Obi-Wan Kenobi Part 1 Review

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series is finally here! It feels like we've been waiting for it for a million years. I was excited to finally watch it. 

Even though the first two episodes were released at the same time, this post is only going to be about Part 1. I'm writing this before I watched Part 2 as well, so I don't know what happens in it quite yet.

Before we get to the episode, there's a fairly long recap of the prequels, which made me laugh a little. I'm not sure that anyone who's choosing to watch the Obi-Wan series would really need the recap, and if you haven't watched the prequels, it absolutely spoils all three movies. But it was a nice trip down memory lane.

Once we actually get into the episode, we're quickly introduced to a group of inquisitors who are hunting down Jedi. They've arrived on Tatooine, and while at first I thought they were directly looking for Obi-Wan, it turns out that a different Jedi has caught their attention.

One of them, Reva, is fixated on finding Obi-Wan though, even though her superior chastises her for it. I already knew from information released before the show that Reva would play a significant role, and it's clear right away that she's going to be the biggest antagonist facing Obi-Wan.

It's only after meeting the inquisitors that we get our first look at Obi-Wan. He's working at a job that seems to be cutting some kind of meat. It's certainly an interesting place, especially considering all the workers leave while just leaving the meat behind sitting out. That...doesn't look good, but maybe this is special meat that doesn't spoil even when left sitting out on a hot desert planet? 

Is that what I was meant to take away most from that scene? Probably not, but it's what I got.

One bright spot of the episode is Obi-Wan's eobie. I don't know how likely it is that we'll see it again considering he leaves Tatooine within the first episode, but I sure hope that eobie makes it through the series alive.

We get some glimpses of Luke from afar but not all that much. After Obi-Wan leaves a toy for Luke, Owen brings it back to him and demands that Luke be left alone, a sentiment that makes complete sense and is unsurprising considering the original movies. Despite Owen's general distaste for Obi-Wan, he does deny knowing any Jedi when Reva questions him even when they threaten to kill his whole family. I do wonder if that threat is going to come into play later in the season if Reva catches on that Owen did, in fact, know about Obi-Wan.

As it turns out, the inquisitors were looking for another Jedi on Tatooine, not Obi-Wan, but that Jedi was looking for Obi-Wan and eventually finds him. It hurt to hear Obi-Wan tell the Jedi to bury his lightsaber, which we know that Obi-Wan did himself. It's clear that Obi-Wan feels quit defeated for obvious reasons, and he doesn't want to help when Bail comes to him for help.

Which brings us to Leia. We get to see a lot more of her than Luke in this episode, which has me excited. We've gotten quite a bit of Luke in the Star Wars TV series so far, and I'm excited to get a look at Leia's childhood. She's such a cute kid! I particularly loved the little droid she carried around, and my heart broke for her when her kidnapper destroyed it. I can only imagine how hard that would be for her, especially at that age.

I love Leia as a character so far! She's such a colorful character right from the moment we meet her, and I definitely feel like she's doing Leia from the original movies justice. I'm not sure how much we'll see of her throughout the remaining episodes, but I'm excited for it.

Oh, and another great thing about getting to see Leia is that we also get a quick peak at C-3PO!

Unsurprisingly, Obi-Wan does decide to go after Leia in the end. We see him dig up both his and Anakin's lightsabers in one of the more emotional scenes of the episode. We also find out that Reva is working with the kidnappers and is specifically looking for Obi-Wan, which makes complete sense yet somehow isn't what I expected until it was revealed.

I'm extremely excited to see where the story goes from this point on.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x04 "Memento Mori" Review

This episode starts with a narration about how it's a holiday to honor Starfleet officers who have died. I wonder if the episode was purposefully timed to air close to Memorial Day in the US because it kind of feels like it, but the holiday also provides a reason to hint at La'an's past, which ends up being relevant throughout the episode.

At the beginning of the episode, Una encourages La'an to talk to a doctor because it's clear she's not processing her grief well, but La'an refuses and says she's not broken. I appreciate that Strange New Worlds seems to be dealing with mental health just like Discovery has, and I actually like the way that it's handled in this episode better than I do many of the times it was brought up in Discovery.

I was curious of the mention of La'an's mental health was going to be mentioned and then not brought up again for quite a while, but it actually ended up being relevant to the entire episode as they encounter the Gorn.

The Gorn conceal themselves, and La'an only figures out they're there right before they attack. A few people are killed, and Una gets some deep wounds. Because of problems on the ship, she has to get stitches, which leads to a comment about "archaeological medicine" that was amusing. (Even living in a time where stitches are common and as someone who's had them before, stitches feel bizarre to me, so I can understand how especially weird they would sound in the future.)

