I owned when we were kids, as well as the ones we rented. I'm gonna start with the ones we owned, since we actually only owned five tapes in total, while we rented the rest. And then, join me later for another post, where I'll be discussing watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on YTV and Global, because my dad got out a VHS tape for me that has five episodes of Mighty Morphin recorded on it, three from Global and two from YTV, from late March or early April 1994. Right now, let's talk about Barney VHS tapes. Let's get into it.

The first tape in the collection was The Backyard Show, which also happens to be the first tape released in the Barney & The Backyard Gang series all the way back in 1988. The tape we had was the 1992 re-release. In fact, except for one of the tapes, all of the Backyard Gang tapes we owned or rented were the 1992 re-releases. This tape was actually my sister's. She got it for her birthday, but I don't remember if it was in 1992 or in 1993. Just like I don't remember if we got this tape after Barney & Friends started airing or if this was our introduction to Barney.

Up next is the eighth and final tape in the series, Rock with Barney. Unlike The Backyard Show, I don't know when exactly we got the tape, or from whom we got it from. What I do know is that we got it before we moved in the summer of 1993. One of the reasons I like this tape so much is because it works as a transition from Barney & The Backyard Gang to Barney & Friends. The four kids who made the transition from The Backyard Gang to the PBS series look the way they would look on the TV show, Barney and Baby Bop look the way they would look on the TV show, and it introduced the character of Kathy, played by Lauren King, who would go on to appear in the first three seasons of the PBS series.

The next Barney tape we got was Barney's Birthday. While it shares the same box art design as the 1992 versions of the Backyard Gang tapes, it's not part of Barney & The Backyard Gang. It's actually the first home video release of the Barney & Friends season 1 episode, "Happy Birthday Barney!". No edits were made for this release, nothing was changed for the opening title cards, nothing. It's exactly how it aired on PBS in 1992. Which is funny because my mom had actually taped this episode off TV for me because, for whatever reason, the day it was on, I wasn't going to be home from school before the show started, so I asked Mom if she could tape it for me, and she did. It's the only time that actually happened to me. I don't remember when I got this tape. We were still living in the city at that point, so it wasn't for my birthday or Christmas, I don't think. It was the only Barney & Friends episode we ever owned on home video.

The next tape we got was Waiting for Santa and I do remember getting it for either my birthday or Christmas in 1993 as it was the last Backyard Gang tape that we actually owned, and we'd already moved to the log house by then. This was actually in our rotation of Christmas movies right up until 1999 or 2000.

The last Barney tape we ever owned was Barney Live! in New York City, which was Barney's second live stage show after Barney in Concert, which I'll be talking about later on in this post. We had the clamshell version, though apparently there was also a slipcover edition, which I've only ever seen in people's collections on YouTube. Anyway, we were at the log house by the time we got this tape. Again, I don't remember when we got this tape or who gave it to us, but I'm pretty sure it was either Nana or Grandma who got it for us, because they're the ones who were most likely to get these tapes for us. It was the only tape to come out around season 3 of the PBS show that we got, because my siblings and I didn't watch season 3 of Barney & Friends. I saw an episode of season 3 in reruns during the big ice storm in January and February of 1998, but that's because I was at the house of the nurse I had at school at the time so I could have a bath since our power was still out, and her young son was watching it on the TV. This live show was definitely more of a show than a concert. And also Carey Stinson, who was the suit actor for Barney during the last few seasons of the PBS series, performed as Barney for the first time during this live show.

There isn't really an order that I remember renting these tapes since we rented them around the same time. First up on the list is Barney's Campfire Sing-Along, which I talked about last week in my post on the movies and TV shows that we rented from Rogers Video, so I won't say too much about it here. However, what I will say is that I also watched it at CHEO a few times too. Especially one time where I was at the Cardiology clinic and the technician put it on for me while she did my Echo. 

Next is Barney Goes to School. This is another Barney tape that I talked about in my list of movies we rented on repeat post last week, so again, I'm not going to talk about it much here. This is probably the Backyard Gang tape I saw the most out of all the ones we rented and borrowed, just because it was the one that was always the most available. Plus I've watched it on YouTube a couple of times over the years. The last time I actually saw it on VHS was back in January of 1998. My family was evacuating to a shelter during the ice storm because our power was still out and I had a feeding pump that needed to be charged up, plus it was really REALLY cold out. Anyway, between leaving the house and going to the shelter, we stayed at the house of a friend of my parents until Dad could get things arranged with the shelter. I don't remember if it was the 1992 VHS release, or a later VHS release that we watched there, but I'm pretty sure it was the 1992 release, just because it had the white slipcover case, which you can see above.

The last Barney tape that we rented from Rogers Video was Barney's Magical Musical Adventure. Despite sharing the box art design with the 1992 Backyard Gang releases and Barney's Birthday, this isn't a Backyard Gang video or a Barney & Friends episode video. It's actually the first non-Backyard Gang direct to video Barney special that the Lyons Group produced and released under the Barney Home Video label. These special, longer, episodes usually came out between seasons of Barney & Friends. For example, this one came out between season 1 and season 2 and acted as a bridge between the two seasons. I remember renting this tape alot when I was a kid, but not nearly as often as Barney's Campfire Sing-Along and Barney Goes to School. We were in the log house the last time we rented this tape as this was the period where we weren't going into Rogers Video as much as we used to since it would take us 30 minutes to get into the city. Now the last two tapes that I'm going to talk about in this post are ones I either borrowed, or watched at CHEO.

