Bryce Moore's Blog, page 43

Tomas Update: Week 1 at the MTC

People have kept asking me how Tomas is doing at the MTC, and up until yesterday, I’ve had to just say, “Your guess is as good as mine,” since we hadn’t talked to him yet. Their P-day is Wednesday, and that’s the only day they’re allowed to call home (barring any emergencies.) So yesterday we all got to catch up with him for an hour or so, and I’m happy to report he seems to be doing really well. Happy, engaged, and having a good time.

As promised, he’s sending me updates to pass on to all of you. Here’s his first one, along with some pictures of life at the MTC.

Hey everyone! I know I haven’t said much in a while, but I made it to the MIssionary Training Center in Provo, Utah! It was a long set of flights, but I met some great people (one guy had pictures from when he worked at Camp David and played doubles tennis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan!). Once I got here, I met up with my companions, Elders Millett and Florian. It was so nice to see them in person! We are part of a district that is all going to Finland besides us three. Days are pretty full with lots of language classes and studying, but it’s been super fun. 

Couple interesting things have happened here- we got a devotional from an Apostle, Elder Rasband, and also we saw a bunch of deer outside one day and even chased one at breakfast. That’s about all I have for today- it’s been pretty busy between laundry, sand volleyball against the Georgian speaking district, and a solid hour of spikeball. I’ll put in some pictures as well I guess. 

Anyways, I’m doing great out here and loving it. I know I made the right choice to serve a mission and I’m so excited to go to Slovakia! Love you all and see you next week,

Elder/Starší Cundick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Resident Party Planner

I like parties. I like planning them. I like holding them. (I don’t like cleaning the house to get ready for them, or cleaning the house once they’re done.) Ever since I was in high school, I was happy to call up my friends and organize some kind of activity, whether it was getting together to go to a movie, go out to dinner, or just go over to someone’s house and hang out, I liked making all the phone calls and getting it all organized. (Probably a sign of impending librarianship, I suppose.)

I still like doing it these days. (Don’t get me wrong: I hate calling strangers on the phone. I have no idea why I’m so comfortable calling friends but can’t stand calling people I don’t know well. That doesn’t really make sense to me, but I suppose I don’t always have to make sense.) I know that a lot of the time, if someone doesn’t step up and organize fun, fun just doesn’t happen. So I like having a house that can host the fun, and corralling my friends into coming over for the fun. Over the years, we’ve done a slew of different parties. Groundhog Day (of course), Halloween, Christmas, Bowl Games, Super Bowls, New Years Eve, movie nights, game nights, and more. My party-planning has taken a bit of a back seat to the house renovation, just because our house is such a constant mess, but now that we’re getting close to the other side of that, I’m hoping we can fully get back in the swing of things.

It really made me happy, then, to see Daniela step up to the plate and show that she’s really interested in the same sort of thing. She came to me saying that she missed the Halloween parties we used to do, and that she wanted to organize one for this year. I’m tight on time, so it was a great chance for me to hand the reins over to her. She sat down and came up with a list of people to invite, and I helped her work out some of the logistics. (Dinner or no dinner? Trick or treating? What time? What time to meet at the house? When should we finish?)

But that’s the easy part. She also handled calling and inviting people, which seems to be much more difficult for this generation. It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that she was calling actual adults, inviting whole families to the party. I sat next to her, coaching her through it, and she did a really good job. (Especially when it came to leaving messages. That proved to be particularly stressful, but I admired the way she barreled forward and didn’t let it bother her.)

We’ll see where she goes from here. If this becomes a thing she really gets into and enjoys, or if she just tries it out and moves on to other things. For now, I’m just happy I get to go to a party that I’m not completely planning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

The Cone of Shame

Ferris has been stuck in the cone of shame for the last two weeks. (Maybe more? I can’t remember when he first had to get it put on.) A few weeks ago, he started worrying at his tail, chewing on it whenever he was particularly bored. (A dog’s gotta have a hobby, I guess?) This was fine for the first while. If he wants to chew his tail, let the dog chew his tail. But his tail started getting . . . problematic. Chewing is one thing. Chewing until it bleeds?

No.

So Denisa took him to the vet, who diagnosed him with a hot spot. Apparently dogs will sometimes have a cut or a bite or something that bothers them, and then they start to focus on that spot, and it snowballs out of control. They keep fussing with it, and it just gets worse and worse. The way to stop it? Make it so the dog can’t worry at it anymore.

Enter the cone of shame.

