THE RISE OF SKYWALKER tries to give us everything we want, not everything we need

So just so everyone's clear here - this is NOT a spoiler free review. I'm going to be reacting to the biggest surprises of THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, so if you don't want to know the whole movie before going in, steer clear.

THE FORCE AWAKENS spoiler-free review
THE FORCE AWAKENS spoiler review
THE LAST JEDI review
In the aftermath of tragedy, Generation Rey is showing why it's their time to lead

Ever since STAR WARS relaunched with THE FORCE AWAKENS in 2015, I've been pretty happy with the "Saga" films. TFA is one of the most rewatchable STAR WARS films in the canon and I really like THE LAST JEDI as well. SOLO was okay, and ROGUE ONE was a movie that didn't hold up as well for me on a rewatch, but thus far, I've been very invested in the core movies.

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER is less a feature film and more a series finale. If you watch it through that lens, the callbacks and occasional fan-service is less irritating than it might be otherwise. The plot construction feels looser here than in most of the other films. It's a video game quest, with our heroes going from location to location, getting the clue that sends them to the next location. It's STAR WARS at its most comic-book, particularly in the last third.

For the first half of the film, the overall thrust works remarkably well - particularly due to some great chemistry from the ensemble. This is the first time we see Ray, Finn, and Poe sharing an adventure and Chewie, Threepio and BB-8 are all along for the ride too, in a race against Kylo Ren to get a Sith artifact that will lead to a planet where Palpatine is hiding out.

Yep, Palpatine is back. Weirdly, this reemergence isn't revealed to the audience in the context of a dramatic scene, but in the opening crawl, which explains that Palpatine's voice has been transmitted across the galaxy as a message and everyone is reeling at the thought he's survived. It's the first weird choice in a series of them. Wouldn't it have more impact for us to see the Resistance hear that message in real time and realize "oh shit. We're screwed?" There's a reaction that's skipped right over here.

(Maybe this is because Leia's reaction would be the most significant and there was no way to manufacture that?)

How Palpatine survived is never explained, save for a throwaway line that theorizes something about clones. This guess is seemingly wrong, because when we see him in the flesh, his body appears broken in a way that suggests the original Emperor, not a rejuvenated duplicate. I would have loved a tiny hint of how he survived the Death Star explosion and made his way to that planet, and it would have helped a LOT if any kind of credible explanation was given for the fleet build-up he's been doing for 35 years.

His plan is missing a huge "Why now?" Why reveal himself now? What have all those officers on those ships been doing for these years? Why sit out so long even after the Republic was wiped out? Where did they get those planet destroying weapons?

And aren't the stakes already big enough without every ship being able to destroy a planet on its own? It's a capability that's only exploited once and after that it might as well not even matter. The final confrontation between fleets is dire enough for the Resistance without scaling up the threat to that level. It's stakes for stakes sake, leveling up on a threat that's already leveled up to a ridiculous degree.

They're just giant stakes that aren't earned.

The resolution to that sequence has a similar problem. We're told at the start that the Resistance has been trying to pull together new support, but they're still a bunch of ragtag fighters. As Palpatine's rise draws near for... some reason, Lando and Chewie whip around the galaxy trying to shore up support. Poe has one of the film's better lines when he says they need to show people that "We are not alone... good people will fight if we lead them."

The idea that there's this silent oppressed majority that is just waiting for a person to rally behind is a good one. Hell, done right it could dovetail right off of THE LAST JEDI and Luke's mythic reemergence. The execution is rushed. If Chewie and Lando could organize a massive fleet of allies in the space of an afternoon, why haven't they done this before? There's a case to be made that Lando's got a legendary reputation and it doesn't hurt to have him working all his connections, but then shouldn't we at least SEE him cutting that deal with one ally?

Like many plot points here, there are a lot of things happening between scenes that we're just meant to assume, even if they'd have made for better drama on-screen. We're shown Point A, Lando and Chewie leaving to drum up help from sources that have rebuffed the Resistance so far, and we get Point C, the massive fleet arriving as the cavalry, but Point B is skipped over.

There are a lot of missing Point Bs in this film. I'm fine filling in some of them for myself, but the ones that would have made for more compelling material than what we got on film tend to nag at me more.

"There are more of us" is a thought that's expressed multiple times in the film and it's exceedingly relevant in 2019, as we're governed by our own Emperor Palpatine who is destroying the American way of life, our national security and our national dignity by the day. He's made an entire political party complicit in this. Just watching impeachment hearings has made it clear - there is not a shred of intellectual honesty or patriotism left within the Republican Party. They welcome a fascist Trump dictatorship.

If you're about to roll your eyes at me getting political, remember that this Saga has ALWAYS been political. It grew out of George Lucas's feelings about Vietnam and there's no mistaking that REVENGE OF THE SITH is a very pointed criticism of everything awful about the Bush Administration making people think they had to trade liberty for safety. If you're just noticing NOW that STAR WARS is a political allegory for the times it was made in, you haven't been paying attention.

Indeed, this is a time that demands commentary. Donald Trump is a vile human being who's appealed to the worst human beings. They're loud about their support and at times, it can feel hopeless to fight because I could never conceive a compassionate human being supporting him just based off of what we knew about him BEFORE the election. To see people still proclaim him as their guy after running literal concentration camps that separate children as young as infants from their parents and force them to sleep on concrete floors, to see them cheer this guy has he puts people in power who are there to destroy the rights of others, and to see few consequences for it... is soul-shattering.

To see people you know who embraced their worst racism and misogyny to cast a vote for this scum is disheartening. To see them cling to that even after he's shown us worse sides might break you... if you thought the only path to victory was to turn back those who'd embraced the Dark Side.

And yet, all the polls show "There are more of us." He might have power, McConnell and his band of fascist might hold power and be using it to rig the game for elections to come, but when it comes to people who reject everything about Trump and what he represents "There are more of us."

To get through this moment in history, we need to remember that. We need to fight like hell against everything Trump and the Republican Party stand for, even when it seems like it's not having an effect. Why? Because THERE ARE MORE OF US.

This is how we win.

We have the numbers. Anyone who's still with Trump at this stage is not coming back from the Dark Side. They're further gone than Darth Vader ever was. We are not Luke Skywalker. We won't win by fighting for their redemption. We win by showing up, because no matter how many disciples the Dark Side has...

THERE. ARE. MORE. OF. US.

Imagine a STAR WARS movie that truly affirmed that power. Perhaps even a movie where the gambit isn't to turn Kylo Ren back from the Dark Side, because in the end we don't need the help of one who helped condemn us. I'd love a version of this where the galaxy rises up against fascism and Rey stands alone with the power of the Jedi against the Emperor, with Kylo Ren's heel turn ultimately immaterial to her arc.

Adding to the moments of "There are more of us," I would have loved for some scenes that showed the galaxy-wide scope of Palpatine's army going into battle. As a tacked on epilogue, we see Imperial ships destroyed above Cloud City and Endor, among others, but those feel like payoffs without set-ups. My reaction was "Oh, did we know that those worlds were being threatened?" Why didn't we see the peril brought to those worlds before they're apparently easily defeated by a movement that fit onto one ship just a single movie ago?

But now I'm going into the movie I wish I'd seen rather than the one I got, so maybe it's time to make some short takes on other points.

Rey as a Palpatine. I like the idea of her being "nobody," as THE LAST JEDI affirmed, but I can't deny the logic of bringing back Palpatine as a way of unifying all nine films in this chapter. Once Palpatine is on the table, it certainly helps earn that dramatically if he's tied to the most important character in this new trilogy so... if she has to be related to someone "known" I'm okay with it being Palpatine.

The reveal could have been handled better. Kylo Ren is the guy who told her in the last film that her parents were nobodies, so him spinning another tale here is a little like when the Joker tells two different versions of how he got those scars. When a character tells two incompatible truths, so you know it's not a case of one of them being a lie - it's an indication the character is a total liar.

The Rey/Palpatine confrontation was somewhat unsatisfying in execution. It's another case of the bad guy telling the good guy what the rules are without anything that affirms he's telling the truth. He seems to WANT Rey to strike him down, and claims it's so he can possess her, but this is a guy known for mind games within mind games. What if that's just a ploy to make her hesitate so he can dispose of her? Or use her against Kylo Ren somehow? Or convince her she needs to submit willingly?

It also leads to this weird confrontation where Rey's told, "Kill me and you become me!" But if she leaves him alive, her friends are still screwed. He's definitely built a Xanatos Gambit here, where all paths lead to his victory, but then how do we parse the loophole that lets her definitively kill him and win? It feels like the difference is that all of the Jedi have her back, and that their spirt is keeping her on the Light Side no matter what the Emperor says will happen, but it's muddled. Maybe the idea is if she killed him, he had to have corrupted her enough to get a foothold?

What I'm getting at is, the Third Act could have used another pass. I can see the broad strokes of what the movie's going for on all levels, and I like the general direction, but it needed more refinement. 

Leia. It's hard to believe it's been three years since Carrie Fisher left us, placing the series in a difficult spot because her character was the last of the core three still alive at the end of THE LAST JEDI. I'm glad that the filmmakers chose neither to rework TLJ to kill Leia off, or recast her here, as either would have been disastrous choices.

