'The Last Jedi' is better than the hate

Perhaps you've heard of this movie

When Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens came out in 2015, it brought a perhaps unprecedented level of hype and subsequent critical and commercial attention. There hadn't been a Star Wars movie in 10 years, and the last time there was one, it was the concluding chapter of the largely-loathed prequel trilogy, which also did not move forward the story last updated in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

The Force Awakens was also the first Star Wars movie to be released in what I call the "take economy," that large sector of the Internet (and other places, I guess, but mostly the Internet) powered by fans and obsessed with dissecting, reviewing, critiquing, and theorizing about pop culture. As a result, The Force Awakens generated a heretofore-unseen level of takes (some of them on this very blog). A large portion of these takes seemed critical of the movie, which I thought was mostly misguided, for reasons explained here.

The one criticism I granted some merit was that The Force Awakens seemed a bit...familiar. This critique deserves many, many qualifications. But the most important of them was that it would be impossible to judge The Force Awakens on its own merits, in isolation from the new trilogy of which it would be a part. As the first installment, it reacquainted us with the universe while also establishing the possibility for significant creativity and novelty in future installments. It would only be possible to judge The Force Awakens, then, and the new trilogy as a whole, upon its completion; too many critics were trying to judge aspects of its narrative best seen in conjunction in isolation, and in comparison with a trilogy already completed in 1983. This seemed unfair.

You may remember this movie

But with the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, we have a better sense of how to judge this new trilogy. The Last Jedi has many of the trappings of a Star Wars film: there are lightsabers, wars in stars, Force powers, etc. But in many other ways, The Last Jedi actively subverts what we've come to expect from Star Wars, introducing new characters, new themes, and new scenarios and setpieces, and taking the story in surprising new directions. It is not entirely successful at all of this, largely due to a somewhat unfocused, flabby narrative (at 2 hrs and 30 minutes long, The Last Jedi is the longest Star Wars movie), and some creative risks that do not pay off. Yet the successes in this regard definitely outweigh the failures of what ultimately remains thoroughly a Star Wars movie.

The Last Jedi begins with its first subversion: It seems to take place immediately after the end of The Force Awakens (whereas all previous Star Wars movies have at least some gap between them), with the Resistance (the reduced successor to the original trilogy's Rebellion) on the run from the First Order (the not-much-reduced successor to the original trilogy's Empire). Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) has arrived at the hideaway of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), seeking his wisdom and his aid in the fight.

This setup seems at least somewhat redolent of The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi's original trilogy equivalent. But The Last Jedi quickly takes this framework and moves it in strikingly different places. On the Resistance-First Order side of things, the Resistance, led by Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) is in more dire straits than the Rebellion ever was, with a tiny fleet, led by brave but reckless pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and hounded by the First Order's relentless ships. And Rey finds, in seeking the counsel of Luke, that he has essentially given up on the Jedi (whom he considers failures), the Force (from which he has cut himself off), and the Resistance (which he thinks no one can help). And Rey, the seemingly eager pupil, finds herself mysteriously connected and drawn to the tormented villain Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver), who is likewise drawn to her.

They have a history

To reveal where The Last Jedi goes with all of this would be to ruin a movie you should definitely see for yourself (and perhaps more than once; it took me two viewings to appreciate fully). But it is not a spoiler for me to reveal that the movie takes the raw materials of its plot in unexpected and subversive directions. And perhaps the most impressive direction is a narrative theme that is more mature and complex than any previous Star Wars movie: failure. Virtually every character in the movie confronts failure in some way. Their reactions to their failures determine the directions of their characters: some learn from them, others take the wrong lessons from them, and still others fail to grow at all from them, to their own detriment and folly.

It would also not be a spoiler for me to reveal that the movie does new things with the trappings of Star Wars that keep its universe interesting in a fashion I no longer considered possible. You'd think there are only so many things to do with the Force, with lightsabers, with space battles, and with the basic dynamic of good-vs-evil. But The Last Jedi does fresh things with each of these archetypes, a testament to its creative risks.

Not all of The Last Jedi's creative risks pay off, however. It is too long and somewhat disorganized, a noticeable contrast to the clean, clear, three-act structure of The Force Awakens. It is somewhat too packed with ideas, many, if not most, of which are intriguing but not all of which get full exploration. Many of its deliberate subversions of fan expectations served to keep the story surprising, but some of them seemed a bit unfair, and deserve at least some addressing in Episode IX - The Spark of Hope (or whatever it's called). The Last Jedi also does not seem to know really what to do with Finn (John Boyega), who gets a bit lost in the sprawl of its narrative.

But these flaws do not add up to a movie that deserves the hatred many seem to have given it. It is absurd to claim it is worse than any of the prequels, or that any character in it is worse than Jar Jar Binks, but many have claimed precisely this. If these and other critics, in overabundant supply in the take economy, are angry at The Last Jedi for straying from their expectations of what should have happened, or deviating from their own fan fiction or fan theories (something to which I could have related, having written some fan speculation of my own), then they are misguided. If Star Wars only conforms to preestablished expectations, then it will stop being interesting very soon, in a galaxy very, very close to us. There are criticisms to be made of the The Last Jedi, but a failure to be interesting is certainly not one of them.

'Stranger Things 2' focuses on the past, in more ways than one

*cue synth music*

It's hard to make a good sequel. Our pop culture landscape is littered with failed follow-ups, successors to what probably should have remained one-hit wonders. Some of these were bad enough that they not only destroyed themselves, but cast a retroactive pall on the original that spawned them.

As the decade that truly began the modern blockbuster, the 1980s produced sequels of its own: the original-justifying Empire Strikes Back, the middling Back to the Future Part II, the retread Ghostbusters II, and many others.

The cast and crew of Stranger Things 2 (self-stylized as such, not as Stranger Things: Season 2) surely had all of these examples in mind when they set about their work. For various reasons (explained at greater length here), Stranger Things became one of the biggest and most popular surprises of 2016. It could have been--and almost was--a literal one-off, a self-contained story that did not continue, but the Netflix overlords demanded more. And that meant the biggest question would not be one of the dangling threads left in tantalizing fashion by a one-time story. It would, instead, be a more classic inquiry: Can the sequel be as equal?

For now, the answer is (mostly) yes. I didn't think Stranger Things was quite the flawless masterpiece it was held out to be, and I think more or less the same of Stranger Things 2. It has many of the same strengths as its predecessor--a perfect atmosphere, excellent acting, cool sci-fi stuff--as well as many of the same weaknesses: questionable plotting, strange character decisions, and those darn kids. What make Stranger Things 2 a bit of a comedown from the first season, though, are an excess of ambition, as well as a sense of repetition that bodes ill for the future of a show with purportedly several seasons to go.

There's a lot going on here

One of the biggest weaknesses of Stranger Things 2--or so you might think--is the lack of a clear antagonist. The Hawkins Laboratory and its functionaries, as well as the beast from another dimension that they unwittingly unleashed, were the clear villains of the show's first season. Things have changed somewhat this time around: the Hawkins Lab, now personified by Dr. Sam Owns (80s film vet Paul Reiser*), is now more or less on the side of our heroes. And while this season tries to compensate for the lack of compelling human villains by multiplying the extra-dimensional beasts, their animalistic impulses can only frighten so much.

