Book Review: Kill Shot (Mitch Rapp Series Book 2 Chronological Order; Book 12 Publication Order)

 

Kill Shot is the second book in the Mitch Rapp series of spy novels written by the late author Vince Flynn (if you read them chronologically). If you read the books in publication order it is the twelfth book in the series. The events in the book are set a year after those in the American Assassin novel, and the majority of the action in this novel takes place in Paris. We find that Rapp has been working his way through a list of terrorists involved in the planning and execution of the Pan Am 103 bombing, in which his ex-girlfriend was killed. While taking out a person on the list, he is ambushed and quickly concludes that he was set up by someone and tries to discover, of the small number of people who knew the targets on the list, and in what order Rapp would go after them, who set him up.

So far, I have only read one other book in the series, American Assassin, and found the tone and pacing of this novel to be very similar. Flynn balances out the action and suspense with some excellent detective work by Rapp, throws in some sex between Rapp and his love interest from the first novel, Greta, and bounces between what Rapp is doing in Paris with what the CIA characters like Irene Kennedy, Stan Hurley, and Thomas Stansfield are doing in Virginia trying to figure out if Rapp has gone Rouge. There are definitely tie-ins with the story from American Assassin and a side plot that involves a French police officer and a member of France's DGSE (Directorate General for External Security), their equivalent of the CIA.

This book, published in 2012, would be the second to last full novel that Flynn would finish before his death in 2013. In fact, in the forward, he discusses his treatment and thanks his medical team, and dedicated the book to his doctors and his wife. As most know, Flynn started writing the Mitch Rapp character in the novel Transfer Of Power (which was technically the second novel of Flynn's career published in 1999), when Rapp was well into his career as a terrorist hunter for the CIA. American Assassin and Kill Shot were prequel novels that Flynn wrote when fans started clamoring for a Rapp origin story.  While I cannot say that everyone who likes or loves the original novels (because, as I have said, I have not read them yet) centered around the older version of Rapp, I can say that if you liked the American Assassin novel then you will probably like this one. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 46

Day 46 was Friday Fight Round 2 again. In this one, I was able to max out about five minutes later into the workout as I did last week. So, I finally feel like I made progress in the workouts. It is still very tough (although not as tough as the original Insanity workouts because those are longer and do not have any modified moves).

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Ghost In the Shell

 

Ghost in the Shell is a 2017 movie adaptation of an Anime film starring Scarlett Johansson. It was controversial for casting a white actress in the role of a Japanese character, in a movie clearly set in Japan. The movie is set in the near future in which humans are able to make cybernetic improvements to their bodies to give them better strength, vision, intelligence, etc. Basically, the more money a person has, the more that person can improve themself. The cybernetics can be hacked, which also makes the people who have them targets of cyber terrorists. Johansson stars as Mira Killian, a survivor of a terrorist attack whose body was damaged beyond repair, so her consciousness has been integrated into an artificial body called a "shell". She is a major in a counter-terrorism police force, and as the movie goes along, she uncovers a larger conspiracy after her team thwarts an attack on a business conference. 

For those who get the 4k set, the UHD disc just includes the movie and the handful of extras are on the second, regular blu-ray, disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is very good. The video transfer is not quite reference quality, but unless you are a major A/V wonk that nitpicks the video quality to death, it is not likely to bother you. The extras on the regular blu-ray include a half-hour-long making-of documentary, a featurette on Section 9, the counter-terrorism unit that Mira is a part of, and a featurette on the philosophy behind the story. So, if you like watching the bonus features, all totaled, you get just under an hour of material.

The movie is good, but not great. One can make easy comparisons to movies like The Matrix and Blade Runner, although this is not as good as either of those. It does tell a decent story, has a lot of action, and even tries to explain away why Johansson's character is not Japanese. I think Johansson did a good job in the lead role, and as a stand-alone action movie, it is entertaining. So, if you are a fan of the dystopian future genre, this is a good one to check out. 

