Post Father's Day, Will Goes Retro, Monday Metal

We had a pleasant Father's Day. We got in a morning gym session. Then we went to our sister's in Pelham, which necessitated crossing the Hudson. Traffic on the George Washington Bridge was terrible, there was a game at nearby Yankee Stadium. So we took the long way around, up the Hudson and across at the Tappan Zee, and then back down. We avoided NYC altogether, thank god. The girls got us a great Father's Day Card:

Mrs. Stroock posting something on FB that made us downright emotional. This isn't about me, but she and all she's seen: 'Happy Father’s Day to my best friend, the best Daddy our girls could ask for, the guy who has kept this house going for the last few months while I have been back and forth to Indiana, the reason our kids actually survived online learning, and so much more! You are loved and appreciate more than you ever know William Stroock'. Well if that just doesn't....anyway. Because it was Father's Day, I was allowed to chose what kind of takeout we got: Mexican.

What Will's Watching: Last week we caught Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (1981) on Netflix. This was one of those serious adult movies our parents watched when we were a kid. To Vivaldi's Four Seasons, three couples go on vacation together and end up sniping at one another. Interestingly these are all pre-boomers, one of the characters is 43, so there's no kvetching about the 60's man. This ain't The Big Chill, without looking we're quite sure The Big Chill is unwatchable today. Alan Alda plays...Alan Alda and is very good in the roll. But overall none of these people are very likable. This film can give a younger viewer a good sense for what 1981 felt like. Coincidently, Christian Toto just reviewed another Alan Alda project, Sweet Liberty. 3/4.

The Jews, is there nothing they can't do? From the JPost: 'Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant underwent an emergency shutdown, Iranian media reported on Sunday.' The Iranians claim a 'technical defect.' This is Farsi for 'The Jews did it'. The government may change but Mossad remains the same. It's never an accident. For the Imams are right. 

There's a ton to do this week. We need to write ad-hoc corps' planning scene, add to the 8th Mechanized Division's planning scene, flesh out the Soviet's operational concept, add a couple of Apache scenes and finish up the chapter. We'd like it done by 1 July. We'll see. We'll be picking up The Great Nuclear War of 1975.

Monday Metal. Let's see...what have we been listening to on the treadmill lately? That's right, The Black Crowes, Twice as Hard. We had actually forgotten this song existed for at least two decades:

Those are some serious power chords and blues based riffs. Just clubs ya over the head, don't it?

Wednesday Russian et al

Good Morning! Our latest bit of Russian collusion with Inforos is out:  'A wave of leftist rioting and looting followed the police murder of George Floyd. The Establishment and the media stoked the riots, encouraged them, and made excuses. Biden campaign staffers contributed to rioter bail funds. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tried to de-escalate the situation there, only to see Antifa in the streets every night. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry tried to address a BLM rally and was turned away by a crowd shouting ‘shame’ after him. They’re not gonna let up and they should not,’ Vice President-Elect Kamal Harris said of the George Floyd rioters. They were ‘mostly peaceful’, the Dems and the media said. On January 6th, the day Congress met to certify the Electoral College vote, more than 200,000 Trump supporters gathered on the Washington Mall....' There's nothing quite like turning in an article before bed and seeing it published upon waking.

The Critical Drinker is always right. Here's a great vid on the war at Lucas Films between John Favreau and Kathleen Kennedy. May the Force be with you, Star Wars is so simple. A restless young man on the farm, a rogue, a princess, a villain who serves an evil god...Whoever wrote The Epic of Gilgamesh would totally get it. Walk into Shakespeare's office with this outline, he'd look it over, make a note and say, 'Come back on Thursday.' It's so simple.

Did we mention that The Critical Drinker is always right? Here's his review of The Expanse. Season-1 was the best season of TV scifi since season-4 of TNG. Speaking of, The Expanse's season-4 just sucked balls, but we're halfway through season-5 and it's almost all the way back.

Gab is slow as heck with all the refugees from Twitter. Be patient. Parler has found a new hosting service, the same folks who host Gab. This blog is wondering when it will get cancelled and how far it will go. A few friends have left FB, and to be honest, we'd leave it as well were it not for the familial, personal and professional contacts we've made.  

Apropos of having just popped by the Times of Israel, here's the latest polling data for March's elections: 'The Channel 12 survey gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party the most seats (29), followed by Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope (16), Naftali Bennett’s Yamina (13), Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (13), the Joint List (10), Shas (8), United Torah Judaism (8), Yisrael Beytenu (7), Ron Huldai’s The Israelis (6), Meretz (5), and Blue and White (5).' That's three rightwing parties at the top followed by a centrist party. Labour doesn't even make the top ten. Were the top three parties to combine with Yisrael Beytenu they'd have a government. But at this point Israeli elections are about one thing, Bibi and they all hate his guts.