This is an apparent weakness, however, because Stranger Things 2 does not want the central villain to be anything concrete. The main foe the lovable residents of Hawkins, Indiana must face this season is, instead, the past. As befits a sequel to something that loomed so large in the pop cultural landscape as Stranger Things (and much of whose appeal derives from a backward-looking nostalgia), Stranger Things 2 makes it clear that its characters have not moved on from the events that transpired a year ago. Chief among them is Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). Will spent most of last season trapped in the Upside-Down, an alternate/parallel dimension from which all evil seems to spawn. And in the closing moments of season one, he vomited up a slug, flashed back to the Upside-Down, and then...acted like nothing was wrong. This bothered me immensely, as I thought it ridiculous that any main character in that show's universe would have any incentive to hide anything about the paranormal anymore. Fortunately, the show seems to have realized this. In the early parts of the second season, Will is openly discussing his lingering paranormal maladies (that have some connection with a lingering presence from the first season) with his mother Joyce (Winona Ryder), and with the consultation of Hawkins Lab. Much like the first season, the second season ends up being about Will. Physically absent for most of the first go-around, he is this time emotionally distant, and, finally, literally not present, merely a vessel for some evil from the Upside-Down. As Will, Schnapps not only proves himself a good fit for the famous kid ensemble that is the source of so much of this show's appeal (for reasons that are beyond me), but also worthily anchors an entire season more or less around a character we mostly only knew through inference before.

Noah Schnapp as Will Byers 

Will is not the only one dealing with the trauma of the past. Perhaps in response to fan reactions, Nancy Wheeler (Natalie Dyer), as well as Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) and Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), the show's next level up of adolescents, are dealing with the trauma of having to lie to everyone--including her parents--about the death of the (in)famous Barb (Shannon Purser). As in season one, their characters' journeys, again, lead to some of the show's more cliched territory: teen sex, angry drunks, love triangles, and a conspiracy nut (Brett Gelman) of the sort whose absence from the show's first season seemed dubious to me. But that this trio would still feel lingering guilt over the aspect of the cover-up that most directly concerns them provides an intriguing dimension to the trauma-driven theme of Stranger Things 2.

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Chief Hopper (David Barbour) are dealing with the past as well. Following the events of the first season, Hopper has taken Eleven in secret, letting her live a clandestine but very real life with him while the world believes her dead. Tension inevitably results in this closed setting, itself representative of two ways to deal with trauma: to keep it bottled up or to let it all explode outward. In life, and in this season of Stranger Things the former obtains until the latter prevails.

To the extent Stranger Things 2 is a meditation, of sorts, upon dealing with the past, it succeeds. Where it fails, however, is in its increased ambitions. Sequels often are tempted to get bigger, to expand the universe, to do more. Some succeed at this, but not all. Stranger Things 2 tries this in several ways. A few of them are harmless, and even beneficial: expanded backgrounds and scenes for characters like Dustin, Lucas, and Steve Harrington; new characters who fit right into the show, like the thematically-named Bob Newby (Sean Astin, playing up and off his roles in The Goonies...and in The Lord of the Rings???**). Newby is not merely well-cast, but also supplies, in his aggressive normalcy, a glimpse for Joyce and others around her of what life could be like on the other side of chaos. Other expansions of the universe seem more like harmless but also thoughtless ratchetings-up of the dial: season one had some contemporary 80s music? Well, season two will have even more. Season one extensively referenced E.T. (among other things)? Season two will reference Aliens and The Exorcist.  Season one had one monster? Well, season two will have two, no three, no, like, six, no twelve...no...

At least you can't accuse the Duffer brothers of just introducing these guys for the toys

Other ambitious expansions seem more like straightforward misfires. A fractious pair of stepsiblings, fresh from California, introduce some contrived drama into the proceedings: Max, a redheaded girl (Sadie Sink), peer to the boys, introduces some prepubescent romantic tension into the lives of Dustin and Lucas, and Billy (Dacre Montgomery), a mullet-sporting heartthrob does...well, what, exactly? Pointlessly antagonize the main characters? Display all the dramatic depth of an after-school special? I greeted Billy's arrival onto the show with skepticism, but patience, hoping that some kind of payoff would result with his character, but none truly ever did. He could have been removed from the season without any harm to its arc.

But the biggest misstep of this season, one that has already been widely recognized as a sort of curious aberration, comes in episode 7. Eleven, smarting from her repression at the hands of Hopper, alights to the big city, where a psychic vision has promised potential reunion with a fellow experimental subject at Hawkins Lab. Meeting 8/Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) there, she finds her in charge of a random gang of 80s stereotypes, gets a makeover, and learns some things about herself before deciding it's not the life for her and showing up to rescue everyone in Hawkins just in time.

The Duffer brothers probably had in mind The Empire Strikes Back when they created this Eleven side adventure (and hopefully not a backdoor pilot). There are certainly clear indications of that, especially when Eight successfully trains Eleven to lift a heavy object Eleven thought she couldn't lift herself ("do or do not...there is no try"). They borrowed another aspect of The Empire Strikes Back as well: using events to split up the main characters for the duration of the story, and making the dramatic climax hinge on their reunification. This is basically what happens in Stranger Things 2, when Eleven's return to all of the main characters sets in motion the simultaneous resolution all of the second season's troubles.

It's important to know your roots

It has to stumble through some awkwardness to get to that point, although maybe this is just the sort of thing that bothers me and me alone about the show. Why, for example, do the "demidogs" hunt and threaten only the show's main characters? Why, when some of those characters tried to lure them with raw meat, did not other predators (coyotes?) take the bait? Why do the boys continue to insist that their Dungeons and Dragons expertise (as well as anything else about their persons, really) equip them to face this threat?*** Why did Dustin, who faced off against a literal monster in the first season, become so endeared to one of them this time around? How, in the tripartite climax, do the kids conveniently know exactly when to distract the demodogs from the other players in the plot? These and a couple other little questions sufficed to take me out of the show in considering them. They also underline one of the main ways in which season two's excess of ambition undermines itself: It's often like the show has plotted so much that it forgets that other things are happening at the same time as one another, or that they need to make sense instead of merely hurtling toward a climax.

The end goal of the Duffer brothers, one presumes, was to create another Empire Strikes Back: a darker, fuller sequel that at once expands upon and justifies the original. At a surface level, one can say they have done that. But it doesn't take much to go below that surface and find a product that is more Ghostbusters II than Empire Strikes Back: i.e., more of the same. Stop me if this sounds familiar: Will is in trouble, other people have strange ways of communicating with him, someone hides Eleven, Eleven saves the day, monsters threaten them from another dimension, the season ends with a hint of greater evil. All describe the basic beats of season one. For the time being, Stranger Things can get away with this; its cast and crew have the talents to make it interesting. Eventually, though, the mystery and the teases need payoff. Otherwise, Stranger Things may end up another one of those failed sequelized properties that litter our pop cultural landscape.
  
