The Andalite Chronicles by K.A. Applegate (1997) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday. It's one week until the third season of Star Trek: Picard starts and I'm excited to see my favourite characters from TNG return, but I'm also extremely apprehensive because season 2 wasn't great. So hopefully that goes well. Today though I'm back for another book review. This time I am taking a look at The Andalite Chronicles by K.A. Applegate, and is the first prequel book in the Animorphs series (1996-2001), though it's the last one in the in-universe chronology. There will be spoilers for not only this book, but for others in the series too, so if you're not familiar with Animorphs be aware of that. Let's get into it.

The Andalite Chronicles represents a shift in the series as a whole. So far, we'd only had 13 books up to this point, 12 in the main series, and one in the Megamorphs side series, but, aside for Ax explaining to the Animorphs about Seerow's Kindness in book #8, The Alien, we hadn't really had any backstory on the Andalites or the Yeerks up to this point. Prince Elfangor, whose full name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, also wasn't an active character in the series since Visser Three had killed him at the beginning of the first book, right after he'd given the Animorphs their powers.

I first read this book in either late 1999 or early 2000. The school library had the original three book releases that Scholastic put out prior to the three parts being compiled into a single volume, which happened at the same time as the three volume version, because, if I'm not mistaken, the three volume version was available in the Scholastic book order, and were intended as library editions, while the thick single volume version was intended for the retail market. I think. I could be mistaken on that. It wasn't too long after that that I got the single volume version from Chapters and read that version shortly before the series ended in 2001.

So the book begins 21 years before Elfangor crashes in the Construction Site, and gives Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco the ability to morph into any animal they touch. He's an Aristh, which is what Andalites call cadets, serving aboard the Dome Ship, StarSword, commanded by Captain Feyorn, alongside his fellow Aristh, Arbron. Arbron doesn't have a full name like most Andalites that we meet in this series, which is odd. Maybe because he wasn't going to be a main character beyond this book, whereas both Elfangor and Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, i.e. future host for the Yeerk known as Visser Three, are vital characters to the Animorphs mythos. But when they find a Skrit-Na saucer ship leaving Earth, and meet two humans aboard, Hedrick Chapman. Yes, THAT Chapman. The man who would become the Vice-Principal at the school that the Animorphs attend, the father of Rachel's best friend, Melissa, and the host of Iniss 226. And yes, even as a kid, Chapman is a jerk, even becoming a temporary host of Visser Three, then known as Sub-Visser Seven, so that the Yeerk could gain control of Alloran as the first Andalite-Controller.

Of all of the Animorphs prequel novels, also known as the Animorphs Chronicles series, this is my favourite. I think it's because Elfangor and everything that happens in this book have a direct connection to the main series with Alloran being the host of Visser Three, Elfangor and Loren being Tobias's parents, which Tobias won't find out about Elfangor until book #23, The Pretender, and Elfangor being Ax's older brother. Plus the events in this novel lead right into the first book of the series, The Invasion in a way that neither The Hork-Bajir Chronicles and The Ellimist Chronicles don't, as both of those books are just extra material about side characters that don't immediately connect to the main series. And while the Ellimist does play a role in this book, and in the main series itself, it's fairly minor since he's not in every book in the series, only actually appearing four times in the main series and once in the Megamorphs books. Though in terms of the storyline of the series as a whole, the series wouldn't happen without the Ellimist. Yeah, it's a bit confusing, which is kind of why you should read this book in release order since your enjoyment of it will depend on your knowledge of the series as a whole. 

It can also be confusing because of the Time Matrix and everything going on with that. I love Elfangor though. He's such an interesting character to read about. There's alot of conflict within him. Especially after he learns that Alloran unleashed a Quantum Virus on the Hork-Bajir species, which was illegal, and responsible for the Yeerks conquering the once peaceful Hork-Bajir. He also ended up failing to save Arbron, who got stuck in a Taxxon morph after staying in morph over the two hour limit, which happens alot in Animorphs, besides Tobias staying in hawk morph of course, and was indirectly responsible for Esplin 9466/Sub-Visser Seven/Visser Thirty-Two/Visser Three gaining Alloran as a host, as he'd knocked Alloran out, not realizing that Esplin had infested Chapman before Elfangor had tossed his former Hork-Bajir host body out the airlock. 

Speaking of Alloran, he's a pretty disturbing character. He doesn't understand that by using the Quantum Virus, what he did was wrong and he won't take responsibility for that. As Loren put it, Alloran was screwed up by the war, which is what Vietnam veterans dealt with after they returned from that war. The only difference is that the war with the Yeerks was ongoing and the constant fighting had gotten to him. Which made him an easy target for the Yeerks given his instability. 