Book Review: Star Wars: Battlefront II - Inferno Squad

 

This is a Star Wars canon novel set after A New Hope, that is told from the perspective of the "regular" (non-sith) imperials. The main character, Iden Versio, leads an elite Imperial unit called "Inferno Squad" which is tasked with tracking down and eliminating the remnants of Saw Gerrera's partisans, who are still carrying out attacks separate from the rebels. The book actually begins with the destruction of the first Death Star, with Iden surviving the battle and crashing on Yavin IV.

The book is actually a setup for the video game Battlefront II and basically follows Iden and her team as they embark on a series of missions to infiltrate and then take down various rebel groups. What is interesting about the book is that it is written from the perspective that the Empire is the peaceful entity in the galaxy and the rebels are terrorists trying to disrupt life in the otherwise peaceful and lawful Empire. The members of the group do start to see cracks in that narrative as the book goes along, but in the end, the team is still resolved to take out the rebels at any chance they get.

The book tells a good story and is a fairly easy read. It is one of the shorter adult canon novels (about 330 pages) and can be read in a couple of days (depending on how much time you have to read). You do not need to have followed the characters in the video games to follow the story or connect with the characters. It is well-written and definitely leaves open the possibility of future novels based around the group. So, if you are someone who reads some, but not all, of the novels, this is a good one.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 45

Day 45 was Max Out Strength again. As has been the case with the past few workouts, I maxed out at pretty much the same point as I did last week, during the push-up sequence. The good thing about this workout is that I can get through the warm-up and the first portion (the leg sequence) without having to modify much at all. So, I have made progress.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Blindspot: Season 2

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from season 1, but no major season 2 spoilers+++

The 22-episode second season of Blindspot aired during the 2016/2017 TV season. The second season picks up three months after the events of the season 1 finale in which Weller discovered that his father did indeed kill the real Taylor Shaw and that Jane had been faking Taylor's memory (unbeknownst to her) and the death of Mayfair. Jane has been in CIA custody since being arrested and ends up breaking out. She convinces Weller and the team to use her as a triple agent against the terrorist organization Sandstorm, to which she is somehow tied. From there, the show mostly follows the format of season one, with some case or mission of the week that is usually tied into the larger story arc of Jane's identity and Sandstorm's plans (which are revealed throughout the season). In addition to the returning main cast, this season includes Archie Panjabi (from The Good Wife), the great character actress Michelle Hurd, and Luke Mitchell. Ennis Esmer returns for a few episodes as Rich Dotcom to "help" and/or make life miserable for the team and steals every scene he is in. The season ends on a partial cliffhanger that includes a two-year time jump. 

The Blu-Ray set is a four-disc set. The A/V quality is outstanding again. While the show does not have a ton of computer-generated effects, what it does have looks seamless, and there are some very good location shots of New York that look wonderful in HD. The extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel, a portion of the 2016 Comic-Con panel, and a handful of making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes. All totaled, the bonus features end up at a little under an hour, give or take. They are not extensive, but what is included is good if you like watching the bonus content.

The season is very good. While most of the character development is centered on the new characters, there is some for the established characters. Patterson (Ashley Johnson) is a bit more involved in the action this season and is not always stuck in the lab, and the characters of Rede and Zapata are fleshed out a bit more. Jamie Alexander and Sullivan Stapleton are great as the leads, and the show does a good job of throwing wrenches in the way of their relationship. This is definitely not a show that you can just jump into in season two without seeing season one because even though it is partly a procedural show, the episodes are not totally self-contained and often contribute to the larger serial arcs. But if you liked season one, this is definitely worth watching.

DVD/Movies Review: The Librarian Trilogy

 

This is a two-disc set containing the three Librarians movies, starring Noah Wyle in his first major post-ER role. Wyle stars a Flynn Carson, a perpetual student with a multitude of pretty useless degrees and no life. Flynn receives an invitation to apply for a job as the librarian at the New York Metropolitan Library. He discovers that the Librarian collects and protects magical and supernatural artifacts like Excaliber, Pandora's Box, and The Ark of the Covenant. In the first movie, The Quest for the Spear, the Spear of Destiny is stolen from the Library, and Flynn and his Guardian, Nicole Noone, (played by Sonya Wagner) have to recover it. In the second movie, Return to King Solomon's Mines, Flynn and an archeologist named Emily Davenport (played by Gabrielle Anwar) must find, and guard the secret of King Solomon's Mine. The third movie, Curse of the Judas Chalice, is set in New Orleans and has a storyline that involves vampires and their version of the Holy Grail. 

