Well, 2017 is almost over, and I for one couldn’t be happier. I didn’t think things could get any worse after the previous two years, but boy did this year give us a run for it’s money. But hey, I’m not year to talk about politics (well, not for the most part. Instead, I’m here to offer some thoughts on the stuff I never got to talk about. Let’s get started:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The latest entry in the popular Star Wars franchise came out a couple of weeks ago, and from what I’ve heard the reactions have been more or less mixed. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t really cared about Star Wars in a while, and I’ve never really cared about the new Star Wars trilogy either. I think the original trilogy pretty much ended everything on a good note: The emperor was destroyed, Darth Vader was redeemed before dying, and the Empire was left broken and on the verge of defeat. There was nothing more to add. The prequels may have been critically panned, but they at least gave us some backstory for Darth Vader and Obi Wan, and we did get some admittedly cool lightsaber battles. But here?
The galaxy has been reconquered by the Empire First Order led by a fallen Jedi named Darth Vader Kylo Ren, with their only obstacle being the troops of the Rebellion Resistance led by Princess Leia, who is searching for a powerful Jedi Master named Obi Wan Kenobi Luke Skywalker, and their only hope for victory lies in the hands of a chosen one named Luke Skywalker Rey, who hails from the desert planet of Tatooine Jakku. Okay, okay, The Force Awakens has taken enough heat for being a rip-off of A New Hope, but what bugs me is that they’ve essentially taken the series back to square one, with everything that Luke and the others accomplished being null and void. I was perfectly satisfied with the way the original films ended, but if you’re going to continue the story, you’d better have some pretty good ideas. Instead, we’ve gotten The Force Awakens, which as stated earlier takes a lot of material from the fourth movie, and then we have Rogue One, which does feature an original story and is the most interesting movie so far, but it was still criticized for it’s CGI effects and for a bland cast of characters.
The Last Jedi at the very least is not a complete rip-off of The Empire Strikes Back like I thought it was going to be, but that’s not much in the way of high praise. Luke is an idiot who tries to kill his apprentice upon sensing darkness within him, a move that’s out of character with his actions in Return of the Jedi, where he risked his life to turn his father away from the Dark Side; said move is apparently the impetus that turns Kylo Ren to the dark side and allows the First Order to rise up. The leader of the Resistance is an idiot whose leadership gets so many people killed that it inspires a mutiny. Leia gets blasted out into space, and yet she’s able to shrug it off and fly back into a nearby space ship like it was nothing. We have a boring subplot with Finn and some girl named Rose to set up a lame romance story. The leader of the First Order, Emperor Palpatine Supreme Leader Snoke, is killed off after having done literally nothing at all. Finally, Luke dies in one of the lamest, most anti-climatic ways possible.
I don’t find Rey interesting as a character. The only real thing of note I have to say about Kylo Ren is that he bares a resemblance to Professor Snape. He’s certainly no Darth Vader, and even Darth Maul comes off as more interesting. I don’t care about the R2-D2 knockoff. The only character that sounds halfway interesting is Finn, being a former stormtrooper who defected after developing a conscious, but even then, he doesn’t really do anything of note, and it seems to me you could write him out and nothing much would be loss.
With the final movie in the trilogy a couple of years away and several more movies in the docks, it remains to be seen where the story ultimately goes. With The Last Jedi though, I can safely say that the movies aren’t getting any better.
Sonic Forces
Poor Sonic can never do anything right, can he? Three years after Rise of Lyric destroyed any remaining goodwill the series had left, we got two games in celebration of Sonic’s 25th anniversary. Sonic Mania, a throwback to the Sonic games of the Genesis era, actually proved to be very popular despite a lot of recycled content from previous games. Sonic Forces, which takes the boost gameplay from Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations, unsurprisingly got a more mixed reception.
I’d be lying if I said I was shocked. Pretty much the moment this game was announced critics were already jumping on it, even before we even knew anything about it. It was also pretty easy to predict that Sonic Mania, the game that people have been clamoring for ever since Mega Man 9 came out, would fare better than Sonic Forces, since many people have over the years come out against the boost gameplay. But what’s really interesting is how…muted the reception is. Pretty much everyone’s reactions to the game has been “meh”. The levels are too short, the story once again has no substance despite darker themes, the gameplay is unexciting, Classic Sonic feels shoehorned in. And predictably, one month later it lies forgotten. People don’t even care enough to get angry at it.
