So sorry to see all of this great analysis and appreciation come to an end. The long discussions of tropes and styles and how they sometimes combined successfully and sometimes didn’t was always interesting. And I thought the discussions of how these movies addressed, or ignored, real life issues was a model for how…

Thank you for this series. I haven’t seen (or heard of, in some cases) every movie you wrote about, but I have read every article, and they all made me want to see the movie. I won’t go on about how this series ending feels like the end of an era (though it does), or how this was maybe the last remaining regular…

Reading the AV Club when it was in print? What a Pathetic Geek Story!

I’ve really enjoyed your work here and will follow you wherever you go next; I think I’m not the only one who wants to encourage you and other former AVC staffers who are leaving in the current profit mandated exodus to start a substack or something. I’d kick in $5/month or something to read stuff by you and the old…

Truly, Jim Spanfeller is a herb.

A- minus reflection on a C+ review.

Complaining about Last Jedi is so passé. Get a new grift.

How is it convoluted?

That’s kind of where I’m at. You want realistic space travel out of fucking Star Wars? Where spaceships and lasers make noise in the vacuum of space? And ships bank as if they were in an atmosphere?

And also it’s Star Wars. None of its space-flight technology has ever been realistic in any way.

I have no idea what movies you’ve been watching if you think a WW2 bombing run sequence doesn’t make sense in a series based on old WW2 serials. Going back to first principals and doing a WW2 sequence is the best thing the movie could have done. Seems like people just want a list of preexisting lore from Wookieepedia…

First, “heist film” and “World War II movie” aren’t terribly different beyond setting. In both genres, you’re bringing together groups of different people to achieve a difficult goal.

Um, just because we’ve never seen a thing happen in SW before doesn’t mean it can’t happen. “oh, no! There’s a SNOW planet now! But all we ever saw was a desert planet before! WTF?”

(I don’t know what’s worse - space B-17 bombers, Mary Poppins Organa, or the idea that if a starship runs out of gas it will slow down and stop in the vacuum of space)

“the idea that if a starship runs out of gas it will slow down and stop in the vacuum of space”

I don’t understand the dislike for that ONE BIT.  I thought it was friggin’ amazing when I saw it in the theater and I still scratch my head at how utterly humorless, joyless and dead inside you must be to not have found that moment thrilling. 

It was fan service, but a good kind of fan service. And it was earned.

LoL as big a fan as I was of the movies, something instinctual kept me away from the expanded universe books. The friends I had who consumed those things just weren’t the friends I typically went to for reading recommendations.

I am not sure if he is gaslighting me or if he honestly remembers things differently.