So how does it work repurposing deleted scenes to incorporate Leia into this film? It works. Mostly. There are a few moments where I couldn't help but think of The Simpsons episode where an editor demonstrates how one can complete Milhouse's performance using footage they've already shot:

But by and large, the device is effective. It helps that it's treated mostly casually and not a "Look at us! We resurrected Carrie Fisher!" Tying her death to the moment that eventually triggers Ben Solo's reemergence works on an emotional level. There's a hastiness to it that I can forgive based on the limited ways Leia could have interacted with that plot. I wish there had been a more meaningful mother/son story here, and all signs point to the earliest versions of this final chapter building to that.

But the bottom line is that both Carrie and Leia are treated with reverence, and using her here has real impact on the story, so I can go with it.

Also, we've finally canonized the idea that Leia DID complete her training, she DID become a Jedi and she actively chose not to walk that path. I wish Carrie was really here for that moment, especially to get to hold her own lightsaber, but I'll gladly take that fan service.

Kylo Ren's path out of the Dark Side. I want to be very clear with how I parse this. Though Kylo Ren eventually rejects the Dark Side and reassumes the identity of Ben Solo, I don't see any of this as a redemption. I've said for four years that in TFA, Ren committed "possibly the single most visceral act of evil depicted on screen in any of the STAR WARS films" and so he deserves no redemption.

When I've said this on Twitter, people try to argue Vader's redemption to me. "He killed billions in Star Wars alone!" No, he didn't. He's a glorified henchmen. Tarkin orders the destruction of Alderaan. And for the audience, that billion deaths is a statistic anyway. It's a pyrotechnic moment - it's not one the audience FEELS. That many deaths is a statistic.

"Yeah, but Anakin killed younglings!" Sure, we know that now. But in 1983, when RETURN OF THE JEDI was produced and we were asked to buy into Darth Vader's redemption, we neither knew that nor experienced it. Even when we DID experience that moment in REVENGE OF THE SITH, the murders are kept off-screen.

Look at Darth Vader's actions in the original trilogy, the moments of brutality we actually experience viscerally, and you'll find there's nothing there that's a true emotional dealbreaker in the way that Kylo Ren impaling his father is. A movie is less about what happens and more about what the audience experiences - and that is straight up, the most brutal moment in a Star Wars film, from an emotional point of view.

And even when he kills his master Snoke, Ren's response is not "I'm free!" It's "now I can claim MORE power!" Every opportunity he has to turn back, he doubles down. He blames Luke for a moment of drawing his lightsaber when by that moment, Ren had not only turned fully dark, but had turned several other students. Moments after that, they all slaughter the rest of Luke's Jedi students, his classmates.

He's true evil, and that has been reinforced in every appearance. His turn here feels rushed to me. It's a story decision only if you decide to experience it in the moment - the death of his mother, his mortal wound and Rey's compassion in healing him. I see all the story math of how those things could flip "Generic Supervillain," but it's hard to reconcile with this SPECIFIC supervillain's history.

I was glad to see Harrison Ford incorporated somehow, and I was relieved they didn't go with some kind of cheat that he had a Force Ghost that could show up and actually talk to him. Ben reliving the memories of Han's last moments, where he's reaching out to his son, isn't a bad concept dramatically. I think that scene could have tilted more to the direction of what Ben NEEDS is forgiveness, but he understands he can't get that. He can only relive that moment and seize the opportunity to make a different choice.

For me, this scene got about 80% of the way I wanted. Digging just a little bit deeper could have sold me more on Ben's conflicted nature and how complicated it really would be for him to erase the legacy of Kylo Ren. Just throwing away the saber and switching allegiances isn't quite enough. This moment could have been the beginning of a compelling redemption arc, but the movie just doesn't have the room for anything more. Adam Driver doesn't get anything compelling to play after this. He's just there to race to the rescue and eventually die.

I don't think the movie earned either Rey's assertion that "I wanted to take Ben's hand" or the kiss between them before she dies. All their interactions in the first film are hostile, with their first face to face being when he tries to mentally rape her. I can believe she'd try to turn him back in THE LAST JEDI, but with everything he's done - and everything he's done TO HER - making the romantic subtext into text threatens to turn them in to STAR WARS's "Luke and Laura" (kids, ask your mothers)

Luke and the Force Ghosts. I wanted more from Luke's return. It was inevitable he'd be the Obi-Wan whispering in Rey's ear, but Hamill plays that scene strangely. Him using the Force to lift the X-Wing out of the waters by the island was a payoff I was waiting for since THE LAST JEDI, though, and it was nicely done.

I know this would have been fan service, but I would have loved to have seen Force Ghost Luke again during the finale, perhaps returning with the Force Ghosts of ALL the Jedi characters, including  Leia and Anakin. Give us an "Avengers Assemble!" of all the Jedi, staring down Palpatine as Rey settles his hash once and for all.

And I'm not sure how you get there, but with as important as Darth Vader's was to Kylo Ren, I'm a little cheated we didn't get an Anakin/Kylo Ren force ghost conversation. I guess that's what fanfic is for.

Finn. So what was Finn going to tell Rey when he thought they were gonna die? That's dropped and never addressed again.

See-Threepio. I like that the droid got his most useful role in the series thus far here. I sorta wish the bold move with him halfway through the film wasn't undone, though. The film sets up major consequences and then undoes them for the sake of a feel-good ending.

THE RISE OF SKYWALKER has the unenviable task of winding down nine films and drawing threads to a close in a way that unifies everything. I don't think it's successful in every regard, though. Some of the strains can be glossed over or forgiven by nostalgia-driven dopamine rushes, but when it fades we're left with a movie that tries very hard to give everyone everything that they want, and
as such, it can be a satisfying experience on the most superficial levels.

It was probably impossible given the time crunch this movie had to be produced under, but maybe would have been better served by more investment into what the audience needed.

Breaking down the pilot of ALIAS

A while back I did a series of live-tweets of pilot episodes, with the intent of breaking these pilots down and showing the elements that are present in a strong pilot. The result isn't QUITE a scene-by-scene accounting of everything in the show, but it does work as a running commentary on how shows establish themselves, their characters, their overarching plots and themes.

At the time, my intent was to repurpose those as blog posts, but it ended up being something that fell by the wayside after I did my first one, VERONICA MARS.  I've since decided to go back and archive them here, while making some edits for clarity and expounding on a few ideas where necessary.

This post focuses on the pilot of ALIAS. You can find the original tweet-thread here.

Opening: Sydney being tortured. She's got bright red dyed hair. Interrogators are... North Korean? I think? Point is: we open In Media Res with our lead in danger.

Cut: and now we're in the past. Sydney's a brunette college student being told to finish her blue book essay.

Third scene: college campus, she's with her boyfriend Danny. Vertical Horizon's on the soundtrack. It's 2001. Danny proposes to Sydney on the quad while singing Build Me Up Buttercup. It's embarrassing and adorable.

4th Scene: Intro roommate Francie as Syd shows off her ring. She hasn't told her dad, "I don't want him to ruin this." So she doesn't like Dad, and her mom's spoken of in past-tense. Danny apparently called Mr. Bristow to ask for his blessing. Flashback to Danny calling Jack Bristow. Jack is a jerk, giving a terse response that includes, "If you feel the need to ask me... I have a sense you don't know Sidney at all." Jack takes him apart rather coldly. "I will not be used as part of a charming anecdote you tell at parties." Oh, and Jack also exports airplane parts. Meant to imply it's a boring job.

Next sequence: Sydney goes to work at the bank... then enters a James Bondian secret entrance to her real job... spy headquarters. (Visual detail: she removes her engagement ring before she goes in). Next couple scenes introduce the spy regulars: Sloane - taskmaster boss, Marshall - tech guy, Dixon - Sydney's partner. We've seen this kind of Mission Briefing scene a million times. Exposition central. Marshall's goofiness and gadgets add some flair though. I'm not gonna recap all the exposition here, but suffice to say it's all crucial to the mission later.

Next scene: Sydney running with her friend Will. He's kvetching that his blind date's favorite movie of all time was PRETTY WOMAN. He asks Sydney to a movie. She tells him Danny proposed. The way she breaks the news and his reaction tell us a big thing: he's into her.

Next Sydney/Danny interaction: romantic scene has her leading him into the shower... where she tells him she's a spy. "I work for the CIA." He laughs. Realizes she's serious. We don't see more than this. We don't need to.

And now we're back to the torture scene, just to remind us there are stakes here. By the way, all that pipe laying took about 15 minutes: dual life, all the major characters, etc. This thing MOVES. And it's the end of Act One.

Now we're in flashback as Sydney tells us (and Danny) how she was recruited into a "covert branch" of the agency while still in college. It's an exposition dump, but like VERONICA MARS, it waited until the second act.

Sydney goes away on a mission with Dixon. Discuss how Sloane doesn't like she's in grad school and has an outside life. Dixon reminds Sydney that the one rule they don't break is telling people in their lives that they're spies. (This would be STAKES).

This next sequence seems to be here to give us an idea of what a "routine" mission looks like for Sydney. Guest at a formal function. Meanwhile, Danny calls Syd's answering machine and leaves a message discussing his feelings about her spy life. "People aren't spies forever." This is intercut with Sydney's mission, advancing both things at once. We also see Sloane getting a call that's informing him about Danny.

Sydney's caught on video finishing her mission. She's seen by the same men later torturing her. But we know this doesn't lead to that because of the red hair in those scenes. See how details like that keep things clean for the audience?

Sloane informs someone that "we have a breach" regarding Sydney telling Danny. He slides the folder across the table to... Sydney's father! "You know where my loyalties lie." Jack tells him, not un-sinisterly.