So where does Sonic go from here? Sonic Mania was a success, Sonic Forces less so. In theory, this suggests that we’ll get more 2D games similar to Sonic Mania. However, Sega has had a very spotty record when it comes to decision-making, and as I’ve theorized before, I don’t think they’re very interested in putting out 2D Sonic games anymore (otherwise they would’ve released Sonic Mania long before now). If they do make a Sonic Mania 2 however, they need to come up with more original zones. People were willing to put up with it because it recreated the Genesis-style gameplay, but going forward they need to come up with more than four original zones. And if they make a whole series out of it… I don’t know. The Classic Sonic games are fun, but as Mega Man demonstrates, too much of the same thing does eventually wear thin.
As for the 3D titles, I’d be in favor of bringing back the Sonic Adventure gameplay and trying to improve upon it. Yeah, nowadays everyone likes to talk about them like they’re the worst games ever made, but years later they still hold up better than Sonic Heroes or Shadow the Hedgehog and certainly better than ’06. Like, if they can make the controls not suck, come up with a decent storyline, give us characters that are actually interesting, streamline the camera issues, etc., etc., maybe we can get a decent 3D Sonic game. Than again, does anyone really care anymore?
The Fourth Powerpuff Girl
There was a time long ago when The Powerpuff Girls was one of my all-time favorite TV shows. That time has since passed, though from time to time I have re-watched some of the older episodes with my younger siblings. Admittedly, I was initially interested when I heard they were going to reboot the show, but my enthusiasm more or less died after hearing that the writing was inferior to the original. I watched one or two episodes, then pretty much moved on. And from what I’ve heard, the show’s since gone downhill. From marketing an episode as revolving around gender-identity that ironically upset the entire transgender community, to creating a character that’s more or less an insert for one of the lead writers on the show and having him fall in love with Blossom, it seems that the new reboot hasn’t exactly lived up to the original.
A few months ago, a special five part storyline wherein a fourth Powerpuff Girl named Bliss was introduced. And the only reason I know this is because everyone and their mother was talking about this on YouTube. Reactions varied- some pointed out that we’ve already had “fourth members” introduced to the team, others of course labeling it Cousin Oliver Syndrome. And then the was the reactions when she was revealed to be black, with the complaints that they were jumping on the social justice wagon. Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth getting upset about at this point- clearly this special was nothing more than an attempt to boost ratings, and within a few years when the show is off the air, no one will even remember her. The fact that she leaves Earth after the events of the special pretty much shows how much confidence the writers have with her as a character. As for charges of social justice, there are far worse examples out there (take Marvel comics, for example). Heck, I don’t even think race is brought up once in the special.
Personally, I find it more annoying that she’s supposed to be the original Powerpuff Girl. It’s annoying because that suggests the Professor is a bad parent who either forgot about his child entirely or didn’t care about her. And honestly, that’s all I have to say about it. It was a ratings grab that failed, it’s boring, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
Dr. Seuss the Racist
Now this was something that came out of left field. Essentially, what happened was that Melania Trump (wife of President Donald Trump) donated a bunch of Dr. Seuss books to an elementary school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Librarian, in response, wrote a response essentially rebuking her for her husband’s policies and went on to say that Dr. Seuss was clichéd and racist. Naturally, that raised some eyebrows. On top of being one of the most respected children’s author’s of our time, Dr. Seuss also wrote books like The Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle, and What Was I Scared Of?, books that specifically came out against discrimination, intolerance and fascism. I was pretty much ready to dismiss this as being just another way to rebuke the Trumps (especially since the librarian has been previous photographed dressing up as the Cat in the Hat not even three years prior), but it turns out that she didn’t come up with this controversary, and it’s apparently been going on for some time.
So what was Dr. Seuss’s crime? Well, behold:
Yes, apparently this one image is so offensive that it outweighs everything else that Dr. Seuss wrote in life. I mean, granted nowadays you don’t see Chinese people portrayed like this outside of South Park or Family Guy…but come on, this is nothing to lose sleep over. Allow me to put some thing in perspective:
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/e6/cb/e6cbb4fd-5c0b-43c5-9e89-666dbfe0bdd8/mcdpepa_ec105_h.jpg)
Yeah, compared to stuff like this, I don’t really think the Chinese man is too much of an issue. Others have also accused the Cat in the Hat of featuring tropes found in old minstrel shows. Which I find stupid.
In all fairness, while doing some digging I did learn there was a darker aspect to Dr. Seuss. Prior to writing children’s books, Dr. Seuss illustrated ads, many of which featured characters in blackface and other exaggerated caricatures. During World War II, he was not shy about expressing anti-Japanese statements and publically supported Japanese Internment. These are unfortunately aspects that must be acknowledged. Considering that no one complained about the Obamas reading Dr. Seuss to kids, however, I think at the end of the day this “controversary” is more political than anything.
And on that note, I’m calling it a night. Have a happy new year, and I’ll see you in 2018.
WELCOME TO YAPCS! 
