Shogun Season One Overview: The Best Series Of The Year

A series about an Englishman, Cosmo Jarvis’ trip to feudal Japan.

I think this was one of the strongest series of the year, not just because it was well done but also because it was so refreshing. We have been crying out for more Samurai fare for a while, there are some films and series here and there, but by and large the sub-genre at least from a western perspective has been dry for a while. As such this arrived at just the right time.

What I appreciate about this show is that it is both a slow burn and has soap opera like elements but it doesn’t effect the quality of the show. There is enough happening within an episode to make the slower pace and the world building feel rich and meaningful rather than tedious. Moreover, there is enough action and character’s doing things to make the interpersonal soap opera stuff seem few and far between.

I think the characters are all written well and that the story goes to interesting places, I would like to see the war between the clans more fully realised but I suppose that will be something to consider in the next season.

Overall, definitely one of the best shows of the year.

4/5

Pros.

The setting and the world

It feels fresh

It is interesting

It has great characters

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Dune Prophecy Season One Overview: Adapting The Wrong Book

Summary

Hollywood really can’t have any franchises without feeling the need to run them into the ground.

So the two recent Dune films were met with both praise and love from audiences, so what did they feel the need to do that’s right give the show a spin-off tv series. Now this could have worked with the right talent, but sadly it adapted one of Brian Herbert’s newest books, and focused on a group in the universe who are only interesting due to the fact that you don’t know much about them, it also lacked any talented creative to shepherd the series.

This feels very much as if the CW was given the Dune license, it doesn’t have the production values of the films by any metrics, and it focuses more on petty soap opera like drama rather than universe wide intrigue and drama. The opening 5 minutes of the first episode are the most entertaining thing about the whole first season, it would have been far more interesting to focus on a different Brian Herbert book and looked at the Butlerian Jihad and humanities war against thinking machines, but they clearly wanted to go with another angle.

The fact that this is a girl boss Dune series is not only why it was made but also why it was made so fast, the wise and perfect and not at all morally corrupt Sister needs to lead the Imperium from the shadows because silly men would lead it to ruin. There is as you can imagine a number of girl boss themes and men taking their tops off so the women can objectify them, remember folks it is okay when one gender does it but not the other that’s the world we live in now.

Overall, it is a girl boss show about a group that is interesting when mysterious, this series removes that mystery and with it any interest in the show.

1/5

Pros.

The opening of the first episode

Cons.

It demystifies the Sisterhood

It is too drama focused and has little action

It feels like a science fiction soap

It is badly paced

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Lord Of The Rings The War Of The Rohirrim: The Death Of The Girl Boss

Summary

A footnote from an appendix gets a film made about them, as that helps fight the patriarchy.

So in a world where The Rings Of Power season two can be called ‘the best tv show of the year’, which even though I liked it more than some is simply wrong, we have this film. Hera, voiced by Gaia Wise, is not an overlooked character in the wider works, she simply isn’t a character she’s a throwaway line and that’s fine. The facts of the matter are twofold firstly, this film was only made for rights issues, and secondly that the only reason it focuses on Hera rather than Helm, Brian Cox, you know an actually important character is because of modern day girl boss identity politics.

Hera is automatically fantastic at everything and all of her male counterparts are either stupid or evil, or both. Moreover, the film throws things from the original trilogy at you such as Saruman, voiced by Christopher Lee, but this is little more than nostalgia bait. I will admit I showed up after hearing bad things about the film because of the respect I have for Lee and I wanted to see what the film would do with him, considering he’s been dead for almost a decade. The few lines, and I mean like two or three, are fine it sounds like Lee but sadly it is not impactful and just feels like more member berries.

If WBD could move away from identity politics and accept that the blue hairs on X will never like Tolkien and that’s fine we don’t need them in the fandom and actually started properly adapting things like Unfinished Tales with respectful artistic license then they could have major hits on their hands, but they need to do better than this. It will flop like Furiosa did for them earlier in the year, and the take away lesson for them is this, the girl boss is dead the folks rose up and said no more to the stoic Karens and we now live in a post girl boss age.