The movies are basically Indiana Jones knockoffs with even more supernatural elements than Indiana Jones, mixed with a love story. In each movie, Flynn ends up falling in love with the female lead (Wagner in the first movie, Anwar in the second, and Stana Katic in the third). None of the movies had a huge budget, so the special effects could be a bit cheesy, but I think cheesy was the vibe they were going for. 

Each of the movies has some extras including deleted scenes and some behind-the-scenes featurettes. The extras run about 15 minutes or less per movie, so none of the movies have an extensive amount of bonus content, but it is there for you.

I'd say that the movies are good, but not great. They do have strong supporting casts including Jane Curtin, Bob Newhart (both of whom reprise their roles in the spin-off TV series The Librarians), Kelly Hu, Kyle McLaughlan, Olympia Dukakis, 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 44

Day 44 was Max Out Sweat. Again, the workout was pretty similar to last week. I think I am currently plateauing on the Max 30 workouts, so after next week I am going to switch to a different cardio workout and then come back to Max 30 once that is complete. I have not figured out which workout I want to do yet, but I will provide an update when I do. 

Product Review: Vantec CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter Supports 2.5-Inch, 3.5-Inch, 5.25-Inch Hard Disk Drives

 

This is an adapter that, when it works, allows you to get files off of old hard drives. It does give you connectors to hook up to a SATA or IDE connection, as well as a power supply to power SATA drives. This issue is that it works sporadically. I tried it on two older hard drives, one internal and one external. It initially worked on both of them, and then eventually just stopped working on the external drive. So, when it works it does what it is supposed to, and is easy to use. But, it is hit or miss, so when it works get everything off the drive at once because you may not be able to stop and resume transferring files later.

DVD/Movie Review: The Hot Spot

 

The Hot Spot is a 1990 crime-drama combined with an erotic thriller directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Don Johnson, a young Virginia Madsen, and a very young Jennifer Connelly. Johnson plays Harry Maddox, a drifter who takes a job as a car salesman in a small town in Texas. When he learns that everyone who works at the town bank is a volunteer firefighter, he sets a fire to get everyone out of the bank so he can rob it. He is then blackmailed by the wife of the car dealership's owner (Madsen) with whom he is having an affair, despite falling for the secretary at the dealership, Gloria (Connelly) who is herself being blackmailed by a character played by William Sadler.

There are several editions of the movie out there, both on DVD and blu-ray. I have the DVD that is a French import, and the only extra on that version is a trailer for the movie. Some versions have cast interviews and a commentary track, so it will vary. One thing that you get from the import version versus the versions widely available in the US is that the sex scenes are less edited in the import version. They are not explicit, of course, but they tend to be longer and have less edited out. 

Overall, I would say that the movie is good, but not great. It is definitely a bit outdated now, and probably would not be made the same way today as it was then. There is a lot of sex and nudity, and pretty much everyone in the movie chain smokes throughout. So, it is not exactly family-friendly. It also happens to be the first (and only) movie in which Connelly has done a topless scene (and they are spectacular), but Madsen was topless much more in the movie than Connelly. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Jackie

 

Jackie is a 2016 movie starring Natalie Portman, playing Jaqueline Kennedy, and is based on an interview that she gave to Theodore H. White for Life Magazine shortly after the assassination of JFK. The movie jumps around in time to show events that occurred during her time as the first lady to the tumultuous time after the assassination as she was trying to put her life back together. Then, there are the scenes in which she is being interviewed for the magazine piece by Billy Crudup's character (just called "The Journalist") in the movie, where she tries to hold it together and basically direct the content of the interview. The movie shows a glimpse of how manufactured the real-life interview was with Jackie dictating content that could be included (for example claiming she does not smoke despite her chain-smoking throughout the entire interview). The movie recreates some of the iconic images from around that time, and Portman does a great job in her portrayal of the former first lady. The movie also has a strong supporting cast including John Hurt and Peter Sarsgaard (who plays Bobby Kennedy). 