While La'an's backstory gets developed more than anyone else's in this episode, we get quite a bit of character development or backstory for a lot of people. One of the people we learn the most about is Hemmer. Him and Uhura get trapped, and his hands are damaged, which forces him to rely on Uhura. It's mentioned that he's a pacifist, which I don't think came up in earlier episodes. Uhura mentions this not aligning with Starfleet, and he talks about pacifism being active. I'm curious to see how this comes up in the future and how it might influence later episodes.

The whole subplot also allows Uhura to help save the day, so her confidence is increasing even more. At this point, I think she may be the crew member whose story I'm most interested in seeing progress as she grows and becomes more comfortable in her role.

Unsurprisingly, the Enterprise manages to destroy the Gorn after a few wrong turns, and Pike makes a comment about them being ready if the Gorn appear again. Which means I kind of expect them to appear again. If they do, maybe we'll get to see their faces next time, since we never actually see any of them in this episode.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode especially for the character development it provided.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x03 "Ghosts of Illyria" Review

In this episode, Enterprise is at an abandoned Illyrian colony, and they're trying to figure out what happened to the Illyrians who lived there. At the beginning, they explain some history of the Illyrians, including that they modify their genes, which is banned in the Federation. I really appreciated that being explained because I knew nothing about the Illyrians before this episode.

When an ion storm comes, Pike and Spock end up getting trapped on the planet, which is already something that seems to be happening a lot.

While Pike and Spock are seemingly the ones in danger at first, the crew on the ship start experiencing weird symptoms where they burn themselves with light. At first it only infects the landing party, but then it quickly spreads to other people.

The learn that the illness is spread through light, which wasn't something I'd heard before. After Covid, any stories about contagions feel a little different, and the idea of an illness traveling through light feels particularly scary because of how hard it is to protect yourself from it.

Spock finds a journal on the colony, and he works out that this particular group of Illyrians wanted to join the Federation. To do that, they needed to "demodify" themselves, and this is ultimately what led to them dying. There are creatures in the storm that might actually be the Illyrians themselves, and they end up saving Spock and Pike, which makes it seem like they're sentient to some extent. It's an interesting storyline, and I'm curious about the show handling more about augments in the future, which should be easy considering Una is an Illyrian.

I really enjoyed this episode. Actually, I would have liked to learn a lot more about this group of Illyrians, and I'm a little sad that that's probably not going to happen. Still, I hope the next episode is interesting in its own way.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x02 "Children of the Comet" Review

While I can't say this for sure when we're only two episodes into the season, it seems like Strange New Worlds is doing a deeper dive into each crew member each week. At least for now. I really like that since it's a good opportunity for us viewers to get to knew each of them more, and I'm incredibly interested in what we'll learn.

Ortegas plays a joke on Uhura because she's new to the ship. She convinces her to wear her dress uniform to a dinner that Pike is hosting when everyone else is more casual. I really felt for Uhura there because something like that would absolutely mortify me. I cringed through that part a lot as well as other moments during the dinner and later on in the episode where Uhura clearly felt worried about making a good impression. I felt for her a lot in this episode, and I think she may be one of my favorite characters now, which is one reason I'm glad that we seem to be getting to know each crew member better over time.

The comet that Enterprise has been monitoring is on track to his a planet that has pre-warp technology and can't defend itself. But when they try to redirect the comet, they realize that it has a force field. This leads to the discovery of a structure on the surface, yet they can't find any signs of life on the comet.

Sam makes a reference to Yahtzee and then tries to explain what it is to Spock, which prompts Spock to reply that he's familiar with the game. I don't know why but the idea of Spock being familiar with Yahtzee actually made me laugh.

A group is sent on a mission to the surface of the comet. Down there, they find markings that may be a language, and Uhura is the one tasked with figuring out what they mean. As I mentioned before, I really felt for her during this episode because that's a lot to deal with on your first ever away mission when you still felt a little out of place amongst the crew.

Spock attempts to give Uhura a pep talk later, and while the pep talk itself is kind of funny, I enjoyed seeing them bond a bit more.

They discover that a group of people are guarding the comet, which they have a religious view of. While we get some answers about this in the episode, the episode also raises so many questions that I'm still curious about. They claim that the comet's destiny is preordained, and later on, we discover that this seems to be true. Or, at least, the comet knows the future. What it's guardians didn't seem to know is that Enterprise intercepting the comet was part of what was supposed to happen.