Overall, a waste of time and money

1.5/5

Pros.

It shows us some classic book locations

The animation looks nice

Cons.

It is too long

Hera is a bland character

It is a girl boss narrative through and through

Canonically there are problems with it

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That Christmas: An Epitaph To The Sorry State Of Modern Britain

Summary

Richard Curtis should retire and Netflix should issue a public apology.

Where to start with That Christmas? There are so many things wrong with it that I honestly don’t know.

First and foremost it doesn’t understand the UK, it was written by an Englishman and yet it depicts a south coastal city in the winter as having knee deep snow and having frozen ponds and bodies of water. For those of you not familiar with UK weather that is incredibly unlikely unless maybe you were at high altitude or it was particularly cold but otherwise it is nonsense.

Then you have all of your horrible and dating ‘modern day tropes’ one of the characters is really into militant veganism and so releases all of the Turkey’s to die or later be recaptured, another goes off on multiple climate change lectures and of course has all the answers despite being a child. Then there is the fetishisation of the NHS, our free public health service here in the UK if you’re unfamiliar, with their being a whole subplot about a single mother, voiced by Jodie Whittaker, being selfless and working on Christmas Day and needing to be treated like a queen when she returns home. It has the sickening and fake over sentimentality of when people were banging pots and pans in Tribute to the NHS during the pandemic. She is doing her job, and arguably being a bad parent, yet we are supposed to give her some applause? Of course every different race imaginable is depicted as it’s a Netflix film and they don’t seem to understand that not every part of every country is the same as what they see on the streets of LA, especially not the monied parts of southern England.

Finally, it struggles as a Christmas film without a message. All good Christmas films have a message as well as being entertaining, but what does this film have to say? Communities should come together? Christmas is about the people and not the presents? Old people caused global warming and so are evil? All of these things have been said before, more intelligently and with more depth, by trying so hard to appeal to a modern audience the film is left saying nothing.

Overall, Netflix spits in your face and tells you it is Christmas snow.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is short

Cons.

It doesn’t understand the UK at all

It is horribly dated

It is cringe

It feels the need to lecture

It has nothing new to say

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Salem’s Lot: No One Can Do King’s Books Justice

Summary

Another King book is given the straight to streaming treatment.

This film is fine that’s about all I can say about it. It is one of those sort of films that doesn’t stick with you after and that you only half remember watching.

It was an odd choice to give a lot of the characters from the book smaller roles in order to give a story to a new character, clearly they didn’t care much about it being a faithful adaption. I don’t really know why we need the story of a little boy, Jordan Preston Carter, who decides he is going to go and wipe out all the vampires on his own. Perhaps they thought it would get kids to watch.

There are some good scares early on but then it just becomes silly, the vampires are wiping out adults left and right yet this little boy manages to just easily destroy many of them single handedly. This takes away from any sense of fear you might have as you just go ‘oh they were clearly really easy to beat then’. It also makes the adult characters look weak and stupid.

Overall, a serviceable if weak adaption.

2.5/5

Pros.

It is watchable

It has some good moments

It pays some faith to the book

Cons.

It makes bad changes to the book as well

It focuses too much on a random kid

It makes the vampires seem weak

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The Rings Of Power Season Two Overview: Why Did It Have To Be Gandalf?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Rings are back and now everyone is getting in on the action.

So as many of you know I have an up and down relationship with this show, I hated it to begin with then softened and now am growing to dislike it again. By no means, however, do I think this is a terrible show there are some moments of greatness scattered here and there about the place. I just think that this season ran with a lot of the worse aspects of the first season leading it to a doomed fate.