Sydney comes home, finds Danny murdered in his bathtub. She races to the office confronts Sloane, who is stern and unsympathetic. Some great Sloane dialogue here that I don't have time to transcribe. Sydney grabs him: "You killed the man I love." "No... you did." Sydney's given a polygraph, in a scene that informs us she's part of SD-6. It's repeated several times so we'll remember SD-6 later. There's a neat bit in here with Sydney reading Sloane's lips through the interrogation room window. Communicated just through ECUs.

Interrogation: Sydney gives some smart-ass answers. Like with Veronica, it's meant to show how unflappable and sassy she is.

Back in the past, we go to Danny's funeral. Jack watches Sydney at a distance. Syd interacts with Danny's sister.. who has bright red hair.

Nice character moment amid the plot: Sydney has to rerecord the outgoing answering machine message, replacing one of her and Danny.

Dixon comes to Sydney with a mission, one they need her for. "If they don't have confidence in someone as deep as you are.. they'll fix" it. You thought you hated YOUR job? Quitting isn't an option for her. Sydney goes into a parking garage and that's where she's attacked. Men with laser sights take shots at her. she flees, and we get a neat moment of hand-to-hand fighting when she takes out one of the guys.

And then her father pulls up: "Get in!" "Daddy!" We knew Jack was a spy... she didn't. Car chase ensues. And Jack pulls off an awesome move, spins the car 180 degrees and drives in reverse so he can shoot the car chasing them. It's BADASS, impresses even Sydney.

Jack says SD-6 will kill her. He's part of it too, undercover. He tells her SD-6 is NOT part of the CIA, "You're working for the enemy." Here's the trick of ALIAS's double agent premise, and one some audiences found confusing. Abrams has a LOT to lay out here, but it helps that it's doled out in pieces. Took 45 min to get here. Set up she's a spy, set up mission, THEN reveal "Oh by the way, they're bad guys."

Sydney goes to Will, borrows his sister's passport, dyes her hair bright red like the sister, figuring that's enough to fool airline. (This was pre-9/11. it probably would have worked.) But she's gone rogue, and basically, she's gonna do the mission Dixon came to get her for.

I don't need to go through all the steps of the spy mission, do I? Note that we KNOW she gets caught here, thanks to the hair detail.

We're back at the torture again. Sydney plays at being broken, fights back in a scene that shows her resoursefulness. Another action scene....gotta make sure the audience knows they're getting a mini-spy movie a week here. Make a long story less long, she completes mission, gets the device and delivers it to Sloane at SD-6, seemingly not even changing outfits. This is part of the buy-in. We have to believe that Sloane would trust her. We also KNOW she's gonna kill him first chance she gets.

And still more of the premise to unfurl. Sydney goes to the REAL CIA. Michael Vaughn takes her statement. She wants to be a double-agent. He mentions "another double agent in SD-6." In a subsequent scene, we see who that is: Jack. He visits her to tell her she's in.

AND now it's clear that we're seeing more than just a double-agent spy show... it's got a father/daughter relationship at its core. They've been estranged for years and now they'll have to work together to bring down this massive spy agency. THAT is a mission statement. You can't just say: "We're doing an action show." They're gonna ask, "What makes this different? Why do we care?"

And with that, we're done. (and I forgot this pilot was over an hour long! Feels almost like cheating.)

Series objectives:
- Sydney and Jack bring down SD-6
- Personal because Syd wants revenge
- Personal because father/daughter

Secret identity issues:
-her friends (barely used here) don't know about her double life.
-Rest of SD-6 cast doesn't know they're bad guys

See all the tension? See all the elements that can drive story week to week? the stuff that makes this more than James Bond with a girl?

Note that the focus is HEAVILY on Sydney. Not only is it not an ensemble but the supporting characters are what I call "placeholder parts." Most of them are fairly undeveloped. Just enough to establish that world.

Vaughn is practically an extra. He's just "CIA guy" in two scenes. We know nothing about him other than he has a girlfriend. But the CIA stuff is part of the premise, so it NEEDS to be in the pilot somehow. Same with Francie and Will. Syd needs "civilians." Secret ID tension is an ongoing element. But most her "normal" life time in the pilot is taken up by the Danny stuff. So they're cameos.

(Sidebar: I never much liked Will and Francie much. Will's just "platonic friend with a crush" in the pilot and Francie's the "annoying roommate.")

The most developed character after Sydney is her dad Jack and her evil boss Sloane: Good Dad and Bad Dad. That's the tension of the pilot and series.

Takeaway: you can't service EVERYTHING in a plot, so feature the important stuff and at least plant flags on the other key concepts.

Other pilot breakdowns:
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood
Life
Revenge

A spoiler-filled reflection on STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Obligatory warning - this post is going to discuss all the major plot points from THE FORCE AWAKENS. This is your spoiler warning right here, so turn back now. If you wish a spoiler-free examination of the film, you can find that here.

Luke Skywalker - It's a testament to how good the film is that Luke doesn't appear until the final minute, and yet it still is one of the best Star Wars films to date. I like the mythic reputation the character has taken on in-universe and it really makes the whole "search for Luke Skywalker drive" really carry weight. Now the ball is in Episode VIII's court. It has to be worthy of all the build-up this film gave our exiled Jedi.

Leia - Carrie Fisher's screen time is briefer than Harrison Ford's, but Leia's encounters with Han are a highlight of the film. Fisher's persona has more recently been brasher and more humorous than Leia's, to the point where I was concerned that it might be hard to see the outspoken actress as a more reserved leader. I need not have worried. this feels like the same woman who took charge of her own rescue and later commanded the evacuation of Hoth.

It's a disappointment that she apparently didn't undergo any Jedi training. In JEDI she was held out as the last hope, but here, she's the same political leader she was before, albeit with a higher rank. How cool would it have been to see Leia light up a purple lightsaber during a ground assault? Or have her use some kind of Force abilities to gain insight into the attack? Or to reach out and try to communicate with Kylo Ren? (Or her own brother for that matter?) I like the Leia we got, but I can't help but feel an opportunity was missed here.

Kylo Ren's backstory - From the first images of Kylo Ren, people were theorizing that he was a Skywalker or Solo child, if not Luke himself. The film wasted no time dropping teases about his parentage, so it's no great shock that he's revealed as Han and Leia's son. I wish we'd gotten a little more of a tease as to exactly how his corruption by Supreme Leader Snoke happened. Even just giving us a vague point on the timeline would help. How old was he when he turned? Did his fall precede Rey being abandoned as a child?

How does a child born to two leaders of the Rebel Alliance, and trained by the man who destroyed the Sith become determined to follow an evil path? It's like an Orthodox Jew deciding to be the next Hitler. He's definitely got a warped view of Darth Vader, but does that mean he doesn't believe the story that Luke surely told? That Vader renounced his evil ways before his death? There's a key scene I'll get to later where he unmasks and he gives off the impression of being a brainwashed cult member. Adam Driver does great work, but I'd have loved just a few more bread crumbs about his turn and his goal beyond "finish[ing] what [Darth Vader] started."

Supreme Leader Snoke - At this point, he's not much more than the Emperor was in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - a mysterious figure communicating via hologram. The "Great and Powerful Oz" routine has me suspicious that we're not seeing his real form there. At a minimum, I don't think he's going to be remotely that big in person. I wonder about his history with Skywalker. Were they close? Was Snoke a Jedi instructor who infiltrated Luke's academy to corrupt Kylo Ren? It might be interesting if he was a Jedi who survived the Order 66 Purge, only to embrace the Dark Side late in life. (Hell, it might even work out that he was an escaped youngling from Anakin's attack on the Jedi Temple.

Coincidence after Coincidence - There's an adage that you're allowed one coincidence per film. I tend to look at that as a loose guideline, but the motivation behind that "rule" is worth keeping in mind. When too many coincidences drive the plot, the audience can sense the film "cheating." You don't want contrivance taking a too big a hand in things.

I can buy into the idea that the Millennium Falcon is just sitting there on Jakku, waiting for Rey and Finn to steal it. And you know what, I'll even spot the film the huge coincidence that Han Solo is able to track and recapture the Falcon almost immediately. What feels too convenient for me is the fact that Maz Kanata just happens to have Luke's old lightsaber. The last time we saw that thing, it was falling down a deep pit in Cloud City. I would have loved at least a hint of an explanation for how it went from A to B, rather than putting us off for a later explanation that will probably never come.

Rey's parentage - After the film, I immediately rejected the idea that Rey could be Han and Leia's daughter. There were just too many pieces that didn't seem to fit. It also felt like we weren't given enough information to really conclude she could be Luke's offspring, even if the film seems to want us to consider that. I decided that might be a mislead to keep us from considering other parentage. Could she be a descendant of Obi-Wan? Of Supreme Leader Snoke?

Then I read this excellent Film School Rejects speculation piece and it completely turned me around on the Solo child theory. Give it a read.

Another megaweapon? - In-universe I get it. These Death Star-level mega weapons can totally upset the balance of power. It's an important part of any arsenal. But three out of the last four (numerically) episodes have utilized one of these planet killing weapons. It doesn't help that they're always destroyed the same way - a tiny flaw that lets enemy firepower take out a crucial reactor. As much as the whole movie is a riff on A NEW HOPE, here's where I really wanted something more original. The preponderance of planet killing weapons was what quickly turned the Extended Universe novels in to an aspect of the franchise that deserved to die and I really hope we won't see another of these in Episodes XVIII and IX.