So the tape I borrowed was A Day at the Beach, the third tape to be released in the Backyard Gang series, but the first to be produced, and the one that acts as the pilot episode in terms of most of the kids, except for Michael and Amy, meeting Barney for the first time. I borrowed this from the medical clinic at OCTC because I started watching it there while I waited to see my orthopaedic doctor, and because I didn't get to finish watching it, the nurse, whose name I can't remember for the life of me, let me borrow it, as long as I promised to bring it back the next day, which I did. Of course, being a kid, I had no idea that The Backyard Show was the first tape to be released in the series since the 1992 re-releases all came out at the same time, but chronologically, A Day at the Beach is the first episode of the Barney franchise, even though it was supposed to be released second, and ended up being released third due to some production difficulties. See, not even Barney is immune to the woes of production.

And finally, the last tape on this list is one I watched at CHEO, when I was in the hospital for something. That tape was Barney in Concert, which was also Barney's first live show, and introduced Baby Bop. Now, I had it at home as my dad had taped it off PBS in 1993, but I'd never seen the actual home video release of it before. Of course I watched it right after seeing Batman Returns for the first time. I don't remember which roommate it was that I watched this and Batman Returns with. I don't think it was my frequent roommate, Justin, who had a ton of Batman toys, including the 1992 Batman Returns version of the Batcave Command Center playset, and one of the Batmobiles, but it might have been. I just don't think that his mom, who looked after me when my mom had to go home to take care of my brother and sister, would've let me watch Batman Returns, at least not without making sure my mom was okay with it first. But he also liked Barney, so it's very possible that it was Justin that I watched Barney in Concert and Batman Returns with. What a weird combination eh? Barney and Batman. 

And that is my childhood Barney VHS collection. Like I said, I hadn't planned on doing this blog post today, but I found out earlier that The Backyard Show came out 35 years ago today, and I figured that this would be the perfect day to do this post. So, happy anniversary Barney, you've given so many people so much joy over the last 35 years, and also started the careers of both Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. Yes, for those of you who don't know, Selena and Demi got their start in acting on Barney & Friends, not too long before they moved over to the Disney Channel. Anyways episode 3 of Ahsoka is coming out in a few hours, but I think I have time to do the blog post I had intended on doing today. So stay tuned for that. See ya!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers S01E01, "Day of the Dumpster" (30 Years Later) TV Episode Review

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today is a very special day. It's the 30th anniversary of Power Rangers. Which makes me feel old because I was 6 going on 7 when the show first aired back in 1993, though I wouldn't discover the show until a few months later, after I'd turned 7. In honour of the 30th Anniversary of the franchise, I'm going to be reviewing the first episode, "Day of the Dumpster", which aired on this day in 1993. There will be spoilers because, it is a 30 year old show. So let's get into it.

 The best first episodes are the ones that do a good job of introducing the audience not only to the main characters, but to the world they live in, because they won't be familiar with the setting. But "Day of the Dumpster", after the initial opening scene, dumps us into what our world might've been in 1993. Not all of us were teenagers or adults back then, and we might not have had a Youth Center and a juice bar that we could go hang out at with our friends every single day. But, some of us did live in a small town or small city, and some of us did have four friends that we hung out with all the time, so in that regard, MMPR dropped us into a familiar location. 

The '90s had a real problem in fiction, children's fiction especially, where astronauts would land on the Moon, an asteroid or other planetoid, discover some unknown thing, that turns out to be dangerous, and either open it, unleashing aliens, or take a sample of it with them back to Earth. I just watched the three part introduction of Venom from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and it was the same thing. Except here, they freed Rita and her henchmen from their confinement, but still, they encountered the space dumpster, yes, Once & Always confirmed that it is indeed a space dumpster, and opened it even though they had no idea what it was. Mind you, this won't be the last time someone in the Power Rangers Universe will accidently unleash the bad guys by opening their prison, but still, it's funny that astronauts, of all people, would be that foolish.

I just wanna talk about the cast for a moment, because they did a spectacular job, especially the ones playing the Rangers since this was their first job. None of the characters are unlikeable in this episode, not even Rita, but she's not great at conquering worlds, so even though she's evil she's still likeable. Bulk and Skull are the only characters that I don't like in this episode, just because they're portrayed as more problematic in these early episodes, this one in particular, than they would be as the season, and the series, went on. But they aren't the focus of these early episodes, as we spend more time with the Rangers doing Ranger stuff, than we do with them in their normal, every day lives. Similar to how in Batman (1966-1968) we'd spend the first few minutes of part 1 of the two part episodes with Bruce and Dick before they went to Police Headquarters as Batman and Robin. Though here the Rangers don't morph right after the opening credits, since they're before the episode starts.

