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 What’s going on in the TV world? Mr. Robot has just been renewed for a fourth season. The show stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson and Christian Slater as the titular character. Christian Slater was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role in the show. It just wrapped up a successful and tension filled third [...]

The post BGN News Beat: The Week’s Biggest Headlines appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

To properly analyze Star Wars: The Last Jedi, you have to go beyond the trappings of fandom and look at the movie as a part of a larger product of Disney/Lucasfilm storytelling. Approaching this as anything other than a corporate juggernaut mainly concerned with moving merchandise and building the next generation of consumers will result in total anger, confusion, and regret. This might sound cynical and cold, but it’s only the acknowledgment that Hollywood cinema is big business and sometimes actual art will slip through the image factory despite their best efforts to curtail imagination and wonder.

I’m not saying The Last Jedi lacks imagination or wonder, but there’s definitely a middling corporate influence throughout the movie that simultaneously keeps the movie in an inoffensive zone of bland character moments while setting up Rian Jonhson’s long-term vision for the Star Wars franchise.

What makes The Last Jedi interesting, though, is that it deliberately erases the nostalgic underpinnings of the Star Wars saga being about the Skywalker clan. Now this is where you see a lot of online outrage regarding The Last Jedi (even when you remove the knee-jerk right-wing racist backlash to the movie being “too diverse“) with the main complaint is that it “feels different” than previous Star Wars films.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

There seems to be different rules in this movie. Suddenly, no one from the Original Trilogy is safe. None of the original cast behaves like they used to (with the exception of Han Solo and Chewbacca, and we saw what happened to Han). Leia is a disconnected bureaucrat fighting for a rebellion she’s incapable of saving while Luke seems like a raving homeless man living on a distant island with frog nuns.

Gone are the beautiful, powerful characters my generation (children of the 1970s and 80s) fell in love with. Some see the growth and evolution of the original cast as a kind of blasphemy. “How dare they change those characters,” some angry geeks are saying, “They’re nothing like how I remember them!”

This is an important element because Lucasfilm wants to get beyond “HOW YOU REMEMBER THEM.” There’s an interesting thread running through The Last Jedi about how people are remembered and how legends are formed. There’s a repeated line about the resistance being the “spark” for hope that will eventually destroy the First Order. The theme here appears to be that heroes of the past should be used mainly as a guide for future salvation but we need to realize when these heroes have outlived their usefulness.

There’s a push for the Original Trilogy heroes to step aside and allow for new ideas and new ways of behaving. The big war online seems to be between those who can move on, and those who cannot or will not. At the age of 43, I’ve learned in the last 5 years to let go of the very toxic mentality of NOSTALGIC OWNERSHIP. Just because I loved a consistently evolving corporate franchise in the early years of its development does not mean I have a right or an ability to control what the actual owners do with it.

Let me repeat that:

Just because I loved a consistently evolving corporate franchise in the early years of its development does not mean I have a right or an ability to control what the actual owners do with it. Nostalgic ownership is dangerous, petty, infuriating, exhausting, and ultimately pointless. If you don’t own it, complaining endlessly won’t change anything.

So, about the movie itself… The Last Jedi feels like a piece of a larger puzzle. I don’t believe it can stand on it’s own as a full on cinematic story. That’s only a problem in the pre-shared universe days of cinematic storytelling. Now, it is expected that large-scale, major event tentpole movies will bleed into sequels, side-stories, novels, comic books, video games, and podcasts. As a piece of a corporate franchise, it does a good (not perfect) job of putting all the chess pieces into place. With the exception of the overlong and ill-paced Canto Bight casino adventure with Finn and Rose, everything else fell into place with style and power.

All the scenes with Luke, Rey, Kylo and Snoke crackled with intensity and repercussion. Mark Hamill and Adam Driver give excellent performances alongside Daisy Ridley who is clearly coming into her own as a dramatic actress. She’s got the face of a silent movie star and that’s a great compliment.

John Boyega, Oscar Issac, and Kelly Marie Tran were also a lot of fun to watch, and it was nice to see Poe Dameron get a little arc of his own as a soldier learning how to be leader in the face of impossible odds.

One of the things I have a problem with as a narrative strategy is the lessened degree of galactic politics in the story. The Prequel Trilogy was centered around how the Empire was formed. The Original Trilogy was centered around how the Empire was destroyed. The new trilogy is less concerned with the galactic situation than reworking how the Jedi operate and what is the true nature of the Force.

That would be fine if there was more of a explanation of what happened to the New Republic in The Force Awakens. Remember that scene when Starkiller Base blew up those planets? Turns out that was the complete eradication of the New Republic. The First Order murdered billions of people in that moment and destabilized the galactic political structure. There appears to have been NO BLOWBACK from their actions.