*Perhaps Paul Reiser's most famous role is the smarmy corporate hack in Aliens who eventually gets killed by one of the titular beasts. If you've seen Aliens and watched Stranger Things 2, you'll know exactly what scene in the latter plays on his role in the former.
**Whether intentional or not, several scenes in Stranger Things 2 seemed quite similar to scenes from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which Sean Astin played Samwise Gamgee:
-A character death occurs in a fashion strikingly similar to that of Gandalf in Fellowship
-Eleven's convenient return has echoes of Gandalf the White's reappearance in The Two Towers
-A final climax involving one group distracting monsters from a pair who have the power to destroy evil for good is basically the same way that Return of the King ends
***For me, one of the most satisfying moments in the whole show so far comes when Hopper basically tells Dustin to shut up after Dustin pointlessly compares a monstrous creature in the real world to something that exists in the Dungeons and Dragons universe.

Season one of 'Stranger Things' felt both familiar and new

*cue synth music*

There is a very meta, almost fourth-wall-breaking scene at the end of season one of Netflix's hit series Stranger Things. After reuniting with their long-lost friend Will (Noah Schnapp), young boys Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), sit down with him for a "campaign" of Dungeons and Dragons, run by Mike. The campaign ends in dramatic fashion, but it leaves some of the group unsatisfied:

Dustin: "Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa....that's not it, is it?"
Mike: "No...there's a medal ceremony..."
Dustin: "Oh a medal ceremony! What are you talking about?"
Lucas: "Yeah man. The campaign was way too short."
Will: "Yeah."
Mike: "It was ten hours!"
Dustin: "But it doesn't make any sense!"
Mike: "It makes sense!"
Dustin: "Uh, no. What about the lost knight?"
Lucas: "And the proud princess?"
Will: "And those weird flowers in the cave?"
Mike: "I don't know...

Shown as part of the epilogue for season one's finale, this exchange is surely meant to be something of a nod at the audience. It certainly represented how many viewers felt after watching the first season of Stranger Things: wanting only more, and desperate for answers to the lingering questions that remained. The show, created by Matt and Ross Duffer (the Duffer Brothers), snuck onto Netflix in midsummer 2016. Supported by powerful word of mouth and intense binge-watching, Stranger Things quickly grew in popularity and became perhaps the dominant pop culture phenomenon of summer and fall 2016. And with season two premiering this Friday, it's a good time to look back at what attracted people to the show in the first place, and to guess whether season two can measure up.

The poster for season one, looking very 1980s

Season one centers on the mysterious disappearance of Will, and the nearly simultaneous appearance of a mysterious girl, who only knows herself by the name Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). As adults and children alike try to find Will, the boys at the center of the story discover that Eleven holds many mysteries, and all involved must come to terms with the entry of the mysterious and the paranormal into their lives. And looming suspiciously over it all, a modern version of the Transylvanian castle on the hilltop with lightning striking behind it, is the Hawkins National Laboratory. Supposedly an innocuous research facility affiliated with the Department of Energy, adults and children alike soon conclude it may be the source of far (ahem) stranger things.

The source of the stranger things in Stranger Things.

The setting of Stranger Things goes a long way to explaining its appeal. The story takes place in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, in 1983, creating the perfect backdrop for the kind of Spielbergian/Stephen King-esque story the Duffer Brothers want to tell. Our pop cultural moment is somewhat obsessed, for reasons beyond the scope of this post (but not this one!), with recreating both the actual past of the 1980s as well as the fictional interpretation of that past (then present) portrayed in such films as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, Gremlins, and others. (See here for a more explicit comparison of all the 70s/80s pop culture that Stranger Things hearkens back to.) It is a time of a smaller, less intimidating, pre-cell phone/Internet America, of small towns and bikes and walkie-talkies with your neighbors, of overbearing parents and untrustworthy adults, and of kids who discover entire worlds unseen or misunderstood by the authority figures in their lives. The kind of gauzy, midsummer-just-before-sunset world evoked by these movies has so merged with the actual lived experience of those who really lived the era they depict that they are essentially becoming one in our cultural perception.   

This is also the world of Stranger Things. And it is perhaps our foremost current recapturer of that somewhat ineffable 1980s vibe. A close attention to little details helps: what people were wearing, how they talked, what they talked about, how they behaved, how they filled their time, what houses they lived in, what jobs they worked, how families interacted, what kids did--Stranger Things credibly recaptures all of these minutiae of 80s Midwestern life (or so it seemed to me, though I wasn't alive then). This is all reinforced by strikingly old-fashioned (which now, unfortunately, mostly means "competent") production. I think mostly of the extensive long takes and match cuts that dominate the cinematography of the first season, techniques that require actual craftsmanship and planning rather than the staccato rapid-fire editing common today. Also helping the atmosphere is the now-famous soundtrack (by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of the soundscape band Survive), a moody, expressive, ambient presence throughout the season that feels both modern in its technical complexity and a throwback in its themes and tones. Thanks to all this, the 1980s of Stranger Things feels real, regardless of whether it's the 1980s we actually lived in, or the 1980s the pop culture of that era, on which we now look back fondly, tells us we lived in.

For some parents, the lack of supervision these 80s kids enjoyed may have been the scariest part of the show

Stranger Things is also driven by some strong performances by its cast. Winona Ryder, returning to the 80s in fiction after starting her career there in fact, is by far the standout performer of the first season. As Joyce Beyers, the mother of Will, her maternal motivation to find and rescue her son is the season's emotional core. Her persistence in believing him alive, despite much evidence to the contrary, and despite what many around her quite rationally interpret as evidence of her unraveling sanity, gives us a strong, complex character in which to invest. One of her few adult allies is Jim Hopper (David Barbour), the chief of the Hawkins Police Department, a gruff yet mysteriously damaged man whose efforts to get to the bottom of Will's disappearance lead him down more rabbit holes than he anticipated. These two adults are compelling, dynamic characters whom I wanted on the screen every time they were off, and who made any scene they shared twice as worth watching.

In the Spielbergian world that Stranger Things tries to recreate, though, it's the children, not the adults, who are usually supposed to have the adventures and be at the vanguard of mystery, led there by a sense of wonder not crushed by the burdens of adulthood. But it's in this regard that Stranger Things falls a bit short of perfection. The main teenage/young adult characters are basic archetypes: Nancy (Natalie Dyer), older sister of Mike, the good girl tempted by the bad; Steve (Joe Keery), the bad-boy jock who's after Nancy's heart; and Jonathan, older brother of Will, who's awkward, moody, introspective, artistically-inclined and "misunderstood." And it is through these archetypes that the show smuggles in some of its laziest and most clichéd writing, exploring well-charted territory: parties, teen sex, peer pressure, male rivalry, parents who 'just don't get it,' a half-baked critique of suburbia, and other tropes which you would have expected something like Stranger Thing to be better than, or at least to have done something new with.

And then there's the kids. Everybody loved the kids. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Eleven seemed to be everyone's favorite part of Stranger Things. I'll just be straight-up here: I thought the kids were the least interesting part of the show. It's not that I hate child actors. Eleven, who I am not really counting as part of the group, is great. Brown does wonders with the character, communicating warmth, trauma, resolve, courage, and a host of other subtle emotions with sparse dialogue. And the kids themselves are good actors. But the story made them too conveniently genre-savvy, too willing to leap immediately to the possibility of the impossible, and too susceptible to its weaknesses and clichés. It's through the kids that we have a plot with stereotypical bullies (resolved, of course, in rousing fashion--twice--in the kids' favor). It's through the kids that we are supposed to suspend our disbelief most powerfully (somehow, Mike manages to hide Eleven in his house, from his entire family, for the duration of the season). And it's through the kids that the devotion to the Spielbergian aesthetic gets reduced to its most slavish: You can see the E.T. homages coming from a mile away. In the pop culture that Stranger Things invokes, it is usually the kids that end up at the center of the drama. But the kids in Stranger Things simply do not measure up to the gravity of what they face*, and the show suffers for bending itself toward them to maintain this kid-centric thrust.

