Halo 4 – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Halo franchise was big money by the time the original trilogy of games came to a close in 2007. The initial game had helped to cement sales of the original Xbox, with it being the second best ever selling Xbox game, with 5 million copies sold. The best selling Xbox game was Halo 2, with 8.46 million copies sold, so it’s easy to say that Halo made that console what it was. But the story of Master Chief (Steve Downes) came to an end with Halo 3, and the only games to come out after with Halo in their title were side stories and prequels. But, in 2012, after a five year absence, Master Chief returned with a true sequel in Halo 4.

Set several years after the events of the previous game, where Master Chief had managed to defeat the alien menace The Flood, and save humanity, the game begins with the Chief frozen in suspended animation whilst his AI companion Cortana (Jen Taylor) watches over him in their ship, drifting through space. As their ship drifts towards a strange alien world, they’re boarded by remnants of the Covenant (a faction of several alien species that were enemies in the initial trilogy), and the Chief is awoken to fight them off.

However, the Covenant are far from the main threat in the game. As their ship crashes on the alien world, Master Chief and Cortana learn that the ancient Forerunners, the creators of the massive Halo rings, have survived, and end up unleashing one of their greatest warriors, the Didact (Keith Szarabajka). Seeing humanity as beneath him, the Didact launches a campaign to wipe humanity from the stars, forcing the Master Chief to have to step up to save humanity yet again.

Shortly after the release of Halo 3 the developer Bungie, who created Halo, split away from Microsoft, leading to some speculation amongst fans as to whether or not more Halo games would be developed. Over the coming years, Bungie would produce two more Halo games: Halo 3: ODST which took place during the events of the third game and focused on human soldiers, and Halo: Reach which took players back to events leading directly into the original game, and put you in control of a squad of Spartan super soldiers. Both games were successful for the company, but would be the final Halo games that Bungie would produce.

Whilst Bungie were working on these games, Microsoft created a new division, 343 Industries, whose job it was to come up with a new entry in the Halo franchise. After working on a Halo Bible, bringing together all of the information, stories, and lore for the Halo universe into one cohesive whole, a new story was developed, that was designed from the outset to be one part of a lager whole (something that the previous trilogy did not plan for). Drawing from details in the Halo books, as well as small pieces of background info from the games, a new multi-part story dealing with the ancient Forerunners was devised and planned, with Halo 4 acting as the opening part of this new story.

As well as planning out the new story, the team at 343 Industries sought to introduce new elements to the game, and overhaul certain features. New locations and enemies were designed, with the aim to tie them more closely with the design elements from the Forerunner locations visited in previous games. New weapons were also designed, with the human and Covenant factions both featuring new armaments, as well as new weapons for the Promethean warriors that were introduced to the game. Whilst some weapons were looked upon less favourably than others, fans enjoyed a lot of the new additions to the series, and some of the new items added in Halo 4 would go on to become series mainstays.

Upon its release Halo 4 received a lot of attention and fanfare. It’s estimated that more than 10,000 retail stores across 40 countries operated midnight launches for the game, making it one of the biggest midnight launches ever, and a 50 foot Didact glyph was flown through the air above London via helicopter on the night of release. The game grossed more $220 million in sale on its first day alone, and $300 million across its opening week; it was also recorded that more than a million people played the game on Xbox Live within the first day of the release.

Fan and critic reaction to the game was extremely positive, and it looked like the gamble of bringing the series back for a new story was a success. Ending on an unresolved note, the game almost guaranteed that people would return for another instalment, and Halo 5: Guardians was released three years later. A third game in the Reclaimer Saga, Halo Infinite came out in 2021. Halo was already a huge success, but Halo 4 managed to bring it back from what many thought would be its end to create a whole new saga, and even more success for the series.

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The Flash #787 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

This is an odd issue of The Flash, but one that isn't without a sense of fun. We begin with Wally being woken up by his kids, asked a ton of questions, getting their breakfasts ready, and falling asleep on the sofa with them as they watch Saturday morning TV. He's a very tired dad.

When the TV tunes into multiversal wrestling, however, Wally wakes up and finds himself hooked. He and the kids find a lot to like as weird people from different universes come together to fight each other, with enough special powers and abilities to tear apart the city their fighting in. It's like Wally's childhood wrestling shows with superpowers. However, when they realise that the city that's being destroyed is there own Wally has to head out and get involved.