As this movie begins, we’re learning that the entire resistance movement is down to a few hundred people who are currently on the run. As an audience, we should be more alarmed at this situation but there’s no dramatic weight given to how bad things are for the heroes. Further on this point, major Original Trilogy characters like Admiral Ackbar are wiped out and there’s no reflection on their loss and their deaths are treated as an afterthought. It was as if Rian Johnson didn’t care how old school Star Wars fans would feel and that attitude seeps throughout the movie on every level.

At the same time, The Last Jedi gives the old school community a chance to say goodbye to Yoda, Luke and the traditional structure of the Star Wars movie. I’d never seen flashbacks used in a Star Wars movie, this narrative trick worked extremely well as we’re given the perspective of the unreliable narrator between Kylo and Luke’s recollections of the fall of the Jedi Academy (another major moment completely glossed over and deserving of further exploration).

With that said, there were some really cool elements in the movie:

• The hyperspace starship suicide attack sequence
• Luke talking to Yoda as the tree burns (by the way, that tree was the last remaining piece of the Jedi temple from Coruscant)
• Leia using her Jedi powers onscreen for the first time
• The kids on Canto Bight being potential Force users
• Kylo killing Snoke and the resulting battle
• The final battle scene between Kylo and Luke
• Luke gazing at the twin suns before transitioning into the Force and fully completing his circle

What do we have by the end of The Last Jedi?

We’ve got a mixed bag of missed opportunities to flesh out the current galactic status quo.The lack of explanation on the fall of the New Republic, the importance of the Jedi temple tree (and also the Jedi scriptures), the weird way that Luke Skywalker leaves us and the awkward handling of the deaths of major characters from the Original Trilogy are definitely problematic.

However, the characters of Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe and Rose get to take center stage and their characters grew considerably beyond where we first saw them. If the message of The Last Jedi is that old school heroes are important for the sake of inspiration and little else then Rian Johnson’s vision for the Star Wars saga was a success. If there was any other message in the movie, it got lost among the big SFX battle scenes and internal power struggles between Laura Dern and Oscar Issac’s characters.

The Last Jedi will be remembered as the first “non-Star Wars” Star Wars movie. It is the film that changed the rules and pissed off a chunk of the perpetually flaky online geek community who searches for something to be outraged about. Younger viewers without the attachment to the Original Trilogy will be fine and older viewers will have to take Obi-Wan Kenobi’s advice about “letting go.”

For the original generation of Star Wars fans, that’s going to be the hardest part.

I remember Toonami first as a feeling, a breathless hustle home on weekdays to watch the latest anime episodes I didn’t yet recognize as classics. I often joke about comparing my Sailor Moon fandom to a religion but looking back, if this early 2000’s hallmark wasn’t a sacred ritual, then I don’t know what is. Like many spiritual practices, it wasn’t until I was a full grown adult that I truly had the ability to appreciate TOM and SARA’s careful curation (which, sidenote, is also why I’m hype for the recent confirmation that Toonami will be alive and well for generations into 2021).

Consider the original music video “Broken Promise [Dreams].” It’s been almost two decades since Toonami first aired their visual found poem (and arguably one of the greatest AMVs of all time), but pull up that bad boy on Youtube for any member of the Cartoon Cartoons generation and the anime praise dances start flowing before you can blink. Trust me, I tried it in my office once. Productivity tanked for like an hour.

Hell, I still think about this video all the time, and I ain’t even like the shows that were in it that much, that’s how amazing it is. It’s so iconic Toonami not only re-aired and remixed it throughout the years, they literally compiled an entire homage with their 2016 line up. So with that being said, let us now open our browsers and go to the good word, beloveds:

“Space.”

Ooo, that composition so smooth. That’s that gentle audio caress, fam. Composer Joe Boyd Vigil already got you leaning in to watch this Outlaw Star clip and ain’t nothin’ even happened yet.

As a child space is the metaphor for the starless void of adulthood, a vast cosmos you’re almost itching to explore yet caught in a cold terror at its unknown depths. As an adult it’s the unmapped planets of your future, the rehearsed precision of a rocket launch you try to watch from careful distance. You know the trajectory, but… do you?

“A boy has the right to dream. There are endless possibilities stretched out before him.”

First of all, Beau Billingslea sound like your Black grandpa sitting back in his chair at the dinner table about to deliver the sagest advice of your Bastdamm life, so I don’t know why this man keeps voicing supporting roles other than the fact that the dubs must be like, “Damn, this man Black AF, but we only got like five dark-skinned characters oh well.” Billingslea’s voice feels like a down comforter for your soul, yo. I could visit the midwest in January, just pack this recording, and still be aiight.

What strikes me most about this sound clip is that it’s actually part of a longer monologue from Outlaw Star that meditates on the tragedy of growing up and how the choices we make begin to limit once “endless possibilities,” subtly suggesting compassion for others because we don’t know what choices they’ve had to make. Rather than melancholy, however, this sample is still in present tense without the hint of exception (ignoring the gendered language that was part of the original text). Paired with the image of Super Saiyans Goku and Gohan goofing off in the grass, we further understand this to mean there is both power in this act and joy.