Uhura figures out that the code is music. I'm still not entirely clear about how the communication works other than that it seems to be effected by the mood of the music. I also wonder why they needed to communicate at all when the comet seems to have known what needed to happen anyway. I don't think communicating with the comet ultimately changed what the Enterprise would have done anyway. But there we go I guess.

In the end, the comet does miss the planet, and it ends up altering the atmosphere of the planet in a way that might help civilization develop. That and the fact that it knew its future raises a lot of questions that aren't answered and probably never will be, yet I'm incredibly curious about them. It's hard to imagine that being explained away by science. Thinking about it now, just the fact that the comet can communicate and has knowledge means that it seems sentient in some way, which raises even more questions than I realized that I had before.

Since I suspect that Strange New Worlds is going to be pretty episodic, I don't expect us to get answers to those questions, which is a shame. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing what next episode is about.

Heartstopper 1x08 "Boyfriend" Review

I'm actually sad that this is my last Heartstopper review to write. I'm so obsessed with this show that it's taken over my life.

At the start of the episode, Tao is still mad at Charlie, which I completely understand. While I also completely understand why Charlie didn't tell him, I get why Tao is upset. What's actually more frustrating is Charlie attempting to break up with Nick and avoiding him instead of talking about what's bothering him. Even though that also makes complete sense for Charlie's character.

There are a lot of great moments in this episode, but one of the "smaller" ones that I love is Nick sitting down with Tao at lunch. Yes, he was looking for Charlie, but I really like the fact that he still sat down with Tao and talked to him when he realized that Charlie wasn't there. It was good for them to actually talk, and I think it does a good job of showing that there is actually potential for friendship between them.

Also, Nick telling Tao that he should try rugby makes me laugh every time.

I have some questions about the Sports Day outfits. Namely, why do the girls seem to be in skirts to play sports? I'm guessing they're actually skorts or something, but... Why aren't they just in shorts?

Charlie finally tells Ben off, and I loved it!

The end of this episode is without a doubt the cutest part of the whole show, which is saying something considering how cute the entire thing is. While Nick just walking off the field during the rugby match was wonderful, I am glad that he led Charlie into the school instead of just kissing him in front of everyone. The conversation that they had was way more satisfying than a sudden kiss where they didn't actually deal with what was happening would have been.

And then we get the absolutely adorable date at the beach! It's hard to even pick a favorite part of the beach date, but I love the parallel of Charlie asking Nick if they're boyfriends with the earlier (heart breaking) moment with Ben.

Nick coming out to his mom was also adorable and a very heart warming scene that's another one of my favorites. I should really just say that this whole episode is my favorite now because it is. We get another reference to the timeline that I'm still not clear on though. I do get that the episode starts at the beginning of term and this episode seems to be close to the end of term, but everything in between feels pretty blurry.

I'm so happy that this show exists. I'm going to go rewatch it for the millionth time.

Book Review: Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Published: February 23, 2017
Publisher: Orbit
Received: purchased
Read from December 4, 2021 to May 5, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Tade Thompson's Rosewater is the start of an award-winning, cutting edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging new voices.

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again—but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.

Review:

This is the last of the Life's Library books that I have left to review, since Life's Library has sadly ended. However, this wasn't the last Life's Library pick. It just took me months to read it.

It didn't take me that long to read the book because I disliked it, but I did find the book quite dense. Every chapter gave a lot to think about, which led me to read the book particularly slowly. The world of the book is a very interesting one but also one that was constantly raising questions. I never felt like I quite knew what was going on, which also meant I didn't feel like I could fly through it.

My least favorite part of the book was definitely the main character Kaaro. His view of women is an extremely stereotypical take on all the worst "men write women" tropes, which got very tiring very fast. It sucked because I was very intrigued by the actual universe of the book itself and wanted to learn more about it and the other characters. I just wish I hadn't been learning about it through Kaaro.

Rosewater is the first in a series, and I'm interested enough in the world that I probably will continue to read it. That being said, it's not a huge priority. I've heard that the other books are told in the point of view of various characters, not just Kaaro, so that also makes me more interested in reading them. We'll see when I get around to it.

Heartstopper 1x07 "Bully" Review

I'm here with my review of episode seven after finishing my fifth watch of the series last night.

Charlie goes with Nick and his friends to the movies in this episode, which put me on edge the first time I watched the episode because I knew that something was going to happen. I do enjoy the scenes of Charlie's dad dropping him off though. This time in particular he makes sure to let Charlie know to call him if something goes wrong, and I really appreciate seeing that, even if (as a teenager) Charlie's unlikely to actually do it. I also love that he says, "Nick's going to be there. I'll be fine." It's a small moment but shows that he feels safe with Nick, which I just really love.

