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The Mandalorian Is Star Wars That Haters Can Love
The Mandalorian is now a massive mainstream hit, but it’s easy to forget that the series was not necessarily a sure thing. Yes, launching Disney+ with a TV show associated with one of the most successful movie series of all time is an obvious move, but Disney’s previous extensions of the Star Wars franchise were an absolute rollercoaster: A start full of promise ultimately concluded with a whimper that left plenty of road bumps along the way, including disappointing spinoffs. The Mandalorian, which returns this Friday for a second season, succeeds precisely because it leaves all that operatic source material behind.
The show is basically a space western: there’s a heist, a Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai-inspired riff on protecting a defenseless town from enemy invaders, plenty of gunfights, and bounty hunting. Gone are the galactic wars, the Skywalker family tree, the good vs. evil battle between the Jedi and the Sith -- all the tiresome, endlessly picked-over, self-serious drama that Disney decided to rehash yet again in its movies. Instead, our nameless bounty hunter spends his time rubbing shoulders with the denizens of a grimy underworld while having utterly no idea who Luke, Leia, and Han are. Blissful relief! The Mandalorian’s eight-episode first season feels more in line with old Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon serials, two touchpoints that inspired Lucas when creating the very first Star Wars back in ‘77.
'The Social Network' Tried to Warn Us
Making a movie about Facebook seemed like a baffling choice in 2010. A decade ago, the social media platform was in its halcyon days, a few years out from moving past its invite-only exclusivity, CEO Mark Zuckerberg focused on leveraging his website as the way to connect people across the globe. It was a site for people to stay in touch, share photos, relive moments, figure out if that person in your chemistry class was dating someone, talk about your day, and more. Facebook was, in a sense, pure—insofar as the Internet can be pure. It was hard to comprehend what a “Facebook movie” might even look like, let alone who would write, direct, and star in such a project.
Those concerns seem quaint now. A full decade out from its initial release, The Social Network not only continues to hold but somehow becomes even better with age. The David Fincher-directed, Aaron Sorkin-scripted, Jesse Eisenberg-, Andrew Garfield-, Justin Timberlake-, and Armie Hammer-starring film is a Shakespearian look at friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class, betrayal, power, creation, the desire for connection, and so much more. In my estimation, the movie is a masterpiece and the defining cinematic work of the last decade, offering a prescient look into the future of American society.
10 Years Later, 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' Is Still Ahead of Its Time
About halfway through Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Michael Cera's titular character, wonders aloud why his indie rock band, Sex Bob-Omb, can’t have their “own secret shows.” Sardonic drummer Kim Pine (Alison Pill) quickly retorts by stating the band’s lack of clout makes it so “all of [their] shows are secret shows.”
Scott is too in his head to fully process Kim’s comment, but the dialogue is much more than a joke. The rapid-fire exchange doubles as a treatise of the Edgar Wright film’s reception upon its initial 2010 release, wherein it played to small audiences as a veritable secret show of its own. Scott Pilgrim was a box office Sex Bob-Omb, making a little over $10 million off its $60 million budget, but found a second life as a cult classic upon home release. Examining the movie adaptation of the Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic novel series—the 10th anniversary of its release is today, August 13—and it’s clear Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is like an indie band who dropped an album that hardly anyone heard but managed to be the best representation of its genre.
With 'Palm Springs', Andy Samberg Proves He's Always Been Ahead of the Curve
For millennials such as myself, Saturday Night Live’s run from 2008 through 2013 largely defined our generation’s comedic personas. The core, absurdly talented MVPs of that era like Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Seth Myers, and Fred Armisen have left the show and springboarded to greater heights. But for as memorable as those performers are, the cast member who quickly came to represent the millennial sense of humor, and in some ways help define it, was Andy Samberg. And while the actor/comedian/producer is getting his flowers for his work in Hulu and NEON’s newly released Palm Springs, diehards will tell you Samberg has always been this good—and he’s still getting better.
Netflix's 'Dark' Concludes With Brilliantly Satisfying Series Finale
Dark, Netflix’s first German-language original series, was initially compared to Stranger Things. It seemed like an apt association between the two at the time: a kid mysteriously vanishes in the woods of a small town located near an ominous nuclear factory. Yet as Dark continued, those initial comparisons evaporated. The series has effectively charted its own course, opting for a tale far more cerebral—while becoming a treatise on human nature and generational trauma as told through decades’ worth of story via time travel. Obsessed with stopping the forthcoming apocalypse, the main character Jonas (Louis Hofmann) works tirelessly to prevent the end of days throughout Seasons 1 and 2. However, the mistakes of the past linger well into the present and future, and any attempt to right these wrongs did the opposite, reinforcing the status quo instead. The Season 1 ploy by Ulrich (Oliver Masucci) to kill a young Helge Doppler (Tom Philipp) was never bound to work considering Helge was alive in the present day. Actions like this, among others, have proven to be inherently futile; time is undefeated after all.