So firstly the shipping, the series does not want to be a serious representation of Tolkien’s work, it appears to want to try and bring in teen girls with a thirst trap as Amazon never learnt the age old lesson that is teen girls don’t watch The Lord Of The Rings related material for the most part. The shipping is annoying and it was one of the things I called out and worried about in my predictions post a few months back. Not only is Sauron, Charlie Vickers, and Galadriel, Morfydd Clarke, but also seemingly Sauron and Celebrimbor, Charles Edwards, just out of nowhere. It kills time and it drags on.

Couple that with the over stuffed cast and you have a real problem. I admire the show for trying to do a lot to flesh out its world but often times this results in things being skipped over, happening off screen, or not being given the proper time to develop. Nowhere is this felt more so then in the sub plot with the Harfoots. Things just seem to occur in a disjointed and odd way and we don’t spend enough time with the characters to actually get to know them let alone like them. Moreover, the Gandalf reveal at the end made me groan, it was so incredibly needless.

Finally we have to talk about the costumes and just how cheap everything looks. Take for example the rings themselves, they look like costume jewellery in the worst way and stick out for just how bad they are, it makes no sense with how much money Amazon sunk into this show

Pros.

It has a good start

It has some strong moments

It is better than the first season

Cons.

The shipping

It has too many characters

The cheapness

2.5/5

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Lord Of The Rings Return Of The King Extended Edition: The Eagles Have Arrived

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The King returns.

So this is probably my second favourite of the trilogy, it comes very close at times to being my favourite almost edging out Fellowship, but then I don’t like the ending. Now before you bring out the pitchforks let them explain, I am a book purist, for me the perfect ending to this trilogy would be what we got but also the Scouring of the Shire. I understand the reason why the films didn’t include this, likely time as they are already long, however I just think the symbolism of showing the hobbits leading their sleepy people to victory after being afraid themselves for a lot of the adventure is a beautiful bit of character development but I digress.

In many senses this film is easily has some of the best moments in the trilogy, perhaps even more so than Fellowship, however, I still give it to Fellowship overall. Some of my favourite moments are the attack of the dead men, and the I am no man scene, both of which hit just the right emotional balance and are also cool as hell. I am a big Witch King fan and would like to see him get his own prequel show, although with how Hollywood is now probably best not, but it is very interesting to see more of him in this film.

The visual spectacle of the final battle still holds up, and the for Frodo charge is a magical moment, and it does in many ways manage to top the Battle of Helms Deep. I would say for sure that this film has the best action of the trilogy.

I don’t like how much attention Gollum, Andy Serkis, gets here, you all know my problems with him if you have read the other reviews, I think of all the characters to give flashbacks to he was the one least in need. I can understand why they did it to show how Frodo, Ellijah Wood, was giving into the Ring and what he could become however, I would have still preferred they be cut out.

Overall, a near perfect film with just the ending and the Gollum flashbacks being the things to stop it from being a 5

4/5

Pros

Some epic moments

It gets you in the feels

The best action in the franchise

The effects hold up well

Cons.

The Gollum flashbacks

No Scouring of the Shire

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Lord Of The Rings The Two Towers Extended Edition: An Old Man Gets Beat Up By A Tree

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Ents march and war comes to Helm’s Deep.

Personally, I found this to be the weakest of the trilogy, still damn good when compared to a lot of the trash Hollywood dolls out but it had more issues than either of the other films.

For me these issues are best described as pacing related. There are vast sections of the film that I find just go on for far too long, such as but not limited to the whole sequence before the Ents march, the many romances of Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen, and a lot of the early Rohirrim stuff was also incredibly slow. I admit I was watching the extended edition so maybe it wasn’t so bad in the normal edition.

Also one small nitpick before we get into the positives, I am also not a big fan of Gollum, Andy Serkis, and think that the franchise as a whole overuses him and as such seeing his much bigger presence here made me like the film a little bit less.

However, that aside I thought this film did a lot to expand the world in interesting and new ways, Treebeard and the Ents are a particular favourite of mine, when they actually march. I also thought that this film made Gandalf far more important and that really helps him to shine, quite literally as a character. When he returns that is a powerful scene but so is the scene in the halls of the Rohirrim, it really shows him off.