From here Wally ends up accidentally taking part in the wrestling show, and has to fight his way through a series of opponents. Luckily, he gets a partner to help him, and the two of them have a bit of fun doing it. Wally even gets a chance to bond, and gets some good advice for finding a work/life balance.

Most of the issue is big, over the top fighting and weird moments as Wally fights opponent after opponent. And this does add to the almost throwaway feel of this issue. It feels very stand alone, like a gap in the schedule was being filled before the next important part of the story begins. Luckily, it's got enough fun moments scattered through it, and some small pieces of character development, that is doesn't feel completely pointless. It's a fun issue, though one that's probably not going to have a huge bearing on things to come.

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Audrey Rose (1977) – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Horror is a broad genre. It can encompass all kinds of movies, and there are times where two different horror films can be so vastly different from each other that you have to start using sub-genres to better define what they are. And even with all of the different types of horror available, I spent much of my time watching the 1977 ‘horror’ film Audrey Rose wondering which one it fit into, before coming to a simple conclusion by the end: it’s not really a horror film at all. Described as a ‘psychological horror drama’, to best enjoy this film I think you’re going to have to go into it not expecting any of the middle word at all.

Audrey Rose, which is directed by Robert Wise (who’s also known for films like The Sound of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture), begins pretty dramatically, with a car crash that seems to defy physics as a head on collision sends a car with a mother and daughter rolling sideways off the road, bursting into flame. It comes quickly, and without warning, and might be the most bang you’ll get in the film, as it then shifts forward in time a decade to New York, where we meet the Templeton family.

Bill (John Beck) is a successful businessman who earn enough that his wife, Janice (Marsha Mason) doesn’t need to work, and she gets to spend her days hanging around their huge two storey Upper West Side apartment whilst their daughter, Ivy (Susan Swift) attends school nearby. They live a peaceful, privileged life and seem to be a happy family. However, their life starts to take an uncomfortable turn when a man keeps turning up around Ivy’s school, watching Janice and Ivy walking home. Soon gifts start to appear at the house for Ivy, and the Templetons start to panic that they have a stalker.

When the man finally confronts the Templetons, however, he reveals that he’s more than a simple stalker. He introduces himself as Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins), and tells them how his wife and daughter died in a car accident eleven years ago. He tells them how after losing his family he was approached by a number of psychics, who told him that his daughter was alive and well, living in New York. At first he dismissed this, but after travelling to India and learning about reincarnation, he began to suspect that his daughter, Audrey Rose, might have come back. After visiting more psychics, he believes he has found the reincarnated spirit of his daughter: Ivy Templeton.

Thus begins a series of events that will see the Templetons clash with Hoover as they try to deny his outlandish claims. But as Ivy begins to experience severe nightmares about being trapped in a fire, nightmares she has around her birthday every year, they start to worry about her health. Her skin burns like she’s in a fire during her dreams, and only Hoover is able to calm her down, by calling her Audrey Rose. With Ivy’s life on the line, and Hoover believing that his daughter’s soul is trapped inside the girl, the two families clash over what’s best for Ivy.

Audrey Rose is, as I’ve already said, not a horror film. It is at best a supernatural drama movie, that uses the central conceit of reincarnation in order to drive the plot. Based upon a bestselling novel, the film focuses on very real, grounded worries in order to drive the story forward. The Templetons don’t believe in reincarnation; they don’t believe that Hoover is the father of the spirit inside their daughter. Their worries come from believing a strange, possibly dangerous man has an obsession with their child. A child who is clearly suffering and in distress in a way that they don’t know how to help. With very few changes the first half of the film could be any number of sick child movies. It’s only in the latter half of the movie, when the two groups end up in court, trying to argue that reincarnation is real, does the film begin to feel even a little interesting. But it ends up feeling like too little too late.

Whilst the plot is fairly dull and meandering, the acting is solid enough. Anthony Hopkins is a name that carries a lot of weight and pedigree now, though at the time he’d have been a much smaller casting. And it does feel like one of the weaker roles for Hopkins. He comes across as fairly tired most of the time, with his gentle tones and quiet way of talking making Hoover come across as bored more often than not. This isn’t anything to do with his acting ability, and more a lack of any real good material to work with. The rest of the cast are okay in their roles, with Marsha Mason easily given the most to do as a worried mother, but there’s not really anything truly memorable here.