Austin St. John is great as Jason. He just has that leadership presence in a way that some modern Red Rangers don't in their first episodes, and you know he does his best to help Billy overcome his difficulties in getting the moves down, since Billy is more intellectual than physical, and David Yost really got that down perfectly in this episode. I love Walter Jones as Zack. I didn't when I was a kid. I didn't hate him, but Zack wasn't one of my favourite Rangers. Adam was, Kimberly was, and Jason and Tommy were my top favourite Power Rangers in the Mighty Morphin era. But during the rewatch of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that I did a year ago for the review series that stalled out after Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, I came to really appreciate Zack as a character. the 30th Anniversary special, Once & Always, made me appreciate him even more, after seeing him return to that role after 28 years. Amy Jo Johnson is great as Kimberly, though here she's very Valley Girl. I mean, moreso than she'd be portrayed as later on in the season, and into season 2. And, of course, Thuy Trang as Trini is good in this episode, she just didn't have as much to do since the focus was on the five Rangers as a group, rather than one particular Ranger like future episodes would be.

What's incredible to me is how they managed to combine the footage from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, with the original footage the American production crew shot for this episode. I guess it's made easier because there isn't any crossover between the Japanese and American footage since you don't see the Rangers morphed in American footage, outside of the costumes appearing on the Rangers as Zordon is explaining to each Ranger which Zord they'll be piloting, though, unlike in later seasons, the Rangers aren't told what colour of Ranger they're going to be, which is really weird, and the scenery doesn't need to match between the American footage and the Japanese footage like it will in later episodes, and in later seasons. 

So, I actually don't remember when I saw this episode for the first time. I think it was in reruns on either YTV or Global, but neither channel aired it in reruns very often, if at all, so I might not have caught it at all. So the latest I would've seen the episode was when my friend Kelly lent me the Power Rangers Power Playback: Classic Ranger Edition - Red Ranger Adventure VHS tape when we were in high school as it's the first episode on the tape, which I actually have in my current VHS collection. It was also the first episode aired in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Reversion series that ABC Kids aired in 2010, between Power Rangers RPM, which was the final season produced by Disney, and Power Rangers Samurai, which was the first season that Saban produced for Nickelodeon. I definitely watched that version, because it was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back on TV after 15 years.

Overall, "Day of the Dumpster" is a very solid start to a franchise that has been around for 30 years. Power Rangers has had so many ups and downs in the last 30 years. It was cancelled three times, twice by Fox Kids (the show was canceled during Turbo, with In Space being the final season), once by Disney, moved networks four times, didn't air in some areas, and low ratings, as well as high ones. Yet, Power Rangers has managed to endure for 30 years. Very few franchises can say that. Even Star Trek and Star Wars have had periods where they were essentially dead. But Power Rangers has never had that lull as the TV show has consistently been in production and on the air for 30 years straight. 

That's gonna be it for me for today my friends. I'll be back on Wednesday for a comic book review, and I'm also gonna try and have A Dance with Dragons finished by the end of the week too, but I'm not making any promises. That review might have to wait until next week. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Spider-Man: The Venom Saga (Episodes 8-10 "The Alien Costume") TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Saturday. I'm here to talk about the 1994 animated series, Spider-Man. Specifically the three episode introduction to Venom, which happened late in the show's first season. I got the original 1996 VHS release, which has the episodes edited together into a 60 minute movie. There will be spoilers, because this is an almost 30 year old show, and there's stuff I want to talk about. So let's get into it.

"The Alien Costume" starts with John Jameson's space shuttle crashing onto the George Washington Bridge after they accidently brings what turns out to be the Venom Symbiote back to Earth after a mission. They'd brought back a powerful rock known as Promethium X. Naturally, the Kingpin hires the Rhino to steal it so that he and Alistair Smythe may sell it to the highest bidder. Typical criminal empire stuff. However, Spider-Man ends up melding with the symbiote, giving him the famous black costume that he used for a good portion of the '80s in the comics. Only difference is, here, he never makes an actual black costume once he separates himself from the symbiote.

I actually remember watching these episodes in reruns on YTV when we moved from the log house and into a place where we had cable, and had access to YTV again. Honestly, this was one of my favourite shows in the era that Power Rangers Zeo was airing in. This, and reruns of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, which were both on YTV. The '67 cartoon was on late in the day while the '94 series was on on Saturdays. Which makes sense since Fox Kids aired the show on Saturdays, with reruns sometime during the week, if I remember correctly. I mean I remember these three episodes so clearly, because this was my introduction to the character of Eddie Brock/Venom.

I didn't read Spider-Man comics very much when I was a kid. I had a total of three of them, all three of which I still have in my collection today, and that was it. So I had no idea who Venom was, until he showed up on this show. It threw me for a loop when he appeared too, because not even Batman had an enemy who was the exact opposite of him, right down to his costume. Of course, I didn't know about the Wrath at the time. Nor did he have a villain who had been him previously...because I didn't know about Batman's fight with Jean-Paul Valley in KnightsEnd. But still, the fact that Venom had been Spider-Man previously, knew everything about Peter Parker, and directly threatened him was crazy to me back then, because I had no clue. Especially because I didn't know about the Green Goblin at the time either. 