Nick does stand up for Charlie in this episode too. After earlier episodes where he stayed quiet while Harry was saying stuff, it as nice to see him push back. (I know he did in the party episode too though.) While fighting is never the answer of course, I can't deny that the fight scene felt satisfying.

The scene where Charlie arrives at school and discovers that Nick fought Harry is also one of my favorites.

Ben continues to be unnerving every time he shows up too. I got chills when he confronted Charlie in the parking lot, and I'm so thankful for Charlie's dad showing up when he did because I'd hate to think about what would have happened if he hadn't.

I'm still a bit iffy on the actual timeline. While Tao and Elle are talking in this episode, they reference the milkshake date having been "ages ago."  I know it goes from being the first day of the term to sometime in the spring/early summer, but I honestly have no idea when each individual episode is meant to have taken place. I think because of the shorter amount of episodes, I have to remind myself that Charlie and Nick have known each other for longer than it sometimes feels like when watching the episodes.

Charlie wanting to break up with Nick because he thinks me makes everyone's life worse absolutely broke my heart, and the look on Nick's face while they're talking in the cafeteria made it even worse.

Like I mentioned when talking about episode six, I really feel for Tao. I completely understand where his feelings come from, and his fight with Harry and then yelling at Charlie were both sad to watch as well.

This episode definitely left me on the edge of my seat for the next one the first time I watched it.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x01 "Strange New Worlds" Review

I've mentioned in my Star Trek: Discovery reviews that it's the first Star Trek series I've watched every episode of, though I've seen bits and pieces of many of the other series. Ironically, The Original Series is the one that I've probably seen the least of. However, Discovery made me curious enough about Strange New Worlds to watch it. Plus, as I mentioned in my Heartstopper reviews, I've wanted a new show to watch every week, so now I have Strange New Worlds for that.

The episode opens with Pike in Montana. Discovery never shows much more than quick glimpses of Earth, so it feels kind of strange to see a relatively normal Earth in Star Trek.

We see Spock next. He's on a date with T'Pring, who he's been "courting" for a year. They end up becoming engaged. I'm aware that T'Pring is in The Original Series, though I know very little about her. I'm curious about the role she'll play in Strange New Worlds. At this point, I can't say that I like her necessarily, but we'll see. We didn't really get to learn much about her.

Early in the episode, we hear from Spock that Pike has requested a Lieutenant Kirk, which was an interesting detail that definitely left me curious.

Pike is seeing images of his future after seeing it in Discovery. He ends up sharing this with Spock, which I thought was an interesting development since I feel like characters rarely open up about stuff like this with others (which always leads to more problems down the line). I can't imagine knowing the circumstances of my own death, and I'm very curious how that's going to affect Pike's decision making going forward.

Enterprise goes to a planet to find Number One and two other Star Fleet officers who've gone missing. They discover that the planet has actually made a warp bomb instead of a warp drive, all because of what happened to Discovery. I really appreciate getting to see the consequences of Discovery on the former "present" of the show in a way that we can't on the show Discovery itself.

The planet has an ongoing conflict that's constantly compared to Earth during the episode. I don't know when this episode was written or filmed, but it certainly is interesting timing to have it coming out now during the war in Ukraine.

Pike gets the two sides of the conflict to negotiate with each other in a move that plays out a little too ideal, but I pretty much expected that. While I haven't seen much of The Original Series, I've seen more of The Next Generation than any other series besides Discovery, and the general vibe of this reminded me of TNG.

At the end of the episode, we meet Samuel Kirk, who I know from researching on the wiki is future Captain Kirk's brother. I'm curious about him as a character, but the actor is also being played by the same actor who played Mary's brother James in Reign. There are many actors who I can watch in various shows with no problem, but this is one case where I couldn't stop thinking about Reign. He was only there briefly though, so here's hoping that that'll fade as time goes on.

Overall, I'm nowhere near as invested in Strange New Worlds as I am Discovery, but I wouldn't expect that after only one episode. I'm definitely intrigued enough to keep watching and see where the story goes.

Movie Review: Moonshot

I learned about Moonshot from an ad for it that popped up on Roku, and I was curious. It was mostly the cast that drew me in. I love the To All the Boys movies, so I'd be excited to watch anything new with Lana Condor, but the fact that Cole Sprouse was also in it piqued by curiosity even more. I haven't watched Cole Sprouse in anything in years (not even Riverdale), but I spent all of middle school obsessed with The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and the idea of the two of them acting opposite each other seemed like a strange enough choice that I wanted to see it for myself.