The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good, and the film makes good use of real archival footage that gets blended into what was shot for the movie, almost seamlessly. There are a couple of extras, including a 22-minute making-of featurette, a stills gallery, and the movie trailer. There is apparently a director commentary available on the digital download version of the movie, but that is not included on the blu-ray disc. 

Overall, the movie is very good. It is well-written and very well-acted with Portman doing most of the heavy lifting. It is a very good drama and is definitely worth checking out.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Rings (2017)

 

Rings is a very loose sequel to, but mostly a reboot of The Ring and The Ring 2, which starred Naomi Watts. This one again involves the video of Samara that causes people who watch it to die in seven days. Of course, this movie is set in the present day, so the video has evolved beyond the VHS copy and is now digital, which presents its own set of complications. The crux of the story is that the hero, Julia, played by Matilda Lutz ends up watching her boyfriends' copy of the video (the only way to keep him from dying in 12 hours) and discovers that the way to break the curse is to find and cremate, Samara's physical remains.

The movie is a decent b-level horror movie that looks like a big-budget movie. I think that one thing the movie really missed was the lack of star power in the lead roles. Even though Johnny Galecki (from The Big Bang Theory) and Vincent D'Onofrio have roles in the movie, they are not leads, and while Naomi Watts is not a megastar, she was more well-known when she helmed the franchise than Lutz is. Secondly, I do not think that the movie was nearly as suspenseful or scary as the original movies. I think that has a lot to do with knowing how the movie was going to progress and just trying to figure out how they were going to pay it off. That said, the movie does have its share of jump-scare moments, and the ending was not the typical horror movie ending. It does have the benefit of being a more psychological horror movie as opposed to a gory one. So, if you do not like movies with a lot of blood, this may appeal to you. 

For those who get the blu-ray, the A/V quality is great. Even though the movie was shot with a digital camera it very much has the look of a movie shot on film. For extras, there are about 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, a 12-minute featurette on the film series starting with the original movie and how this one ties into that movie, a feature on bringing back the character of Samara, and a collection of the "scary" moments from the movie. Not a ton of material, but it is there if you like it.

The movie is okay but not much more than that. The plot is similar to those of the first two movies but updated for the digital era. Unfortunately, that is not enough to bring the quality of this movie up to that of the original films. It is ultimately a movie that did not have to be made, but if you are in the mood for a suspense/horror movie, it can be used to kill an hour and a half.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 43

Day 43 was Max Out Power again. I was able to make it about a minute longer than last week, so I maxed out over halfway through the workout. Although, once I get to the push-up moves I have to modify them as I currently struggle to do even one good rep of the unmodified versions.  

Book Review: Star Wars: Rebel Rising

 

Rebel Rising is a young-adult novel that fills in the time-jump gap of approximately thirteen years that occurred at the beginning of the movie Rouge One between when Jyn Erso is found by Saw Gerrera hiding in the cave and when she is freed from Imperial detention by Cassian Andor. The book details Jyn's training with Saw, and why he ultimately abandoned her. It also explores what she did after she was on her own (including a bit of a love story) and ends just before she is rescued and taken to Mon Mothma and the rebels on Yavin IV.

To me, the best part of the novel is the Saw-Jyn relationship, and the lengths he went to in order to protect her identity. It makes their reunion in Rouge One more emotional and more impactful. The book also shows that Jyn and Saw butted heads as she got older regarding his tactics in fighting the Empire, specifically, his willingness to allow collateral damage. 

The book is a fairly quick read, and can pretty easily be finished in a week or less, depending on how much time you have to read. It is about the length of the regular adult novels (at just over 400 pages) and the story is actually pretty gritty, so it could have easily been published as an adult novel. If you liked the character of Jyn from the movie, this is definitely worth reading.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 42

Day 42 was Max Cardio again, and it went a little better than last week in terms of my max-out time, but I was still very tired at the end and had to modify more moves than I would have liked.  