Something that I totally forgot about this show is that Flash Thompson appears, and is still the bully of Peter Parker. This was the thing that introduced me to Spider-Man's supporting cast from Aunt May and Mary Jane to Flash Thompson and J. Jonah Jameson, so the fact that I forgot that he was in the show tells me that I haven't seen most of this show in almost 30 years. 

While the animation in this show doesn't hold up nearly as well as it does in Batman: The Animated Series or X-Men: The Animated Series, what does hold up is the storytelling. Unlike most cartoons in the '90s, Spider-Man had alot of two-part episodes and season long story arcs. While season 1 only has two multi-part episodes, this one, and the next one, "The Hobgoblin", storylines carried over from episode to episode, as did characters. For example, Eddie Brock was first introduced in the first episode of the series, "Night of the Lizard", and he popped up in a few more episodes before culminating in him becoming Venom in "The Alien Costume Part 3". That kind of thing had only happened in Batman: The Animated Series with Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and with Talon in Gargoyles, and maybe a character or two in X-Men: The Animated Series (I haven't seen the whole series yet). But generally, serialized storytelling wasn't common in animated shows in the '90s, outside of Anime. 

One of my favourite scenes is in part 2 where Spider-Man, still wearing the black costume, is fighting the Shocker and is getting ready to kill him when he remembers Uncle Ben and his words "With great power comes great responsibility" (which is where that version of the iconic line comes from, if I remember correctly), and finally gets rid of the symbiote, which falls onto Brock, but, y'know, gotta create Venom somehow. That scene is super powerful because it establishes why Peter became Spider-Man in the first place.

Most Spider-Man shows and movies these days start with Peter in high school, either with the origin story, or after, but still in Spidey's early days, but this show starts with Peter in college, and working at the Daily Bugle, and I think we only get his origin story in flashbacks or memories, or just in the opening theme sequence, because explaining a character's backstory in the opening title/theme sequence is something that cartoons liked to do in the '90s too.

The voice cast of this show is fantastic. Christopher Daniel Barnes voices Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Though to be honest, I actually thought it was Will Friedle who voiced Spider-Man for the longest time, just because his Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond sounds alot like Barnes's Spider-Man in this show and I just thought it was the same person voicing both. With him are a whole slew of supporting voice actors like Jim Cummings, Ed Asner, Roscoe Lee Browne, Majel Barrett, David Warner, and many many others, including Mark Hamill and Hank Azaria. Of course, Jim Cummings is a legendary voice actor, who did a bunch of animated shows, and movies, for Disney, as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, and other characters, and his voice is pretty recognizable so I immediately knew that he voiced Shocker. Hank Azaria voices Eddie Brock/Venom, which is weird, since I'm used to hearing him as the voice of Moe on The Simpsons. 

Ed Asner voices J. Jonah Jameson and I actually didn't know that he voiced that character too. I mean he voiced Hudson on Gargoyles, so it was a bit startling to find out that Jameson and Hudson have a similar voice to one another. Saratoga Ballantine voices Mary Jane Watson for the few minutes that she's actually in the episode. The Kingpin is voiced by Roscoe Lee Browne, who voiced the bulldog, Francis, in Oliver & Company. Majel Barrett and Dave Warner aren't in these episodes, but Majel was Christine Chapel, Una Chin Riley, and the Enterprise computer voice on Star Trek, Lwaxana Troi and the computer voice on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the computer voice on Star Trek: Voyager and the 2009 movie, Star Trek. David Warner has played a ton of characters over the years. Too many to list here, but the short of it is, he played St. John Talbot in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI, and a Cardassian in the TNG season 6 episode, "The Chain of Command". 

Overall, this is a pretty great show. Like I said, the animation does not hold up, especially because they kept doing the Filmation thing of reusing stock footage for certain shots. Like, there's one of Venom swinging through New York and they reuse that shot three times in that final episode, with the exact same buildings in the scene too. However, the storytelling is solid and the cast is fantastic. If, for whatever reason, you've never seen Spider-Man I recommend giving it a chance, because, despite the animation, it's a decent animated series from the '90s. Nowhere near as good as Batman and X-Men, but still a pretty great show.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back soon with more reviews of movies, TV show episodes and seasons, and comic books. With a whole lot more coming your way. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all soon. Take care.

Movies We Rented On Repeat and A Podcast Recommendation

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm gonna talk about renting movies from Rogers Video, specifically the movies we'd rent on repeat. The movies that we would go to every time we rented a movie, unless someone else had rented them already. If you live in Canada, you know this video store chain, as it was basically our version of Blockbuster, even though we had Blockbuster here in Canada too. I'm gonna start with a brief overview of my experiences at Rogers Video before I get into the tapes themselves. There will also be a podcast recommendation at the end of this post. So let's get into it.

Between birth and the age of 6 (1986-1993) we had a Rogers Video in the mall down the street from where we were living at the time, we'd still drive there, because half the time we'd go in when we were in that mall at the grocery store there, or at the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions or whatever that I needed. Sometimes though, we'd be going for a walk, and somehow we'd end up at that mall. Anyway, the kids section was at the front of the store right as you walked in the door and that's where the Disney tapes, the Barney tapes, the Sesame Street tapes, the Muppet tapes, the Rainbow Brite tapes, and other random child appropriate tapes were located. So that's where my siblings and I would gravitate to. We'd each get to pick a tape and oftentimes we all just picked ones the other person would've chosen had they not already picked a tape. Also at this point we had our favourites too, so we would rent those as often as we could.