As for Esplin 9466, it doesn't matter what host body he's in, be it Hork-Bajir or Andalite, he's still the cartoon villain playing at being a force to be reckoned with. And I love that. This series gets really heavy and serious as it goes on, so it's nice to have a villain who is dangerous, but is also cheesy and incompetent at the same time.

In terms of the world building in this book, we learn so much about the Andalites, the Yeerks, and even the Hork-Bajir. That's one of the things I like about Animorphs. The world building is incredible and even the most minor detail is eventually addressed even if it doesn't get addressed until books that came out later on down the line. And sure, there are some things that are contradicted by later books, but you're going to have that with any long running book series. Especially if it runs long enough that you have to hire a ghostwriter to help you finish them if you're on a tight deadline like Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant were with Animorphs.

Reading this book for the first time in 20 years was pretty great. Like I said, I had the single volume version in my collection when I was a teenager in the 2000s, but we got rid of my Animorphs books sometime between 2010 and when we moved in 2016. But, I was at a used bookstore with Brad a couple of months ago and I found a copy for a cheap price, so I grabbed it. So it was fun to read it again after 20 years. Aside from what rank Visser Three was at at the beginning of the book, I remembered pretty much everything that happened in the book. Though I hadn't actually realized that Elfangor had messed up the timeline by re-aligning Loren's older age due to them aging rapidly near the Time Matrix within the universe they created or that the Ellimist sent her three years into the future to repair the timeline. This kind of thing is why I don't like time travel as a storytelling device. It just complicates things way too much. 

Overall this was a really great book to revisit all these years later. I wouldn't recommend it if you've never read an Animorphs book before, simply because there's just alot in it that relies heavily on the reader's knowledge of the series up to that point where this book was published. It was published between books 12 and 13 of the main series, and came out the same day as book 13, The Change, came out. And then there are other books that build upon information given here, so it's not a good book to read by itself unless you've already read the rest of the series. But if you're reading Animorphs from start to finish, either for the first time or the millionth time, it's definitely not a book to skip. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back with more blog posts soon though. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.    

The Fast and the Furious (2001) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Did you all have a good weekend? I did. It was nice for a change, somewhat. Today I'm reviewing a movie that I didn't ever intend to review on this blog, in any of its incarnations over the last eight years. It's one I've never had any interest in and part of a franchise that I've never really had any interest in. But it was requested by a very good friend of mine, and I coincidentally ended up getting the entire franchise up to this point on DVD and Blu-ray from another friend of mine. So today I'll be reviewing The Fast and the Furious from 2001, starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster. There are going to be spoilers so I can talk about the end of the movie without worrying about having to not spoil anything about it. It's also an almost 22 year old movie at this point, so it's not like it's brand new or anything. Let's get into it.

The Fast and the Furious is a fascinating movie. Critics hated it but audiences loved it. This movie came out back in 2001, a time where superhero and comic book movies hadn't yet become popular. X-Men had just come out the year before, we wouldn't get Sam Raimi's Spider-Man for another year and we were still 11 years away from The Avengers (2012) grabbing everyone's attention and making superhero and comic book based movies and TV shows extremely popular. It was also months before both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring would come out, starting those movie franchises. We even still had a year to wait before Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Trek Nemesis would come out. And it's an original idea too, inspired by, but not adapting, video games such as Grand Theft Auto and The Need for Speed, which ended up being adapted into a movie, Need for Speed, in 2014 oddly enough.

I remember when The Fast and the Furious was coming out. The advertisements for it were all over TV and even the radio if I remember correctly. And even though I was 14 going on 15 when the movie came out, I had no interest in watching it. Even after it was out on home video in 2002, I had no interest in the movie whatsoever. As most trailers do, the trailer for this movie focused on the races, the danger, and the shallow aspects of the movie, and as you know, I'm a character guy. I love diving into the motivations of characters and what makes them who they are. Which is exactly how you get to know people in real life. So when a trailer doesn't even hint at who the characters are, in a setting I don't care about, the movie isn't going to appeal to me. Though I do admit that when I saw the trailer for the 2019 spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw, in the theatres when I went to see Spider-Man: Far From Home, I thought it looked good, even though I hadn't seen the rest of the movies up to that point. So when I got the DVDs and Blu-rays from my friend and she showed me that all of the movies in this franchise were there, I jumped at the chance knowing I'd have more material for this blog.

What's crazy to me is that this movie's budget was $38 million, which is a very small budget even compared to other movies that came out the same year as The Fast and the Furious did. The crazy part is that the movie made $207.3 million at the worldwide box office with the domestic box office garnering $144.5 million. Against the $38 million budget, that's more than double the budget. Which I'm guessing that Universal was pleased with since they commissioned a sequel. Sort of. But, we'll get there, next week. 