The last News Wrap of 2020

We don't do the New Years thing. We have no resolutions to make and we're not in the mood for predictions. In 2016 we predicted Rubio/Haley would win. Also we thought Hillary! would be dead by now. So that's what those are worth. Ok, we have one resolution: consume less news.

Colonel Schlichter predicts pain. We see nothing with which to disagree. Our best guess on Georgia is that the GOP loses. The party down there is a mess and neither candidate inspires. Some are hammering Jew hater Rafael Warnock's Jew hatred. That will just help turn out the black vote. It's a weird relationship, people. 

Over in Israel, the Blue and Whites are dying as six MK's have now left. Damn. We wanted a center-ish party that would hammer the palestinians and hammer the Haredi. Not next year. Benny Gantz thought he could make a deal with Bibi. Fool. Worse, Gantz thought he could stab the other two wings of the Blue and Whites in the back and command their loyalty afterwards. Idiot. Some strategy. This guy was the chief of staff? We shudder. Polls show an electorate that is center right and more right.  Peacenik Meretz is a fringe party and Ben Gurion's Labour, once Israel's natural governing party, is almost dead. Good. The other two major rightwing parties really hate Bibi. It's personal. We suspect Israel will have another deadlock after the March elections. 

The Critical Drinker really doesn't like Wonder Woman 1984. The film is a Woke mess, he says. Which is fine. But WW84 was written and directed by Patty Jenkins, who is doing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Can't you see it? A fresh, spunky female X-wing pilot shows all the jocks how it's done. Will it be Woke? Is this a Kennedy project or a Favreau project? Favreau is running the TV side of things so....

We're re-reading Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries trilogy. After 34+ years we can still recall reading Janissaries on the way home from the book store and reading the Roman battle in SSR at school, which certainly  says something for Pournelle. We've finished the first book and it's a tight, well written masterpiece. We're shocked at how much we like Janissaries and how easy it was to read. Well done Mr. Pournelle, and thank you. Can't wait to get to the fourth and final volume, Mamelukes.

We're writing what we believe is the final chapter for the main narrative of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. This chapter deals with election and congressional issues. The last shows Rockefeller giving the State of the Union at The Greenbrier. It's a wish list of what needs to be done. Overall 40 states returned electors, congressman and senators. Bobby Byrd survived and he's undisputed master of the senate. We still only got Matt to the Indiana border and still don't know if he finds Stacey and the boys. What do you guys think? 

Star Warred

 Is this a thing? We think this might be a thing:

We are intrigued by Disney's grand Star Wars plans. Patty Jenkins directed Wonder Woman*, and that turned out ok, right? We dunno we haven't seen it. We've barely seen Iron Man. Look, people, we just don't watch comic book movies. 

If reader(s) haven't seen The Mandalorian, it works. It's being over-praised right now. It's not that good. But it's good. And that is refreshing after two decades of ball sucking Star Wars failures.

We admit there's a chance for Wokeness here. But I dunno. Jenkins says she's making a movie about two things she loves. That is, fighters and Star Wars. That sounds like code for disenchanted Gen-X Star Wars nerds like us. 

Others have pointed out that in all of these grand plans, there's not one reference to the sequels. So maybe Disney has learned its lesson. Remember, there's a difference between having ass-kicking female fighter-jocks and Woke, bitter lesbians bitching about men and their super-hero mothers.** Just look at Cara Dune in The Mandalorian. She's getting her own show. 

We'll keep our fingers crossed.

*If we want to leer at Gal Gadot, we'll just google her. Link provided for *informational* purposes only.

**The Critical Drinker is always right.

Will's Red Letter

Sometimes you wakeup and got nuthin' to say. So you start typing and hope by the time you finish what you're typing your brain will get to where it needs to be and you can start putting together a well written and insightful post.

Nuthin'.

Oh there it is.

Red Letter Media is filming a series about their favorite Star Trek TNG episodes. We strongly suggest them, as we watch Mr. Plinkett's Star Wars Prequel reviews once a year as kind of a warning. One can learn a lot by watching people who actually understand movies take apart the work of a man who does not.* One can glean many creative insights from Red Letter Media. They're a big influence.