Once we moved out to the country in the summer of 1993, Rogers Video was much farther away, so we didn't go as often as we did when we lived in the city. Because of that, when we did go it was something very special. Especially because Mom and Dad couldn't always take us with them when they went. Dad might go after work, or Mom might go when she was already there doing groceries. I think there was even a couple of times where Mom would stop at Rogers Video on our way home from the hospital after one of my appointments. But even then, by the time we moved out of the log farmhouse in early 1996, my dad was working at a nearby gas station and you could rent movies there, so he would usually rent a movie for us from there before he came home from work on a Friday. 

By the time VHS started to go the way of the Dinosaurs, and were being replaced by DVDs in the early to mid 2000s, we weren't going into the city quite as much and we primarily rented movies from the gas station since it was about a five minute, or less, drive there compared to the 20 to 30 minute drive into the city, so we still rented movies, but all of our favourites were no longer available to us and we had to watch the movie that day or that evening before bed, because we no longer had the five day rentals that we'd had at Rogers Video. Plus by this point movie night had become family night, or Mom and Dad would rent something for me to watch while my siblings were out doing stuff, or whatever the case was. So let's get into the tapes that we rented on repeat. There are a total of 16 tapes on this list, which is why I'm only talking about movies and not video games, because there are tons of N64 games that we rented repeatedly as well. And I'll be doing reviews on all of these movies at a later time so I'm not gonna go into too much detail, and they won't be in any particularly order.

 First up is Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird! from 1985. Being that I was watching Sesame Street on TV every day, it made sense that when I saw this cover on the shelf at Rogers Video, this is a movie that I would want to rent. I mean, it was a no brainer. Plus it's funny AND it was filmed only about eight or nine hours away from where I live, which I didn't know until I was an adult. I'm still looking for a physical copy of the movie, either the edition of the tape we rented when I was a kid, or a DVD copy, because I'd really like to own a physical copy. Though I do have it digitally from years ago.

Up next is The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, also from 1985. Mom and Dad first rented this movie for me from West Coast Video, but we rented it the most from Rogers. In fact, we rented it so much that once Rogers chose to retire the tape from their inventory and put it on sale, my parents bought it for me. Sadly, I don't have a physical copy of the tape in my collection anymore, but thanks to my friend, Vincent Conroy from The Grundo Gazette Teddy Ruxpin fansite, I have the entire tape on my computer and I put it on every so often. I would still love to see this tape sitting on my VHS shelf one day though.

The Frog Prince from 1971 was my introduction to a Muppet named Mr. Sweetums, though he's simply referred to as Sweetums in this special. It aired on TV as part of a series called Tales from Muppetland, which consisted of TV specials depicting the Muppets's versions of classic fairytales. Of course, it being the Muppets, this was another perfect rental choice. I loved this movie and it was one of the few Muppets VHS releases to share the white clamshell cases with Disney because the Muppet Home Video label was under the Walt Disney Home Video banner, even though the Muppet movies coming out in the '70s and '80s weren't distributed under this label.

 Does anyone remember Rainbow Brite? The 1985 movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, was a movie that my parents rented for my siblings and I numerous times and we loved it because we'd been renting episodes of the TV series, Rainbow Brite, prior to renting the movie. Those tapes are also on this list, but the movie was decent, though, it being 1985, movies based on cartoons were a dime a dozen since other shows were doing it around this same time too, including The Transformers, G.I. Joe, and The Care Bears, among others. I've never found this movie on DVD, though it was released on DVD in 2004, at the same time its final VHS release came out.

Speaking of the Care Bears, another movie we rented was The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, which was the Care Bears version of Alice in Wonderland. The reason this movie stands out to me is because when the Care Bears, led by Braveheart Lion, meet the Mad Hatter, he sings a song about hats called, "You Like Hats". To this day, this movie has never been released on DVD in North America. It had VHS and Laserdisc releases throughout the late '80s and into the '90s, but it got abandoned after that. I'm keeping my eye out for a copy of the movie.

Barney's Campfire Sing-Along is the fifth tape released in the Barney & The Backyard Gang series and the only one to not include Adam (Alexander Jhin), instead a character named Jeffrey (Jeffrey Lowe) replaced him. I think we rented this tape about four or five times total from Rogers Video, in addition to watching it while I had an Echo done in the Cardiology clinic at CHEO. Of course, I've never owned this particular tape, but it's been uploaded to YouTube, along with the rest of the The Backyard Gang series, as these early Barney tapes are in the public domain now, as Lyrick Studios, which owned Barney from 1994 until it was folded into HIT Entertainment in 2001, let the license for Barney & The Backyard Gang go in 1997 or 1998, which is why those first eight episodes have never been released on DVD, and why none of them, besides Barney in Concert, were re-released on VHS after 1998. 

Next we have the first episode for Rainbow Brite, "Peril in the Pits" on VHS. Rainbow Brite was weird because, it never aired in reruns when I was a kid unlike other cartoons from that same era (1984-1989). My siblings and I found out about it because of these VHS tapes, and the fact that we had some of the plushes of the characters. 