The Fast and the Furious is about Brian O'Connor (played by Paul Walker), an LAPD cop who goes undercover with Dominic Toretto's crew to find out who's been hijacking DVD players from semi-trucks. Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, is a criminal and a man not to be crossed with. While on the job, Brian falls in love with Toretto's sister, Mia, played by Jordana Brewster and begins to wonder if everything is as cut and dry with Toretto's crew as his bosses have made it out to be.

As I said earlier, I'm a character guy, and this movie has some of the most interesting characters in any movie. Toretto is interesting and Vin Diesel, who I'm not a huge fan of but have liked him as Groot in the MCU, plays him pretty well, but my favourite characters are Brian and Mia. Brian is a cop but he's getting crap from his bosses for not wrapping up the case quickly and for being wrong about Johnny Tran, played by Rick Yune, who was in the 2002 James Bond film, Die Another Day, being the one hijacking the trucks. Between that and falling in love with Mia, Brian isn't so sure that what he's doing is right. Except it's much more complicated than that simply because Brian spends alot of time with Toretto and his crew. There's a scene fairly early on in the movie where Toretto and his crew, including his girlfriend, Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez, and Brian, get together at Dom and Mia's house for a barbecue and movie night. It's a quiet moment and it's the kind of moment that I love in movies like this, because it helps to center the movie and gives me a touchstone when all the insane parts, that wouldn't necessarily happen in real life, start happening. This is where you kind of start to see Brian doubt what he's doing there, because he sees these supposed criminals as people, who are a family and would do anything for each other. And yet, that's not what this movie is about. The theme is family, but the movie is not about family. It's about Brian and his undercover assignment and him being seduced by the dark side so to speak. 

Because of this scene it's not surprising that Brian lets Dominic escape at the end of the movie. At the same time though, there was no guarantee that that was where the movie was heading for. Even up until the very last minute, Brian fully intended to arrest Toretto even if the rest of his crew had disappeared, with Mia being the only one still at the house as Brian's arrival and Tran killing Jesse interrupted their departure. And it was Tran killing Jesse that turned Brian onto Dominic's side as he helps him deal with Tran and his henchman. Even after Toretto wrecked his car getting hit by a semi-truck, Brian was done and let him take his own car, the one he'd owed Dominic the whole movie. 

But besides the characters, I think what drew me into this movie is that even though I've never seen it until last night, I was nostalgic for the time period it came out in and was set in. I was 14 going on 15 when this movie came out and I remember 2001. I started high school that year, and had two operations that started me on the path to being able to walk again and eventually to eat actual food instead of just a formula through a feeding tube. I watched shows like The O.C., Degrassi: The Next Generation, and One Tree Hill, where the style of clothes are exactly how they are in this movie. Especially on The O.C. since both that show and this movie are set in southern California and so the clothing would be slightly different than it would be elsewhere in the United States and Canada. And while I'm not fond of the style of music used in this movie, seeing early 2000s computers and cell phones was wild. Especially since my family still had the larger brick style cell phone in 2001.

Do I think this movie is the best movie ever? No, absolutely not. Did I enjoy watching it and would I watch it again? Definitely. It was fun to put on a mindless action movie, that didn't have a lot of action in it, for a couple of hours before bed. Especially one where I didn't know what the outcome would actually be, unlike the recent slew of comic book movies which have become almost predictable because they follow that same formula, even if they're ones that try not to follow that formula. Which isn't a bad thing at all, it's just refreshing to watch a movie where you don't really know who the good guys and bad guys are, and whether the good guys or the bad guys will win in the end. 

And that my friends is it for me for today. I will be back next week for my review of the next movie in the Fast and Furious series, 2 Fast 2 Furious, which came out in 2003. I also have other posts coming out this week too. So stay tuned for those. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.   

Star Wars Insider #43 (1999) Magazine Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! Kind of. It's super cold out today, so it might not be such a happy Friday for those of you who have to be out in it. Today I'm going to be taking a look at Star Wars Insider issue 43, which is the first issue of the magazine that I ever got, all the way back in 1999. I call it a review, but it really isn't, it's more like an overview because it's a magazine so I don't have story or characters to talk about. So let's get into it.

This issue is the last one to come out before The Phantom Menace came out in May, 1999, before the magazine would have a four issue complete coverage of the new movie, including interviews with some of the film's principal cast. I don't remember where my mom got this issue for me, but, it makes sense that she did, because not only do I love Star Wars, but it had been two years since the Special Editions had come out, Bantam Spectra was wrapping up their line of Star Wars novels after nine years, and the hype surrounding the first new Star Wars movie in 16 years was massive so Star Wars was everywhere.