Robert Wise is a director with a lot of good movies under his belt, and is not stranger to horror. He’s directed horror movies like The Body Snatcher and The Haunting, and even films like The Andromeda Strain and The Day The Earth Stood Still could be argued to be sci-fi horrors. With some recognisable horror name under his belt I expected a few frights and some decent tension in Audrey Rose, but Wise seems to have been happy to create a family drama movie, leaving the horror to rest on the idea of reincarnation in order to creep out western audiences.

As well as the newly remastered presentation of the movie, the Blu-ray set comes with a number of extras. Film critic Jon Towlson provides a full-length commentary for the film, as well as several archival interviews. There are also some new featurettes, including an interview with a magician who goes over the concept of reincarnation, and a short that goes into the locations used to film the movie.

Audrey Rose is an interesting look into horror of the mid 70s, a time when horror was going through some big changes. It shows an older type of horror film, where the horror aspects often take a back seat to the rest of the story. The result is a film that lacks any real punch, that doesn’t really have any memorable moments, and whose central conceit is left feeling pretty flat and dull. If you’re into cinema from this era and are looking for something to watch, you might find something interesting here, but if you’re coming to this hoping for horror, you might be best skipping it.

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Nightwing #97 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

Blockbuster is dead. That's very quickly confirmed this issue, though laying on the ground with your heart ripped out at the end of the last issue kind of made it seem like it was pretty much confirmed. But yes, he;s dead, his heart is gone, and the people protecting Bludhaven are aware that he's dead. In response to this, some of the members of his criminal empire are now willing to talk; but are too afraid to do so in the city as the last person who was about to talk was shot and killed whilst in police custody.

So, with the help of the GCPD, it'd decided that Maroni will be transported out of Bludhaven to Gotham, where he can be better protected. Though with what we know of Gotham city that feels like an odd promise to make as it's one of the most dangerous cities in the world for sure. When his transport comes under attack in a pretty spectacular and violent crash he gets rescued by Nightwing and Batgirl (the Barbara one), and they head off into Gotham woods to try and lose their pursuers.

After some cat and mouse in the trees, where Nightwing gets to act like Batman and pop out of the shadows taking people out one at a time, the three of them arrive at a secret hideaway that Batman has hidden in the woods. The three of them spend the night there, with Maroni knocked out and tied up, and the other two having some fun together upstairs, before heading out in the morning to take Maroni to Gotham. There's one problem though, there's a taxi sitting outside. A taxi in the middle of the woods. Heading out to investigate, Dick finds that the cab is being driven by....Ric Grayson.

Huh, so that's an interesting twist. Everything before this moment is pretty standard fare for this series. We've got intrigue and criminal schemes going on, with people trying to get into positions of power now that Blockbuster is dead, and it's all done with the same level of quality that I've come to expect from the series.

This is an decent issue of the book, and it has some strong writing, but it's the final moments that is by far the most interesting. It feels completely unexpected, and comes kind of out of nowhere, and it leaves the issue feeling like anything can happen next. I know some folks have been waiting for the Heartless stuff to pick up, and were probably hoping that that was going to happen now that Blockbuster has been dealt with, but it's not clear if that's what's going to happen here, or if the new villain will continue to prowl around in the background.

The relationship stuff between Dick and Babs is a lot of fun too, and it's great to see some of these heroes, who normally have to deal with dark and dour stuff, actually having fun and enjoying themselves. It feels like a realistic relationship, where they're just trying to have as much fun as possible, sneaking off to have sex whilst the criminal is tied up downstairs. Okay, that one might not be the norm, but it is for these too.

This issue feels like it could be the start of something interesting, and it seems like it could go anywhere at this point.

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Survival Street #4 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The final issue of Dark Horse Comics Survival Street has arrived, and it really does feel like this series has been something of a dark horse. After hearing the blurb for this series, I was expecting something a bit silly, a bit violent, and whilst that is a good description for the book, it’s not as light as I was expecting, as the book deals with some heavy, relevant themes in brilliant ways. I’m honestly disappointed that it’s coming to an end here.