Ferris actually had to get a particularly big cone of shame, because his tail was just too easy to access with a smaller one. They also taped his dew claws to make sure he couldn’t use them on a fallback. He is very much not a fan. For the first while, he kept running into random things around the house, just because he had a hard time figuring out where the cone ended. It didn’t help that he discovered if he rammed into something hard enough, the velcro on the cone would come undone, and he could take it off. (A regular Houdini, that dog.) So we taped the cone shut, and that took care of that.

Now he’s pretty much got the hang of it. He still likes to chew things, but he can’t reach them easily on the ground, so he will pick something up in his mouth and then tilt his head back so he can just sort of gnaw on it in mid air. He still looks like a satellite dish, but we’ve been able to take it off for his walks. (The problem is he still keeps going for his tail when we let our guard down, so he clearly hasn’t learned his lesson yet.)

I will say that the cone of shame is quite effective, and it’s made me wonder if there’s not something in it for humans. How many bad habits could we do away with if we had to wear a giant funnel around our necks until they were gone? Not saying I want to volunteer, but something tells me it would be fairly effective . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Saying Goodbye

I drove Tomas up to Bangor yesterday morning. I had originally planned on just dropping him off at the curb at the airport, but then I realized he was checking bags, and that wasn’t something we’ve really done when flying before, so I parked and went in with him to give him one last bit of support before he headed off on his own. I went up with him to security (it was his first time in Bangor’s small airport, though I’m sure he could have figured it out himself), gave him a hug, told him I was proud of him and that I’d miss him, and then told him there was no way I was going to stand there waiving to him the whole time while he went through security. We said goodbye, and that was that.

I’ve been through a lot the last two or three years. Global pandemics. Job insecurity. The loss of a parent. But somehow simply saying goodbye to my son at the airport proved to be the hardest of all of those on me, emotionally. There are many, many ways I’m chiding myself over that fact. Many other parents deal with much more difficult goodbyes. He hasn’t passed away. He hasn’t stormed off in a rage. He’s leaving to go do something I’m fully in support of, and he’s growing into an amazing man.

And yet I’m still upset about it, and I’m having a hard time keeping it together, to be honest.

I know dads are supposed to be the emotional bedrock of a family. The ones who stoically keep it together at all times, because crying is weak. But honestly, I have come to realize over the course of the past 2.5 years that all that suppressing of emotion over the years is taking a real toll on me. I’ve actually been trying to cry more recently, knowing that it’s an excellent way of getting stress out of the body. Strangely, it’s required real effort for me to do it. I have had to really focus on allowing myself to feel that much sadness.

But seeing Tomas say goodbye to MC and Denisa and Ferris? (He’d said goodbye to Daniela the night before, as she had to leave early yesterday morning.) That about pushed me over the edge. I had to leave the room for a bit, as crying is one thing, but crying in front of people is still a bridge too far for me. Going up to his empty room last night, seeing it all dismantled and put away in preparation for MC to move in there, I just sat on his bed and bawled for fifteen minutes.

Some of this might stem from experiences I went through growing up. I lived with my mom in Pennsylvania. My dad lived in Utah. My brother, sister, and I would go out to Utah for a month each summer, and for Christmas every other winter. That always involved a car ride to the airport when we left, knowing that I’d be away from one parent for a month, and knowing that parent was sad. Then it involved another car ride to the airport on the way back, with the situation reversed. I hated (hated) those car rides. The sick feeling that would settle into my stomach as those goodbyes approached.

Taking Tomas to the airport yesterday, I had that same feeling again, and it set off some deep-seated memories in me.

Again, everything that’s going on for him is a good thing. He’s on his own, learning to do his own thing, but he’s got a lot of structure and support around him to help him as he makes that transition. He’s going home to Slovakia, which will give him a chance to connect with that side of his heritage. From the day he was born, Denisa has worked on teaching him Slovak. This has been something we’ve tried to be preparing for for a long, long time. He was excited to be off, and I can relate to that. I remember being in his shoes, nervous about what might come, but still really wanting to finally see how I did on my own. To set up my life the way I wanted it to be. (Though when I watched him head off for security, I had a very hard time not seeing the little boy I’ve known for years, going off to do something that I can’t help him with.)

I know none of this is unique to just me. I know literally billions of people have dealt with this over the years. But for Denisa and me, this was a first. A significant first in the same way it was a significant first for him. There aren’t a whole lot of those in your life. Leaving home. Getting married. Having a baby. Sending your child off to school. Having your child leave home. And just like all those other firsts, I’ve found it isn’t really something you can understand until you do it yourself. I’ve been dreading yesterday for the last half year at least. It was worse than I thought it would be.