One of the reasons I like to collect and read these older issues of the magazine is because it's a window into where Star Wars was as a franchise at this point in time, and what the fandom was like too. The internet had just become popular though not everybody had the internet back then. Social media still about a decade away from becoming a thing, so for alot of people growing up, our fandom was limited to our friends in our neighbourhood and at school. For me it was me and my buddies, Garrett and Meagan and that's pretty much it. Garrett had been a Star Wars fan much longer than either Meagan or I had been at that point, as I'd first saw the movies in late 1995/early 1996 when my dad got the 1995, "One Last Time..." VHS boxset of all three movies, and I think Meagan got into it with the Special Editions. I know she didn't see them in theatres, as she'd just seen them when we got back to school after Christmas, around the time I also first started getting into the Animorphs series.

From 1994 when the magazine changed it's name from Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine to Star Wars Insider, to 2005 just after Revenge of the Sith came out, the magazine had a section called "Prequel Update". This was where Fan Club President, Dan Madsen, spoke to Executive Producer, Rick McCallum, about the production of the prequel movies as well as about other stuff going on in terms of Lucasfilm, including the first rumours of a new Indiana Jones movie being in the works, which would end up being true though the movie itself wouldn't come out until 2008, and celebrating the re-release of the Indiana Jones movies on VHS, alongside episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in issue #46.

In this particular issue, "Prequel Update" was just pictures of the main and secondary characters from the new movie, including names, what role they play in the movie, and the actors who play them. Although, oddly enough the CGI characters including Jar Jar Binks and Watto, don't have actors's names attached. Neither do R2-D2 and C-3PO, even though it was long established at this point that Anthony Daniels played 3PO and Kenny Baker played R2. I think in the case of Jar Jar and Watto, there hadn't been interviews with Ahmed Best (Jar Jar) and Andy Secombe (Watto), and because the movie hadn't come out yet when the pictures were put into the magazine, they didn't want to spoil anything, so they kept it a secret until Ahmed Best's interview in #46.

Back then there was a section called "Star News" which is where cast announcements, cast sightings, release dates, and news on toys, comic books, and novels were put. In this issue, along with the final worldwide release dates for The Phantom Menace being announced, "Star News" had an article that announced the release of The New Jedi Order and that R.A. Salvatore was writing the first book, which would later become Vector Prime. I don't know for sure but I think the novel license moving from Bantam back to Del Rey had already been announced in an earlier issue of the magazine due to the fact that the novelization of The Phantom Menace had been published by Del Rey in April 1999, though Bantam still had three books, The Bounty Hunter Wars: Hard Merchandise, X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar, and Tales of the New Republic, on the publication schedule before Del Rey took over completely. Issue #44 would be the debut of their book section, which hadn't been a thing prior to that, despite the comics getting a section devoted to them. 

There are other articles in this issue, such as profiles on all the people who had been working at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic since production on Star Wars began in 1976, "Prequel Profile" which shined a light on one person working on Episode I, and an article on a Star Wars: The Customizable Card Game tournament being held in Virginia Beach, as part of Decipher's third annual World Championships in November 1998. But "Prequel Update" and "Star News" were the sections I wanted to highlight in this blog post because those are the two sections that best highlight where Star Wars was as a franchise back in 1999.

 While the cover I used for the cover image for this post is the newsstand edition, there were two other covers as well. The first was the subscribers cover, which had Darth Maul in the foreground and Qui-Gon Jinn in the orange background, with a purple Star Wars Insider logo. The third was this one that you see above. It's the Previews Exclusive, which is the one my mom got for me, as I remember Darth Maul being in the foreground, but with the gold Insider logo, with the "Previews Exclusive" stamp right below it. Though I can't confirm it because I lost the front and back covers for my copy of this issue about 23 years ago or so. But like I said, the image above is what I remember the cover of my copy being since I wasn't a subscriber and I know I didn't have the newsstand edition cover. What I find interesting is that the title on the cover says "Revenge of the Sith" simply because that would be the name that George Lucas would give Episode III in either 2004 or very early in 2005. 