Pictured: the least interesting part of the show (girl on right excepted)

This isn't to say that the adults don't get off scot-free. They too suffer from some of the less credible plotting of the show. Sheriff Hopper goes from small-town cop to John McClane-style loose cannon to Bond-level superspy over the course of just a few episodes, escalating his tactics and his skills as the plot requires.** And as his investigation uncovers more and more suspicious about the town's laboratory, with strange(r) things stretching back decades, one is left to wonder: Why only now has anyone dared venture that the giant, mysterious government facility in town might be up to something? Is this a commentary on a less cynical time, or just a convenience of plotting? Where is the conspiracy nut who's 'just asking questions'? And, speaking of conspiracy, it would be harder to find one more erratically executed or enforced than that which the masterminds at Hawkins Lab are supposedly behind. They kill the first person who accidentally comes close to guessing at what might eventually become the truth, but let many other characters who come much closer to figuring everything out live? You could say these are all nitpicking, sure. But they sufficed to bring me out of the otherwise immersive experience created by the show.

Ultimately, it's the stranger things of Stranger Things that got me to watch in the first place, that are responsible for much of the show's instantly-iconic imagery, and that will likely get me to pursue its mysteries to the end. I'm a sucker for sci-fi, especially the sorts of things that feature prominently in this show: parallel universes, interdimensional gates, government conspiracies, MKULTRA, sensory deprivation tanks, cryptozoological entities, etc. The focus on this just-beyond-plausible science recalls shows like The X-Files and Fringe, in addition to the more obvious Spielberg and Stephen King forebears.

Yet even the mysterious brings its own challenges. Consider the closing moments of the first season. Will, reunited with his family, ducks out of a Christmas dinner to "wash his hands." In reality, he goes to the bathroom to cough up a bizarre slug-like creature, then has a brief vision of the parallel universe in which he spent much of the first season trapped. He returns to our reality, and to the dinner table...but tells nothing of his experience to his mother or brother. That's right: Will is vomiting up otherworldly slugs and randomly reentering an alternative universe, and he doesn't bother to tell his family? Why not? It's not like they wouldn't believe him after what they've all been through. Why hide anything anymore? Why not just have a conversation? Something like this:

Joyce: "How are you doing, Will?"
Will: "Oh, well, I am vomiting up slug-like creatures unknown to science after spending an extended period of time in an alternate dimension, from which you rescued me by pulling an eel-like creature out of my mouth, but other than that, you know, I'm good."

This points to what I wonder about the show going forward: Will it be interesting still now that the paranormal/supernatural is a given? What made the first season so compelling was seeing how the main characters came to terms with the fact that reality might not be entirely what it seems. But now, at least nine or so people (and all the main characters) know things can get weird. Now that the paranormal is a given aspect of the lives of the show's main characters, now that they know the mysterious surrounds them, can the show derive the same level of storytelling satisfaction from merely deepening the mystery as it did from slowly unraveling the reality of the mysterious in the first place? Or will Stranger Things travel a well-trod path and get lost in its own mythology? Will it continue to pull off the tricky act of taking advantage of pop culture nostalgia while also feeling like something new?

These are all questions only season two can answer. We'll have to see what stranger things Stranger Things will bring to bear.

*This is never more apparent than the scene when the boys plus Eleven finally confront the monster that has plagued the town throughout season one. The best they can do is slingshot a rock at it. Fortunately, Eleven is there to fight as well.
**Although the show seemed to suggest there's more to him than we have yet seen, so this may not end up being a plot hole in the end, but rather a correct inference on my part of greater depth to his character.

Reflections on my first marathon

Running in the shadow of the Washington Monument

When you tell people you're a runner, they usually ask two questions. They'll probably ask what your mile PR is. And they'll probably ask whether you've run a marathon. Not your time, mind you: Just whether you've run one. For since Pheidippides, the ancient Greek courier, enshrined the distance in myth with his valiant (and life-giving) feat, the marathon has firmly ensconced itself in the public consciousness as the official "holy crap, you actually run that?" distance. It's short enough that a decently in shape person can earn the achievement of having done one, and for the average person to have an understanding of the length (unlike the seemingly unreal distances ultramarathoners undertake), but long enough for people still to be somewhat agape that you would bother to try one yourself.

Well, my mile PR of 4:32 is pretty pathetic, all things considered. It sounds impressive to non-runners, but any runner this side of Frank Shorter knows it's not that big of a deal. I'm just not "fast," and I don't think I ever will be. So that leaves the marathon. And until today, all I could say was, "no, not yet, but I'm planning on it." We often hear that it's the thought that counts, but thoughts don't run marathons. And so last March, before I had even run my first half-marathon, I made the somewhat rash decision to enter my first marathon: the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) of Washington, D.C., on October 22. After a debut half-marathon that didn't go exactly as I wanted, I almost changed my mind, and tried to register for the half-marathon component that I thought the MCM had. But I decided to stick with it even when I found out that there was no such race, only a 10k, and I've run enough of those in my life. So a marathon it was.

The road to my marathon was long and difficult. As I said, my debut half-marathon hadn't gone exactly as I had hoped. So, first, I had to pick myself up off the ground after that race mentally, and then physically, which I hoped a full two weeks of no running would do. On May 22, two weeks after my first half and exactly five months before I would toe the line of my first marathon, I began training for it. The unusually acute returning pain of that first run back caused me to write in my running log for that day that "I spent most of this run thinking about how strange it is that, exactly 5 months from today, I will have needed to transform my pathetic body into that of a marathoner. And, somehow, I'll do it." A few weeks later, I confronted the next challenge in my training: a two-week trip to Greece, during which I would serve as chaperone to a couple dozen teenage boys from my high school. Being realistic, I acknowledged that I wouldn't be able to do much intense training or high mileage during my trip abroad. But I also didn't want to have to start my training completely over when I came back to America, which meant that I would have to take no more than two successive days off on the journey. Thanks to a keen eye for down time, a treadmill on a cruise ship, and the same relentless discipline that has kept me running every mile I've run since graduating, I managed to miss only one day while I was there: the last day of the trip, which I had planned to take off anyway. I did miss an additional successive day thanks to having to fly back to America, but that was it.

Upon returning to America, I faced another challenge. But this one I imposed upon myself. A marathon would be twice as long as I had ever raced before. So I decided I would run more than I ever had before as well, including at least one week in excess of 100 miles. The prospect of this frightened me somewhat, however. The closest I had ever come to this was a week in college at 99.1 miles, when I had the relaxed life of a student instead of the 9-5 obligations of a real adult. And even then, the effort nearly destroyed my body. Coming even close to that distance in my post-collegiate running career had had similar effects. But I wanted to try anyway; the lingering existential splinter of not getting to 100 in college was an additional motivator. So, in the last full week of August, right around when my summer mileage peak would have been in college, I ran my first 100-mile week (it actually ended up being 105), capped off with what was then my longest run, at 22.22 miles. Two weeks later, I ran my second 100-mile week; two weeks after that, I ran a 93-mile week. I was subsisting on a steady diet of marathon pace runs, tempos, fartleks, and long runs. And I felt far better than I expected to. I even felt like my lungs had expanded. In this manner did I inaugurate a new era of training.