The good news is that we got to talk to him yesterday evening. My father picked him up from the airport and will take him to the MTC today. Tomas had a great trip. I was surprised to hear he talked to a stranger all the way from Bangor to JFK, then he went to dinner with another stranger in JFK, and he met several other people who he had good interactions with. Having a missionary name tag can sometimes be a liability. People judge you without even knowing who you are. But it can also be an asset. The man on the flight from Bangor knew many members of our church and knew all about missionaries. Some members saw him in JFK and took him to dinner, knowing what he’s going through. And to have Tomas not just talk with those strangers, but to sound like he even enjoyed it?

He’s making big strides already.

Anyway. That’s about all I’ve got to say about that for now. We’ll get to talk to him once a week, which is so much more than I got to do as a missionary. That helps with this transition, but I’m sure it will continue to be difficult as I learn to adjust. Our family at home is now down to 4, and that will require some retooling for everyone. Tomas and I did a lot together. Playing Magic. Playing video games. Watching sports. I’ll likely end up switching up what I do week to week as well, tweaking things to spend time with Daniela and MC more. We’ll see where things all settle in a few months.

Thanks for all your well wishes. They’re very much appreciated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything

The Ease of the Present Day

Often things feel like they’re always getting worse in so many ways. It’s easy to focus on the negative, simply because at times there seems to be so much negative to focus on. Pandemics. Inflation. Wars. Politics. The Red Sox being 21.5 games behind the Yankees. (Hey, I didn’t say all of these were negative for me. Just that they were negative for many people . . .)

But as I’ve watched different movies and thought about my past some, now and then it just strikes me how easy we have it in so many different ways. The thing that reminded me this time was talking about how Tomas will be able to video call with us once a week. Comparing that to when I was on a mission and I could only talk to my family three times a year on the phone, and the difference is striking. I mean, there’s the whole “video” component of things. Yay technology. But the ability to call Slovakia and see and talk to anyone you want, any time, for free? That’s a huge difference.

When Denisa and I were first married in 2001, she had to get a phone card specifically for calling home. It had the cheapest prices, and it was still something like . . . 20 cents a minute? $1 a minute? I can’t honestly remember. It was high enough that she only called home at select times, and she watched her call length carefully when she did, just so the bill wasn’t too high.

One reason that missionaries likely weren’t allowed to call home in years past is likely (in my opinion) the inequity of the cost. If you have a missionary whose family can afford regular long distance phone calls, and he’s paired up with a missionary whose family can’t, that would be very difficult for the Elder who doesn’t get to talk to Mom and Dad each week.

Now, when Facebook Messenger or Zoom or whatever you want to use, you can call wherever you want for however long you want, as long as you have an internet connection and a device. Granted, devices aren’t free, but they’re also as not prohibitively expensive as they used to be.

People talk about the hypothetical sometimes, “When would you like to live, if you could live whenever?” There are plenty of problems in the present day, but when I think of the big picture, I’m not sure there’s a different time period I would prefer to live in. (Logically, looking at global trends, the answer for me would be “as far in the future as I can, and still understand how society functions.) I mean, medical care is so much better. Leisure time activities are so much broader. Electronics cost a small fraction of what they used to cost. And I would argue that despite there being much to do in terms of making the world a better place for everyone, it’s still a much better place than it has been.

So today I’m looking on the positive. Thinking about how great things have gotten in so many different areas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Home MTC: A Parent’s Perspective

Tomas has been doing home MTC (Missionary Training Center) for a week and a half now. He’s heading out to Provo on Tuesday. When we were heading into the home MTC experience, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from it. When I went on my mission, my parents dropped me off at the MTC in Provo, and that was that. I’d never met my teachers, my companion, or anyone I’d be rooming with. I had no idea where I’d stay or what my schedule would be like. They dumped all of that on me the day I arrived, in the space of an hour or two. But it was the only reality I knew, so I never really questioned it.

What do you do when you’re at home for the first two weeks, instead?

It turns out, quite a bit.

Tomas has been in classes most days for the bulk of the day, starting around 9 in the morning and finishing around 9 or 10 at night. He’s in a district with just two other missionaries, both of whom are going to his same mission (Czech-Slovak), though one is Slovak speaking and one Czech. They take classes on how to teach and communicate effectively, as well as some classes on how to speak the language. (Tomas’s companion speaks no Slovak at all, so there’s quite a bit gap between the two of them. From what I gather, that hasn’t been an issue.) There are also devotionals and time for personal study, exercise, and companionship study.