I think that's going to be it for me for this week, as well as for this post. I just wanted to go through this issue of Star Wars Insider since it was the very first issue I ever had of the magazine, and I collected it for 21 years before deciding to stop doing so regularly. I'll be back next week with more reviews and posts. Including my review of the 2001 film, The Fast & the Furious. I was requested to review this franchise since I have all of the movies on DVD and Blu-ray and I've never seen any of them. So we'll see what I think of each movie as I go through them. I'll also have comic book reviews, and in two weeks I'll be reviewing the season 3 premiere of Star Trek: Picard. I'm hoping it's good, but given how bad season 2 was, and how much I didn't like in season 1, I do not have high hopes for season 3, despite the entire TNG cast, aside from Wil Wheaton and Denise Crosby, returning for this final season of the show. So we'll see. Until then have a good weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care, and stay warm!

Star Trek: The Next Generation #18: Q-in-Law (1991) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I'm here with my review of Star Trek: The Next Generation #18: Q-in-Law by Peter David. Spoiler Alert: It's one of my favourite TNG novels from the '90s. Also, there won't be too many spoilers as these are the novels where there isn't a whole lot to talk about, but there are a few things I'd like to mention. So let's get into it.

Pocket Books put out two types of Star Trek novels in the '90s. The thicker, longer hardcovers that became paperbacks and told deeper, lore heavy stories, and the shorter numbered straight to paperback novels that felt more like episodes of the TV show. Q-in-Law is the latter. It's number 18 in the series and it feels like an episode of the TV series with a hint of "What if?" thrown in. The "What if?" being Lwaxana Troi, ambassador for Betazed and the mother of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D's counselor, Deanna Troi, meeting Q. Being a Peter David novel, things get really ridiculous. But it's still alot of fun.

So the story is that the Enterprise-D is hosting the wedding of two previously feuding houses of the Tizarin race and representatives from all over the Federation are invited to the wedding. Including Lwaxana Troi since she's the ambassador from Betazed. But all hell breaks loose when Q arrives and catches Lwaxana's eye. 

Peter David seems to have gotten all the fun novels to write for Star Trek. Particularly many of the Q books. Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that Peter David wrote all of the Q novels in the '90s, as there actually weren't that many in the main TNG novel series. And even when Q appeared outside of that series, in the New Frontier series, it was Peter David who wrote them. What gets me is how the writers of the various TV shows, particularly TNG and DS9, never thought to have Q and Lwaxana in an episode together. Especially by the time this novel came out as that was as TNG was at the height of its popularity during the fifth season.

As I mentioned the story is pretty simple. The Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission with a race we'll never see again (the Tizarin), and Q interferes, as usual, with Lwaxana onboard as well. Typical episode format for TNG back in 1991. And that's what I like about it. It's not universe threatening, there's no high stakes for the crew of the Enterprise, and it's not convoluted at all. It's pretty straightforward.

One thing I love about Peter David's Star Trek novels is the witty dialogue. There's one scene, near the end, where Q has given Lwaxana the power of the Q, and she's found out that Deanna and the rest of the crew had been right about Q all along so she starts beating him up. The senior staff is just watching this happen and Riker is like, "She's really beating the stuffing out of him. What do you think we should do?" and Worf replies, "Sell tickets." Which is totally something Worf would've said on the show in a Q episode if someone was beating up on Q. Yet, it's not something you'd expect in a Star Trek novel as they tend to be a bit more serious, especially during this period in time.

According to the 2006 Star Trek novels compendium reference book, Voyages of Imagination, Q-in-Law was originally turned down by Pocket Books and Peter David went on to write the second TNG Giant Novel, Vendetta. But he was at a convention with Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who played Lwaxana on TNG, gave her the completed manuscript, she read it, loved it, and went to Paramount, basically forcing them to let Pocket Books publish the book. It's Majel Barrett, she got alot of stuff done for Star Trek when she was alive. Even after Gene's death in 1991.  

There really isn't much else to say about the book. It's good, but it's your typical early '90s numbered TNG novel by one of the more prolific Star Trek author of the time. It's funny, it's interesting, but ultimately it's a throwaway story that doesn't add anything to the lore and it doesn't contradict anything either. I recommend it if you can get your hands on it. It was never republished like some of the other TNG and TOS novels that got new editions in 2006 and in the early 2010s, so there's just the one edition. Though I think it's a pretty common book because I found a copy easily at a used bookstore that I went to back in December, so if you can find it, definitely pick up a copy.

That's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back soon with more reviews. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Stargirl Season 2 (2021) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Kind of. It was snowing all weekend, and is STILL snowing today. Which is why I'm here to talk about season 2 of Stargirl. I finished watching it while I ate lunch. There will be spoilers because there's so much I want to talk about and I can't do it spoiler free. So if you haven't seen season 2 yet and you watch the show, please watch the season before reading this review. Let's get into it.

