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GOO Reviews

~ An Edmonton-based movie blog

GOO Reviews

Tag Archives: Space

Solo: A Star Wars Story review

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Adventure, George Lucas, Sci-Fi, Space, Star Wars

Han shot first!  Seriously this time!

by Thom Yee

solo-a-star-wars-story-one

Solo: A Star Wars Story images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If you asked me when I was a kid which movie hero I liked better — Indiana Jones or Han Solo — I probably would’ve answered “… was Han Solo the guy in the vest?”  And if you asked me how smooth or cool a character I thought Lando Calrissian was in Empire, I don’t think there’s any way you would’ve been able to remind me of who Lando is, what he did, or how he acted in that movie (and I probably wouldn’t have been one hundred percent sure which movie you were referring to when you called it “Empire” [_______of the Sun?  _______Records?]).  Such was the importance of Star Wars in my childhood. Which is why I don’t feel at all precious about a Han Solo origin movie.

Continue reading →

Star Wars: The Last Jedi review

20 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Adventure, George Lucas, Sci-Fi, Space, Star Wars

What if we AREN’T here for a reason?

by Thom Yee

star-wars-last-jedi-one

Star Wars: The Last Jedi images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

“BOBA Fett?”  “Boba FETT??”  “…What!?!”

I’m pretty sure that’s how it went the first time I’d ever heard the name Boba Fett coming from the mouth of a Star Wars fan.  What the hell is a “Boba Fett”? I thought to myself [probably].  I’d soon learn that he was a warrior, a bounty hunter, and, apparently, a real badass in the Star Wars canon.  He was a fan favourite and certainly seemed interesting, and he even had an unusual out-of-story origin as a character fans first met as a mail-away action figure and in the Star Wars Holiday Special, years before he would make any major impact on the movies themselves.  And then I found out he was just this guy.  And I wondered to myself, “Why the hell would anyone care about that guy?” Continue reading →

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets review

23 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Sci-Fi, Space, Summer Movies You Missed

The Sixth Element?

by Thom Yee

valerian-one

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets images courtesy of STX Entertainment

So.  Summer 2017.  It’s over.  And it really wasn’t a very good summer now, was it?  Adam West died.  North Korea launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile.  Some of the strongest hurricanes on record destroyed (or are still destroying) significant parts of the world.  Interest rates went up for the first time in seven years.  It seemed like the eclipse was the only thing people were talking about on that one day.  Spencer Foo and Travis Hamonic signed with the Calgary Flames.  Anthony Scaramucci.  “Despacito”.

And those movies!

This past summer (generally considered May through September’s Labour Day weekend in the movie biz) saw the worst performance at the domestic box office since 2006.  Continue reading →

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 review

13 Saturday May 2017

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, comics, Marvel, Marvel Cosmic, MCU, Space, superhero

“We’re not friends, we’re family.”  Huh, where have I heard that before?

by Thom Yee

guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-one

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Honestly, it’s starting to feel a little weird that we live in a world where I can talk to my mom about Rocket Raccoon.  At this point, I could probably even talk about Rocket Raccoon with your mom.  We geeks are really getting spoiled right now.

So anyway, the original Guardians of the Galaxy did did very well with us here at GOO Reviews, but the farther we’ve all gotten from it, the more I’ve personally learned to… well, not to dislike it, but to not love it SO much.  Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie defined by extremes, its most visible and memorable elements probably being its colourful comedy and its general wackiness, and though those extremes aren’t necessarily that surprising given that it is a comicbook movie, it still lacks some of the nuance that’s allowed the best superhero movies to endure (even as the most enduring superhero movies usually come across as far more sanctimonious and self-serious).  That doesn’t mean Guardians isn’t well remembered or that it couldn’t or shouldn’t be your favourite superhero movie, but Guardians was the type of movie that left me feeling extremely satisfied at first but ultimately somewhat empty, like a really, really great fast food meal.  Continue reading →