He does get breaks. He’s had Sunday completely free, and Wednesday he doesn’t really do anything until around 6pm. Then there are breaks here and there throughout the week where we can see him. However, he’s already supposed to follow mission rules, which means no television or movies or popular reading. Since a lot of our family time together used to be spent watching something, we made a switch over to activities he could participate in. (We’ve been doing a cool Star Wars 1,000 piece puzzle.) We also talk to him about how things are going and what he’s learning.

The big difference from all of this is that when he leaves Maine on Tuesday, he knows where he’s going. He knows his teacher. He knows his companion. He knows what his schedule will be like. There’s really not that much that will be a surprise to him, and I think that will make for an infinitely smoother transition. It can be a real shock, going from normal to missionary in the space of a few hours. I think it can feel overwhelming, and this goes a long way toward fixing that.

I’d say it was a good transition period for the parents as well, but Tomas was already quite busy before this. Seniors in high school have cars, have friends, and have things to do, so they’re already out and about a lot of the time. Of course, there’s a big difference between “out and about” and “gone for two years.”

I’ll deal with that Tuesday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Some Thoughts on Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

I have been watching the new Lord of the Rings show on Amazon since it premiered, and I wanted to take a moment to say how much I’ve been enjoying it. The acting has been great. The characters are complex. It’s beautiful to watch. The songs have even been top notch. (Special shout out to This Wandering Day, which was perfect.)

I’ve loved how so much of the show resonates with Peter Jackson’s movies. Yes, the characters are played by different actors. Yes, the politics are all different, since it’s thousands of year before LOTR, but the dwarves feel like dwarves. The elves feel like elves. The armor, the scene design, the world building: all of it fits for me.

Of course, there have been a vocal few who have been frothing at the mouth that there are elves and dwarves and ur-hobbits of color. They’re not all white. And to some, apparently that’s just sacrilege. Except elves and dwarves and hobbits are all counterparts to humans. There are humans of multiple races. Why in the world wouldn’t there be dwarves or elves or hobbits of the same? And why in the world should it matter? (But mind you, I also didn’t have an issue with the elf/dwarf romance in the Hobbit movies, because if you can have elf/human, why not elf/dwarf? So maybe I’m just a heretic.)

It’s disappointing to me that so many have somehow reduced the show to a horse race with House of the Dragon. Yes, they are both fantasy movies, but their audience only partially intersects. There are many people I wouldn’t recommend House of the Dragon to at all. HBO may pride itself on how “gritty” and “adult” its shows are, but due to those very qualities, they aren’t shows I’d ever watch with my kids, and they aren’t for anyone who’s turned off by extreme violence and sex. (And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the extremes of the show are unnecessary to tell the story the show wants to tell. I don’t think they’re necessary to tell any sort of story. But that’s a post for a different day.)

Rings of Power, on the other hand, is a show I would recommend to just about anyone. Well, probably not small children, but teens and up? Easy. It’s got humor, adventure, wonder, and more. I’m having an absolute blast with it, and I hope they get to see it through to completion.

What have you thought so far?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Book Review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

I’m a well known fan of Groundhog Day, and I’ve loved seeing just how many time loop movies have come out since Phil first went to Punxsutawney. However, I haven’t seen much in the way of books that cover the same ground, so when I read the description of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, I was more than a little intrigued.

The premise is fascinating. A select number of people in the world live their lives over and over and over again. Every time they die, they are reborn back on their original birthday, under their original circumstances. From then on, they are free to make different decisions than they originally made, though they remember all their previous lives. This essentially makes them much, much older than they appear, as a ten year old boy might in fact be on his seventh life, and have over 400 years of experience and memories to draw upon.

The book traces fifteen run throughs of one of those people: Harry August. The first part of the novel is mostly focused on showing how such a life would work. What trials and advantages would come with it. How exactly such an existence would play out. (In this way, it reminded me a little of the first half of Flatland, though not nearly as cerebral as that was.) Once you’ve got the hang of what’s going on, a new conflict is introduced: something has gone wrong in the future, and these special people are trying to do what they can to fix it by sending messages to the past.

I don’t want to go into any more detail than that, but that should be enough to give you a taste of what to expect.

The book is written in a non-linear fashion, which makes for a bit of a bewildering experience, and was my only real critique of the novel. Not that it makes it too confusing. In a way, I enjoyed seeing bits and pieces of the whole revealed over the course of the read, but it was a bumpy experience at times, and I would have liked to have it smoother.

That aside, it’s a terrific read and well worth your time. 9/10

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: Pinocchio (2022)

Disney bragged about how it was releasing its live action Pinocchio as part of Disney Plus Day. When I heard that, I immediately wondered what the real reason for that was. If the movie were actually good, it would be very unlike a movie studio to purposefully cut it out of theaters, but maybe it would somehow help Disney more to have it promote its streaming service?