While season 1 introduced the characters, season 2 expanded on them and really made them into something unique among the CW DC Comics based shows. I'll be honest, even before I'd seen the first season, I knew that Stargirl had moved to The CW for the second season, and so going into the season I was concerned that the quality of the writing would drop with it becoming a CW show, same as what happened with Supergirl in its second season. So I was a bit hesitant to go into season 2 even though I loved season 1 alot. But, I was surprised to find that, the quality of the writing did not drop. In fact it got even better.

One of the things I loved about this season is that it was a slow burn. But it wasn't a slow burn in a bad way like it was on the Arrowverse shows. It's a slow burn so that we, as the audience can spend more time with the characters before Eclipso escapes from the Black Diamond that we saw Cindy retrieve at the end of the season 1 finale. As I said in my review of season 1, Geoff Johns and his writers understand that it's the characters, not the powers or the big battles, that make a superhero TV show or movie work, because they write some great characters, both on the hero side and the villain side. I have never been a fan of supervillains. Especially in the present day where they actually do more than simply rob a bank with tricks and gimmicks, and I don't think anyone should idolize characters like the Joker, Lex Luthor, or any other villains. However, the villains on Stargirl are some of the most layered, most fascinating villain characters I have ever seen in a comic book based TV show, even beating out Michael Rosenbaum's portrayal of Lex Luthor on Smallville. Especially Larry Crock/Sportsmaster and Paula Brooks/Tigress. Those two are also alot of fun to watch everytime they're on screen.

Of course my favourite character, Yolanda Montez/Wildcat, had so much more going on with her this season, which is great. One of the things that bothered me about the Arrowverse shows, particularly Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, is that whenever a hero character killed a villain, they would either brush it off within an episode or two, or agonize over it and then never do anything about it until they had to kill another villain. But here, on Stargirl, it was tearing Yolanda up inside for most of the season, to the point where she quit being Wildcat temporarily, even returning the Wildcat suit to Courtney until the season finale. She eventually forgave herself for having to kill Brainwave last season, but it wasn't a quick fix. She also didn't drown in her sorrows until Eclipso tried to tear her, Beth, and Rick apart with their own fears. In Yolanda's case, it worked. Briefly.

Speaking of Eclipso, he was absolutely terrifying. The Crocks and the other members of the ISA were delights to watch on screen because, they weren't super evil. Oh sure, the Dragon King was just insane, and Jordan Mahkent/Icicle had good intentions, he just went about them the wrong way. But Eclipso? He was pure evil. I don't have any experience with the character in the comics, but, I am familiar with the name because of the ads for the 1992 miniseries/crossover event, Eclipso: The Darkness Within, which were in issues of various DC titles that I have from that year. But, holy crap, this guy was extremely powerful. He was even able to take Rick out while Rick was within his hour of strength from the hourglass that he wears as Hourman. He was also stronger than Cindy Burman/Shiv. And Cindy was the best fighter in the ISA, aside from the Crocks. He also looked like a Skrull from the MCU or an Orc or any number of evil, mystical, creatures in a high fantasy movie or TV show.

I really enjoyed the Shade and seeing Jennie-Lynn Hayden/Jade, the daughter of the original, Golden Age, Green Lantern, Alan Scott. Shade was just so much fun, because you didn't know whether he was on the JSA's side or if he was the villain of the season, aside from Cindy and Eclipso. And it wasn't like he was evil or anything. He was just delightfully bad. And having Jade on the show is the closest we've come to having a Green Lantern on a CW DC Comics based show, despite Berlanti and Co. teasing John Diggle as a Green Lantern ever since season 4 of Arrow back in 2015. 

There wasn't a single storyline this season that I didn't like or that was bad. Even Cindy, who didn't have much of a storyline this time around, wasn't bad. Meg DeLacy has continued to play Cindy extremely well, and is always a delight on screen, but the writers have continued to write her well too, which isn't always the case with the second seasons of these shows. I do have to say though that I thought that Thunderbolt's introduction episode, which was Episode 3, was a bit on the weak side. Not BAD, just it wasn't as strong an introduction to the character as we'd had with other characters in these first two seasons. Jim Gaffigan voices him this season, but apparently he was replaced by Seth Green in season 3, so THAT will be interesting because I love Seth Green as an actor and have ever since I saw him in the Austin Powers movies in the early 2000s. 