It's a fool's game to poke at the science in these films, but I think Starkiller Base is ridiculously implausible. As visualized on-screen, it either happens to be in the exact same system as five other Republic planets it attacks, or it fires a laser capable of traveling at hyperspeed. The former reeks of contrivance and the latter makes the weapon too powerful and scientifically ridiculous. (Which is also a factor if the whole planet is mobile.)

The political situation - After the endless talks of trade disputes and taxation in the prequels, I never expected people to come out of the new film craving "More politics." However, I have to concur that the situation between The First Order and the Resistance could have used some clarifying. We're told the Republic is backing the Resistance, but the implication seems to be that the Republic is considered the more legitimate governing body while The First Order is more of an insurgency (or at best, the equivalent of the Southern States in the Civil War.)

Yet the First Order seems to operate as if they have all the dominance that the Empire did in its prime, while the Resistance is reduced to hiding in remote bases. (And again, why is a military force supported by the dominant power called "the Resistance?" That's not the sort of name you'd give to something like the U.S. Military.)

Finn's skill with the lightsaber - I call massive bullshit on Finn lasting more than 15 seconds in a lightsaber duel with a Force-adept opponent who's been using his weapon for years. It's maybe the falsest moment in the entire film. In contrast...

Rey's Force skills - On one hand, it's a little absurd that Rey's Force abilties already outstrip Luke's in A NEW HOPE despite less training. Compare her pulling the lightsaber to her to all the effort Luke expends in EMPIRE trying to get his weapon while in the ice cave. And then there's the fact she displays the mind control it took Luke until JEDI to use. The topper to all of this is her duel with Kylo Ren, where she not only matches his skill, but decisively defeats him. He's only saved by a conveniently-forming chasm. Rey opening up a can of whoopass on Ren makes for one of the best lightsaber battles ever. It's a fist-pumping moment big enough to make us overlook that she's a complete novice.

But my theory is that this adeptness on her part is neither mistake, nor contrivance. She might be a latently-powerful Force-user, one whose natural ability can outstrip even Luke's. Kylo Ren's no novice, so the movie knows what it's doing in having Ren match him in combat. I hope this will be explored in later chapters.

The Map to Luke Skywalker - As a MacGuffin, this worked for me up until the point we saw it actually executed. I could go with the idea that the map is just a jigsaw puzzle piece-ike fragment. What feels aggressively convenient to me is that R2-D2 just so happens to have every part of that star chart except for that precisely missing fragment - to the point where his charts are displayed with a big gaping hole.

Artoo having shut himself down of his own accord, apparently, and then springing back to life when the plot requires it also rankles. Would it have been so hard to just have Artoo damaged in a battle and undergoing repairs until the moment when the script needs him to analyze the map? It also might have helped if Artoo first studied the map fragment, then made use of that data by triangulating some of the stars in it with stars that he already knew. The end result would still be that data in his memory banks gives the map the context needed to figure out where to go, but these changes would make it slightly less easy on our heroes.

The Death of Han Solo - From the moment Han stepped out on to that walkway, it was evident he was a dead man. The parallels to Obi-Wan's death in A NEW HOPE were just too strong, particularly when Finn and Rey arrive to bear witness from a distance. Being certain of the outcome didn't lessen the tension one bit for me. If anything, it heightened it. My heart has not been pounding like that in a film for a very long time.

Han Solo reaches out to his son, a confused young man consumed by evil but clearly struggling with a good that threatens to awaken in him. Speaking like a programmed cult member, Ren tries to shut his father's words out and sees only one path that will ensure he can never return to the light again - he impales his father.

It is possibly the single most visceral act of evil depicted on screen in any of the STAR WARS films. Sure, we've seen planets blow up, but never with people we know on them. The deaths of billions is almost too abstract a concept to empathize with - but the painful death of one of the most beloved film characters of all time? That's epic in its emotional investment. The fact his given name is "Ben," presumably after Jedi Kenobi, only twists the knife further.

Chewie's reaction was equally heartbreaking. He doesn't hesitate for a second to fire at Ren. This is significant because the lore tells us that Chewie was bound to Han by a life debt. Han saved his life years ago and Wookie culture demanded Chewie remain indebted to Han. Some books have extrapolated that this would extend to Han's children. If that was at all true in this continuity, Chewie's attempt to avenge Han shows that he doesn't consider Ren to be Han's son any longer.

I may have regarded Darth Vader as pure evil, but I never wanted him dead the way I want Kylo Ren dead now.  DEAD. PAINFULLY. I want Luke, Leia and Chewie each to get a shot in, perhaps each taking off a limb. We surely will get the usual talk of redemption, of saving this wayward soul from the darkness... but I don't care. There's nothing there to save, nothing worth saving. He made his choice. I've never felt that Anakin really deserved to die as a hero after all he did and Ren deserves even less consideration.

STAR WARS exists in a universe where morality is absolute. Black and white. Good and Evil. Ren's patricide is an act without redemption. He made his choice, and I doubt there are few viewers who don't want to see him burn for it.

It's a powerful way to draw the film to a close, and one that makes us hungry to see the fallout among the older characters, and especially how they treat Kylo Ren at their next encounter.

We have less than two years until the next episode and already it feels like forever. J.J. Abrams gave us a new chapter that was a dose of the familiar mixed with some bold and powerful moves for the franchise. J.J. threw down the gauntlet. Now it'll be Rian Johnson's turn to deliver.

A spoiler-free review of THE FORCE AWAKENS

A note about this review - I have endeavored to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. I'll have another post next week dealing with more specific discussion of major elements that I don't think it would be fair to blow for unsuspecting viewers. If you've watched the trailers and maybe seen a bit of the press tour, I won't be revealing much here that you don't know. For another post where I drill into the specifics of the big twists, what worked and what didn't, come back next week.

THE FORCE AWAKENS is the STAR WARS movie I've been waiting for since I first watched RETURN OF THE JEDI on VHS. It's not a perfect film, but it feels like more of a piece with the STAR WARS universe than much of the prequels, and I'm hardly a prequel hater. It doesn't feel slavishly devoted to the filmmaking style of the original trilogy, but still plays like an evolution forward from that theory. This is a tactile universe in a way that the prequel universe isn't. I'm able to appreciate the aesthetic design of the prequels on their own merits. That whole venture is different enough I don't feel the need to tear it down for NOT trying to look exactly like the originals.

But man, does THE FORCE AWAKENS feel like coming home. Things have changed, some things are very different, but you recognize the feel of this world - the way things move through it, the way the people inhabit it. It's kinetic. It's REAL. All of it.

A particularly savvy move on the part of JJ Abrams and co-writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt is to build this film around the quest for a living legend - Luke Skywalker has been gone for some time now. Exactly how long is unclear. Evidence in the film seems to hint with as long as 15 years or as little as a few. In the time since JEDI, the fall of the Empire has given birth to two warring factions - the Republic, which backs The Resistance, the current designation for the Rebellion; and The First Order. All you need to know about The First Order is that they're the Imperials, and that the Nazi parallels get even less subtle.

In the 30-plus years since the Empire's defeat, the name "Luke Skywalker" has passed into legend. Even a young woman raised on the backwater desert world of Jakku and a man trained from childhood to be a Stormtrooper know who he is. The former is Rey, a beautiful scavenger who also happens to be an excellent pilot and a great combat fighter. She's thrust into a larger world after encountering the droid BB-8, carrying some secret data that the Empire wants - a map to Luke Skywalker. She soon crosses paths with Finn, a deserter Stormtrooper now being hunted after helping BB-8's master escape The First Order. Before long, the two make their escape in a craft that Rey initially dismisses as "garbage" - the Millennium Falcon.

Abrams talent for casting continues with Rey and Finn. The unknown Daisy Ridley is instantly likable and engaging as Rey. She not only stands with the best of Abrams's heroines, but with the STAR WARS gold standard of Princess Leia herself. She's got the spitfire and the pure likability that too often was missing from the prequels' Padme. The childhood crushes that my generation had on Princess Leia are probably nothing compared to what today's lads will have for Rey. By the end of the film, she's essentially been positioned as the successor to Han, Luke and Leia in terms of the character traits she's inherited. She's a child of the original trilogy, in a figurative, if not literal sense.

John Boyega's Finn makes a compelling sidekick for Rey, and his introduction is done so well that you're almost tricked into thinking it's his journey that we're on. After six films that depicted Stormtroopers as either clones or faceless cannon fodder, it's immediately fresh to go behind the helmet of these drones and find a scared young man who just wants to run. When he saves ace Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, it's not out of any heroic motivations - he just needs a pilot to get him off the... are we still calling them Star Destroyers? He gets a journey similar to Han's in the first film, going from being in it for himself to committing to something greater.

One of the sheer delights of this film is that I wasn't sitting there restless, waiting for the reappearance of the "legacy characters." I got so caught up in the plight of Rey, Finn and BB-8 that I felt like they were the people I came to see. They could have carried a film that had nothing to do with the original characters. If they are indeed to be the centerpiece of this new trilogy, then this series is in good hands.

Before long, they encounter Han Solo and Chewbacca. In one of the film's best gags, Finn knows of Han's rep as a general for the Rebellion, while Rey excitedly identifies him as "the pilot who made the Kessel Run in 14 parsecs!" Harrison Ford slides back into Han's boots in a way that I honestly wasn't sure was possible. His last several roles have seen him play alternating variations on "gruff" and "angry." Even his return to Indiana Jones couldn't escape that, with Indy frequently feeling like a far cry from the rogue archeologist we all know and love.

