Reviews

Growing up in the 1990's, Fox Kids was everything. So too no surprise, they adapted all summer movies, into series'. Godzilla 1998 was a box office disaster, but surprisingly, the show was really good. The show takes place in 1998, after the last films, where Nick has been imprinted by the only surviving offspring of Zilla. The show then returns to its original roots of Godzilla fighting other monsters.

The show definitely introduced a new side too the American Godzilla. Here, he has power breath. He can't be killed by rockets. The monsters are creative; and have a unique purpose. Plus, most of the characters have a personality, that's not just the comic relief.

The show had a lot of great monsters and designs, but where it fell flat, was characters. The characters do not have any progressive character arcs, nor does Zilla. Zilla, is used almost entirely as a plot device, when the characters can't win. That's where the story should've flourished, was Zilla becoming more and more benevolent towards humanity. Instead, he only shows up to save just Nick; then returns to the sea. On top of that, the fight scenes can be slow, there's not much interesting dialogue, the animation is choppy; and the characters feel hollow.

The series still was a lot of fun. In fact, this was the show that got me into giant monsters, but now that I'm in my late 20's and no longer in elementary school, I can see a lot more of the flaws. I'll always love this show, it took nothing and turned it into something. But for what it is, it's still a pretty standard, low budget 1990's Cartoon.

I need to emphasize that I am a life long Star Wars fan. This movie is almost as bad as "The Last Jedi." Where to begin? The movie starts where we left off, in the middle of nowhere. Palpatine is back, without giving a sense of how he returned. Suddenly we're back with Rey, where she is more overpowered than before. She is able to run fast, force heal, levitate any sized object, jump over Tie Fighters and cut them apart, channel Force lightning, summon Force lightning, pull moving ships back down with the Force, Force crush, fly any ship and translate any language. I mean, seriously? How can she possibly do that? Of course die hard fans and politically correct individuals are going to disagree, but its true; she's a "Mary Sue." Pulling off feats, that Anakin Skywalker in his prime, couldn't do; all with her only training for a year. Anakin trained for decades, Luke was a prodigy and still wasn't anywhere near this level. Luke was humiliatingly defeated by Vader, their first encountered. Rey was never even injured in this series, other than Snoke's Force pull in "The Last Jedi."

But what really got me was the plot. Kylo Ren somehow knows Palpatine is alive and finds him. Palpatine stupidly announces his existence to the galaxy. Palpatine promises Kylo a squadron of planet busting Star Destroyers for their alliance. First of all, why does Palpatine need an alliance? He's the emperor! He already ran the Galactic Empire, the First Order is just the Galactic Empire after they thought Palpatine died and some colonies succeeded. Second, where did these Star Destroyers come from? The Death Star took decades to make, plus it needed to be that size, to store that much power. In Episode 7, they had a planet, turned weapon. Okay, so where did the knowledge or resources used to build these weapons come from?

Also, it's revealed the Snoke is Palpatine; (This is not retconing). Where was this in the last two films? Its pretty obvious this was because "The Last Jedi" screwed up horribly; but I won't get into that. Then we get back to Rey and Fin possibly having a love connection. Somehow they received a Sith Sword with coordinates to a crash site, that only existed within the last thirty years. How can that be an ancient text? Not too mention the Death Star exploded in all directions? Who made this sword and why? By the way, Lando is back, for one scene. Then it's revealed that Palpatine is Rey's grandfather. Funny how he and his supposed bloodline, died before the events of Episode 7; before Rey could've been born.

The rest of the film, is just as jumbled and messed up as you would expect. They launch a counter attack on the Empire. Where all hope seems lost. Luke's ghost reveals that Leia was a Jedi, again where was this in the last two films? Then Lando shows up with a massive squadron of ships too fight. Palpatine somehow returns from the dead, and single handily almost annihilates the Rebels; (Star Wars has now turned into Dragon Ball Z). Rey then wields two lightsabers and deflects Palpatine's Lighting and kills him. Again, where did she learn to deflect Force lightning and why couldn't Mace Windu do that? Then too top it off, Kylo then uses Force heal, to revive Rey, but kills his own life force.

Rey ends the film on Tattooie, where she buries the Lightsabers and then goes by Rey "Skywalker." Seriously? Luke didn't change his name to Kenobi after he found out Darth Vader was his father. Why did Rey leech his name? This was an opportunity for Rey to bring a new era of Palpatine, to bring good to the galaxy. But plot aside, this film was boring. The whole film felt like uninspired fan-fiction with a budget.

The fight scenes were cartoonish, the characters were hollow, the The story was full of potholes that made the original and prequel story arcs pointless. On top of that, none of the main character's character-arcs were ever accomplished. I know the Expanded Universe had a-lot of information, but a movie is a movie first; never did the movies explain themselves. Unless you have kids, or a die hard Star Wars fan; this movie is a definite skip.