Like with the Blu-ray for season 1, Stargirl: The Complete Second Season consists of three discs, with four episodes on Disc 1, five on Disc 2, and four on Disc 3. However, unlike the The Complete First Season, there is a full bonus feature besides a State of Georgia featurette and the gag reel. It's a 20 minute documentary called Never Alone: Heroes and Allies. It focuses on the heroes and supporting characters of The Flash, Superman & Lois, Batwoman, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Stargirl. Arrow, Titans, Doom Patrol, Supergirl, Peacemaker, and Black Lightning aren't mentioned as Titans, Doom Patrol, and Peacemaker don't air on The CW and Arrow, Supergirl, and Black Lightning had already ended by the time this set was put together, and Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman are shown because neither show had been canceled yet when this documentary was put together. It's a decent set, though I do wish there were more Stargirl centric bonus features on it. Neither season has a behind the scenes documentary or a season specific Making Of documentary either. Which is disappointing as I would've loved to have gotten cast reactions to being on the show.

Overall season 2 of Stargirl was even better than season 1. Like I said, it has a slower pace that allowed us to spend more time with each character before everything went to hell. As Geoff Johns said in the Heroes and Allies documentary, the reason he introduced Beth, Yolanda, and Rick the way he did back in season 1 was so we, as the audience, could get to know them before they got their costumes and abilities, so that when stuff did happen we could feel a connection to them, not their powers and costumes. Which is what I've been saying about comic book based and superhero shows and movies all along. It's the characters that matter, not the costumes or the powers. Which is why we have Peter Parker taking the Spider-Man mask off constantly in every Spider-Man movie we've ever had, and why we spent so much time with Peter Parker in the Sam Raimi movies, particularly Spider-Man 2 (2004). It's why Grant Gustin only puts on the Flash mask as Barry Allen when there's a fight scene on The Flash (2014-2023). It's why I have my problems with the Batman and Superman movies as they tend to focus more on Batman and Superman, not on Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. It's why I didn't care that they took forever to get Clark into the Superman suit on Smallville. 

So I definitely highly recommend season 2 of Stargirl. Especially if you watched and enjoyed season 1. It's still alot of fun to watch, even though it does go a little bit darker than season 1 did, simply because of the things Eclipso made our heroes see when he attacked their minds with his powers. So check it out if you're interested in it.

And that my friends is it for me for now. I'll be back soon though with my review of the 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Q-in-Law by Peter David. So until then have a wonderful night and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves (2014) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So I'm back with another book review. This time I'm reviewing the last novel to be published in the original Star Wars expanded universe before the current Disney canon began, 2014's Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey. Like with my Kenobi review from the other day, this is my first time reading this book so I wanted to get my initial thoughts about it out there before I really delve into it later on down the line in whatever form I end up doing the Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends reviews in. I have ideas on that, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. So that means there won't be any spoilers in this review. That'll come later when I revisit the book down the line. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Released on March 4th, 2014, Honor Among Thieves was the final book published that was set in the Legends continuity. Though I don't think anybody knew it was going to be the last Legends novel to be published as the Lucasfilm Story Group didn't announce that decision until April 25th, 2014, more than a month after this book was published. Also the new character, Scarlet Hark, the Alliance spy that Han is sent to recover, feels like someone who was meant to show up in more books, almost like Del Rey was trying to duplicate the success that they'd had with Mara Jade in the '90s and early 2000s, after the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991. But with this ending up being the final book in Legends, that never happened as she wasn't transferred over to the Canon continuity. 

The paperback was published on February 24th, 2015, only six days shy of the first anniversary of the hardcover's release. This edition, which includes the Legends banner across the top, came out around the time that several of the Bantam era novels from the '90s were re-released with the Legends banner across the top of the front covers. This is the edition that I have in my collection. It includes an excerpt preview of the Canon novel, Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, as well as the short story "Silver and Scarlet", which was the introduction of Scarlet Hark, and was published in Star Wars Insider #148, only a week after it was originally published in the hardcover of this novel. I'll talk about that a little later though.

I had such a good time reading Honor Among Thieves. It was fun, funny, and exciting all at once. Honestly, it felt like a throwback to the Bantam era novels from the '90s. The pacing was similar, the humour felt like the type of humour that Aaron Allston had in his entries in the Star Wars: X-Wing novel series, and the action was pretty great too. 

Something that I've found with alot of Star Wars novels that have come out since The New Jedi Order started in 1999 is that they've gotten alot heavier in terms of the aspects of the Star Wars Universe they explore. Some are darker than others, but they overall became alot more introspective and more character focused. And I think that's because the franchise started evolving and moving in that direction with the Prequel Trilogy. And by the time books like the Fate of the Jedi series started coming out in 2009 and 2010, we were already getting fairly heavy character pieces in the Clone Wars TV series, under the watchful eye of Dave Filoni. So the novels and comics were reflecting those changes that the movies and TV show were making. And because the novels are more dense, they take longer to read than the Bantam era novels do. So it was nice to read a more modern Star Wars novel, which is only a little over a month away from being nine years old now, that is lighter and fast to read. I started it on Monday night after I'd finished the Kenobi review, and finished it just before bed last night. That's how quick of a read it is. 