From Ford's first entry into frame, it's clear - this is Han Solo. He's older, and more grizzled, but his heart's intact. His interaction with Chewie feels as sharp as ever, just as his moments with Leia are as moving as some of their best stuff. Ford and Carrie Fisher bring the weight of 40 years of history into their interactions, even if her role is more limited than his. It's probably fair to say that Han has one of the more emotional arcs of the film, perhaps even more than the character has been called to carry in earlier entries.

And yet, the film doesn't feel like it lazily trades on our nostalgia. The movie earns most of its emotional payoffs, though they are clearly enriched by the shared history we have in this universe. It's even more remarkable that it's able to do that while essentially retreading a lot of the beats of A NEW HOPE. (Or STAR WARS to the purists.) I thought it was a lazy and inaccurate criticism when people called Abrams's STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS "a remake of THE WRATH OF KHAN." Those two films have little in common aside from a villain, an aspect of the climax, and an important line. The plot, themes and character arcs are completely different between the two films.

But THE FORCE AWAKENS is very deliberately using the structure of the original film in a way that brings it much closer to that entry than the relationship between KHAN/DARKNESS. A great deal is gained by sending wildly different characters through that same structural path, but it doesn't change the fact that every major new element of this film has a direct analog to the original characters. This isn't necessarily a criticism - CREED (and ROCKY BALBOA before it) used this to excellent effect in drawing off of the original ROCKY. And sometimes the contrast lets us notice interesting departures.

This might be most relevant with regard to the film's major villains, Kylo Ren. I'll save some of my deeper thoughts on this for a future spoiler-filled article, but though he wears the black cloak and helmet, he's not Darth Vader. Vader was a very controlled, almost cold villain. When Obi-Wan assessed "He's more machine now than man" it was true in more ways than one. Yet, that seems to fly in the face of the prequel assertion that the Sith "are ruled by their passion."

There's a moment where Ren gets a report from a First Order officer who has failed him. The beat plays like we're about to get the standard "bad guy strangles lackey for his incompetence" moment. That's not what we get. Instead, Ren gives in to pure rage. In a way it makes him more terrifying than Vader because he's so unpredictable. It's hard to discuss too much about Ren without getting into plot details. I think it'll suffice to say that by the end of this film, I never wanted Vader dead as badly as I want Ren to meet an ugly end. Adam Driver has created an infinitely hatable badguy in all the right ways.

It's not perfect. There's at least one major parallel to A NEW HOPE that I think the film would have been better served without. There's also an incredible reliance on coincidence throughout the story. I could grant the first big one, accepted the second, but by the time it comes for a major buy-in about halfway through, I wouldn't blame the audience for balking at that convenience. I wish a couple major plot discoveries didn't feel too easy for our heroes. The film moves fast enough that we can roll with it, but when you reflect on the movie later, the contrivance stings a bit.

I attended with my wife, who said she liked it but felt she'd been overhyped to the point that many things, even the crowd reaction, felt like a letdown. She's not a STAR WARS fan, has only seen each film once, and one of her most immediate responses was "I felt like I knew where every twist was going before it happened." I can't argue with a lot of that. For me, there were a lot of points where knowing worked for me, as the anticipation built suspense. There was one scene where it was blatantly obvious where we were going, but my heart was pounding like it did in no other film this year, just the same.

It all comes down to the characters. After two hours, I not only cared about the old friends we revisited along the way, but was invested in many new faces. THE FORCE AWAKENS brought humanity back to STAR WARS, and I can't wait to see where the saga goes forward from here.

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 3: The early genesis of Lost

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.

If you look up Jeff Lieber's credits, it will probably leap out at you that he's credited as a co-creator of Lost.  However, not only did Jeff never write for the series, he never worked with fellow co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. So what was Jeff's role in the genesis of the series?  What did his version of the Lost pilot contain?  Click on the video for the answers.



Find Jeff on Twitter.

Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

How STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS gives us the Kirk we deserve

It's no accident that the opening sequence of Star Trek Into Darkness involves Captain Kirk doing something he's done time and again in earlier incarnations - breaking the rules to get the job done.  What IS surprising is that this time, the event is used as a catalyst to provoke some real character work in the young captain.

William Shatner's Captain Kirk was a product of the Kennedy era, a charismatic leader who inspired those around him to greater things by taking chances that no one else would have taken.  He broke the rules in an era where that was celebrated, and displayed wisdom that salvaged calamities that might have gone horribly wrong under another leader.  Yes, Shatner's Kirk had swagger, but it was tempered by experience.

Chris Pine's Kirk is - by design - very different in some respects.  He's got the strut, but its unearned.  Where Shatner's Kirk rose through the ranks and (presumably) got knocked down enough to temper his cockiness, Pine's Kirk lacks that experience.  Instead, he was arguably rewarded for it, being accelerated straight to captain out of the Academy.  It's easy to understand the logic at work there - Kirk saved Earth from a madman who devastated an entire fleet and destroyed Vulcan.  His leadership - doing what no one else could have done - is the reason Starfleet and the human race survive.  It's not hard to imagine Starfleet heads recognizing the PR value of their new golden boy.

Into Darkness feels partly like an effort to address critics who felt that Kirk wasn't ready for the captain's chair at the end of the first film.  It's a tense thrill-ride designed to knock the ego out of the man with the devil-may-care attitude and put him on the path to being the leader he's meant to be, and viewed through that lens, it's largely effective.

The opening scene I alluded to earlier involves the Enterprise crew trying to stop an volcano from erupting and destroying all life on this planet.  Problem: the civilization there is very primitive, so the Prime Directive applies - Starfleet cannot interfere in the natural order.  Spock executes a daring plan to set off a device inside the volcano that will stop the magma, but in the process he's stranded inside.  To save him, Kirk will have to order the Enterprise to leave its hiding spot in the ocean, thus exposing the primitive inhabitants of the planet to evidence of life - or a higher power - beyond their own world.  This, of course, is a direct violation of one of Starfleet's most sacred principles.

So naturally Kirk exposes the ship and saves Spock, despite his first officer's own reminder that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."  This lands him in hot water back at Starfleet, exacerbated by the fact that he filed a false report omitting the offending details, only to be busted when Spock's report details the truth in full.  Kirk's threatened with being sent back to the Academy, but Admiral Pike steps in and manages to get that reduced to a mere reduction in rank to first officer of the Enterprise.

(I want to underline something here - Kirk is disciplined not only for exposing the ship to save Spock, but for taking on the rescue mission in the first place.  Yes, Starfleet orders dictated that even if the mission had gone undetected, Kirk was in the wrong for saving a civilization that would have otherwise died.  As out of whack as those priorities sound, it's consistent with how the Prime Directive was applied in two TNG eps, "Pen Pals" and "Homeward."  Though Kirk may have too much passion, Starfleet's rigidity has its own failings too.)

The first film might have been about Kirk getting the captain's char, but this film is about him truly earning the seat, and he starts as soon as he's busted down in rank.  One of Kirk's traits is that he's too easily governed by his passions.  He acts before he thinks.  Following a terrorist attack on a Starfleet installation in London, and emergency meeting of ranking officers is called.  Kirk is the only one to figure out - just in time to be too late - that immediately reacting this way according to procedure is exactly what their adversary is counting on.  And indeed, the meeting is attacked, with most of the officers killed, including Admiral Pike.

Though Kirk doesn't prevent the attack, it's notable that it's the first time we see him really thinking about a situation and not intuitively reacting to it.  Right after that, Admiral Marcus gives Kirk the Enterprise back and sends him after the terrorist on a mission of revenge. This is complicated by the fact they've traced the terrorist into Klingon space and tensions with everyone's favorite bumpy-foreheaded race are so high that war seems inevitable.

So to that end, Marcus has the Enterprise equipped with long-range torpedoes and gives Kirk orders to fire them from outside Klingon space. The terrorist is not to be taken alive.  Kirk's too blinded by revenge to question the unprincipled nature of these orders - or more likely, they give him an excuse to do what he wants to do any way.  Others around him aren't so swayed.  Scotty resigns in protest, and both McCoy and Spock push back so hard that Kirk embraces a more difficult plan to make an incursion into Klingon space and bring the terrorist into custody.

I like this a lot for what it does with Kirk's character.  Shatner's Kirk was more or less fully formed and the original films rarely tried to achieve any real growth in his character.  The lone exception might be his hatred of the Klingons in Star Trek VI and how he's forced to get past that.  Even there, Shatner's Kirk handles things maturely despite finding his mission repugnant.  Put Pine's Kirk in that film and he'd have openly insulted the Klingon Chancellor before the salad course was served at their dinner.

By the end of the film, Kirk has become a wiser, more mature commander.  I like the note that the film ends on, essentially bringing Kirk's characterization more in line with the TV series-era Shatner.  I feel like some of that is getting lost amid the nitpicking and arguments about canon.

I guess I can't get out of this without addressing some of the more hot-button issues in the film, so I'll touch on them in brief.  Bigger spoilers await below, so don't say you weren't warned.

The Admiral's plot - It's one of the bigger weak points for me.  We're never really given reason to understand why Admiral Marcus so badly wants a war with the Klingons.  The province that Kirk's attack is supposed to target is uninhabited, so unless the torpedoes were secretly programmed with other targets, I don't see this working as a Pearl Harbor-like first-strike to cripple the enemy.  Maybe a better solution would have been to make it appear that the Klingons were working in collusion with John Harrison, thus giving Starfleet apparent justification for a real preemptive strike.