I watched it with the fam over the weekend, and I discovered the answer was much simpler. It’s just a terrible movie.

From start to finish, almost nothing of the movie works well. For one thing, it’s generally a carbon copy of the animated original, except it’s a mix of live action and CGI. This removes pretty much any sort of interest the movie might be able to generate on its own. Almost the whole time, I was wondering why in the world I’d want to watch this version when I could just watch the original. True, there are a few additions to the plot (a marionette Pinocchio interacts with being the biggest), but nothing there that makes it appreciably different.

Ironically, the film decided to diverge from the songs of the original, only leaving a few brief shout outs to the old songs here and there. Instead, having Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard pen some new songs. Now, I’m a big Alan Silvestri fan. Forrest Gump? Back to the Future? Iconic soundtracks. But imagine if you really like grilled cheese sandwiches, and someone shows up and says they’ll give you a grilled cheese sandwich, and instead give you a BLT. I’m not saying the songs were BLT quality, but it was really hard for me to assess them, because they definitely weren’t the originals, and the difference was very lacking. It also didn’t help that a few of them were “sung” by Tom Hanks, proving really only that Tom Hanks is great at many many different things, but singing ain’t one of ’em.

This is a movie that never should have been green lit. A blatant money grab, and a blight on some otherwise great filmmakers’ careers. Was there anything good in it? Well, clearly the CGI had a lot of work put into it. I really liked the portrayal of Honest John, and the Pleasure Island sequence was very good. But they were all too far and few between to salvage much of anything.

3/10. Avoid this movie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Obi Wan Season 1: Review

I’m finally catching up with some of the different shows I’ve been missing out on for the last ever, so I assume most people who wanted to watch Obi Wan have already watched it. But for those of you who might have been on the fence and still haven’t pulled the trigger, allow me to save you some time. Overall, I found it better than Boba Fett, but still leaving much to be desired.

The sad thing is that there are some genuinely cool moments sprinkled throughout the series. Some really great lightsaber duels and force battles, but in between is just a bunch of padding that goes nowhere.

With that said, I’m going to head into some spoilers now to discuss just what went wrong for me. If you want to avoid them, stop reading here.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Okay, so here’s a quick rundown of the bad of the series:

Leia’s whole plot line is way too contrived. She doesn’t come across as a character, she comes across as a device. A reason to get Obi Wan into trouble. She’s being chased by the bad guys, and she randomly does things like run away from Obi Wan for no real reason. Some of this is probably from the fact that getting a solid acting performance from someone so young is very difficult. No one expects much out of Baby Yoda. Little Leia has a higher bar to get over.The Force is wildly inconsistent across Star Wars canon at this point. Darth Vader basically yoinks a spaceship from the sky without breaking a sweat, but then moments later he lets another one go. The first one posed no problem. Why did the second one trip him up? Often the Force comes across as “let’s have some cool special effects now,” without any real rhyme or reason. That’s wearing thin.Weak Obi Wan is just . . . not that fun to watch, it turns out. Some of that might be because when he tried to get his powers back, he always was able to do just enough to do whatever he wanted to do. That’s not really failing, so it never felt like it was a true struggle for him. Yes, he had a showdown with Vader early on that he soundly lost, but he didn’t lose it to any disastrous length. The stakes never felt that big.The inquisitors all felt pretty toothless, with no real character development. So instead it was “weird guy who speaks low and wears a funny hat” and “strange woman with a pointy face.” So what? They made some effort with Reva, but even then, her story was just too little substance to carry what the show seemed to be trying to pull off. Maybe a little less Obi Wan cutting up meat and a little more developing her backstory would have helped?While I’m at it, I’m wondering why in the world stabbing people through the stomach with a lightsaber is even a thing in Star Wars. It doesn’t do a blessed thing to the person, apparently, except slow them down for a while. So if you’re an evil Sith or whatever, wouldn’t you take a moment to lightsaber their face in half, just to be thorough? Seriously. They ought to have a class on that in Sith school and everything. They missed the set up of all time. Obi Wan’s in a pit, and Darth comes to stand over him and stare down. This is where Darth should have said, “It’s over Obi Wan. I have the high ground.” Instead, he just dumps rocks on top of him and walks away, because Darth apparently skipped “how to effectively kill your nemesis” class as well. Sigh.

It was a frustrating show, and after each episode, we generally talked about all the things that irritated us about it. That’s a bad sign. I have higher hopes for Andor, but we’ll see how that goes. Overall, this one was a 4/10. The cool scenes just aren’t enough to make it worth while. Maybe there’s an hour long highlight edit out there that would be awesome . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.