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Trailer Tuesday: Han Solo: A Star Wars Story

Suck it, Tom Brady

The title has absolutely nothing to do with today’s trailer. Or maybe it does, if peripherally. The trailer for the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise dropped during the Superbowl, and every football fan who fancies themselves a sci-fi nerd had something to salve their crushed spirits – that is, if they were a Patriots fan or disappointed that Justin Timberlake didn’t have another wardrobe malfunction to make the halftime show interesting.

Now, we get to see the backstory for the smuggler turned resistance fighter who zoomed into our hearts in the Millennium Falcon with a wookie for a co-pilot. I don’t really have much to say about it. I’m sure that’s disappointing for those of you riveted to my hard-hitting commentary, but it’s late and my boyfriend keeps trying to show me videos on Reddit. Suffice to say, that the trailer makes me a little suspicious as to if they will try to show some tragic backstory with a lost love, which kind of takes away from the tough-talking rogue who fell for a badass Princess Leia. Somehow, I liked it better that he was just a scoundrel indebted to a Jabba the Hutt mob boss and was motivated by profit. No doubt there was good in him, or he wouldn’t have been won over to Luke and Leia’s cause. But I don’t know if there was any idealism in it. He just liked them in spite of himself and was always up for giving the reigning authority a good poke in the eye. And then he fell in love…

But maybe I’m just too jaded. Or too sleepy to get terribly worked up over it.

Trailer Tuesdays: The Dark Tower

Idris Elba Kicking Ass and Taking Names = Worthwhile Movie Night

By all accounts, I probably shouldn’t be covering this particular trailer. I haven’t read the books the movie is based on; I’ve never really been a devotee of the fantasy genre, let alone epic fantasy; and I’m quite burned out on the “chosen one” plot device. That said, I have been somewhat won over to fantasy stories through the Game of Thrones TV show. Despite all the hype, it is a show that manages to skillfully tell a story with stellar acting (the real selling point, in my opinion), and so I’m game to another good epic if the acting is good and the story is engaging.  However, it’s TV shows like Westworld that are nearest and dearest to my heart because it satisfies my personal checklist of things that I DO like:

  • Westerns (all of them…even the cheesy, politically incorrect ones).
  • Sci-fi, so long as the story doesn’t take a back seat to the whiz-bang gadgetry and world building.
  • Sci-fi Westerns?? Awesome idea. I quite enjoyed Cowboys vs. Aliens. Judge me all you want. I feel no shame about this.

 

The Dark Tower may further scratch my weird-ass entertainment itch and then some due to a few more additions of things I quite like:

  • Anything to do with parallel dimensions (I have a copy of Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality on my To-Read List and intend to find a portal to somewhere someday).
  • Idris Elba (do you need a reason?).
  • Matthew McConaughey playing a bad guy.

 

Based on this trailer, The Dark Tower checks off the abovementioned attributes and is just a friggin cool trailer. So whether or not I’m “qualified” to highlight it, I want to anyway. There’s plenty of Matrix stylization and “we must save the world” dialogue, but watching Idris Elba in a black duster coat channeling his inner Wyatt Earp will alone be worth the $10-$15 for the movie ticket. I’ll definitely be watching.

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