Podcast Review of Rebel Moon, Parts 1 and 2

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 384, in which I review Rebel Moon, Parts 1 and 2.

Written blog post reviews of Rebel Moon, Part 1 and Part 2.

Check out this episode!

Rebel Moon, Part 2: The Robot and the Freshness

Just saw Rebel Moon, Part 2, on Netflix the other night.  I enjoyed it.  For some reason, my favorite character was the robot, JC-1435, aka James or Jimmy.

I'm not sure what that says about this second part of the movie (which, based on the ending, may well be the beginning of a series of two-part or one-part movies in a saga that now feels to me much more like Dune than Star Wars).  Maybe it's the antlers on Jimmy's head.  Maybe it's the voice -- you can't go wrong with Anthony Hopkins doing the voicing of anything.  But all in all, James conveyed a sensitivity that's rarely seen in robots or androids in movies or TV series, and which in its own way had a subtlety that even Data in Star Trek: TNG seldom quite achieved.

The battles were good and exciting, strong edge-of-your seat stuff.  The villains, however, often verged on cartoonish.   The heroes had more subtlety, and maybe that's because there were more of them than the villains.  I won't warn you about spoilers, because there won't be anything specific in this review, but I will say that this part of the movie which I hope will be a series concluded with fewer heroes than it had at the beginning.

Yeah, I hope we'll see more.  I like looking at the state of the human species at times like these, when we've gone way out into the cosmos, and met other intelligent beings, some of them now deadly foes, others of them loyal friends.  The problem with both Star Wars and Dune, and we can add Foundation to this list,  is that if we've done any reading or watching, we already know who the major characters are and who they will be.  Sometimes we even care about them so much, we don't like it if they're substantially changed in the new treatment (or at least, I feel that way).  But Rebel Moon, even though it deals with very well worn tropes, has a winning freshness and relevance to it.  The heroes in Rebel Moon, when they're not fighting Nazis, are harvesting grain.  Just like they do in Ukraine.

And that's why I'm totally aboard to see more.

See also: Red Moon, Part 1: Galactic Heroes and Villains

The Peripheral Season 1 Finale: The Putin Diaspora

Well, if you've been reading these reviews, you know how I am regarding what strikes me most in an episode: it could be a word, a phrase, that a character utters, something that has a special relevance either to our own world outside of the series, or something in the series, or both.

In the case of the season one finale of The Peripheral on Amazon Prime, the phrase is uttered by one of those three gents -- probably too nice a word for them -- in that gentleman's club in that brief coda after the closing credits.  One of them talks about "the Putin diaspora," which was a big factor in their world.  Nice current touch, a reference to the fascist dictator who has been terrorizing Ukraine for nearly a year now with an attack which clearly cannot succeed.

The mention of a "Putin diaspora" in the future -- or maybe "a" future would be a better word -- suggests that something Putin did led to a mass exodus of Russians from Russia.  That would certainly be a logical result if Putin continues his monstrous aggression in our all too-real world.  Good for The Peripheral for calling our attention to that.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

Now as to the rest of the season one finale and its science fiction: It's good to see Flynne and Lowbeer united, my two favorite characters in the series.  I didn't like Flynne's ingenious solution to the problem at hand -- setting up a new stub -- because, well, I didn't like Flynne being killed, in any manner, shape, or form.  Even if being killed in the stub in which this narrative began was necessary for Flynne to confound Cherise, and flourish in a new stub in which Cherise, at least for now, can't find her.

Flynne's death in our reality also makes sense, though, given Flynne's not wanting to live here with her mother dying in less than a month, and neither Flynne nor Lowbeeer or anyone apparently being to stop it.  The reason for that, though, is still not clear, at least not to me.

All in all, an excellent finale to an excellent first season, more than enough to make me sure and eager to watch what comes next.

 

See also The Peripheral 1.1-1.2: Cyberpunk, Time Travel, and Alternate Reality ... 1.3: John Snow ... 1.4 Who Took Lev's Tea? ... 1.5: The AI Therapist ... 1.6: Now or Soonest ... 1.7: The Unreliable Genie

alternate reality about The Beatles on Amazon, and  FREE on Vocal

Deeper Problems at the Oscars

Most people are understandably still talking about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the face at last week's Oscar ceremony, after Rock made a tasteless joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's hair (she has alopecia or hair loss).  What Smith did was wrong, no doubt, but thinking back about that broadcast, I'd say that incident was the least of the Oscar ceremony's problems:

1.  First, what Smith did was indeed not noble but wrong.  We parents spend a lot of time teaching our little children to use words not hands to express their anger, however justified it might be.  An actor resorting to violence on a world-wide stage sends out a very bad message.