It was hardly all triumph and ease, though. There were many mornings I reacted to my pre-work alarms with disgust, simply wishing to go back to bed. And yes, on a few occasions, I did do exactly that. And on some occasions when I pushed through anyway, I probably should have just gone back to bed, given the way my body felt. I also had to deal with one inopportune ankle rolling, which prevented me from running what would have been the peak workout of my pre-taper marathon training and kept me from reaching 380 miles in a single month for the first time since college. Finally, in the midst of all this, I had to balance my work and life responsibilities, the latter of which included, for the first time, a stint as a cross country coach. (I coached a local grade school's team from the end of August through mid-October, two practices a week plus meets.) It was a busy fall.

But soon enough, the weekend of the marathon arrived. And it brought with it my parents and oldest sister, who had kindly made the drive out to watch my marathon debut. I was happy to see them, but also grateful for the leeway they gave me while I was there to maintain certain aspects of my routine to ensure marathon success. I was also grateful for the ride and company they gave me during the pre-race marathon expo for packet pick-up. (It was out at a hotel I would have had trouble reaching without a car.) That day, I tried to eat as much as I could (within reason), while also frontloading my input so that I wouldn't have too many bowel issues morning of. I slept plenty the night before the night before, but only fitfully the night before, as I expected; this did not worry me, as I am a perhaps irrational adherent of the "it's only the night before the night before that counts" school of race sleeping.

There was a lot of anxiety-inducing mystery about the dawn of my first marathon. But one thing I was sure about was my morning routine, which I record here mostly for the benefit of my future self: I woke up at 4:35 (with an anticipated marathon start time of about 7:55). As quickly as I could, I took care of the bathroom stuff, then ate a light breakfast of a banana, peach Greek yogurt mixed with oatmeal, and 40 fluid ounces of water. After this point, the mystery began to set in. My sister Katie, in town for my marathon, picked me up at my place at 5:45, then drove me to Eastern Market Metro station, which would take me to the Metro station open closest to the start line of the race. When I arrived there, though, the station was still closed, so I had to wait for it to open (which it did a little after 6). I then had to wait for the first train, and then wait on that train for longer than I expected, which began to worry me, for two reasons: I thought I wouldn't get through security in time (they advised 90 minutes), and I really, REALLY had to take a leak. The crowd leaving the Pentagon Metro station didn't make things any better, although I was able to think clearly when I got out of the station and found a hidden place to Austin Powers. 

The greatest urination scene in cinematic history 

After that, I just sort of moved with the crowd in the pre-dawn light, feeling a bit like I was in a disaster movie or something.* The walk from the Pentagon Metro station was longer than I expected, and I considered starting to run if I didn't get near the starting line area by within 50 minutes of my expected start time, though I arrived there soon enough. I got through security fine. But the other side of security was not the starting line, as I had hoped, but a mass of large tents, with runners milling about every which way. I was already at 50 minutes to go before the start, and didn't feel like figuring all that out, so I began a warm-up with my clear plastic pick-up bag still in hand out to find my place in the starting chute, just so that I knew where it was and could be there without any issue starting. I found it about .75 miles into a warm-up, so I ran back toward the camp a bit (to 1.25 miles, halfway between the two distinct pre-marathon warm-up lengths recommended by two previous coaches I had asked about this) then headed back toward the closest bathroom to it that I could find for my final pre-race relief.** Satisfied, I emerged and began a warm-up on a stretch of road right next to my starting chute, experiencing periodic bouts of butterflies and ducking over to hidden recesses for leak-taking throughout. Soon enough, though, it was time for my first marathon to begin. Lacking time to figure out the post-race pick-up bag system, I chucked my bag full of not very important clothes (I learned my lesson from the Flying Pig, at which I lost a shirt from a race I had come in 2nd) into a place I hope to find them later and went to the 2:30-2:59 section of the starting chute, where I had confidence that I belonged. The start was delayed for ten minutes, giving me more time to think about what I was about to do, which I didn't want or need. But I got it.

I was nervous for many reasons in the moments before the MCM's giant howitzer went off. But my most pressing concern was the start itself. It seemed that the starting line was divided in two, on opposite sides of the median of what is usually a highway. I was very worried that I was on the wrong side of this median, that all the runners I wanted to be near were there, and that I would lose track of them from the start of the race. It didn't help matters much that the paths remained separate for the first half mile or so of the race. I was relieved when finally they merged, and I could focus on my race. The foremost thought in my mind at the beginning was what my old Coach Dehring told me (and basically what my old Coach White had also told me): DON'T START FAST. I found myself constantly checking my watch to make sure I wasn't going too fast throughout the first half of the race, even when I felt like I could be going much faster. The first few miles of the race, run through Rosslyn and Arlington, were uphill, which helped me hold back a little, but the temptation always presented itself. Still, I think I did a good job of restraining myself miles 1-6, even as other runners went past me (some casually chatting as they went, though a Brit I ran alongside across the Key Bridge didn't say much***): 6:03, 5:54, 5:53, 5:48, 5:55, 5:46. I felt calm and strong throughout this early, hilly part of the race, spending most of my time focusing on restraint and not effort.

Coming from behind

I carried on in this same fashion for the next portion of the race. I was taking advantage of every water station on the course, though carefully ensuring it was water that I saw; at one point, I grabbed a Gatorade by mistake, but had the presence of mind to look at the cup, dropping it and swapping it for water when I saw yellow inside. Half of this portion of the race was the same out-and-back toward Rock Creek Park that I had run a few weeks earlier in the Navy/Air Force Half Marathon, so I knew what to expect. At 7 miles in, I decided to deploy the first of three Cliff Gel cube packets I had prepared for the race, strategically consuming them just before a water station so that I could wash it all down. This caused a momentary discomfort in my side, but after that, nothing, which was a relief. After the turnaround, I ended up in a pack for about 800 meters of the race (a fact I announced to my competitors, to little response). This pack was going slightly too slow for my liking, though, so I moved out of it along with another runner. This brought me to the first truly spectator-heavy part of the race, under the Arlington Bridge, where I saw all of my family members and got a momentary burst of adrenaline from all the applause. After that, though, the race became dramatically lonelier. And just before we got to Hain's Point, I got my first real scare of the race, when suddenly my right hamstring (or was it my left? I honestly can't remember now) suddenly tightened up. I was worried that this was going to turn into some kind of race-ending pain. But it wasn't affecting my gait, and wasn't any worse than other pains I've persevered through before, so I ignored it and kept going. Eventually, it transferred to the other hamstring, then went away entirely, thank God. Going around Hain's Point, though I was motivated by the fallen soldier portraits positioned along the MCM's famous Blue Mile (which itself was unexpectedly full of spectators).  I tried to be very conscious of my time when I hit 13.1, although by this point my GPS and the course markers had diverged by about .11 miles, so it was best used for pacing anyway. I do know that, starting at 13.1, I began to stop telling myself mentally to hold back, and to let myself speed up. But here were my splits 7 through 13:

5:49, 5:53, 5:49, 5:48, 5:45, 5:46, 5:48

When I escaped Hain's Point, I began to feel the best I did throughout the whole race. This portion of the race was mostly on the familiar and spectator-filled territory of the National Mall.**** There was a turnaround in front of the Arlington Bridge that confused me slightly, but I figured it out, and used the nearby water station to ingest my second set of Cliff Gel tables of the race, right around mile 15. As I said, this began my best stretch of the race. I passed at least three people on the by now very stretched out race as I went by the Washington Monument, around the Mall, in front of the Capitol building, and then toward the 14th Street Bridge. I felt strong and confident, buoyed on both by cheers from my family and by dozens of anonymous spectators rooting for "Wild Bill." It seemed people were even recognizing that I looked good and strong, which is certainly how I felt, even if at one point I asked some random guy walking around the Mall if I were still on the course (I was, thank God). I continued feeling this way, and surprising myself, all the way up to the 14th Street Bridge, where I passed what ended up being the last person I would pass all race, and beginning the final segment of solitude for this surprisingly lonely event. Here were my splits for miles 14-21, undoubtedly the most impressive portion of the race for me:

5:41, 5:44, 5:41, 5:44, 5:43, 5:40, 5:41, 5:45

Feeling strong

The hardest part of the race for me was the last 10k, which shouldn't be a surprise. It didn't help much that I had to run it entirely alone, and that it began with a seemingly endless and endlessly uphill segment crossing a bridge. I was grateful, during this trying period, to receive a water bottle from someone who just happened to be on the bridge at that time. Even though I also took advantage of a water station about a mile away (at which someone was also offering whiskey, which I declined), I really, REALLY needed water right then and there. So thank you, kind stranger. Mile 22 was on the other side of the bridge; at the water station closest to it, I ingested my last gel packets, which would have to last me for the rest of the race, as I was pretty confident they would. The next few miles of the race were a somewhat disorienting back and forth through Crystal City; at one point, the race took me through a hotel parking lot, which confused me. It was at this time that the race truly begin to weigh on me, perhaps more mentally than physically, as I was still notching off decent splits. It is perhaps no coincidence that this should happen right around the point of what had been, up to that time, my longest-ever run. But having already come so far, I had no intention of letting up, much less giving up. So I persisted through Crystal City, then into a portion of the race that navigated somewhat haphazardly through what seemed like active construction sites. As I got near the Pentagon again, I realized I had only 1.5 miles or so left. 

And thank God. Because right about then, I think I finally began to hit the infamous Wall. For those who don't know, the "Wall" is that point which runners confront in a marathon when their bodies finally start to give up on them, when moving your legs feels like trudging through a vat of molasses, when lungs collapse, when cramps attack, when your mouth becomes arid, and when only a sunk costs-induced delirium can get you to the finish. I had managed to avoid it all this time, and I don't think I was truly slamming up against the Wall now, but I was certainly growing tired. Fortunately, this came late in the race, after I had already covered so much ground. A few miles earlier (I think around 18), someone had told me I was "almost there!" I wasted precious breaths shouting back "Don't say that!" But at mile 25 or so, when I found myself back on a highway and I heard someone say I was almost there, I didn't just decline to shout back because I was running out of breath. At this point, it was true. I only had to keep things together for a mile more. Soon enough, I could see where I would go to finish; soon enough, I made that turn; soon enough, I could see the finish. Going up the last hill, I passed one of the wounded warrior cyclists, then used whatever energy I had left to get to that finishing chute. I didn't have much of a sprint in me at that time, but I didn't need one: I saw on the clock that I was well below my goal of 2:35. I ended up crossing the line in 2:34:29, in15th place, 4th among 20-24-year-olds. But, more important, I had finished. Final splits were: 5:53, 5:43, 5:40, 5:53, 6:02, and 3:30 (for the .55 miles my Garmin said I ran after completing my 26th mile).

The final stretch 

I walked through the post-finish chute in something of a daze. The whole area was lined with Marines, all of whom kept congratulating me and handing me post-race goodies (including a finisher medal), and all of whom kept telling me good job. I was a little disoriented, but I did manage to reply to at least one of them that he was the real hero, which I really meant. I escaped the finishing chute with a suitable amount of recovery swag, got some pictures with someone, then began ambling my way over to a place where spectators could find the runner they had supported. Turns out I didn't need to go over there after all, because my family found me well before I reached that place. They hugged me, sweat and all, congratulated me, and stood with me under a shady tree as I tried to return to reality. 

Still in my post-marathon daze

Eventually, despite my lactic-acid-addled legs, we all walked together from the finish area to the Rosslyn Metro station, where I, in a well-earned first, sat down on the famously long escalator, and where we took the train back to Eastern Market. My family then returned me to my apartment, prepared for the long drive back to Ohio, and then set out on it as I bid them adieu. For the remainder of the day, I did very little (understandably), stretching, eating, and laying about, marinating in the glory and the pain of my accomplishment (most of the latter of which seemed to be in my quads).

It's a long escalator, and I was tired 

So there you have it. The next time someone asks me if I've run a marathon, I can definitively say yes. And not only that. I can also say that I ran an incredibly smart race, only increasing my pace throughout, negative splitting for my halves (1:17:30/1:17:00), only passing people, distributing my energy almost perfectly, and running alone for large portions of the thing, including the entire final 10k. 

Pictured: A smart race

I can also say that I ran an incredibly fun race, which the MCM definitely was: The spectators were great; the scenery was incomparable; the aid stations were well-placed; and my family got to see me several times. The Wild Bill singlet I rocked was a crowd favorite, even though only one non-family spectator knew exactly who he was (I heard him say "Wild Bill! Go Hillsdale!" as I ran by); I think a lot of people assumed he was some kind of Pre-type figure they didn't know about (which he basically is).

I have few criticisms for myself, really: Basically, I need to run the tangents better, because I added about 400 meters more onto this course than it was actually supposed to be. And I need to get faster. But that's not something to dwell on for my first marathon. I may not have a great mile time, or great speed. But I think I learned today definitively that endurance and strength I have in abundance, which means that the marathon might be the right distance for me. Today was a good start. But something tells me this won't be the last time I run a marathon. And something else tells me that this won't be the fastest time I run a marathon in, either. For now, though, I can remain tremendously happy with this accomplishment. Yes, random small-talk maker, I have run a marathon.

Now please don't ask me about my mile time.

*See, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ8kTwoTu8o&t=2s

**Which happened to be during the National Anthem. Sad!
***During the race, I wondered if I would be near him the near the end, so that I could say a version to this Royal Navy midshipman what American John Paul Jones said to the British during the War of 1812: "I have not yet begun to run!" 

****At one point during this segment of the race, a Spanish-speaking spectator even cheered me on.

'Blade Runner 2049' is up to the impossible task of following 'Blade Runner'

Will we get a sequel to this with an old Ryan Gosling in our 2049?

How do you follow up a movie like Blade Runner?

Ridley Scott's 1982 film, starring Harrison Ford as a burned-out cop (a blade runner) in a dystopian future Los Angeles tasked with hunting a group of rogue synthetic humans (known as replicants), was and remains such a singular, self-contained work. Between a production design that mixes the "used future" aesthetic of such movies as Star Wars and Scott's own Alien with the light-and-shadow dynamic of film noir, an involving soundscape that seamlessly combines a moody, synth-based score by Vangelis with in-movie audio, and a screenplay that explores themes--the meaning of humanity, the role of technology--that have only become more relevant over time...