The Klingons - Some fans argued that the marketing should have played up the Klingons.  Having seen the film, I understand why they didn't.  Their screentime is very limited and is little more than a plot device.  If they had played up the Klingons in the trailers, those same fans would be arguing that J.J. Abrams mislead everyone into thinking the Klingons were a major part of the story.  Having said that, I would have liked a little more depth to the background of the Klingon conflict.

John Harrison - I liked the Khan reveal and I like that he was used in an entirely different way here.  It makes total sense to me that Section 31 would become more aggressive following the death of Vulcan.  The fact that they tried to recruit Bashir in an episode of DS9 also suggests they see the value in genetically-enhanced operatives.  Them seeking out Khan makes sense to me under those terms.  They're arrogant enough to think they can control him, and Khan's smart enough to outmaneuver that.  It's a good use of the character without merely retreading his two previous appearances.

The in-jokes and allusions to other Trek - I liked seeing Sulu get to play Captain briefly.  Arguably that laid more groundwork for the character's eventual path to command than anything the original series did.  The scene that invoked "New Vulcan" was a nice touch too.  And hey, it was fun to see a Tribble, even if their appearance here is yet another divergence from the old timeline.  But I guess this is also the most appropriate place to discuss one of the climactic moments....

Even with spoiler warnings, I'm loathe to get too in-depth here.  I think the sequence I'm alluding to does a nice job of reinventing a moment from an earlier film and making it relevant to the journeys of all involved characters.  A more superficial viewer might call it a ripoff, but here it's put into a context that gives the scene a different meaning that allows it to stand on its own.  The emotional impact almost certainly is deepened by recognizing the callback, but I don't believe it's essential.

Basically, it's an homage done with purpose and for me, that elevates it beyond being a rip-off or in-joke.  (That said, the line spoken - or rather, shouted - at the end of the scene might be a case of pushing things too far. I'm not sure it's totally earned.)

Bottom line: I liked the film a lot and I'll be eager to see it again.  My wife is a near-total stranger to Trek and she loved the first Abrams film, so I'm hoping to coax her into being my "control group" for this one.

An open letter to the assholes who can't stop spoiling STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Warning to all who venture into the comments - despite this post explicitly indicating a desire for people to stop spoiling the film, internet dickbags just gotta be dickbags, I guess.  Spoilers are in the comments, so if you want to go in fresh, stay out of there.

There's been a curious trend lately.  People in the know seem to be incapable of keeping their damn mouths shut when it comes to spoilers for STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS.  Normally, you'd think I'd be targeting inconsiderate moviegoers who pull a "Homer Simpson exiting Empire Strikes Back" and can't help blowing a major plot point for those mere hours behind them in viewing something.  Those people exist.  I don't watch Mad Men or Game of Thrones, but every Sunday my Twitter feed explodes with people angry at other tweeters from ruining plot points for them.

But this isn't a rant at the general public.  This one is targeted largely at the last people who should need this lecture - critics.

A not-insignificant number of critics and web journalists are basically acting like J.J. Abrams is that hot girl who dumped them and as such, they are taking every chance they can to foam at the mouth about how much he sucks.  Specifically, it feels like they resent his "mystery box" method of keeping too many spoilers from prying eyes.  One such individual with a tie to the Trek franchise went on a Twitter binge lashing out at J.J. for keeping too many secrets - and he wasn't alone.  I don't follow most of the others on twitter, but retweets kept pulling some of those conversations into my feed, and it was bizarrely fascinating to watch.

The detractors lashed out at INTO DARKNESS because J.J.'s mystery box resulted in concealing some large elements of Trek mythology that said critics felt should have been used in the marketing campaign.  Problem - in going off on angry rants about what should and should not have been put out to the audience prior to release, these individuals naturally exposed those elements.  So the joy of being surprised by the plot twists was taken away by a whining critic's need to pre-emptively bitch about a marketing campaign.

It's a little like having someone rip open your Christmas presents for you on December 23 to demonstrate that the box size and wrapping paper were offering an inaccurate picture of what awaited you under the tree.

A couple thoughts here:

* WTF difference does the marketing campaign make with regard to the quality of the film? Ten years from now, none of the conversation about the film will be about how it was marketed and all of it will be about the artistry of the project itself.

* The movie was still two weeks away from being released domestically when the bitching started up.  How the hell are we to know if the marketing was a success or a failure?  Who are we to make that call before release?  If it lays an egg opening weekend, then yes, by all means do an autopsy and tell Abrams he should have known better.

*It bears repeating - the movie was JUST released today!  Why do I even have to explain why openly tweeting plot points is fucking inconsiderate, no matter what your reasons are?  (Discussing in reviews is fair, so long as there are adequate spoiler warnings.)

* In several cases, the critics attacking J.J. are also among the people most vocally antagonistic to Abrams' first film.  Yes, big shock - the people who've spent four years bitching about how Abrams' Trek is a betrayal of everything Star Trek stands for ended up loathing every minute of the sequel.

I don't understand why it's a bad thing that some people are going to see Star Trek Into Darkness without knowing every plot twist in advance.  I also cannot get sheer glee some of these haters are getting from deliberately robbing those viewers of their spoiler virginity.  If your problem with a movie is that the trailer was too cryptic for you to know everything up to the third act, you really need to (in the words of the great William Shatner) "Get a life, will you, people?"

So what's this really about?  Why do so many web critics seem to have their knives out for this film?

I truly believe a lot of this is about web hits.  A lot of these guys work for sites that subsist on the traffic from movie spoilers.  The more J.J. withholds, the fewer stories these guys can write, and thus the less link bait they can post.  A lot of filmmakers play ball.  Usually when you see "EXCLUSIVE," you can safely translate that as "I was fed this by a studio publicist."  So costume photos, set stills, and sneak-peak clips become the currency that allows both the websites and the marketing departments to win.

But Abrams doesn't play ball.  And so it seems he must be punished for that.

Seriously, if you're going to write a negative review of Into Darkness and your focus is more on the secrets the film kept until release rather than the merits of the film as a work of entertainment itself, then you've lived far too long inside the 310-323-818 fishbowl my friends.  Take your petty resentments of the leaks Abrams plugged, the denials and the "no comments" and shove it.  Most people don't care about this inside baseball shit.  Hell, I wouldn't even care about it if it wasn't threatening to ruin my Trek experience.

If the film really sucks, then it shouldn't be a problem to write a thoughtful essay decrying it on its own merits.  My problem is that I feel like many critics are taking perverse pleasure in undermining the experience for others, making the audience collateral damage in a firefight with the film's director.

Bitter embarrasses himself begging Steven Spielberg for a job via YouTube

It's been a while since we had a new video on this site, and what better way to kick things off with a fad that's sweeping the nation - asking celebrities for favors over the internet.  It's hiring season in Hollywood, particularly with regard to television and the Bitter Puppet is aggressively looking for a new job, which lead to.... this...


In all seriousness, I am ready to move on from this business of script reading, folks.  I'm hoping that this is the year I can transition into being a writer's assistant, for as we've discussed a number of times, that's an effective stepping stone on the way towards writing for TV.  Hell, I'm not too proud to go in for a writers' PA gig either.

I'm aware that these gigs are competitive and that the slots that don't go to people the writers have worked with before are quickly reserved for studio or network-mandated favors.  But I'm also a firm believer in the fact that there's always a way in through the door - or a way to make your own door.

So to anyone out there who might be hiring for such a position, I hope to meet with you soon.  Don't worry - I have plenty of references.  (You'd be surprised how many people are willing to vouch for a puppet!)  Feel free to drop me a line at zuulthereader@gmail.com with any leads.  And best of luck to everyone who's waiting to hear about the fate of their pilot!

And for those of you who enjoy these videos, a new stretch of episodes kicks off next week!

Webshow - "I hate flash-forward openings!"

The puppet is back again, this time ranting about one of those thing that I almost always hate to see in the early pages of a script.

Free advice for the makers of the "Female Expendables"

Last Friday it was announced that producer Adi Shankar has hired Dutch Southern to write a script that's being described as a "Female Expendables."  This really isn't a surprise considering the first Expendables was a huge hit, action does well overseas, and we've seen the beginnings of a trend that might actually allow (*gasp*) women to be more accepted as action leads.

By the way, this also proves my pet theory that film evolves much slower than TV as it was more than TEN YEARS AGO that Buffy Summers and Sydney Bristow were kicking ass on their respective shows, spawning a number of would-be imitators.  It really shouldn't have taken this long for studios to do more than just dip a toe into the female action genre.

I'd relish the chance to write a Female Expendables, but barring a miracle, that's not going to happen before this trend gets run into the ground.  Of course, getting this film right is critical because a huge failure could set female action films back ten years.  There are still people who point to Catwoman as an example that filmgoers don't want to see women in the lead of comic book movies.  No, schmuck, filmgoers just don't want to see a shitty movie!  Catwoman's failure is a monument to the incompetence of the creatives involved - NOT a binding prescient against adapting a character who has "Woman" as her suffix.

So in the interests of preserving the female action genre, here's some free advice:

X-nay on the ex-trafficking-say - I read a lot of action movies and one common trend - particularly for the mid-budget ones - is that they involve our hero going up against villains who run a sex-trafficking ring.  It's not a trend that started with Taken, but Taken's success certainly fed it.  It's already an overused go-to trope.  And I know what you're thinking, "Hey we've got a film full of female leads. You know, rah-rah girl empowerment, feminism, all that crap.  Why NOT send them up against a bunch of guys looking to sell women as sex slaves?  It's thematically perfect."