Unlike with Kenobi, Wookieepedia has nothing on the development of this book and no behind the scenes info on it either. It was written by James S.A. Corey, who is a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, and are the authors, under that pen name, of the Sci-Fi book series, The Expanse, which is what the TV show of the same name is adapted from. But, having never read the The Expanse novels, and having never read anything else by these authors, I don't know if I should be surprised that they wrote a light-hearted Star Wars novel or not. My buddy Aaron, who is a fan of The Expanse, told me that while humour is in The Expanse, it's not anywhere near as light-hearted as this book is. So that's interesting.

This is also a Han Solo focused novel. Which isn't all that surprising since Han did get shafted in the Original Trilogy, but I think that's simply due to the fact that Harrison Ford was only involved on a movie by movie basis, so after the first movie came out in 1977, George didn't write a whole lot for Han to do in each subsequent movie knowing that Ford might not be available for the next movies. And of course we know what would happen to him in the Sequel Trilogy, so I don't blame authors for wanting to tell more stories with Han being the focus. It's just interesting that this book came out 14 months after the last Legends novel written by Timothy Zahn, Scoundrels, came out, and was also a Han focused novel. Though in that case it was a Han and Lando focused novel. It's also interesting that both novels take place at some point during the three years between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). 

The short story, "Silver and Scarlet" is okay. Like I said with the short story in the paperback for Kenobi, there isn't a whole lot to say about it. It was a decent introduction to Scarlet Hark. But that's it.

Overall this was an awesome book and a great way to end off the Legends continuity. I highly recommend reading it if you can get your hands on it. Like I said earlier, I will be revisiting this book at some point during my Star Wars Legends review series that I'll be doing later on down the line. There are a few other novels that I want to get to before that though.

That's going to be it for me for today. I will be back soon with my review of Stargirl season 2. I'm aiming for either Friday or Saturday, leaning more towards Saturday, because of when I decide to watch the show. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

How I Met Your Father Season 2, Episode 1, "Cool and Chill" (2023) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? So I was wrong about the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father. It did drop on Disney+ internationally the same day as it dropped on Hulu. Which is today. So I'm here to review the premiere of the season, "Cool and Chill". There will be some minor spoilers because there was a cameo at the end of the episode that I really want to talk about in this review. So let's get into it.

As much as I enjoyed the first season of How I Met Your Father, season two was not off to a great start. I mean I enjoyed Sid because he was my favourite character in the first season, and Hannah, his girlfriend, now wife, was great too. But, nobody else really had much going on except for wrapping up loose ends from the first season. Which is kinda of why this episode wasn't great. Too much of the drama from the season one finale carried into this season and it made the episode too clunky. It also painted Ellen in a really bad light in this episode. Which really sucks because I liked Ellen in season one. She was goofy but sympathetic, but here, here she's just annoying, and not funny. Almost as if the writers forgot who they were writing for and then the actress who plays her, Tien Tran, forgot how to play her. 

Even Jesse and Sophie weren't great this episode. And Sophie, played by the still wonderful Hilary Duff, is the show's main character. So it's not good when your main character isn't great in the season premiere. I still loved Charlie and Valentina though. They didn't do much in this episode, but being that they'd just broken up in the season one finale, they had that to deal with, and it was done decently. Kind of. And by kind of, I mean that they'll probably be back together at some point in the next five or six episodes. 

So I'm kinda thinking that this show isn't going to get renewed for a third season. The reason I think that is because they have Barney Stinson coming in this season. Yes, they had Robin in the season one finale, but they didn't foreshadow it in the pilot by having her appear as a quick cameo in a flash forward sequence at the end of the episode. In fact, I don't think they even announced that Cobie Smulders was returning as Robin until like a week or two before the finale dropped. Here though Barney shows up in a flash forward sequence at the end of the episode and there doesn't seem to be a story or character reason for Barney to even be there. So I think they're trying to boost views by teasing Barney's appearance in a later episode. I don't know for sure though.

Overall this was not a great start to a show that's already on shaky grounds as a weird retread of a show that is completely outdated in 2023. Don't get me wrong, I love How I Met Your Mother, but I love it for what it was for the time it was on TV (2005-2014), and it had already outstayed its welcome by the time it got to its ninth season. So this show doesn't work quite as well because of that connection. It's a 20 episode season though, so I'm hoping it gets better. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday with my review of season 2 of Stargirl. Hopefully. Though I might do another blog post before then. We'll see. Until then have a great rest of the day and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.