Clones and Musings on Superheroes
Loki 2.6 “Glorious Purpose”
There’s rumors of a season 3. I don’t know quite how after this unless it’s going to focus more on Sylvie.
This ending was interesting. I don’t know if I’d trust Marvel!Loki with the job he now has, but he’s definitely better at it than the previous holder of the position.
How will the TVA recruit now they’re not curating select variants. Offer “dangerous” variants a choice? “Work for us if you don’t want to wind up a villain?”
I think I liked this ending, but there was something about it I didn’t…and I can’t work out what that is. Probably, I’ll have to sleep on it.
I don’t think it’s going to get my Hugo vote over Wild Blue Yonder, but I do understand why it was nominated!
The plan now is to go back to my Clone Wars blitz.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.1 “Holocron Heist”
Ahsoka screws up so badly she’s put on punishment duty helping to guard the Jedi library. Unfortunately, our bounty hunter “friend” from last season has now been hired to steal a Jedi holocron. He brings a temporary partner with him, some kind of alien who can copy anyone’s physical form after touching them. They don’t have to be alive, it’s worth noting.
He gets away in part because the Jedi don’t think that anyone will steal anything psychically locked so only Jedi can use it…they figure he’s trying to get into the main computer to steal troop movements!
And now they find out he’s after the Khyber crystal that stores the locations of all the unrecruited kids…the potential Jedi.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.2 “Cargo of Doom”
So, now they go after the bounty hunter, which involves the usual Anakin crazy stunts including using walkers to board a ship (the ship he’s on has no assault craft because it wasn’t prepped for this mission).
Does he retrieve the holocron? No. Does he capture the bounty hunter? Also no. It looks like both were destroyed, but I actually don’t buy it.
That guy’s too savvy to go down that easily.
He’s also a terrible droid abuser, just saying…
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.3 “Children of the Force”
The babies are cute…and in danger of being brainwashed to be little Dark Side spies. Cad Bane escaped by hiding in clonetrooper armor, which I should have predicted.
He gets away again. They can’t get rid of such a cool villain, after all, although I almost feel sorry for him. I don’t know if he knows what level of actual evil is paying him.
Maybe he doesn’t care as long as he gets paid.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.4 “Senate Spy”
A senator is suspected of spying for the separatists. He’s Padme’s ex. Anakin doesn’t want her to spy on him…the Council sends him to persuade her and he, deliberately or accidentally, reverse psychologies her right into doing it. Then accompanies her disguised as her pilot.
It seems the plan is to build a new, massive droid factory to churn out even more slaves. But armed with the plans, hopefully the Jedi can foil this and keep the numbers of droids down to merely unreasonable.
Movie: Shazam: Fury of the Gods
Sorry for the “break,” but they gave me a month to watch it. Overall verdict: Better than DC movies have been lately, but unfortunately that’s a low bar.
I did love the unicorn taming with Skittles (alas, I have no Skittles…how much did they pay for that product placement?) The wooden dragon is badass. The message follows on from the first movie…the first movie says “Anyone can be a hero” and the sequel responds with “And you don’t need powers.”
The movie did, though, struggle to make any of the stakes seem real. I’d say I’m superhero jaded, but comics still work for me. I actually thought during the movie “You know none of this will be permanent.” It’s a challenge of the genre to create compelling conflict when nothing is permanent.
Also, the conflict between the kids was unsatisfying and the parents instantly accepted that their foster kids are a batch of superheros and doing all this dangerous stuff.
So, not very good, but not a complete waste of time, because now I want a unicorn.
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.7 “Legacy of Terror”
Yay for classic SF hive minds. We now know hives do not work that way. But sometimes it’s fun to forget that and have the almighty queen be in charge.
The zombie warriors are pretty creepy, too. I do feel a bit sorry for them, though. They may have chosen the wrong side, but they did choose a side and got conquered anyway. It’s small wonder they want their freedom.
The freedom to choose poorly is essential to have the freedom to choose well.
Luminara gets into almost as much trouble as Anakin.
Who got the “ear or nose” reference?
Star Wars: Clone Wars 2.8 “Brain Invaders”
So, first of all, when will they stop taking these people back to Coruscant for trial? This one’s a throwaway, so maybe this time it won’t end poorly. But they really need a nice prison planet somewhere.
What do you do when you’re transporting a high value prisoner and get a request for medical supplies? You send the kids on the supply run. It’s just a milk run…even the clones complain.
Unfortunately, the queen managed to lay some eggs in a couple of the clones…which happen to be on the milk run. The result isn’t pretty, and Ahsoka faces a moral dilemma…and there’s a bit of thinking about attachment and compassion.
Starting to see signs that Anakin is slowly sauntering downwards, as a certain pop culture demon puts it.