Next is Rainbow Brite: The Mighty Monstromurk Menace, which contains the two part episode, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace", which were the next episodes that aired after "Peril in the Pits". Out of all of the Rainbow Brite tapes, this is the one we rented the most because it was our favourite. And I think we rented it with "Peril in the Pits" because they form an unofficial trilogy given that Rainbow Brite's human friend, Brian, is in all three episodes and "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace" continues the story from where "Peril in the Pits" ended.

 Next in the Rainbow Brite episode lineup is Rainbow Brite: The Beginning of Rainbow Land, which contained the two part pilot episode, "The Beginning of Rainbow Land". This is where things get really weird because the episode list for the show on Wikipedia says that "The Beginning of Rainbow Land Part I" aired on June 27th, 1984, with "The Beginning of Rainbow Land Part II" airing on July 4th, 1984, "Peril in the Pits" airing on December 5th 1984, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part I" airing on April 22nd, 1985, and "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part II" airing the very next day on April 23rd, 1985, closing out the first season. HOWEVER, the episode list on IMDB has "Peril in the Pits" airing on September 19th, 1987, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part I" airing on December 4th, 1984, "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace Part II" airing on December 5th, 1984, and then both parts of "The Beginning of Rainbow Land" airing on the two April dates that Wikipedia has "The Mighty Monstromurk Menace" airing on. I think the airdates listed on Wikipedia are the more accurate ones, just because I doubt that "Peril in the Pits" aired more than a year after the rest of the series ended in July, 1986. I could see it if it were both parts of "The Beginning of Rainbow Land", being that it's the pilot episode, and, if they aired at all, the pilot episode for cartoons tended to air at the end of a show's run, rather than at the beginning.

As for this tape, I think we only rented it two or three times, in comparison to the other two I already mentioned. "The Beginning of Rainbow Land" also got released individually, but I remember just watching the episodes together on the same tape, rather than rewinding the first tape, taking it out of the VCR and then putting in the second tape. 

The last Rainbow Brite VHS tape we rented was Invasion of Rainbow Land, which contained three episodes on it, rather than the one or two that the previous releases had. The episodes were "Invasion of Rainbow Land" (episode 6), "Murky's Mom" (episode 7), and "Rainbow Night" (episode 8). I know we rented this one at least once, with twice being the most we would've rented it. 

Next is Charlotte's Web. We rented the 1991 VHS release as that's what was out at the time. I absolutely loved this movie when I was a kid. I just got it on DVD, along with it's direct-to-video sequel and the 2006 live action movie a couple of years ago, and I do have a review up on this blog, so check it out if you haven't already. Incidently my buddy, Brad, found the 1993 McDonald's printing of this edition of the VHS, bought it for me, and just brought it over to me this morning, along with some other awesome VHS tapes, so I now have it in my collection after 30 years.

Next is Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. We rented the 1991 release, which I just added to my collection a month or so ago, the last time I was out with Brad. I honestly don't remember how many times we rented this movie, but I'm pretty sure it was more than once. I also have the movie on iTunes, but I'm looking forward to popping the tape into my VCR and watching it again that way for the first time in more than 30 years.

Then we have Disney Sing-Along Songs: Be Our Guest from 1992. We rented this tape so many times. I also watched it at the hospital at some point, but I remember renting it the most. It's also a tape that I have sitting on my VHS shelf right now, and I've watched it a few times since I got it two years ago from my dental hygienist. The songs that stand out to me on this tape are "Little Wooden Head" from Pinocchio (1940), and "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" from The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

Next is Barney Goes to School, which was the sixth tape released in the Barney & The Backyard Gang direct-to-video series. We actually rented this one more than we did Barney's Campfire Sing-Along, probably because school is something that I could connect with, given that I've never been camping before, and this tape introduced the school setting that would be a mainstay of the Barney franchise for the first six seasons of Barney & Friends (1992-2000) before switching to a park setting starting in season 7 (2002). So this tape is special to me even though we never owned it.

Then we have Disney Sing-Along Songs: You Can Fly! from 1988. We definitely didn't rent this one as much as we did Be Our Guest. However, I do remember it because it was the first appearance of Ludwig Von Drake as the host of the program, taking over from Professor Owl in the first two tapes, and Jiminy Cricket in The Bare Necessities (1987). Plus it has "You Can Fly" from Peter Pan (1953) and "The Beautiful Briny" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). I've talked about this tape in my overview of the Disney Sing-Along Songs series, which I did a little over a year ago. 

 And finally, the last tape on this list is Barney's Magical Musical Adventure from 1993. Besides the two Backyard Gang tapes I showed earlier on this list, this is the only other Barney tape that we actually rented. We owned a few of them, and I saw one at the hospital, and I borrowed another from someone, but this was the only one, outside of the Backyard Gang tapes, that we rented. This tape, and Barney's Birthday, which contains the season 1 episode, "Happy Birthday Barney!", is the only Barney Home Video release to share the cover design with the 1992 releases of the eight Backyard Gang tapes. I don't know if that's because it was meant to be part of Barney & The Backyard Gang, or they just used the same cover design because the Backyard Gang tapes were the only other Barney tapes that were available at the time, besides the 20 episodes from season 1 that were available from Time Life Video at the time. Regardless, this is the last Barney VHS release to use this design. This direct-to-video special takes place between seasons 1 and 2. We rented it two or three times, maybe four times at the most, before we stopped renting movies from Rogers Video.