Over the first three issue we’ve seen the Salutation Street gang getting into fights with child traffickers, gun nuts who want to arm children, and freeing child prisoners from the slavery of being sent in to fight massive forest fires and die. Their actions haven’t gone unnoticed by those corrupt individuals in power, and this issue brings together all of the enemies that the gang have made on the way here. Using information from Gurgle, who defected at the end of the last issue, this coalition of villains mount an attack on our puppet heroes in their old amusement park. Who comes out alive? And can the good guys even win against such a corrupt system? This issue absolutely gives answers to those questions and does some shockingly great stuff.

As per usual with Survival Street there are nods to very real issues scattered throughout the book, and it’s more than just a gang of violent billionaires trying to kill some puppets. The issue makes a point of showing how the media have changed the narrative, and how they’re provided information to the public in a very curated way, outright lying at times. Instead of saving children from a forest fire they were trying to groom the children into their cult. Instead of being former child entertainers, ‘news’ comes out about how they were using their positions to gain access to kids in order to harm them, and that they had secret tunnels under their studios and theme parks – bringing back the conspiracy theories that were used to destroy countless people’s lives during the height of the Satanic Panic.

We see what this kind of narrative does too, how demonising a certain group of people constantly in the media can lead to very real, tangible consequences. There are people who are dating puppets who get abuse for having a partner that’s different to them. A puppet family is denied a home they were just about to buy, because they’re the ‘wrong kind’ of people for the neighbourhood. People petition to get puppets removed from working with children, showing monstrous images of puppets and asking if that’s ‘who you want shaping our children’. Puppet owned businesses have their windows smashed and threats of violence painted on the walls. And puppets get attacked in the streets just for existing.

What makes this comic hit so hard, and work so well, is that everything here so far is real. If you take out the mega-corporations that have human rights abuses, and just focus on the above-mentioned issues it could be a story lifted from the world as it is today. We’ve seen it countless times. We saw it done against the Jewish community, against Black people, against gay people. It’s happening now to trans people. The media gets used by those with wealth and power to push regular people to give in to their hate and their need to hurt those different from them, and the world becomes a darker place.

But, whilst we’re stuck fighting this kind of thing on our own, the world of Survival Street has its heroes to step up, and they do. This issue sees them not just fighting back, taking down those trying to do wrong, but they actually get the chance to inspire others. Regular people get shown how they’re being used. They get shown how they’re being lied to. They get the chance to see that they system is wrong, and that those in power need to be held to account.

The book contains a good message, once you get through the hopelessness what came before. Regular people say enough is enough and try to make the world better. And under all of the ultra-violence and the humour that’s the message that this series seems to have been trying to put across: that no matter how grim it looks, how awful the world is, how much we’re made to suffer, we have to keep trying to do better. Even if it never seems to get better for us, we have to try. And that’s a message worth hearing, and this a book worth reading.

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Star Wars: Darth Vader #28 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

I'm not sure that I know what Sabe is supposed to be trying to achieve anymore, or even if I'm meant to know or not. Last issue she had Vader wounded on the ground, ready to be killed, something she's been trying to do for a while now, and she decides to give him one last chance to honour Anakin and Padme. And now she's teaming up with Vader against the Emperor, but then working for the Emperor. I'm honestly finding it kind of hard to keep track of it all and feel like I need a spreadsheet, or one of those conspiracy walls with string connecting stuff in order to keep track of it all.

So, after finding out that Vader's latest target was working for the Emperor, she and Vader head off to Coruscant to have a little chat with Palpie in the Imperial Palace. As you'd expect, Palpatine isn't a fool, and allows the two of them to walk in just so he can set his guards on her to either kill her, or have her prove she's worth keeping around. The fight that ensues feels a bit forced (not pun intended), and the moment when Sabe runs behind his throne and makes his guards shoot at Palpatine feels a bit too silly to me. These are the most highly trained folks in the Empire, and they shoot at the guy their entire job is to guard? Okay.