The battle at Helm’s Deep is strong, possibly the strongest of the series, though I think the battle that results in the death of the Witch King is perhaps ultimately just a bit better. I thought the action felt very real and visceral though I must say the scene with the skateboard was a bit cringe.

Overall, a decent follow up to fellowship, with some good battles, however, it is slowed down by some padding and bad pacing issues.

4/5

Pros.

It is epic

It builds the world well

The action

A lot of good Gandalf

Cons.

Too much Gollum

The pacing issues

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Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of The Ring Extended Edition: There And Back Again

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A fellowship is born.

What can be said that hasn’t already about one of if not the greatest trilogy of films ever made.

For me personally, the first film is my favourite of the three, as it so perfectly establishes the world and the characters. The opening sequence in the Shire is so happy and playful and easily makes you care about the characters, which then juxtaposes really well when compared to the darker subject matter later in the film.

Moreover, the film really does give us a number of epic and instantly memorable moments, I’d say more so than the other two films but that is just me. I think the Weathertop fight and then Arwen’s, Liv Tyler, chase sequence are some of the best moments in the trilogy as it really puts into proportion the level of threat and the power of the dark lord, plus I am a huge Nazgul fan.

Of course the fight sequences here and the action are also very strong, whilst not being on the same par as Helms Deep, or the final battle, the forest battle sequence that ends off the film and kills Boromir, Sean Bean, is still very well done and adrenaline inducing.

Something I am quite surprised by with these films is how well they hold up in terms of visual effects, considering the CGI has to be coming up for 20 years old it looks a hell of a lot better than some of the effects shots we are seeing today.

Overall, to me this is maybe the best fantasy film ever made and is better than its sequels, with only the overly slow pacing at times slowing it down.

4.5/5

Pros.

The cast

The stakes

The world

The journey

Some many iconic book moments replicated

Cons.

Overly slow at times

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Dune Part 2: The True Messiah

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Gear up for another trip to Arrakis, or as the locals call it Dune.

I think this is easily the best film of the year so far, I have watched it thrice in cinemas now, and have continued on with the series in book form currently reading God Emperor.

In many ways this film is perfection be it with the effects or the visuals, or in the way the world is so perfectly realised, there are a lot of areas in which this film deserves praise. It takes what worked so well in the first film and builds upon it to give you a perhaps even better experience. I would say that this film is helped by the fact that more happens herein and it feels far more action centric whereas the first was less so, but that is what you get when you needlessly split up a book.

There are a number of changes from the books here so work and some don’t. I liked the ending which sees the Great Houses reject Paul, Timothy Chalamet’s, ascension and as such it will be war. This will make Messiah more interesting as in the books Paul pretty much had firm control over the Empire once the second book came around, this is a good thing as Messiah is far more about political intrigue than action, which after the last two films the general audience may turn their nose up at. The major change I didn’t like was Chani, Zendaya. In the books Chani was Paul’s concubine and love as well as a warrior she believed in him and that was it, here she is angry with him every step of the way and thinks that the Messiah should be one of their own and ignores all the signs Paul is the Messiah to the point of being blind. I understand what they were going for here they wanted to push Frank Herbert’s original message to not trust charismatic leaders, but in execution it just came across as if she was constantly arguing with Paul over everything, this quickly became annoying. In many senses it felt like they needed to update the narrative for a modern audience and inject some girl boss tropes in their and some post-colonial preaching even though this is in space and they could easily have a very different morality to those of us who dwell for abnormal amounts of time on X discussing activism. Also at the end of the film Chani leaves, and I don’t know how they are going to fix that as she needs to have Paul’s kids in Messiah it is an important part of the plot, but I guess that is an issue for another time.

Overall, easily the best science fiction film of the decade and the best film of the year so far.

4.5/5

Pros.

The visuals

The effects

How realised the world is

The cast

The ending

Cons.

Chani and the way they took her character

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