And that my friends is all of the movies that we rented from Rogers Video on repeat when I was a kid. We rented so many more movies from there that were only one time rentals, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight because we rented them so often. 

Before I go I just wanted to give a shoutout to the Generation S podcast because they did an episode on Blockbuster Video, and on renting movies and video games in general, this week, and the main host, Dan, asked his co-host, Lou, if there were any movies that he would rent on repeat, and that ended up getting me thinking about the movies that we rented from Rogers Video on repeat, and I ended up with a list of sixteen of them. Of course, there's only five actual movies on my list, the rest are all TV show episodes, TV specials, or direct-to-video specials, but that's what my parents rented for us when my siblings and I were kids. 

Generation S is a podcast about growing up in the '90s and early 2000s. Every Dan and whoever his co-host is for that week, talk about things from the '90s and early 2000s. But what's unique about this podcast over every other retro or nostalgia based podcast, is that they don't just talk about the movies, TV shows, music, comics, video games, or books of that era, but they talk about the clothes we wore, renting movies, what school dances were like when we were in high school in the early 2000s. Especially those first dances in middle school, shopping malls, because those have changed drastically since the '90s, and other experiences that you most likely had if you grew up in the '90s and the early 2000s like I did. They're on Apple Podcasts and on YouTube if you'd like to check it out.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Saturday to talk about the three part episode, "The Alien Costume" from Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1998), because I got those three episodes on VHS today, on a release called Spider-Man: The Venom Saga, courtesy of Brad. I was gonna watch the tape tonight and write a review tomorrow, but I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon so I don't have time. But, that's what Saturday is for. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: Ahsoka Episodes 1 and 2 (2023) TV Show Review [SPOILERS]

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So, today, I am here to talk about the first two episodes of the new Disney+ series, Star Wars: Ahsoka, which dropped at 9 pm last night. This review will get into spoilers, because there are a bunch of things that I really want to talk about, so if you haven't seen the first two episodes of Star Wars: Ahsoka, please do so before reading this review, unless you're the kind of person who doesn't care about spoilers. Let's get into it.

 If you're a fan of Star Wars Rebels, you will like this show. If you're a fan of Ahsoka Tano, you will like this show. If you're a fan of this era in the Star Wars timeline, be it through Legends or Canon, you will like this show. If you've never seen Rebels, and only know Ahsoka Tano from The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, then you will still like the show, but you won't have as much of an understanding or appreciation for what's going on in this show. Ahsoka is for fans of Rebels because it continues the story from where the series finale of Rebels left off, with Ezra missing, and rumours of Thrawn resurfacing starting to pop up. However, it also continues Ahsoka's journey that began in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, both the movie and the TV show. In our time that's only fifteen years. In the Star Wars Galaxy it's almost thirty years. Definitely check it out.

That was my spoiler free section. Now, I'll be diving into my favourite parts of these two episodes, a couple of things that I thought was weird, but still good, and, of course, the characters, places, and ships, both old and new. Let's get into it.

The biggest worry I had going into this show was how the characters were going to be portrayed in live action. I wasn't super worried about Ahsoka, Morgan Elsbeth, or the new characters, Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, because we'd seen Ahsoka in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, plus Rosario Dawson is a great actress, so I knew Ahsoka would be fine, and the others were either created for The Mandalorian (Morgan) or for this show (Baylan and Shin). 

The characters I was worried about were Hera Syndulla (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine Wren (played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo) because they were originally introduced in animation, and alot of times, animated characters don't translate well to live action. Especially because this isn't just Vanessa Marshall (Hera in Rebels) and Tiya Sircar (Sabine in Rebels) recording their dialogue while the animators figured out their movement and other actions. Both actresses did an incredible job though, and of course, Chopper is Chopper, and I'm pretty sure he's CGI since, even in the Prequel Trilogy days, they couldn't get Astromech Droids to do anything beyond roll around or rock side to side when excited. I think Chopper has lost his touch a little bit though, because he didn't kill anybody in these episodes. I'm kidding. Mostly. As I said in my reviews for Rebels, Chopper had the highest body count in the entire series, so for him to not even try to kill anyone is a step down for him in my opinion. Or maybe it means he's growing as a character? Who knows. What I do know is that it threw me off a little bit. 

I love where Sabine is when we meet back up with her in the first episode. She's been on Lothal for the last several years, since she and Ahsoka went separate ways, for reasons unknown, waiting for any signs of Ezra returning, and she's kinda lost her way a little bit. Not quite in the same way that Obi-Wan Kenobi was in Obi-Wan Kenobi, but she's even packed away her Mandalorian armor, and everything she used to cherish in Rebels, including Ezra's lightsaber. It takes Ahsoka coming to her for help in her quest to find Thrawn for Sabine to find her purpose again. Which is something we all go through at different stages in our lives.