I don't know if this is intentionally designed to mirror the fight at the end of Return of the Jedi, but it feels kind of similar thanks to the setting looking the same, and Sabe calling out to Anakin to help her. It feels like a warm up to the fight that will eventually lead to Vader becoming Anakin once again, and that the main thing preventing that is that he just doesn't care about Sabe enough. She has the face of the woman he loves, but it's not her, so it's not enough to appeal to the good man inside him. For that, the issue is decent enough, though I'm starting to bore of all the double crosses, secret agendas, and manipulations that the series has turned into. 

Another thing that this series seems to keep doing, such as at the end of the last issue, is almost killing Vader. I'm sure that the desire is to show a man who keeps almost being killed, yet keeps getting back up again, like an un-killable slasher villain; but it does also make it seem like it's quite easy to break Vader. It feels like it wasn't too long ago he was getting his limbs ripped off by Palpatine, or he was getting beaten up by Obi-Wan, or was getting smashed around by Ahsoka. It just feels like it happens a bit too much. He might be hard to kill, but he's not hard to beat it seems.

Star Wars: Darth Vader seems to be treading water at the moment, not really giving us much. I don't know where this story is going, and I'm struggling to care much about it; and being bored reading about Darth Vader isn't something I thought would happen.

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28 Days Later – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Zombies have been pretty big over the last couple of decades. They’ve been showing up in video games, as series like Resident Evil have become more and more popular; films such as Army of the Dead and Train To Busan have come out in recent years; and The Walking Dead seems to be the zombie franchise that, much like the creatures it tells stories about, refuses to die. And whilst zombies are an interesting thing to throw into certain stories, and are great when done well, if you look back at one of the films that seemed to spark the new zombie craze, you’ll find a story that is more often mislabelled as a zombie movie, when it’s absolutely not.

28 Days Later isn’t a zombie movie. That’s something that needs to be said right out the gate, as I’ve seen people call it that more times than seems fair. It shares a lot of similarities with zombie stories, I’ll give it that, but the film features precisely zero zombies. Instead, it’s a story about a virus. And coming back to look at the film now, after the last few years we’ve had, the film feels a lot different to the way it did in say 2018. The images of deserted streets that were once filled with life feel kind of familiar. People leaving signs warning of the end times, and memorialising those they’ve lost are things we’ve seen recently. And people afraid of being around others due to the risk of infection, isolating themselves away, is something that we’ve all got even a little bit of experience with.

But, you can’t really ignore the blood-soaked infected running around, attacking those lucky enough to have escaped the virus, seeking to kill or turn whoever they can. And indeed, director Danny Boyle said in multiple interviews both during the film’s release and years later that he was largely inspired by works like George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and that he was reminded of how fun zombies were by playing the Resident Evil games. So perhaps it is fair to call it a zombie film. Though one way in which Boyle, and the film’s writer Alex Garland, made their ‘zombies’ stand out was by having it be infectious rage. The infected weren’t driven by a desire to eat, but by a need to hurt and kill. Their anger made them charge at anyone who wasn’t like them, to tear them apart, to beat them, harm them in any way possible. And if even a single drop of infected blood got into your system you’d turn too, within moments.

The infected of 28 Days Later was a genuine shock when the film was first released, and not just because this was the first time that audiences had really seen ‘zombies’ that would run towards you as fast as they could, but because the infection was so insidious. Most people will have felt anger at some point in their lives, and most likely rage too. That feeling that comes over you when you really don’t want it to, the desire to lash out, to scream, to break something. The idea of being stuck in that state, constantly, worse than you’ve ever felt it before, to the point where you’ll hurt the people that you love most in the world is somehow more terrifying than dying and becoming a zombie; because these infected were still alive and still felt.

As with all good zombie stories though, it’s not about the infected, and 28 Days Later puts the focus squarely on people. It’s people that cause the outbreak to happen, driven by a desire to do good and the refusal to listen to reason, and it’s people that cause some of the worst things that happen to those who manage to survive. After the introduction that shows how the infection began, the film introduces us to Jim (Cillian Murphy), a bike courier who was hit by a car and knocked into a coma. Waking up after his accident (guess how many days), he’s shocked to find the hospital deserted, the streets of London empty, and signs of a disaster all around him.

He eventually meets up with a few other survivors, Selena (Naomi Harris), taxi driver Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). Fleeing London to try and get away from the hordes of infected, the four of them head north, hoping to find help and shelter. When they find a group of soldiers holed up in a stately home, led by Major West (Christopher Eccleston) they think they’ve found safety, but it soon becomes apparent the people designed to protect them may be as dangerous as the infected.

