“even if Liberté ultimately represents a failure of imagination, it may be worth engaging with—or submitting to—all the same.” - yeahhh, that’s gonna be what kids these days call a “hard pass.” :P

“In the pantheon of L.A. noir stories, it’s hard to beat L.A. Confidental and Chinatown.” - Of course. I’m just not sure adding dueling supernatural entities to that sort of story is a promising mixture; I fear it’d be a bit like dipping steak in strawberry ice cream. Carnivàle also made references to the same era by…

“... the Mexican Repatriation that occurred between 1929-1936. 60% of those deported (over “economic anxiety”) were birthright citizens.” - Holy crap, I’m a lifelong Californian and history buff, and I’d never heard of this. Wow.

Hm... yeah, not sure “Here’s a Carnivàle stealth sidequel, but it’s L.A. Confidential” is a hugely promising premise, and I love Carnivàle...

“against good sense, considering opening back up parts of the retail and consumer sector” - As a Han Solo once said, would that it were so simple. Without rent holidays - not loans, but holidays - a lot of small businesses that follow expert public health advice will go under. Money, like matter, doesn’t disappear; it…

“it’s certainly worth calling out China’s total lack of regard for intellectual property theft.” - If you make an honest living developing video games and this hurts you, sure, call out China. But if you made a career out of facilitating corporate deregulation and tax evasion, at least have the decency to blame…

So, my tasteless joke of a comparison to spousal abuse is beyond the pale, but your tasteless joke about substance abuse is totally cool? Funny how that works...

So? She’s 28.

“I guess you also hated Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the original trilogy for the same reasons?” - No, because we weren’t sure how much of the fall of the Jedi was their fault. Whereas, as a couple (plus brother/uncle) who made a conscious decision to start a family/Jedi Temple knowing what they knew, we as the audience…

“ a much better application of this time and effort would be an eight-part series about the creatures of Star Wars... packaged like a straight nature documentary.” 

“I can’t name a single three-film trilogy that was planned out from start to finish” - The Lord of the Rings springs to mind. But never mind that, it was merely an obscure box office juggernaut whose final entry was only the second sequel, and the only threequel, to ever win Best Picture. ;)

Lots of people thought Dark Empire was lousy. Try again.

No, they don’t see Ridley as the enemy. But they’re far less concerned with being fair to her than they’re interested in lashing out against those they do consider their enemies (priority #2), and in propping up their own egos (priority #1). The headline, as you observe, serves their ego (priority #1), the article…

You pointed out a “weird” flex; I illustrated how normal of a flex it is for these writers.

Zombie AV Club Newswire writer priorities:

“Hell, The Last Jedi was one of the best things to happen to this series in decades” - as someone who has Harmy’s Despecialized Editions of the OT in glorious HD, allow me to kindly say: bullshit. ;)

Gee, maybe some of “the love” went away when Disney decided what we all wanted was a slapdash sequel trilogy that made our childhood heroes miserable failures, cowards, and parents of a school shooter? And then totally undercut the finale of the original films by having Palpatine survive (more or less, clone,…

I quite enjoyed Knives Out, but complaining that something is derivative of that pastiche is a bit like complaining that The Rise of Skywalker disrespected The Last Jedi when The Last Jedi itself disrespected The Force Awakens. In short: more Camila Mendes is a good thing.

“After filming a couple seconds of himself singing in the bathroom of his house, Dornan sent it off to Wiig without a second thought. ‘Whatever happens, happens,’ he said.” 

I head-canon’d that as being a weekend/vacation from school. I don’t think they said there wasn’t a town with other youngsters nearby... But, yeah, I had the same thought.