And so is Star Trek: TNG. During the summer of 1984 we'd stay up late and watch the old Trek on WPIX Channel 11. We were a fan of the original but ignored TNG for the first few seasons. A good thing actually, because the two seasons run by Gene Roddenberry totally sucked. Roddenberry pretty much just got the band back together, and they wrote episodes like it was 1967. The results were out of place, disastrous cringe-fests.  

Thing really got good during season three. One evening in 1990 we turned on the TV and saw was a bunch of people standing on the lip of a crater. This was the first episode in TNG's two part Best of Both Worlds, in which The Federation fights off a Borg invasion. We were hooked. But more importantly, we were inspired.

That was the moment, the spark across the sky. That's when we saw something we liked so much we wish we had written it. That's when we knew we wanted to write for a living. And so we do.

*George Lucas is a talentless pudge-boy who made an awful movie that was saved in editing by his wife and Richard Chew, who won and Oscar for his trouble. Lucas mostly stayed away from Empire and Jedi, which explains why they're so good. God bless Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand.

Various and Sundry

The Stroocklettes are going to real, honest to Adon, in-person school this morning, something they've not done since March.

We have a weekday morning to ourselves, something we've not had since March.

We're thinking of taking a morning trip to the gym, something we've not done since March.

In other news....

We caught some of Trump's Iowa rally last night. His stemwinder about Hunter and Joe was unusually focused for him. But we're not sure how much voters will care. We'd rather Trump tout his record. The NY Post* is drip-dripping the story. There are new revelations this morning, so we'll see.

Big Tech censoring The Post's story has amplified the story and become a story itself. Not smart.

If Iowa is locked up, why is Trump stopping in Des Moines? We know a guy there, and he said it was a thank you to the state party apparatus. Also, don't ignore your states. Hillary! ignored Wisconsin. 

Speaking of, we now believe Hillary! will run in 2024, assuming the syphilis or Parkinson's doesn't get her first. 

Trump is supposed to go on Savannah Guthrie for a townhall tonight. We think this is a mistake. But who knows? Maybe he just wants to compare ratings? 

Disney has greenlit Star Wars: Kenobi starting Ewan McGregor. This is an unusually good idea. Perhaps Kathleen Kennedy's** rein of terror really is over? If so may the Lords of Kobol bless you, John Favreau, sir. The Mandalorian was shockingly not bad.

We're wondering if we should re-conceptualize The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We've written chapters with themes, farming, the military, libraries, etc. Perhaps we should organize the book by region. For example, here's what's happening in Colorado. We've done that with one chapter, actually.

We should probably complete the Nederland edits and re-read a proof again. There's plenty of time.

*NYC's paper of record.

** Is the force still female?

Will's Rogued Off

Director Gareth Edwards gave us a visually interesting film that calls back to Star Wars. The entire film is a call back to Star Wars, 'Hey look what we brought back!' Rogue One tells us over and over again. It's both a feature and a bug.

The CGI Tarkin and Leia are pointless and unnecessary. See 'uncanny valley' in your film dictionary. 

We admit the Battle of Scarif was a thrilling, tension filled romp capped off by a terrifying twist at the end. 

But three years later Rogue One lacks an emotional anchor making it watchable over and over again, you know, like Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  A year ago we called Rogue One a sugar rush. We think that's right.

So we ask our original question again. How can Rogue One be awesome while the three Skywalker movies suck. The answer is, it isn't.

In this way the universe makes sense once more.

Will's Rogued Off

For us, the new problem with Rogue One is character. We actually like Jyn Erso and we can stare at Felicity Jones' sweet, pouty face all day. As a character we think she's...ok. 

The other two interesting characters are Director Krenick, the driven, obsessed Death Star project manager well played by Ben Mendelsohn and Forrest Whitaker's Sal Gererra. Whitaker plays Gererra as a desperate fanatic, driven to the edge of insanity by war. We wanted to see more of him.

After that, well, here's the problem: until we re-watched Rogue One last weekend, we couldn't remember anyone else's name. This includes Cassian, played like a Frenchman by the Spanish Diego Luna. Imagine seeing The Empire Strikes Back and not remembering Lando's name. 

We still don't know the names of the blind Chinese guy and the big Polynesian guy.  Ok, the droid, whose name we can't remember, unlike, say, C3PO, was fun. And we don't remember the  name of the Imperial Pilot, or even Jyn's dad. The dad....

Will Gets Rogued

OK, upon re-watching Rogue One we liked it. We enjoyed it. We were entertained. As previously noted, we thought the big battle at the end was a ton of fun, exciting, tense. A gritty war movie, appropriate for Memorial Day. The ending is a close rival to the ending battle in Return of the Jedi. Yes we like the Darth Vader twist at the end. Oh, we're all getting away...nope!