...between all of this, Blade Runner earned a status and legacy that transcended its initial lukewarm reception and placed it among the most influential films of all time, not just of the sci-fi genre. Thus, it's not simply necessary to ask how one follows up Blade Runner, but also, why? What is left of what the original created to explore?

These were the difficult questions set before director Denis Villeneuve, staying in sci-fi after 2016's excellent Arrival, as well as screenwriters Hampton Fancher (who co-wrote the original screenplay) and Michael Green, and, for that matter, composers Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Walfisch, taking over soundtrack duties from Vangelis. And Blade Runner 2049 is their formidable answer. Returning to the world of the original Blade Runner 30 years after the events of the first film, Blade Runner 2049 justifies its existence by expanding its palette--perhaps a little too much.

Blade Runner 2049 centers on K (Ryan Gosling), an unambiguous replicant, unlike Harrison Ford's ambiguously human (?) Rick Deckard from the first movie. Like Deckard, though, K is a blade runner, a cop trained to hunt rogue replicants. One such "retirement" (the Blade Runner universe's term for executing a replicant) leaves him an intriguing clue that sets him on an investigation deep into his world, its past, and, ultimately, himself. Gosling is excellent in this role, just sympathetic and relateable enough to earn viewer investment, but also quiet and dutiful enough to remind us that he is not fully human and lacks true free will.

"Real human being/and a real hero..."

Through K's eyes, we see how dramatically the world of Blade Runner has expanded. The original film took place almost entirely within the claustrophobic, gloomy confines of its dark, neon-lit future Los Angeles. We spend plenty of time in that environment, dutifully recreated, in Blade Runner 2049. But from the opening scene to the final reel, Villeneuve (with help from cinematographer Roger Deakins) fills the screen with new ways of looking at what we think we have already seen, new angles and cuts, and new places. We see vast tracts of synthetic farmland, miles of garbage heaps, the orange, irradiated ruins of Las Vegas, the darkness of the ocean, and, in a striking Blade Runner first, the pure whiteness of snow. And it's all set to a soundtrack by Zimmer and Walfischer that draws from its predecessor while creating something new and suitably atmospheric in its own right. All of these places exist as worlds unto themselves without ever seeming out of place in the Blade Runner universe, filling in gaps implied or left by the first movie.

Modern sequels often receive criticism for hewing too closely to their predecessors. And while Blade Runner 2049 does depend heavily on its predecessor, often visually quoting or referring back to scenes, sounds, themes, and characters from it (yes, Harrison Ford returns as Deckard), this sequel defeats that critique. And it does so largely on the strength of its world-building and a faithfulness to the thematic spirit of the original that does not simply consist of (ahem) replication.

Harrison Ford, continuing his farewell tour of his most famous movie roles. 

Yet there is one defect in Blade Runner 2049: It is, in some senses, too much. The worldbuilding is great, and contributes to the film's immersive atmosphere, but can feel a bit sprawling at times. There are many talented actors in the film, in addition to Gosling and Ford, including Robin Wright, Jared Leto, and Dave Bautista. But some of them get lost in the extensive proceedings. Jared Leto's enigmatic tycoon Niander Wallace, in particular, seems like a rushed attempt to construct a profound-sounding, sinister villain. His more straightforward but equally devious analogue in Blade Runner, Eldon Tyrell, is far more compelling. And his replicant enforcer, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is a much more intriguing and dynamic antagonist. Despite this large and talented cast, moreover, no character, hero or villain, so engages the viewer, or raises such philosophically intriguing questions, as Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty, the replicant who wanted nothing more than to defy the death sentence foisted upon him by his creator, does in Blade Runner.

Pictured: Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), aka Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film

Finally, consider its sheer length: At 163 minutes, it is nearly an hour longer than any cut of Blade Runner. Most of this additional runtime allows the story to proceed at a more relaxed, organic pace. But some of it feels like catering to a certain self-indulgence, perhaps in the belief that that was part of what made Blade Runner so special. Maybe it was, in part. But creative freedom is a tool, and, like any part of the creative process, derives its utility from how it is used. One gets the sense, from the sheer much-ness of Blade Runner 2049, that it is the product of years, if not decades, of pent-up ideas by its creators, who threw as much into the movie as they could think of.

But too much of a good thing is an easily forgivable defect. Blade Runner 2049 may be long, and it may be overstuffed. Yet by the end--and, especially, at the end, a series of scenes that certainly equals its predecessor's denouement--of its runtime, one is left not impatient for all that has occurred, but impassioned for more. Based on how this movie is doing commercially--and how it was constructed artistically--that is not likely to happen. Nor should it. For we can be happy enough to have a sequel that feels both worthy enough of the original to feel like it takes place in the same world and carries forward the same spirit and themes, and distinct enough to justify its existence. And just as the replicants of the Blade Runner universe would be happy to have their existences justified, so should we be happy that Blade Runner 2049 justified its own.

'Blade Runner' wasn't the only great sci-fi movie to come out in 1982

One of only several great movies of 1982

This weekend sees the release of Blade Runner 2049, the long-awaited (and long-delayed sequel) to 1982's Blade Runner. That Ridley Scott film, starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a burned out detective in a near-future corporatist dystopian Los Angeles charged with hunting down some escaped synthetic humanoids, wasn't a huge hit at the time. But its reputation has grown over the years, and it is now widely recognized as a visual masterpiece, influencing countless subsequent media both in and outside of the sci-fi genre.

But Blade Runner wasn't the only sci-fi/fantasy film to come out in 1982. For some reason, and despite lacking a Star Wars movie, 1982 hosted a near-embarrassment of riches for the genre, with the films released succeeding critically and commercially in establishing both genres. As a result, all of these films have been returned to, in some fashion, either given long-delayed sequels, prequels, or rebooted (whether openly or not). And all of the attempts to recapture the magic of 1982 simply have not measured up. Below I recall five of my favorites, and examine why their imitators fell short.

Yes, those are Montalban's real muscles

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This is by far my favorite on the list, and one of my favorite movies of all time. Directed by Nicholas Meyer, and starring the original series cast plus original series villain Khan (Ricardo Montalban, reprising his role), the genetic superman bent on revenge, "TWOK" wraps a surprisingly profound meditation on aging, loss, and death up in a rousing sci-fi adventure. Aided by a great score by the late James Horner (his first major film work), unexpectedly mature performances by William Shatner (as Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (as Spock), and, of course, by Montalban's dynamic Khan, TWOK revitalized a franchise that had seemingly been heading into senescence. Please, PLEASE watch it as soon as you can, but not before watching the original series episode "Space Seed" that functions as its prequel. Both are worth your time. And then, while you're at it, watch Skyfall, the 2012 James Bond movie that is a stealth remake of TWOK.