Well, cuz it's lazy.  And overdone.  And exploitative. And sleazy.  Which leads to...

Mind your tone - When it embraces the cheese and the over-the-top nature of having all these action icons in the same film, The Expendables movies are really entertaining.  You know when they're less entertaining?  When they take things too seriously, as with the South American dictator Stallone's team faced in the first film.  It's the same sort of tonal confusion that marred the last Rambo film - you can't spend 2/3 of the film seemingly trying to make a serious statement about the real atrocities in Burma and then expect cheers when the tone shifts into glorious over-the-top comic-book action in the third act.

In other words, don't be serious.  Have fun with it.  A villain can be effective without being disturbingly analogous to the real madmen who exist in the world.  That said, it doesn't need to be a ridiculous campy cheesefest like Charlie's Angels either.  You CAN mix fun and action in the right proportions, why just...

Look at Alias - J.J. Abrams nailed the right tone for this project a decade ago.  Rent Alias.  Watch it.  Study it.  Learn how to make a female protagonist strong without turning her into an emotionless automaton.  Take notes on how to present a strong antagonists who don't need to be excessively violent or "real." Oh, and there's one other thing Alias does really well, but deserves it's own catagory.

Sex appeal - Just about every episode of Alias had Jennifer Garner donning one sexy disguise or another.  Some times it was as simple as an evening gown, other times the mission called for slinky lingerie  or swimsuits.  And because it was done with a wink, it rarely felt exploitative.  It was all part of the fun of the show, and there's nothing wrong with a little eye candy in the right proportions.  So don't run away from this, but also don't fall into the trap that I and many other readers complain about - that some scenes linger too long in exploiting the female lead's body.  There's a fine line between appreciating the feminine form and leering like a creepster.  Find it.

Bring on the icons - No one would ever accuse The Expendables films of having intricate, complex, or even original stories.  But that's okay, because no one is going to these films for the script.  Cast this thing with a bunch of no names, or even bigger actors who aren't action icons and all the appeal goes out of this film.  An Expendables with Mark Wahlberg, Colin Farrell, Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds just doesn't have the same appeal.

So it's not worth doing right unless you have legitimate female action stars.  That means true classic icons like Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver.  It means back the Brinks truck up for Jennifer Garner and Kate Beckinsale.  Go after Sarah Michelle Gellar, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel.  Heck, Jessica Alba probably wouldn't be a bad pick either.  You need at least a few of these bigger action stars in the cast - women whose most prominent roles are action-based.

Then you've got your second tier of female action.  On this list I'd have Rosario Dawson, Maggie Q, Eliza Dushku, and Rachel Nichols.  Yvonne Strahovski from "Chuck" is another casting choice I wouldn't overlook.  And based on her turn in Live Free or Die Hard, Mary Elizabeth Winstead would also make my list.  These are good people to fill out the cast and I'm fans of all of them but it would be a huge mistake just to cast from this tier.

Gina Carano feels like she should be on the first list, but given that Haywire didn't do so well, it's more likely she's seen as belonging on the second list.  Either way, I'd be surprised to see her overlooked.

Keep all this in mind, and you've got a potential hit.  Ignore more than one of these guidelines and you might become the new poster boy for "Why Woman Shouldn't Headline Action Films."  A whole genre's riding on you guys - I hope you're up to it.

Walk before you run

Hina asks:

"Say you come up with a highly stylized world that has genuine merchandising capacity, is highly commercial and possesses multiplatform potential, but feature script-wise you're a total newbie, would you wait until you've completed your other projects and hopefully get those commissioned so you have a sufficient standing in the industry to then launch the multiplatform project you have written? Or would you just pitch it, guns-a-blazing?"

My advice, I'd go with the former. For more than one reason.

Look at the people writing and directing the big blockbusters.  Odds are they cut their teeth on smaller-scale projects before working their way up to tentpoles.

- Before he was huge in movies and TV, J.J. Abrams first script sales were the smaller movies Taking Care of Business, Regarding Henry and Dying Young.

- Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci spent years in TV making a name for themselves before they started selling big movies.

- The Dark Knight Rises' co-writer Jonathan Nolan had a huge boost by having a brother in the business, and his first work was the short story that became Memento.

- The other TDRK co-writer, David S. Goyer, got his first writing credit on a 1990 Van Damme movie, Death Warrant.

Prometheus's Damon Lindelof's early credits include MTV's Undressed and CBS's Nash Bridges.

And those are just the works that sold!  They still had to develop their craft and break into the business before that.  What do you think the odds are that the first scripts they wrote are the ones that opened the doors for them?

You have to walk before you can run.  George Lucas didn't jump right to doing Star Wars.  He did many short films, the low-budget THX-1138, and American Graffiti first.  Also, if you've ever seen the early drafts of Star Wars, you'd know that it bore little resemblance to anything that ended up on screen and that George spent years rewriting it and refining his ideas before it was in any state to be shot.

If you have an idea that's that unique and that marketable, experience can only make it better.  Develop your craft on more managable ideas first.  Not only will it be easier for you to break in on something that isn't in the tentpole catagory, but you'll grow as a writer so that when you do finally work on that golden idea, it'll be better as a result of what you've learned.

Jumping straight to writing blockbusters is like saying, "I like the piano.  I want to have my first recital in Carnegie Hall."

Revenge - when it's okay to show us the climax first

Major spoilers for last night's Revenge in this entry, so if it's still on your DVR, you're going to want to skip this.

Figures.

Just one week after I run a rerun post about how one should never use the cheap writing device of starting a script with a climax and then flashing back (which I call "Pulling an Abrams"), I'm in the position of praising an episode of Revenge that did just that.  Actually, the entire season did that, as the pilot episode opened with a sequence featuring the events of last night's episode before flashing back 12 weeks to show how the plot arrived at that point.

I have to confess, that was one of the few elements of the pilot that didn't work for me when I saw it the first time.  I found the first few minutes a little jarring and disorienting, but the rest of the pilot was strong enough that I found it easy to ignore that one quirk.  In that opening, we were led to believe that Daniel Grayson was shot dead on the beach as the party celebrating his engagement to Emily Thorne was in full force nearby.  Meanwhile, Jack Porter attempted to hide the body, but was unsuccessful before Daniel's sister spotted the hooded figure dragging what she presumed to be her brother.

A good number of viewers guessed early on that Daniel's death was a fakeout, especially since we never saw the corpse's face.  When the conniving Tyler arrived a few episodes later, it didn't take long for fans to theorize that he would be the one who died on the beach.

Later still, when the real "Emily Thorne" - now posing as Amanda Clarke - arrived in the Hamptons and seduced Jack, a good many fans theorized that Jack's role in hiding the body happens because Amanda was the shooter and he was trying to protect her.  (Though under this theory, it was probably more likely that Daniel would be the one to end up dead, as Amanda seemed to have more motivation to kill Daniel as a way of hurting Emily.)  Amanda had already been shown to kill one person with little provocation and she stirred up trouble for Emily from the beginning.

Last night we finally caught up to the timeframe shown in the opening of the pilot.  In fact, the episode opened by "pulling an Abrams again" by showing Daniel clearly falling face down in the sand, followed by an unseen figure discharging their gun.  With that, the episode flashed back 24 hours and built up to the engagement party.  By episode's end, we'd find there was more to the reveal.

Amanda, attempting to stop Tyler, ended up on the beach around the time of the murder.  Jack followed her there and arrived in time to see her kneeling over the dead body.  Assuming Amanda did this, Jack tries to hide the body.  But as we learn when the crowd is summoned... it's not Daniel's body - it's Tyler!  Daniel arrives as the crowd gathers on the shore, presumably having been knocked out by the real killer... though he has Tyler's blood on his body... hmmm.

I admit that's a lot of explaining on my part just to make a simple point.  Why did "pulling an Abrams" work here?  Because what we thought we were shown wasn't what actually played out.  Better still, even those who were convinced that Tyler was the dead man had to have been shocked with how it all played out.  The misdirection at the start of the episode showing Daniel's body falling to the ground was an effective way to provoke doubt.

I don't see that kind of cleverness in 99% of the scripts I read with this gimmick.  Too often, flashing ahead to a climactic moment is used as a cheap gimmick to get an intense scene in early on as the hook.  It usually is a sign the writer doesn't have faith in their ability to drawn the audience into the story linearly, so they have to resort to the trick of saying "I promise there's cool stuff down the line if you just sit back and bear it."  Then when that moment comes, there's rarely much of a twist. 

I have to give Revenge some credit - they did the flash-forward trick twice and when the reveal eventually arrived, few people could have guessed it ahead of time.  Moreover, along the way, there were other reveals that could have been anticipated, reveals that raise the stakes going into the last stretch of the season.  (These include Tyler telling Daniel there's more to Emily than he knows, Emily's revenge sensi picking up Amanda, and Amanda learning that Emily may have tried to help get her and Jack back together.)

I still think opening your script with a scene from your climax is a cheap trick.  But if you must do it, please be smart about it. Don't show us what you're going to do and then do it.  Show us enough to make us think we know where the script is going- then pull the rug out from under us.  There always has to be more to the climactic moment than what you reveal in the flashforward.

Plot holes vs. nitpicks - Ferris Bueller's dog and weak screenwriting

UPDATE: Again, I swear Scott and I don't plan these sort of tag-team bits (except for when we do) but he's got a GITS post today on emotional logic, which deals with many of the same kinds of issues I talk about below. Check it out, won't you?