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 41

Day 41 was the P90x back and biceps workout. It went well, but I was not able to hit the 10-rep max for any of the exercises. So, next week, everything will stay the same with the weights.  I am trying to figure out what workout(s) I want to do once this round of Max 30 is over. I am thinking of doing a doubles program with a cardio-based program in the morning and one of the strength-focused programs in the evening, but I am still trying to figure that out.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Charmed - Season 6

 

The sixth season of Charmed is really a long serial arc that continues the storyline set up at the end of season five, with the arrival of Chris (Drew Fuller) as Paige, Phoebe, and Piper's new white lighter, and Leo being promoted to Elder. The story is revealed in parts throughout the season, with a major reveal coming at about the halfway point of the season. There is still a "monster-of-the-week" procedural aspect of the show, but nearly every episode is used to advance the larger story. There are also some smaller serial story arcs during the season, one that involves Phoebe and her relationship with Jason (Eric Dane) and one involving Paige and a pair of feuding magical families that she gets in the middle of. Toward the end of the season, Holly Marie Combs' role is reduced to accommodate her real-life pregnancy. 

As has been the case for the blu-ray releases of seasons 1-5, this is a region-free import without any extras. There are captions in German and English, but there are no behind-the-scenes material, commentary tracks, or the like. 

Overall, the season is very good. The story is not given away too quickly and comes to a conclusion that could continue into season seven or be left resolved. The show again got a good slate of guest stars including Melissa George, Ivana Milicevic, Jenny McCarthy, Balthazar Getty, Kathryn Joosten, Keith Szarabajka, Marisol Nichols, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, and Billy Drago. The musical guests this season included Smash Mouth and Ziggy Marley. Even though the season is mostly good, it was not without its faults. Dorian Gregory was again used pretty sparingly throughout the season (although he definitely had more to do than he has in the past couple of seasons) and some of the content does not hold up as well almost twenty years later. The special effects could still be very cheesy and fake looking (which is actually accentuated in HD), and the clip show, showing events from throughout the series did not include Shannen Doherty. On the other hand, they were still putting McGowan and Milano in very skimpy outfits every so often. Ultimately, if you liked the prior seasons you will probably like this season, but if the show has never done anything for you, this season will probably not change your mind about it.

Book Review: Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills

 

This is a junior novel set around the characters of Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, the characters introduced in the movie Rouge One. This book is basically a prequel to Rogue One, exploring Chirrut and Baze's backstory, showing their actions on Jedha before the events of Rouge One, including interactions that they had with Saw Gerrera. This is basically a short story detailing a mission against the Empire. It does not lead directly into the events of the movie, but the end of the book sets the stage for their role in the movie.

The book is relatively short (about 240 pages) and is a relatively easy read. While it is a junior novel it is entertaining enough for adults. So, if you liked the characters from the movie, it is worth reading.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

 

This is the final entry in the six-movie action-horror zombie apocalypse film franchise adapted from the Resident Evil video games, starring Milla Jovovich, which spanned 14 years from 2002 to 2016. This one was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, Jovovich's husband who has produced and/or directed pretty much every movie in the franchise. 

This movie is set a few weeks after the events of Retribution and sees Shawn Roberts, Ian Glen, and Ali Larter return to reprise their various characters. Alice (Jovovich) is told by the Red Queen (played by her daughter Ever) that she must return to Racoon City to release an airborne Anti-Virus that will kill everyone infected with the T-Virus (so all the zombies). She learns the origins of the T-Virus and what it was originally intended to do and tries to take out the rest of the Umbrella Corporation.  The big addition to the cast in this movie is Ruby Rose, who plays one of the characters who joins in the attack on The Hive in Racoon City.

The 4k set is a two-disc set with one UHD disc, which just contains the movie and one regular blu-ray which has all of the extras. The extras include an option to play the movie in "Retaliation Mode" which basically has cutaways to Anderson and Jovovich providing commentary on specific scenes, then there are three featurettes, one on the stunts in the movie, one on the female characters, and one on The Hive. Then there are trailers for other movies. What was included is good, but there is not an extensive amount of behind-the-scenes material. Jovovich is always good on commentary tracks and she is again entertaining in the Retribution Mode clips. 

