Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Part 1

Written by:

Lawrence Kasdan & J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt

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Directed by:

J. J. Abrams

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Release Date:

2015

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie where the film number and the episode number is the same! It's the seventh instalment either way.

It's also the first movie in the final trilogy of the Skywalker Saga. It still blows my mind that they finally made there in the end, as I still (vaguely) remember when there was only one trilogy and no sign that George Lucas was ever going to make the others he had planned. Not that these three films are anything like he'd planned.

I mean I doubt any of them were really, seeing as we're still waiting for Annikin Starkiller to show up, but this trilogy was created after Lucas had sold Star Wars to Disney and his involvement was minimal. His most recent concept for the final trilogy apparently focused on the microbiotic world and midi-chlorians, but Kathleen Kennedy's crew have gone in a different direction and to be honest I'm kind of glad.

Okay, this is going to be the same deal as with my Star Trek Into Darkness review, as I'm splitting it into three parts to save you from having to read too much in one sitting. Though you could just wait a couple of days until all three parts are out and read it that way if you want to climb that mountain of words.

There will be MASSIVE SPOILERS below for The Force Awakens and I'll also be assuming that you've seen the earlier films as well. No spoilers for The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker though, and not just because that last film isn't out for a couple of days at the time I'm posting this. But these are genuine pre-Rise of Skywalker opinions.

Babylon 5 3-10: Severed Dreams

Episode:

54

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

1-Apr-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about a Babylon 5 episode.

Severed Dreams was pretty much the final part of a stealth three-parter, and this worked out pretty well for UK viewers who got the episodes weekly with no breaks and no cliffhangers. It was less good for US fans, as they had to wait five weeks to see how things got resolved here. They couldn't have really aired it any sooner though to be fair, as the episode is so VFX heavy they struggled to get it all finished in time as it is. I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary to air the episode on April 1st though. Viewers just had to hope that the entire story arc didn't turn out to be a magnificent prank.

I can't talk really, as I had the bright idea to launch Sci-Fi Adventures on April 1st, and it's the day the site always comes back after taking February and March off. In fact I could've been clever and held off reviewing Severed Dreams until next April, using it to kick off the next block of reviews, but... no. It's already taken me long enough to get here.

Here's some trivia for you: the episode was up for the 'Best Dramatic Presentation' Hugo in 1997, an award that Babylon 5 had actually won the previous year with The Coming of Shadows. This time though it was up against Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact, the 30th anniversary episode of Deep Space Nine where they go back and hang out with Captain Kirk, and... uh, Mars Attacks! Spoiler: Mars Attacks! didn't win.

In fact it was Babylon 5 that went and won the Hugo for a second time! Because that's what happens when you make Severed Dreams.

SPOILER WARNING!

The DVD comes with a commentary track, but I'd recommend staying clear if you haven't seen the whole series yet as they tend to spoil things. In fact stay clear of all the special features. My review, on the other hand, won't spoil a thing! Well, except for the whole of Severed Dreams and the episodes leading up to it.

Babylon 5 3-09: Point of No Return

Episode:

53

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

26-Feb-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got some more Babylon 5 for you. It's episode 9 of season 3: Point of No Return.

Every season of Babylon 5 has its own title, named after one of its most important episodes and the name on the front of the season 3 DVD box is Point of No Return. So I'm going to consider it false advertising if this isn't at least as good as season 1 fan favourite Signs and Portents and season 2's Hugo Award winning The Coming of Shadows.

It wasn't the only title on creator J. Michael Straczynski's list though and for a while he may have been leaning more towards "I Am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds," quoting Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. I think he probably made the right choice by going with the title he did.

If you're watching through Babylon 5 for the first time, then I've got good news for you! I won't be spoiling or even hinting at events that take place in later episodes in this review. There will be massive SPOILERS for this episode however, and for episodes that lead up to it, as I'm going to basically recap the entire story.

Babylon 5 3-08: Messages from Earth

Episode:

52

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

19-Feb-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Babylon 5, season 3, episode 8: Messages from Earth. With a title like that you can already tell it's going to be a real thrill ride.

Though it was directed by Mike Vejar, who also gave us the unusually pretty looking Convictions earlier in the season, along with several decent episodes of Deep Space Nine. Here's another DS9/B5 similarity for you: if you see Mike Vejar's name at the start of an episode it's probably going to at least look interesting.

I may have mentioned this once or twice already, but this recap will feature SPOILERS for the episode and other episodes leading up to it. But if you're watching through the series for the first time you won't have to worry about me spoiling anything past this point. This story is as far as the spoilers go.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 3

This is it, the last Sci-Fi Adventures until December, and the last part of my unintentionally epic review of Star Trek Into Darkness (no colon).

I feel like I should be bothered by that missing colon, but I can respect the choice they've made there. It separates this era from the numbered movies with the Original Series actors, and the colon movies with the Next Generation crew, so there's no confusion. Plus I like that they're owning the 'trek' part of the title more. This is going on a trek into darkness, the next movie takes a trek beyond. They're trekking. Seems like a bit of a backslide though to go dark after the last movie rejected the prevailing trend of Battlestar Galactica grittiness and turned things up so bright that you got lens flares in the face in every other shot.

This is part three of this review by the way, so if you're looking for an earlier part you can click one of these convenient links: PART 1, PART 2.

Here's the SPOILER WARNING: I will be spoiling Into Darkness, Star Trek: Discovery's first two seasons, and various bits from other episodes and movies. I will not be spoiling Star Trek Beyond.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Star Trek Into Darkness! If you missed the first part of my review you can find it -> HERE <- and there's still one more part to go after this. It's a long movie.

Speaking of second parts, this was the second of the Kelvin Timeline trilogy kicked off with Star Trek 2009. But it's the last movie by the Star Trek 2009 team, as director J.J. Abrams had to go off and do the Star Wars: The Force Awakens afterwards. Trek 09 writers Alex Kurtzman (current overlord of TV Trek) and Roberto Orci also returned, and were joined this time by Damon Lindelof, who had a bit of experience writing sci-fi himself as he'd just finished working on the movie Prometheus. Oh plus he'd been co-showrunner on Lost for six seasons (which is considerably longer than J.J. Abrams worked on the show).

Anyway, this review contains SPOILERS for Into Darkness, Star Trek: Discovery's first two seasons, and probably other episodes and movies too. It didn't seem right to spoil anything from Star Trek Beyond though, so I didn't.

Star Trek Into Darkness - Part 1

Written by:

Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof

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Directed by:

J.J. Abrams

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Release Date:

2013

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures... is going to be the last for a while I'm afraid. I'm taking another two month break, so the site will be going into cryosleep until December. But I figured I should give you something to read while you wait, so I've written about an entire movie this time! It's the second of the Kelvin Timeline films, Star Trek Into Darkness!

Though I ran into a slight problem with the first draft of my review, as it turns out that the movie shares the record for the longest runtime of all the Trek movies with The Motion Picture, and it's about people constantly running everywhere and doing things instead of staring at the viewscreen in awe. I ended up with twice as many words as my average movie review and three times as many as my average TV review! Though my recap is still slightly too short to qualify as a novel, so I can't joke about it being the unofficial novelisation.

I never like doing this, but I've decided to split the review into three parts and publish one part a day, for the sake of all humanity. That way each post is merely excessively long, not ridiculously long. But they are all going to include SPOILERS for the whole movie, and I'm considering basically anything in Star Trek besides Star Trek Beyond to be fair game this time as well. So there'll be a few Star Trek: Discovery spoilers from its first two seasons.