Hera is fantastic. Mary Elizabeth Winstead has come a long way since she played Gwen Grayson in Sky High (2005), and she fits the role of Hera perfectly. Out of all of the main characters from Rebels, I think Hera has been in the most Star Wars stories as she's been in novels, comics, video games, TV shows and movies (she had a cameo in Rogue One back in 2016). Within the Star Wars Canon timeline, the last time I saw Hera was in Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed, and while she was a general in that novel, she seems to have gained a bit more power, as she appears to be reporting directly to Mon Mothma and the New Republic High Command rather than a fleet admiral or a sector commander. Which is cool, because we got hints of that in Rebels, but that was during the early days of the Rebel Alliance, where the chain of command was alot looser, and Mon Mothma was alot more hands on with the military, as we not only saw in Rebels, but in Rogue One and in Return of the Jedi as well. Less so in Return of the Jedi though.

Ahsoka is fantastic in these two episodes. She feels more like the character we saw in Rebels than her previous live action appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett did. And I think that's because Filoni is the only one who wrote this show. Favreau's not involved, none of the other live action Star Wars TV show writers are involved, it's just Filoni. And because Filoni is the sole writer, he knows them the best and knows what they would say, what they wouldn't say, and how they would carry themselves. 

The best part about these characters is that they feel like they have history together, and you can feel it, even if you've never seen Rebels, because the history they talk about here is more recent history rather than the old stuff we've already seen. It also feels refreshing because in alot of modern shows, characters meet each other for the first time in the first episode, or if they do have history together, they feel like they're meeting for the first time even though they're not. So that's great. 

Baylan and Shin are interesting characters because they aren't Sith or Inquisitors, they're just two fallen Jedi, well, one fallen Jedi since it was confirmed in these episodes that Baylan is a former Jedi, and his apprentice. Shin also isn't like other Sith apprentices we've seen before. Unlike several Inquisitors in both Rebels and Obi-Wan, Shin is very calm and patient. More like a Jedi apprentice than a Sith one. I'm excited to see where they take these two characters. Oh and having Clancy Brown showing up as Governor Ryder Azadi, who he voiced on Rebels, on Lothal was great.

My favourite scene in the first episode is when Sabine is leaving the city on her speeder bike and two members of her squadron try to detain her, because she missed the dedication ceremony for the monument built for Ezra, the hero of Lothal, and she lowers the speeder bike and slides underneath the E-Wing fighter used by her squadron. I love that scene because it's such a Sabine thing to do, and the fact that she's playing the Star Wars equivalent of '80s punk rock is so much fun.

So that New Republic cruiser that Baylan and Shin attacked at the beginning of the first episode has an interesting design for its Bridge. It looks like the Bridge of a Federation starship from Star Trek. Right down to the captain's chair located in the middle of the Bridge, with the consoles surrounding it. We kinda got it with the Rebel ships in Rebels, but those ships were much smaller, so it was very interesting to see.

Lothal was my favourite planet in these first two episodes, because it felt the most alive, even compared to when we last saw it at the end of Rebels. The planet looks gorgeous in live action. One of the things that I mentioned in my reviews for Rebels is that there were moments in the later seasons where I completely forgot I was watching an animated show. Here I knew I was watching a live action show, but seeing the planet in live action for the first time was thrilling.

The one thing that scared the crap out of me was when Shin stabbed Sabine with her lightsaber at the end of the first episode. Intellectually I knew Filoni wouldn't kill Sabine off in the very first episode of the show, but still it was like, "What?!? Why???" Of course, they used to do that to Oliver on Arrow all the time, where it would seem like they had killed him after being stabbed or shot, but as a shocking cliffhanger, but then in the next episode they'd show that, no, he was still alive. Luckily we got episode two right away, because that would've been an insane cliffhanger to make us wait a whole week on.

Being that these were just the first two episodes of an eight episode series, there's still so much more to explore and discover in this series. Like, will they find Ezra, or did Thrawn kill him and that's why Thrawn survived? What's going on with Baylan and Shin? Will Chopper actually kill somebody in this show? I'm excited to find the answers as the show goes along. It's so good to have Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera, and Chopper back and this is going to be a fun ride. It's good to be back in the Star Wars Universe again, and have it actually moving the story forward after we've done so much gap filling with the last few shows. Including season 3 of The Mandalorian. In a way Ahsoka is gap filling a bit too, since this is between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, but at the same time, it progresses things for characters who we haven't seen much of since Rebels ended. And I'm really enjoying it so far.

Overall, these were fun episodes and a great way to bring back old characters that we haven't seen in a while. Like I said in my spoiler free paragraph, you will love and appreciate this show more if you've seen Rebels and have a basic understanding of who Ahsoka is. But, I think you can still watch it having only seen Ahsoka's appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. I haven't seen all of The Clone Wars so there's so much of Ahsoka's history that I'm not aware of, having not seen that show since halfway through the second season, back in 2008/2009, but I'm loving it because I watched Rebels for the first time recently, and I've seen all of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. So I'm here for the ride.

That's it for me for today my friends. I'll be back soon with more reviews and posts. I've got a few in mind for the near future. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.