Last week I found myself watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off in its entirety for the first time in quite a while. This was one of my favorite movies when I was growing up and still is. Teen movies have changed so much since the days of John Hughes that as I was watching, I couldn't help but wonder how the film would be received if it came out today.

I thought of another film of that era, Back to the Future, which is often cited as a textbook example of how to set-up and payoff every single moment in the film. If you watch the first act, there's hardly a line of dialogue in there that doesn't resonate later in the film in some fashion, whether it's the way that the lightning bolt at the clock tower is set-up, or the reasons for Marty to hold onto the flyer announcing that event. There's also the backstory of Marty's parents meeting, George McFly's dynamic with Biff and even little details like the "Twin Pines Mall" and Marty later running over one of Old Man Peabody's dual pines.

As this was banging through my head, the film reached the classic scene where school dean Ed Rooney breaks into Ferris's house and has a confrontation with Ferris's dog... and it hit me! This is the first time we're seeing Ferris's dog and it's more than an hour into the film! You'd think conventional screenwriting wisdom would have dictated a scene earlier in the movie establishing the pooch's presence before Ferris left, and yet... no.

This struck me because it wasn't that long ago I saw the divide among fans of Super 8. There were those who nitpicked every last detail of the film as proof it was crap, while plenty of other viewers who were touched by the movie basically adopted the "la la la... not listening" approach to the holes. I didn't think it was a perfect film, myself. I even admit there are some details that don't quite fit... but some of the critiques crossed the line into really anal nitpicking. It was almost as if these viewers were looking for a fight with the film and were blasting it for not having any faith in their ability to connect the dots off-screen.

There's an excellent comment thread from Go Into The Story that deals with this. Also, the review by the usually excellent Auditors found here contains a number of examples of the latter. Just to pick two of them:

1. Why was the Air Force moving the Cloverfield Jr. monster EAST across the country to more heavily populated areas? There’s a reason why Area 51 is in the middle of fucking nowhere; only accessible via AIRCRAFT; it’s GREAT FOR HIDING STUFF!

It's not explained, but I don't particularly think it needs to be. They had it in captivity for a long time and obviously they had their reasons for moving it. Maybe they were taking it to the East Coast to put it on a barge to the Arctic. Does it really matter? Is this really a plot hole?

2. Why didn’t the Cloverfield Jr. monster simply escape previously while on the train? This is a HUGE plot hole that everyone just simply (and stupidly) accepts without any logic. The Cloverfield Jr. monster is capable of manipulating metal objects to a great degree, and can apparently also interfere with computers/mechanics/electrical systems. So why didn’t IT just stop the train itself, or just kick open the cargo door like it did when it escaped after the train derailed?

The monster had been held in captivity for decades, ergo, they clearly had some method of countering its powers. Maybe they drugged it, or maybe binding it kept it mostly docile and it wasn't able to escape until the train derailed. This is another instance where the on-screen evidence offers a clue that one can reasonably extrapolate an explanation from.

So if those two points and others like them bothered you in Super 8, you're probably the type of person who'd be pissed that John Hughes didn't respect his audience enough to establish the dog.

So what makes us nitpick some movies and let others off for similar flaws? (And don't think I'm setting up a false dichotomy of either "you must nitpick EVERYTHING or you must question NOTHING.") I'd wager it has to do with the emotional engagement between film and audience. People who gave Super 8 a pass on some logic issues tended to be those who were touched by the film on a deeper level. Conversely, a lot of the people who delivered laundry lists of plot holes probably were viewers looking for chinks in J.J. Abrams' armor.

If you want an even better example, take a look at the reaction J.J. Abram's Star Trek. I've been pretty open in that I think it's one of the best, if not the best of the ten films, and perhaps one of the most emotionally engaging Trek projects in the entire franchise. The vast majority of viewers - heck, even the vast majority of Trekkers - who saw it, liked it... but there was also an extremely vocal minority of Trek fans who are so venomous on the subject of this movie, you'd think it screwed their girlfriends right in front of them.

As a lurker on a few Trek boards, I saw several examples of these individuals as early as a year before the release. Before shooting was even complete on the film, they were already calling it the worst thing since Howard the Duck and were preemptively listing all the things that made working on this movie tanatmount to a war crime. That's why I wasn't too surprised to see these haters offering the following evidence that the film sucked:

"The Stardates are completely inconsistent with Trek standard at that point! They had no respect for the fans or the franchise and that's why this movie sucks!"

"Stars don't just go supernova without warning! They have no respect for scientific accuracy and that's why this movie sucks!"

"The mentally-deranged villain has a crazy revenge scheme that doesn't adhere to cold, dispassionate logic!"

Comments like this amuse me because you can look at ANY Trek film - including the highly regarded Treks II and VI - and find a comparable laundry list of issues. Anyone who cited scientific accuracy as a reason to bash Abrams' Trek has to be willing to concede that there's just as much implausible science in Wrath of Khan. (To wit: the Reliant crew's inability to count planets in the Ceti Alpha system and notice one is missing; anything and EVERYTHING connected to the Genesis Project, including the complete implausibility of its detonation forming a planet and star out of the Mutara Nebula.)

So why for these Trekkers was Wrath of Khan "Trek done right" while Abrams' film couldn't do anything right? Possibly because they didn't give the film a fair chance and were looking for reasons why it was bad. Possibly because the very idea of the film offended them so much that they couldn't give themselves over to its world, and thus, couldn't stop looking for details that reminded them it was a construct.

I'm not saying it's a folly to point out plot holes - but I also think that there comes a point where nitpicking can become a bit too obsessive.

It comes down to this: if you think Ferris Bueller is a stupid film, you probably hate the fact Ferris's dog isn't established sooner. If everything else in that movie works for you, what does it matter if the dog shows up out of nowhere? If Super 8 worked for you emotionally, do you really need to find out why the alien was being moved?

Using time travel - lessons from J.J. Abrams' Star Trek

In two earlier posts this week, we've covered the most basic approaches to time travel, so why not confuse the hell out of everyone and try to explain the notion of alternate timelines?

Back to the Future part II dealt with an alternate timeline in the form of Biff's distorted future (though technically all of BTTF, save for the opening of the first movie in 1985, happens in timelines that get altered by Marty's actions in the past.) The notion here is that there's one timeline and it is completely mutable. In changing things, you're really creating an altered timeline rather than an alternate timeline, despite the language Doc uses in Part II.

A truly alternate timeline would likely exist parallel to the "real" timeline. Thus, if you do something like going back to 1963 and saving JFK, you would have no impact on the history you just left. Instead, your changes would cause a new timeline to branch off from the old one, effectively creating an entirely new universe without wiping out the old one. I mention this because it can be a great way around the "paradox problem" one might encounter when writing time travel movies.

According to writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this is the approach they took to time travel in last summer's Star Trek. Star Trek is also novel because it's a time-travel movie set entirely in an alternate timeline, with the characters themselves not becoming aware of that fact until at least midway through the script. In other words, it's a time travel movie told from the point of view of the people who have been impacted by changes the others faced. Supposed that the assertive George McFly we meet at the end of the first Back to the Future learned that he was actually supposed to be a wimpy nerd married to an overweight alcoholic and you'll get a sense of what I'm trying to explain.

Star Trek's approach is smart because it found a way to honor over 40 years of existing canon without making it a flat-out reboot that erases everything to start fresh. The film starts when a Romulan ship from the future ends up in the early 23rd century. This triggers a battle with the Starfleet vessel Kelvin, which in turn causes Jim Kirk's mother to go into labor early. Not only that, in the course of the battle, Jim Kirk's father George Kirk ends up sacrificing himself and the ship to save the rest of the crew. This is significant because in the original timeline where this encounter didn't take place, Jim Kirk was born weeks later in Iowa, and his father George lived to see him become captain of the Enterprise 30 years later.

Thus, Trek history has been altered at the moment of Kirk's birth and everything that happens after this is an alternate timeline. This is confirmed later, when a now-adult Kirk is stranded on an ice planet and encounters a version of Spock from 130 years in the future - a Spock played by Leonard Nimoy, the actor who carried the role through the earlier incarnations of the series. This was smart on the part of the writers because not only does it allow them to say to fans, "That history you loved still happened. We're honoring it, not ignoring it," but it also makes clear that this new history that has emerged is going to be significantly different from that which is documented in the original series and movies.

To drive home the point, the planet Vulcan - a significant element in the original series timeline - is destroyed in the course of the film. Even though the film ends with all the classic characters in their familiar positions, it's clear that none of their fates will be the same as in the first series. Kirk could be killed in the next movie, if the creators saw fit.

The writers have said that the way they see it, the "original timeline" that the Nimoy Spock left still exists and marches on parallel to the new one. I'd argue that nothing shown in the film itself specifically supports that notion, but there's nothing that either disproves that either I suppose. Since it's unlikely we'll ever revisit the original, prime timeline again, it's probably a moot point.

I mention all this because it shows there's a way to use time travel without relying on the paradoxes, as Back to the Future does. Here, the time travel is a way of achieving and "in-the-box" reboot and giving all the characters a clean slate. So keep in mind that if you want to use time travel, you don't need to rely on the old "we have to put the future back exactly the way it was meant to be" chestnut. In Star Trek, the mission isn't really to restore the original timeline - it's to stop the Romulan Nero before he does further damage to this one.