I wasn't expecting much, but I was curious. I also like both romance and sci-fi, and while those two genres are combined fairly often in books, there are less movies that do that.

While Cole and Lana didn't have the strongest chemistry, they honestly did better opposite each other than I expected. I'm also not sure how much the lack of chemistry was the choice of actors and how much of it was how Cole Sprouse's character was written. He's not particularly charming or anything. He's supposed to be an "average guy" to an extreme, but while average guys can still be interesting characters, this one  wasn't. Even an average guy needs some redeeming qualities, and he didn't really have any.

We're supposed to be rooting for him over the boyfriend (can you tell I don't remember any character names?), but to be honest, I thought she was better with the boyfriend. Don't get me wrong. I get that her and her boyfriend had different visions for their futures, and I completely understand that leading to a breakup. However, the story itself felt like it would have worked better if it worked up to her going back to Earth on her own without another romance in the picture.

One thing that helped me to keep watching was that the movie seemed self-aware about how ridiculous it was to at least a certain extent. There were a few times I laughed out loud, even if it was just because of the ridiculousness, so I'll give it that.

Overall, I don't regret watching the movie. I got some laughs out of it. Will I ever watch it again? Doubtful. But it did make me think about how much I could use more romance movies set in space. It's fairly common in books but less so in movies, which is a shame. I wouldn't mind this one starting a trend. Not that I expect that to happen.

Heartstopper 1x06 "Girls" Review

This episode was an emotional one. I mean, they're all emotional to me because I spend most of the episodes beaming, and happiness is also an emotion, but this one is one of the saddest ones I think. Even after watching it for the fourth time yesterday, this one really gets to me.

Nick starts researching bisexuality in this episode as he learns more about himself. That really touched me. I love the journey he goes on in these episodes. It's really great.

This episode also includes Nick getting lunch with Tara and Darcy and opening up to them about his relationship with Charlie, which was adorable! I love his friendship with both of them a lot.

The lunch with Nick, Tara, and Darcy turns into a triple date. I loved Elle's reaction to finding out that Charlie and Nick are dating. It was so cute! I feel bad for Isaac that he didn't get to come along though. If we get a season two (and oh how I hope we get a season two), then I hope we get to see a bit more of Isaac. I know he's the quiet one, but as someone who was also the quiet one of my friend group growing up, I'd love to see more of him!

Tao being the only one who doesn't know about Nick and Charlie also makes me sad. I can easily imagine how terrible it would be to know that a bunch of other people knew about your best fiend's relationship and you didn't. But it's probably best to talk more about that when I talk about episode seven.

Heartstopper 1x05 "Friend" Review

 As of writing this review, I've watched the whole season three times, and I'm doing my best to focus on other things I have to do instead of just starting the show for a fourth time. I've also convinced my sister to start watching it, so I'm feeling pretty accomplished.

I love that Charlie and his friends play Monopoly in this episode. As a kid, I played a lot of Monopoly with my sister and grandma, so the argument about cheating at Monopoly was particularly funny to me. We had a lot of similar arguments when I was growing up.

Imogen's dog dying on the day Nick wanted to talk to her about the date is cliché, but also funny, especially when Nick talks to his mom about it later. I'm not even bothered by it being a little bit of an overdone trope.

While Tao does overreact at certain points in the story, I appreciate that his reactions are always believable. I completely get why he feels the way he does about Charlie getting involved with Nick. His worries about Nick's date with Imogen in particular is something that I'm sympathetic too, and I get why he wanted to tell Charlie about it.

Props to Nick for coming clean about Imogen and making things right too. While he shouldn't have said yes, I'm sympathetic towards the pressure he felt in that scene, and I loved seeing him be honest about it with Charlie. The gift he gives Charlie is also adorable!

Speaking of adorableness, there were some great moments between Tao and Elle in the arcade in this episode. I loved it!

Nick keeps his word about telling Imogen that he isn't interested, and I'm surprised at how open he is with her in the park. She also impressed me by handling it the way she did and not telling all their friends the full story. I'm curious about where her character development could take her in the future, especially since she's a character unique to the TV show and who's not in the comics.

I'm not sure if I like her per se, but I do think I could potentially like Imogen if we ever learn more about her and she grows as a character. If we get a season two and don't get much of her, I also wouldn't be too disappointed though.