By now, anyone interested in this knows what the movies are and what they are not. They are very good action/suspense/horror movies, and they definitely stay in that lane. Jovovich does a great job playing the lead, and she definitely walks a fine line between taking the role seriously without taking herself or the story too seriously. So, if you liked the other movies then this one is worth watching. If you have not been a fan of the other movies, then this one will probably not do much for you.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 40

For Day 40 I switched it up a bit and did the Kenpo-X workout from P90x. I did that for a couple of reasons, first I attended a birthday party the night before and did not exactly eat a great dinner, so I wanted to get a bit of a better workout in than just stretching. Second, I wanted to see how doing a couple of months of Max 30 impacted the p90x cardio workouts. And, as I kind of suspected would be the case, even though I am still struggling in the Max-30 workouts, I would almost say that Kenpo-X was easy. I barely got winded at all and was able to keep up with, and in some cases go faster than those in the video. So, it is a good measure of my progress. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 39

Day 39 was Friday Fight Round 2 again. This workout was interesting because, as has been the case for the past couple of workouts, I definitely feel that my stamina is increasing, even though I still have to take a lot of breaks and Max Out at pretty much the same point in the workout. But, I can tell that my ability to do the tuck jump and burpee moves is getting a lot better (which also makes me tired faster). So, I feel like I am making progress, even though the Max Out times do not really reflect that.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 38

Day 38 was the Max Out Power workout again. It was still very hard, but I found myself being able to do more during the workout, even though I maxed out at pretty much the same point as I did last week. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Get Out

 

Get Out is a 2017 suspense-thriller with a little bit of horror movie mixed in that was written and directed by Jordan Peele (in his directorial debut). It stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington, a photographer from New York who is in an interracial relationship with Allison William's character, Rose Armitage. Rose convinces Chris to travel to upstate NY to meet her parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Kenner. While surrounded by many wealthy white people, Chris notices the strange behavior of the handful of black people in town, which becomes more and more bizarre. Chris suspects something strange is going on and enlists the help of his best friend, Rod, played by Lil Rel Howery, to figure out the possible conspiracy.

The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good. Although there is not a ton of CGI in the movie, what is there looks seamless with the practical sets, and the cinematography looks wonderful. The bonus features include a very good commentary track on the movie by Peele, who offers a lot of insight into the process of making the movie. Then there are 23 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, an alternate ending, a nine-minute making-of featurette, and a four-minute Q&A session with Peele. 

Overall, the movie is very good and very original. It definitely borrows from some horror movie themes, but it is not derivative of anything else that has been made lately. Basically, it is a horror movie in which racism and oppression are the monster. Of course, there will be some nut-jobs out there (basically the MAGATs of the world and their snowflake ilk) that will claim the movie is saying that all white people are bad, which is not at all the case, and some will automatically hate it because of the thought of a white woman dating a black man. The movie is basically a metaphor for the very real history of race relations throughout the course of history, and for the passive-aggressive racism that exists to this day. It is well-written and very well-acted and is definitely worth checking out.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Passengers (2016)

 

Passengers is a 2016 movie starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence (not to be confused with the 2008 film of the same name starring Anne Hathaway). This movie is partly a sci-fi space drama, partly an action movie, partly a romantic drama, and partly an ethical thought experiment. Pratt stars as Jim Preston, a mechanical engineer aboard a spaceship called the Avalon, traveling from Earth to a new, habitable planet 60 light-years away from Earth. Technology has advanced to the point where the trip only takes 120 years, so the passengers aboard the ship are put in a state of suspended animation for most of the trip with different passengers being awakened in stages when the ship is within a couple of years of its destination. During the voyage, the ship is struck by a wayward asteroid, which damages the ship and causes Preston to be awakened 90 years too early. For the first portion of the movie, it is just Pratt and Michael Sheen (who plays the ship's computer/butler, Arthur). Then, over the course of the movie, Jennifer Lawrence's character, Aurora Lane is awakened, as is Laurence Fishburne's character, Gus, who is the ship's deck officer. The movie transitions from a lost at-sea castaway kind of movie, to a romance movie, to a disaster movie all within the span of nearly four hours. 