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story review

14 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Adventure, George Lucas, Sci-Fi, Space, Star Wars

There were Asian people a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? 

by Thom Yee

rogue-one-one

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If there’s one thing that’s rarely been central to (or at least pre-eminent in) the Star Wars movies, it’s an actual war. Star Wars has always involved its fair amount of physical conflict, but mostly it’s been about things like an individual hero’s journey, lightsabers, the Force, Gestapo-like imagery, whiny little protagonists, the tougher and smarter princesses they love, smooth-talking scoundrels, and funny mascot-type characters, and even the fall of the Empire (spoiler alert?) wound up being a battle where a bunch of adorable little bears were running around in the middle of the conflict zone, adding questionable value to the Rebel forces’ efforts. In fact, the only time I ever felt like there was a genuinely large-scale battle shown to us in the movies was in the opening scene of Revenge of the Sith when Anakin and Obi-Wan rescued Palpatine, the theretofore unrevealed would-be Emperor of the eventual Empire (spoiler alert again?), and that took place when the galaxy still had the Jedi Order around to keep the peace, clouded by the dark side though they and their Council may have been. Continue reading →

Arrival review

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Aliens, Sci-Fi, Space

The kangaroo did it

by Thom Yee

arrival-one

Arrival images courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Most people don’t know this about me, but I didn’t grow up speaking English. That might not be a huge, shocking surprise given my Chinese surname and the… let’s go with “inward-looking nature” of my people, nor is it likely a huge stretch of the imagination to then conclude that my first language might have been Chinese. In my  case, it was a dialect of Chinese that you probably wouldn’t even recognize if I specified which (and I’m not going to), and looking back and thinking about my parents, both second-generation Canadians who were more comfortable speaking English (if at all?), it seems like a strange choice for them to have raised me in a Chinese-speaking environment. What I remember most of my first few years speaking Chinese was a great deal of isolation from all of the people I met who spoke English, then a brief a period of transition as I adapted to English and entirely forgot Chinese, followed by a great deal of isolation from the Chinese community of which I was allegedly a part (a feeling that continues to this day). I like to think sometimes that those early experiences with conflicting languages and incompatibilities gave me a unique perspective on grammar and the process with which I put sentences together, but really, I think it was mostly just an experience that made me hate everyone and the world around me. Continue reading →

Star Trek Beyond review

30 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by Thom Yee in Films

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Tags

Action, Aliens, J.J. Abrams, Sci-Fi, Space, Star Trek

It’s been a long road getting from here to there

by Thom Yee

star-trek-beyond-head3We’ve been pretty fond of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek here at GOO Reviews, with 2009’s Star Trek, the first entry in what’s now officially known as the Kelvin Timeline, still a standout favourite among the many movies we’ve covered here. Generally well received by critics and fans, it’s the movie that revitalized Star Trek as a viable franchise after it had been, more or less, run into the ground, its last ongoing series, Enterprise, not even airing on a major network as it eked out four seasons-worth of episodes to an audience that had long been growing tired and apathetic towards the whole… well, enterprise (and let’s not even get started on that opening theme song). Continue reading →

Star Wars: The Force Awakens review

16 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by Thom Yee in Films, Uncategorized

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Tags

Action, Adventure, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Sci-Fi, Space, Star Wars

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

by Thom Yee

star-wars-force-awakens-one

Star Wars: The Force Awakens images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

What if a child grew up without seeing Star Wars in the same way that society sees it? What if a child found far greater meaning in the other stories he grew up with? That child would be me.

I don’t get Star Wars. I mean, I get it, it’s not like there’s some abstraction that makes it hard to interpret or understand, and I can see how it’s vast array of post-movie product offerings — toys, books, clothing, ornaments, lifestyle accessories — have allowed it to become such a big deal, but I don’t get why it’s become such an all-consuming behemoth of an intellectual property or why it’s managed to gain fan warship at a level and with a reach so far in excess of any other franchise that doesn’t count the Bible or Dianetics amongst its works. Continue reading →

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