But upon re-viewing cracks emerge. We'll be talking about those cracks all week.

Will Goes Rogue

In which we dive back into the Star Wars Paradox.

Here's what we wrote about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story the Monday after we saw it. Nut graph, as the J-School no-talents would say, we loved it. 

We remember the experience well. On Saturday Mrs. Stroock took the girls to see, I dunno, Trolls or something while we went with our neighbor, Bill to see Rogue One. The parties emerged from their respective theatres at the same time. We saw Mrs. Stroock and the girls, shouted and held up duel devil horns in triumph. We don't do that often.

We were blown away, overwhelmed, we felt like we'd been swimming underwater. Eighteen hours later we took Oldest Daughter to see Rogue One.

After the Force Awakens, which at the timed seemed ok to pretty good, it seemed as if Disney had figured out Star Wars. Which is why we wanted to cry after The Last Jedi. 

We are left with nothing but questions. We're confused, actually. We don't understand a world in which the last three Skywalker movies suck, Solo is interesting and Rogue One is totally awesome. As Billy said in Predator, 'It just doesn't make any sense.' 

So we watched Rogue One over the weekend and we'll be discussing it all week.

Star Wars: The Wrap

Let's face it. Star Wars is a spent force.* Three movies are wonderful, two are Okaaaay? And six are absolute dreck. Six! Plus the shockingly entertaining and competent Mandalorian.

It should not be this hard to make decent Star Wars movies. As Mr. Plinkett has asked, 'How do you fuck up Star Wars?'** It's hard to do. Yet two excellent producer/directors George Lucas and JJ Abrams managed to do just that.

Return of the Jedi is the film that still kindles that wonder for us. We were ten, we'd waited three long, long years for its release. And every time it's on we still feel the way we did when we first saw it. These days we get downright emotional about it.

So we're not going to tell reader(s) that we don't care. We do. It's just that our anger is spent. We're indifferent to George Lucas and JJ Abrams. We're resigned. 

*See what I did there?
** Post in this webzone if you want a pizza roll.

Star Wars: 90210

We propose a 90210 style drama about the Imperial academy with pretty people studying and proving their loyalty to the Empire. No, nobody is going to have doubts about the Emperor. This is the young law and order crowd and they are 100 percent loyal. The rivalries will be between those from the inner planets and those from the outer, ruling families, etc etc. Maybe somebody does a summer internship at the Imperial Senate. Maybe someone's dad is a senator. No, nobody is going to feel sympathy for the rebel cause. In fact, the opening seen should be the expulsion of someone for expressing such sympathies.

Un-Happy Star Wars Day

We're not mad. We're not disappointed. We just don't care anymore. We haven't even bothered to see the last film, whose name we can't even remember and can't be bothered to look up.

We all understand how and why George Lucas effed up the prequels. He could do whatever he wanted and ran the whole thing himself. Had that been true in the beginning, all three movies would have been disasters. George had to listen to Alan Ladd Jr in 1976. Empire and Jedi were competently written and directed by men who were not George Lucas.

The Sequels, well, we're just not in the mood to go there.

This week is Star Wars week at William Stroock dot BlogSpot dot com.

[I thought you said you didn't care?-Ed]

I don't.

All week we'll be discussing Star Wars ideas. 

What Will's Watching

The Empire Strikes Back: Turned off the lights and put Empire on the flat screen above the mantle. It felt like being in the theatre and felt like being a kid again. After all this time the opening act still feels new and exotic, a great departure from Star Wars. Remarkable. And that, George and Kathleen, is why the original trilogy is so special. 

Blogs Get Star Wars, Disney Doesn't

John Nolte (PBUH) reviews The Rise of Skywalker and is not impressed. In his review Nolte makes a great point and with Original Trilogy:

There are two moments I’ve never forgotten from the original Star Wars trilogy. In 1977, I was 11 years old, so of course I’m going to mention that jaw-dropping Star Wars opening. Endless space, John Williams’ rising score, and that never-ending Imperial Star Destroyer passing overhead. The second is Luke Skywalker’s first appearance in Return of the Jedi (1982). What an arc that character had — from a starry-eyed, somewhat spoiled child in Star Wars, to The Empire Strikes Back’s unseasoned and impatient warrior eager to do his duty, to this… Look at Luke now. Look at his poise, his confidence… He’s a Jedi! No. Better. He’s a man.

That, reader(s), is why when John Nolte speaks about movies, one should always listen.