A lot of post-apocalypse survival films pose the question of whether humanity is worth saving. They make people the worst villains, no matter if it’s zombies, aliens, weird ghosts, or whatever it is that has brought the world to an end. People are the worst. People lie and steal and hurt each other to get what they want, and that happens when the only people left can all fit into one building. 28 Days Later understands this, and as such the latter half of the film shifts the focus away from escaping the infected and looks at the horrors that regular people can do.

28 Days Later might not have a single zombie in the entire movie, but it carries on the traditions of some of the best zombie stories around. It puts people in the centre of the narrative, it asks questions about what would happen to people if society broke down, and if they’re even worth saving. It helped to spark a desire for stories like this that has led to what some would call an over-saturation of the genre, but as one of the first of this new wave, one that did things so differently, and one with images and themes that hit so differently now, in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic (it’s still not gone folks!), it’s one that shouldn’t be overlooked or dismissed lightly.

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DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #3 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

I caught up with everything DCeased this last week, reading the entire series to date; and have come to like certain parts of this universe. Some of the moments of death hit genuinely hard, thanks in part to how well the characters have been written (please don't talk to me about losing all the villains in DCeased: Unkillables), and the younger heroes like Damian and Jon growing up and living up to their legacies have been great. And after reading the entire thing, seeing the loss of Earth, the fight to survive, and the battle to get it back, seeing the anti-life equation spread out into the wider galaxy has been quite depressing.

This issue opens by showing us that it's more than the returned Darkseid who's responsible for the spread of the disease, however. We begin with scenes that introduce us to Adam Strange, who's been battling Thanagarian forces on his adopted world of Rann. However, the Zeta Beam sends him back to Earth, a few months before the cure is found. Coming across the infected Wonder Woman, Adam of course doesn't stand a chance.

As Adam returns to Rann he brings the infection with him, which them moves on to the Thanagarians, who then use their armada to spread further out into the universe. This is perhaps the worst thing about the virus, that if given the chance it'll run out of control and spread faster than you can do anything about it.

One of the worlds we see this new infected armada stop off at is currently playing host to Lobo, who seems to be immune from it thanks to his healing factor. This is the big action scene of the issue, and we get to see the main man tear loose and take out some infected.

Back on Earth, the heroes have gathered for Diana's funeral on Themyscira. Artemis and Ollie get to shoot her pyre with flaming arrows, which is a nice moment that connects with her lives as an amazon, and as a hero. Unfortunately, her funeral gets crashed by Ares, the God of War, who's come to warn the amazons and heroes that a real war for life is coming.

And this is where we get some pretty big revelations for this series, and ones that change the way we'd look at the other DCeased titles that have come before. The anti-life equation isn't just a simple virus. It's an ancient god from a universe that was destroyed long before this one was around. Erebos, the god that destroyed all of reality then, is using the virus now to do the same to this universe. It's revealed that if they don't stop the virus now, reality as they know it will be lost.

This is a pretty big moment for the series, and certainly changes things up. The fact that the God of War didn't bat an eye at the destruction of Earth, but is getting involved now also shows that this might be the biggest battle in the series yet.

It was nice to get a moment to slow down a little here, to focus on some other parts of the story, and to spend time with characters whilst everything else is building out in space. I suspect that the revelations here won't just pertain to the end of this series, as it feels too big to be wrapped up this quickly. I suspect that there'll be more DCeased titles coming in the future, where Erebos is more of a plot point.

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Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (Season One) – TV Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

When the prequel films first came out it was an era of derision for ‘fans’ of Star Wars. They weren’t what people were expecting, weren’t what they saw as Star Wars; they disliked the characters, the writing, the acting, everything. Think of how people treat the sequel trilogy now and it was pretty much that. But over the years, as people had longer to sit with the films, opinions changed, and through additional material like Star Wars: The Clone Wars the era was given more depth and time to grow, and has become a firm favourite amongst many fans.