In 2013, J.J. Abrams (whom I have defended before) directed Star Trek Into Darkness, which ended up being a not-so-stealth remake of TWOK. As a summer blockbuster, STID, was better and smarter than average. If I had not been so fond of TWOK, or perhaps had never seen it, then I probably would have enjoyed STID, maybe even loved it. But TWOK ruined it for me. STID plays coy with its reveal, but then tries basically to be the same movie as TWOK once it reveals its villain as Khan (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) (with annoyingly knowing winks and nods to fans about it). But since it takes place in alternative Star Trek continuity, Kirk and Khan's history gets stripped of its context and meaning, leaving behind all the pathos and thematic weight of TWOK in the process. A much better movie would have involved the villain being Khan's second-in-command, whose goal is to resurrect his leader, a goal Kirk and co. must thwart. The only defense of J.J. that I can offer here is that he never really liked Star Trek much, and so relied on the screenplay given him (from which he still executed a good movie) that he did not fully comprehend or significantly attempt to alter. Khan is an iconic villain, but you can't just steal him from a better movie and expect him to work the same magic.

Thief. Warrior. Barbarian. King. Bodybuilder, 

Conan the Barbarian. Despite having an absurd title, a then-novice actor (Arnold Schwarzenegger, then basically unknown), and a fantasy setting derived from a pulp book series of already decades old by the time the movie came out, Conan the Barbarian just works. (Also, I know this is a fantasy film, but I like it so much I'm going to break my rule. Plus, when Oliver Stone [!] wrote an early draft of the screenplay, he set it in a post-apocalyptic reprimitivized Earth, so maybe it is actually sci-fi.) I've already sung its praises before (in hoping that it gets a sequel), so allow me to quote myself:

Don’t let the title fool you: Conan the Barbarian is a great movie that deserves a proper sequel. Combining images and themes from disparate times and places, it creates a fantastic world, vaguely familiar yet appropriately alien for an era before recorded history, with a vast untold history and mythology. 

Much like 1977’s Star Wars, Conan put its own spin on ancient storytelling archetypes: the hero’s journey, trusted companions, noble sacrifice, few against many. As Thulsa Doom, Darth Vader himself (James Earl Jones) is one of its best assets: a sort of primeval Jim Jones, who orders followers to kill their parents (and themselves) at his whim to prove the “power of the flesh” over steel. It all unfolds amidst a mélange of practical effects and fascinating ideas from writer-director Millius (a fascinating man himself), set to a rousingly old-fashioned score by the late Basil Poledouris.

I don't have much to add to this. I do have something to say, however, about subsequent entries in the Conan franchise. First, there is Conan the Destroyer, which I have seen. This movie bizarrely abandons the mythic, just-short-of-bombastic trappings of the first film, adding Wilt Chamberlain (?) as a villain and dramatically upping the comedy and slapstick. Conan (and Conan) deserved better. The recent attempted reboot, starring Jason Mamoa, I have only seen a portion of; that was enough. Drenching the proceedings in CGI and forced darkness, this new Conan coasted on well-worn clichés rather than drawing from the epic tradition of human storytelling, as did the original Conan. The creators of the property were probably hoping that "brand recognition" would allow them to get away with creative laziness, but audiences and critics alike rejected the attempt, and squandered the legacy of the original Conan in the process.

When will we get a Freddy vs. Jason-style It vs. The Thing? 

The Thing. The Thing is a disgusting movie. I mean this as a compliment for it is disgusting in the best possible way. This sci-fi horror film, directed by John Carpenter, is about an Arctic research crew who have to contend with a fearsome alien that can infect any living thing and assume its shape. Kurt Russell is the lead, but Keith David and Wilford Brimley, among others, also contribute to the frightening, paranoia-drenched, claustrophobic experience. And oh yeah, it's gross. It was the 80s, so Carpenter and his crew didn't have access to CGI. You'd think that might be limiting, but you'd be wrong. Using nothing but good old-fashioned practical effects and animatronics, The Thing produces scene after scene of nightmare fuel; in one memorable instance, an actor reacts to one of the titular creature's transformations by saying "you've gotta be fucking kidding me." See The Thing, and you'll not only agree that this is one of the most honest horror movie reactions in film history, but you'll also find yourself mouthing the words in agreement. The Thing also inspired this hilarious video, which is another point in its favor.

Which brings me to the 2011 prequel, also called The Thing. Making a prequel is always a risky bet, and this was a bet that failed--or so I'm told; I have not bothered to see this movie. The only thing that needs to be said about it, in my view, is that it replaces the 80s-style gore-and-guts practicality of the original with the sterile unrealism of CGI. Practical effects can be bad; see, e.g., Plan 9 From Outer Space (and, for that matter, CGI can be good; see, e.g., The Force Awakens or Mad Max: Fury Road, both of which used more CGI than you might think). But, at their best, practical effects do not impede creativity, but facilitate it. When you can't just turn to a computer to render something for you, you have to think pretty hard about how to make it in the real world; as a result of actually existing, in some form, that created thing can then have more of a realistic bearing in the world itself, and therefore in the film. CGI, on the other hand, at its worst, liberates the imagination, but in a way that makes the deceptions on the screen obvious, and distracts from the intended effect. What I've seen of The Thing remake suggests the latter in abundance.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial: These days, especially with Stranger Things and It, nostalgia for a certain sense of the 80s--technology-free, biking from house to house, hanging out with your neighbors and communicating with him via walkie-talkie, walking around your small hometown, creating an entire world beyond the stifling presence of adults--is all the rage in our pop culture. This is due, in large part, to Steven Spielberg, especially but not limited to E.T. I hardly need to summarize its plot, which just about everyone knows at this point (kindly alien suddenly enters the life of a young, fatherless boy, changing everything), or point out the contrast with the vision of alien life presented by Carpenter in The Thing (consonant with Spielberg's earlier Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but clashing dramatically with his later War of the Worlds). E.T. was a box office and critical smash, cementing Spielberg as a legend, and crystallizing for those who saw it at the time and those who see it afterward the sort of gauzy 80s nostalgia so in vogue today, a kind of double recollection, one real, and one fake (with the two of them intermixing).

This is the one area in which our pop culture seems (so far) capable of competently and consistently drawing from its predecessor. Stranger Things (which I shall review soon on this blog), J.J. Abrams' Super 8, It, and other media have all profitably mined this vein of 80s nostalgia. In all cases, though, one wonders why this era seems to have such a powerful pull, whether it is truly worthy of the constant revisitation our current culture creators seem intent on giving it, or whether they are only doing so because of the fondness they hold for it as an accident of their birth, and, finally, whether the insistence upon returning to and homaging can instead lead to redundancy (as in the case of the competently made and enjoyable Super 8; sorry J.J.) and creative inhibition.

I already sang the praises of Blade Runner above, but I'll happily sing them again. Combining a moody, evocative, synthesizer-based soundtrack by Vangelis with images so unique in their presentation that we had to coin a new term ("tech noir") to describe them, and reinforcing all of that with heady meditations on what it means to be human, Blade Runner is simply incredible (but be sure to watch The Final Cut; there are many versions floating around out there).

As I wrote above, Blade Runner is getting a sequel this weekend, after 35 years. We don't know yet whether it lives up to the original, although early signs are good. But whatever happens, we will always have 1982. It was not a year of special significance; the significance of the year in film is in the lack thereof. These were just the kinds of movies being made in the early 80s. Today, we have made many attempts to try to recapture the magic--with much more mixed success. Something tells me there won't be many people trying to recapture the magic of 2017 in 2052.