Nolte is sooooo right about Luke in Return of the Jedi, and we too recall Luke's entrance vividly, from our very first viewing. God, Luke is such a badass walking into Jaba's palace. 'You will bring Captain Solo and the Wookie to me.'

Here's Ace writing about world building in Star Wars:

You could take the Star Wars story and just plop it into any setting because it’s a tale as old as time, to coin a phrase. Around that simple story, though, is a new world. The setting of the film seems to spill over on every side. Yes, we have the Empire and the Rebellion, but we also have hints of the Old Republic, a Senate, the Emperor, an ancient religion called the Jedi (or the Force), and a host of new species that all look different and sound different. There are droids that speak English and those that speak their own clicks and beeps.

Hinted at but not over-explained. 

The world around Luke seems old and tired, worn out. Look at those X-Wings, they have battle-scars, the pilot's helmets are dinged and dented. In fact Star Wars seems like...1977. For younger reader(s) that's how American felt, and that's one of the reasons why Star Wars was such a huge phenomenon. Five years earlier and Star Wars flops becuase everyone's thinking about Vietnam. Five years later and we're in the go-go 80's.

We're not bothering with The Rise of Skywalker, a sentence we'd never thought we'd write about a Star Wars movie. We couldn't care less about this trilogy or the characters. After two movies Rey, Finn, Po are uninteresting, dull and pointless. What the hell is Finn even there for?

It's Star Wars week here at William Stroock dot Blogspot dotcom, and we'll be writing about, and maybe vlogging about, the Star Wars movies we do care about.

Dam Star Busted

So last night we watched The Dam Busters, which we hadn't seen since we were a kid.

We liked the film, all the more so because of this:

That's not plagiarism. It's not even stealing. It's inspiration. It's tribute.

We do it, pretty blatantly so. I bet some of you can name the scenes we've recreated in our novels and invite you to do so now.

As Lemmy Kilmeister said, it's all derivative.

Anyway, we enjoyed* the dam attack sequences, lots of drama and tension brought on by technical mastery of the subject. Well done.

*Let's not mention the dog.

Star Wars!

Disney gives us...

...The Mandalorian.

Captain Mal wants his ship back.

We yawned except for Giancarlo Esposito and...Carl Weathers, which just makes us think of soup.* Looked like a couple of heroes dealing death with ease, kinda like the movies which shall not be named, mentioned or acknowledged.

Are we supposed to be impressed or even suprised by Storm Trooper helmets on pikes?

Rebel helmets, now that would have been something.

We're watching Mindhuter.

*Who get the reference?!

Return of the Death Star

Yesterday we argued that the Death Star plot in Return of the Jedi was unnecessary. 

Harris countered, correctly in my view, that the Death Star was built to lure the rebels into a final battle.

The second Death Star seems contrived to us. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, we do it too.  We just think Lucas could have done better with a different idea. 

We also restate that we love Return of the Jedi and everything about the battle around the Death Star.

Still, Lucas didn't have to use the Death Star as a plot device. Why not have some grand imperial conference on Coruscant as the trap?

Also, and we don't want to take this point too far beacuse one can argue any movie to death this way, would they really have built a second Death Star after what happened to the first?

Battle Extraordinaire: Star Wars Edition

The Battle of Endor:

Let's breakdown the sequence.

-The fleet sallies out to battle. 

-The fleet arrives and we feel immense tension (pushed brilliantly by John William's score) as the fleet approaches the Death Star. 

-It's a trap and the Imperial fleet is waiting. 

-A low point, the realization that the Death Star is operational,

-The lowest point as a second ship is lost to the Death Star.

-Lando's desperate ploy to close with and engage the Imperial fleet.

-The Rebel fleet battles for time.

-The Rebel fleet takes out the super Star Destroyer.

-Finally the shield goes down and Lando attacks.

The Battle of Endor is a film within Return of the Jedi. It has emotional inflexion points of fear, desperation, and finally triumph as the Super Star Destroyer crashes into the Death Star. 

Having Lando lead the attack is also a nice touch.

There's great detail here. Anyone else ever notice the Star Destroyer exploding in the top left corner of the screen as the Super Star Destroyer goes down. There's also plenty of depth, ships and fighters in the background.

Overall, just about our favorite battle ever, since we were ten.

Tuesday Tally

Five Reasons to be Optimistic about The Rise of Skywalker

1- J J Abrams directs
2-Only one of the new batch of films is bad
3-The rest of the movies are ok to very good
4-Lando's in the trailer
5-Kathleen Kennedy has been chastened