The Clone Wars have long since ended, both in universe, and for viewers, after Dave Filoni brought season six back to screens to finish those stories. And whilst Disney seem to be focusing on building the times every side of the original trilogy, with projects like Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi showing the rise of the Empire, and The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett showing the time after its fall, we get to go back to an earlier era with the latest animated Star Wars series for six short episodes in Star Wars: Tale of the Jedi.

This new series, set during the time of the prequel era, has a very specific mission: to tell stories about the Jedi, and how their lives changed over the years. The first season picks two characters to focus on, with each of them getting three episodes. And at first glance the choice for Jedi seem a bit unusual: there’s Count Dooku (Corey Burton), and Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein). Ahsoka makes some sense, as she’s a character created by series showrunner Dave Filoni, and is one of the most popular characters in the entire franchise, but Dooku seems like an odd choice as he’s a character viewers never got to see as a Jedi. But that’s absolutely the point.

Both of these characters are ones that were part of the Jedi order, who trained for years to become the perfect Jedi, and they both left the order. Dooku would go on to leave to become the leader of the Separatists, and a Sith, whilst Ahsoka left after being falsely accused of treason, and basically told the Jedi to stuff it. They’re characters who gave up on the Jedi (kind of), so why not tell the stories about what that means for two people walking so similar yet opposing paths.

The Dooku stories are by far the best on offer in this season, and we get to see him at three different points in his life that flesh out his backstory and show the reasons for him turning his back on the Jedi. The first sees a very young Dooku, looking like a fresh-faced Christopher Lee, and his padawan Qui-Gon Jin (voiced by Michael Richardson, the son of Liam Neeson), travelling to a world to free a senator’s son. The second story, set years later, sees Dooku and Mace Windu (T.C. Carson) investigating the death of a Jedi Master who was protecting a senator. In both stories Dooku sees a darker side of the Republic senators, begins to see the place of the Jedi within the Republic as being opposed to what they’re doing. You start to understand why he would look at the Republic as corrupt, and why he’d choose to leave the order to get away from that.

However, it’s the third episode of his story that hits the best. Set during the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, it shows us the final meeting between Dooku and Qui-Gon (played by Neeson this time), how Kamino got removed from the Jedi archive as part of Palpatine’s plans, and the final fall of Dooku to true member of the dark side. The episode also heavily features Yaddle (Bryce Dallas Howard), a character that appeared briefly in the background of one film, but has had fans’ attention for decades. We finally get to spend some time with her in this episode, and she’s wonderful, and her scenes with Dooku are fantastically done. Whilst we had so little time with her here, hopefully she might be a character who gets a similar focus in future seasons.

The Ahsoka stories, in contrast, feel a little different, as there’s no clear theme to them. They’re not showing her reasons for leaving the Jedi like Dooku, as we’ve already seen that. Instead, they show three important points in her life. The first is her origin, and we’re there for the birth of Ahsoka, a moment that was surprisingly more emotional than I was expecting. We see the baby Ahsoka with her family, a family that she’ll come to lose, and get to see the life her people had. The episode shows the moment when her people learn that she has force powers, a moment that essentially seals her fate to become a Jedi. It’s a wonderfully different episode, one that feels unlike what we come to expect from prequel era animation, and takes its time, soaking in the beauty and peace of its setting.

The second story is set during the events of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and shows Anakin (Matt Lanter) training Ahsoka. We see that Ahsoka is a good fighter, that she passes the Jedi’s tests, but that it’s not good enough for Anakin, who wants to push her harder. Training with the clones of the 501st, including Rex and Jessie (Dee Bradley Baker), she trains to defend herself from human targets, blocking their blasts, getting knocked out countless times in the process. She gets pushed further than any other Jedi, spending years training against the clones. But this isn’t just to show that she’s trained differently to other Jedi, that Anakin was a more unorthodox teacher, this shows us how she was different enough to survive Order 66. She wasn’t special, she was trained to do it, over and over and over. Anakin’s desire to keep her safe, his refusal to act like a regular Jedi saves her life, and the episode’s final moments add to a scene in Star Wars: The Clone Wars that was already emotional enough.