2. Smith did also use words to express his outrage at Rock, shouting "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth" to Rock several times.  Unfortunately, we here in America were deprived of hearing that.  ABC, ever fearful, like other broadcast networks, of FCC (Federal Communication Commission) fines, bleeped out the offensive tirade.  (Fortunately, it was heard in Australia and other places with less repressive regimes than the United States.)  And it also must be noted: the FCC does absolutely nothing about Fox News and its dissemination of outright lies about COVID and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine -- lies so grievous that it got Chris Wallace not to his contract with Fox, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to recommend Fox News.  Surely, those lies are not broadcasting "in the public interest" -- the lies about Covid vaccines and bogus "cures" have literally cost lives.  And maybe the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) should investigate the very name Fox "News" as a form of false advertising.

3. Speaking of COVID and the Russian invasion, neither received much mention at the Oscar ceremony.  COVID was actually the subject of an early joking skit.  Ok, but the pandemic is no laughing matter to the more than six million people around the world who lost their lives, and the millions more in their families.  Would've been appropriate to say something about COVID in the Oscar "In Memoriam" segment.

4. The same egregious oversight about the heroic Ukrainians fighting for their very lives and country marred the Oscar event.  Sean Penn suggested that Ukrainian President Zelensky be allowed to address the world via the Academy Awards ceremony.  Not only did that not happen, there was no official mention of the Russian attack of Ukraine at all, other than some silent words briefly up on a screen.  Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis alluded to but didn't mention by name the savage Russian invasion of her birth place. Were the presenters and winners told not to mention Ukraine?  It was left to Francis Ford Coppola to defiantly proclaim from the stage, "Viva Ukraine"!

All in all, though there were many very worthy winners, a sad shambles of an award ceremony

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The Name "Fox News" Is a Form of False Advertising

I decided to follow through with what I've saying on social media about the very name Fox "News" being a form of false advertising, and I filed this formal report/complaint to the Federal Trade Commission) which investigates instances of False Advertising: 

The Fox News Channel ubiquitously advertises itself as Fox "News". But since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Fox has broadcast Russian propaganda about the war, not just news. On March 18, 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Russia Today (a Russian TV network): 'If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view" about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.' Americans who are seeking the news are being victimized by False Advertising every time they see or hear the name Fox News. A more truthful name for this cable channel would be ?Fox Russian Propaganda".

Ultimate Choices, Nearly Impossible, about Ukraine

photo by Yehor Milohrodskyi on @unsplash

Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow asked the crucial question: is there any country willing to jump in and stand with the Ukrainians against the Russian aggression?   General Barry McCaffrey (Ret), explained that anything the US and NATO did to directly confront and fight with the Russians could provoke Putin, already clearly unhinged, to bring nuclear weapons into an expanding worldwide fight.

Of course, no one wants any kind of nuclear war.  And a nuclear war between the US and Russia could well be the end of our civilization across the planet.

Avoidance of nuclear war therefore has been a cardinal objective ever since the end of World War II.  We're here today, flourishing across the Earth, with all our problems, because, beginning with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, we succeeded in keeping that world-destroying demon in the bottle.

So, McCaffrey's analysis makes sense.  But, what then, for Ukraine?  What are we supposed to do?  Continue to massively arm Ukraine and hope that that will be enough for them to stop the Russians? Hope that President Xi of China puts pressure on Putin to pull back?  Ukraine has heroically done far far better against the Russians than anyone thought they would.  But Russia nonetheless has overwhelmingly superior resources to replenish its soldiers and supplies.   Most knowledgeable observers, including McCaffrey, think it's just a matter of time before Ukraine succumbs.

So, what are we -- the United States, NATO, the free world -- supposed to do?  Stand by and watch Ukraine fall, curse Putin and his moral dementia, a month or more from now, as the overwhelming military numbers of Russia even with their blundering eventually succeed in their vile mission?  Stand by because the icey logic of at all costs avoiding a nuclear war demands that?   Yesterday afternoon a woman in Ukraine on MSNBC remarked that whatever we in the United States do, Putin's use of nuclear weapons is unpredictable.  He could see fit to launch them for whatever reason even if we hold back and Ukraine is obliged to counter the savage attack with just their own limited number of freedom-loving people.

But the implacable need to avoid a nuclear war between Russia and the West says yes, that's what we must  do.  But ... the prospect of watching Ukraine go down, when we and our allies have the military power to stop that, makes me sick to my stomach.  No, it makes me sick to my soul.

Had I the power, I'd put in place a no-fly zone over Ukraine to stop the Russian attempt to annihilate Ukraine.