Dwayne Patterson

After sitting through The Woke Awakens and The Last Miserable Jedi, I got my courage up after three years to finally sit down and watch the final episode of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. It HAD to be better than its two predecessors, which were pretty close to unwatchable. Right? Nope! Old Jar Jar Abrams was at the absolute top of his game in tearing down a beloved science fiction franchise. The movie had fairly impressive special effects and lots of frantic action which will thrill the millennial crowd, but not much else. The plot, when not completely missing, was convoluted and difficult to follow (but that's just J.J.'s style). The writing was weak and didn't follow the precedents that George Lucas set in the first 6 movies. The actors' moments of inspiration weren't strong enough to overcome the bad writing and direction. These were pretty much the same issues that I had with the first two sequel movies, though. The disappointment that I really feel is that given a chance to at least partially make up for the mediocracy of the first two movies, the creators failed to provide with something special once again. Strike three. Thank goodness, you're out.

I keep watching episodes of Apple TV's adaptation of the Foundation expecting it to get better, but it just keeps on getting worse. Episode 8 was almost unwatchable. The writers and producers have created a tedious story with a convoluted plot from the basest framework of Isaac Asimov's series. While I understand that the original series does not lend itself well to the screen, I also do not believe that it should have been completely dismantled in this way. To all of Hollywood's writers and producers - please stop dismantling existing masterpieces for a quick payday and just start creating your own original material.