Ahsoka’s final episode is one that, if you’re a Star Wars fan, I’m sure you’ll have heard some discussion of by now. Set after the events of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, this story is a condensed retelling of the events of the Ahsoka novel. Just like in the book we see Ahsoka hiding out on a farm planet, and she has to fight an Inquisitor to try and save the people there. But compared to the book, it’s short, has no depth, and omits a character that has come to mean a lot to some fans, replacing a queer black character with a white woman. This episode feels like a quick summary designed to bring non book readers up to speed on how she went from a former Jedi to fighting back against the Empire, but the changes make little sense, and it feels a little disrespectful to the novel, especially as this is yet another time Filoni has altered events from print for the screen. Whilst not a bad episode by any means, those who care about the book will probably come away feeling a bit odd about this one.

Overall, the stories in this first season are great, and add a lot to both characters, and whilst some work more than others they do leave you coming away feeling like you understand these two a little more, especially Dooku. This series has some of the best Dooku moments, makes him a hugely more interesting and nuanced character, and also makes a background character in one film into a character that can easily sit on a favourite Jedi list.

The series has some fantastic visuals, and the animation has really been pushed and improved since the beginning of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There are moments where it’s genuinely stunning, with the opening Ahsoka episode and her home world looking beautiful throughout. The backgrounds and tiny details that make these worlds feel like real, lived-in places have come a long way, and make this some of the best looking Star Wars animation we have. The characters also move really well, and some of the more unusual movements from early seasons is gone, with things having much more realistic feel during the action moments. Ahsoka’s fight with the Inquisitor is particularly well animated, and had me yelling at the screen for how good it is.

Kevin Kiner, the composer on both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels returns for this series, and the music throughout is as beautiful as we’ve come to expect. The series uses some familiar musical themes in new an interesting ways, such as Ahsoka’s theme in her opening episode using more woodwind instruments to give it a different feel that works with the quieter, less futuristic setting. Key moments are enhanced through Kiner’s music, and he’s quickly become one of the best composers for the saga.

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi isn’t perfect, it does have some issues that book readers will find fault with, but as an overall show, and one for those that haven’t read that one novel, it’s fantastic. The Dooku episodes are amazing, and any extra Ahsoka content is always going to be welcome. With the concept being open to telling stories about any Jedi from any era this is perhaps one of the more exciting series for the franchise right now. There’s no telling where the next season might go, if we’ll see more familiar faces from the prequels, stories about Luke and Leia, Rey, or even the High Republic. Whatever the show chooses to focus on next, if it’s as good as this season, it’s sure to be great.

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DC vs Vampires: All Out War #4 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

The latest issue of DC vs Vampires: All Out War continues to move our heroes towards their goal of freeing Weather Wizard from his vampirism in hopes of clearing the skies, but the gang have some pretty scary foes between them and him to deal with first.

After the distraction team focus of the last issue, we follow the trio of Booster Gold, Mary Marvel, and Midnighter as they break into the blood farm to capture their target, unfortunately, they have some resistance waiting for them in the form of Baron Cinder's knights. I do like the four knight themed vampires, and it makes for a bit of fun thrown into an otherwise very dark story. 

We also learn this issue that part of the reason why Mary has been in her powered form the entire time, and has been super cheerful, is in response to the fact that she's infected in her human form, and is hiding inside her powered body. Mary is holding the vampirism at bay with the magic, and being super cheerful and chipper to compensate for the knowledge that she's a monster on the inside. It's a twist I certainly didn't see coming.

But this issue does have a twist I did see coming. The final moments of the issue show Baron Cinder without the Lexo armour, and what do you know, he has a big old Superman S on his chest. Looks like the Baron is Clark. I called it a while ago, and it's nice to see it come true.

There are some other twists and turns that happen this issue that certainly change things in big ways for our heroes, and make the final two issues more interesting. I wasn't expecting this story to get a happy ending, but a somewhat happy ending seems to be getting further and further away all the time now.

The art on this issue feels a bit different too, even though it's the same art team, thanks to the increase in the amount of red used. In previous issues it's been mostly black and white, with a few bits of red thrown in, but here there are pages where the majority of the backgrounds are red, there are lots of red on the characters, and there's blood flying. I kind of like that as they're in their most dangerous circumstance, facing the bigger challenges and deadlier foes, the book is becoming bloodier and redder as it goes. It's a nice, subtle touch.

There are only two issues of this series left to go, and it looks set that there's going to be some big fights to come before it ends. I'm struggling to see any of the team making it out alive, but I can still hope.

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