For those who get the 4K blu-ray set, there are three discs. The 4k-UHD disc just has the movie, a 3D-Blu-Ray disc that again just has the movie, and a regular blu-ray disc that has the movie and all of the extras. The extras include four different making-of featurettes that range in length from four minutes to just over eleven minutes. Then there are about ten minutes of deleted scenes, a series of fake commercials promoting travel on The Avalon, a gag reel, and trailers for other movies. So, a decent amount is there for people who like watching the extras. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is wonderful, and the movie has a ton of great CGI visuals.

Ultimately, the movie is long but does not really feel as long as it is. It is paced very well, and while the story is definitely a bit predictable in parts, it is entertaining. Given that Pratt has to carry the first portion of the movie on his own, with only a handful of scenes with Michael Sheen playing opposite him, he does a very good job portraying a guy who slowly starts to go crazy. Jennifer Lawrence does a good job with her character once she "comes to life" and the action portion of the movie is good as well. It is definitely worth the time to watch. 

Book Review: Star Wars: Heir to the Empire - The 20th Anniversary Edition

 

Heir to the Empire was the book that, in the early 1990s, started what would become known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and what is now known as the Legends Universe. For those who do not know the history, in the late 1980s, Lucasfilm was trying to decide how to keep the Star Wars brand alive and thriving given that the original trilogy ended in 1983 after Return of the Jedi and George Lucas had not totally committed to doing the prequel trilogy. The end result was a decision to keep the stories and characters alive through novels, of which this one, written by Timothy Zahn, is the first.

The book is set five years after Return of the Jedi with The New Republic in somewhat of a stalemate with the remnants of The Empire. The Empire has regrouped under the command of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a mysterious Alien commander of the Empire's new flagship who has second-to-none strategic and analytical capabilities and studies the artwork of his adversaries to predict their actions. Leia and Han are married, Leia is pregnant with twins (which is, of course, a major change from the new canon material), and Luke is still trying to piece together the history of the Jedi in hopes to restore the Jedi order. Thrawn launches a plan to take down The New Republic, which involves attempts to capture Luke and Leia and sabotage the rest of the New Republic Leadership. Along with Thrawn, this book introduces the character of Mara Jade, who would become a critical character in subsequent books, and Talon Karrde, a smuggler with a very "New Hope" Han Solo vibe.  

This book was originally published in 1991, and this version, with annotations from the author and editor, was published in 2011 and then reprinted in hardcover after the Disney takeover of Lucasfilm. There is a pretty extensive forward in which the history of how the books came to be is laid out, and the directives from Lucas about what stories could and could not be told. For example, none of the legacy characters could be killed and none of the books could touch on Anakin's pre-Vader life. The annotations give a lot of good insight into how the story was put together and evolved over the writing of the book. Some elements from the book, like the cloning aspects have been incorporated into the new canon material, and as many probably know by now, Thrawn was brought into the canon by a series of new books by the same author and an appearance in the animated series Rebels.  At the end of the book, there is a short story titled "Crisis of Faith" which is a Thrawn-centric story that does not involve any of the legacy characters.

This, and the subsequent novels, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, were the stories that many of us hoped would be a sequel trilogy. But, the reality is, if Lucas ever was going to make more movies, it was going to be the prequels telling Anakin's story (which the forward of this book makes clear), and by the time those movies were made, the original cast members would have aged out of being able to make this story into a movie. Plus, the chances of Harrison Ford returning for a new trilogy of movies when he wanted Han killed off in Empire and Jedi were slim to none. It would be nice if the other two novels in the trilogy would get the same special editions released. Unfortunately, however, Zahn has said that at this point, Del Rey books has not shown any interest in releasing special editions of those books.  If you are a fan of Star Wars, this is a must-read as it is one of the best stories told in the Star Wars Universe, Canon, or Legends.