You have a right to dream with delight. Without restraints. Still.

“You have to trust in your own power. Whatever happens from now on, you stand firm and face your destiny without fear, but with courage. What awaits him down the path he will then have to choose.”

Tenchi and Future Trunks are two extremely different forms of hero; one essentially has everything handed to him by convenient plot destiny while the other struggles to survive terrible loss. Both face choices that change the entire course of their lives, however, and must do so with the utmost bravery. Like either warrior, we are all equipped with the power to face the adversarial forces that await us. It helps if you’re part ancient alien prince, though.

“No one’s gonna give you a map, you’ve gotta walk your own path. Children leave their homes in search of this quest. What is thy desire?”

I used to think that folks complaining about Millennials, especially our supposed entitlement, were exclusively a clickbait thing until I actually heard that ish in real life said to my face. It’s even more wild when you consider we were literally being told by children’s media that we were going to have to develop our own skills and resources in order to achieve our goals. But oppressed communities have always known these lines as fact.

“As they search, they are always asking questions. What’s out there? What’s waiting for me? Why was I made? Who made me? And what did they make me for?”

If I had to specify a segment that’s always stuck with me, it’s this one. It’s important that all of these questions are delivered with genuine curiosity rather than defensiveness or hostility, a gentle invitation to remember that we don’t always have the answers. There’s a few versions of this quote about curiosity, but my favorite is by Tracee Ellis Ross: “As I get older, the more I stay focused on the acceptance of myself and others, and choose compassion over judgment and curiosity over fear.”

Don’t just stay woke. Ask why you were asleep in the first place.

“Are you going to go up into space with your old man or not? Maybe I’ll never get over this. I’ve lived my life following my dreams and I don’t have any regrets. Are you gonna just keep running away? Just keep running away? I’m not running.”

Of course, questioning always leads to confrontation because it’s bound to make someone uncomfortable. But at some point, in your darkest days, you’re going to have to decide for yourself what you want the future to look like. Even running away is a choice with an outcome. Are you going to travel into “space” carrying the symbols of your baggage… or not?

“Believe in yourself. Create your own destiny. Don’t fear failure.”

Remember: you have a right to dream.

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Some tables that make you do a double take when you’re walking the floor at cons. It could be distinctive artwork, unique packaging, or it could be a very stately monster looking at you with a noble majestic stare. Cameo Creeps have all three of these elements, and they’ll keep you coming back for more. What started as a quick painting exercise and a way to study classical painting suddenly took on a life of its own when Chris Seaman started turned his hobby into Cameo Creeps. The paintings are his own creation of a world where his unique and distinguished monsters and creatures live.

Seaman has an illustration and painting background. As a fantasy illustrator in hobby games for the last 17 years, he’s worked on Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Skylanders, Hearthstone, and Harry Potter. His artwork has been nominated for a Chesley award—the highest award in fantasy illustration—and is shown in museums and galleries around the country.

His paintings are highly detailed and each one starts as a small original acrylic painting 2.5 inches wide by 3 inches high. What makes these miniature masterpieces stand out is not only Seaman’s skilled artwork, but the classic tiny frames that accompany each reproduction. Finding ornate frames on such a small scale wasn’t easy. After many trials, Seaman eventually launched a Kickstarter to raise funds to start his own business to begin production including the art and affordable frames. It’s this eye catching packaging that makes these collectibles so unique.

While all monsters are equally stunning, it was Lady Miriam Lillithad that caught my eye and she just happens to be the most popular among Cameo Creep fans. Seaman describes her allure as, “A little bit lady Cthulhu meets squid-girl, with a touch of beauty.”

Along with the distinctive packaging, the names are also a characteristic part of these collectibles. “Growing up in the 80’s I was a huge fan of Garbage Pail Kids, TMNT, Star Wars, He-Man, and Thundercats. The best part of these characters was their names. They were self explanatory. You could read a character’s name and know if he was good or bad, even maybe a little about his/her personality.” Seaman used this childhood memory as inspiration when creating his portraits, “Each name for a Creep represents their character. They can be a bit ‘on-the-nose’ but that’s what makes them fun and breathes life into their existence.”

Cameo Creeps are being collected around the world and Seaman is currently co-authoring a book with full color illustrations about what it’s like to live in the world of the Cameo Creeps. “The world is a spooky place inhabited by noble monsters like zombies, vampire, demons, mutants, sea creatures, ghosts all in the setting of the over the top elegant Elizabethan era. Each group is vying for the crown to rule the land. It’s dark and gloomy but with a touch of whimsy. Each Cameo Creep that I’ve released plays a part in the world and I can’t wait to share the stories, family connections and spooky fun I’ve been writing for fans to sink their teeth into.”

Check out our favorite Cameo Creeps in the gallery below and get your own at Cameo Creeps website. For more artwork check out @ChrisSeamanArt on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Which Cameo Creep speaks to you? Let us know in the comments!

Images: Chris Seaman

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