Yep, we're back here again. Despite my efforts to remove myself from Star Wars, I find it best to keep a close eye on the overall nature of the discussions around it. The reason behind it is simply because it has become almost a singular example of everything wrong with the internet, fandoms, and attempts by articles to control overall narratives for the benefit of others. So, it's an absolute steaming pile of bovine dung that most people with any sense have tried to step back from. The last several times we discussed this focused on the problems with fandom responses, interactions and harassment from multiple angles.
Despite what each side claims, no one here is the "good guy". You can try to argue that one side has more racists motivating or seemingly siding with it, but the second you think that is fine, you spot a bunch of people using accusations of racism to blackname and attack others for simply disagreeing with them. No matter how misaimed or inaccurate that might be, the zeal behind it and the depiction of one side as sub-humans means no one will even question it before jumping on said people. Quite frankly, things will likely just keep getting worse as the years wear on unless someone eases off on this subject.
Enter Morten Bay, journalist and writer.
Bay decided to publish an article under the name Weaponizing the Haters, which delved into the subject of the dispute surrounding The Last Jedi. It's a rather long read on the whole, citing everything from Lucas' inspiration from the American Civil War, the Vietnam war and others, while also bringing up the recent reactions to the aforementioned Star Wars film. In truth, it's a rather frustrating read for many reasons, as it performs the usual sins of those who feel The Last Jedi is flawless and seeks to demonise those who dislike how it was handled. We have the usual mix of dehumanising terms such as "fantagonists" to sum up those who were vocally opposing the films, cherry picking facts by trying to gloss over the poor performance of Solo being the result of any negative response to the previous film, and frequent efforts to lump them in with the Trump supporting alt-right population of the world. In fact, if you wish to sum it up in one part, you need only look at this part of the closing statement to sum up the article's entire message:
"Approximately one in three negative fans express misogynist, anti-progressive, anti-social justice or conservative views. When some detractors of The Last Jedi correctly claim that it is an injustice to place these labels on all negative fans, these detractors also have to contend with the fact that the labels actually fit a large portion of their faction."
It's the usual unfortunate effort we have come to expect from those who support The Last Jedi on the whole, focusing on the elements which support a singular viewpoint. It's less an examination than it is a reaffirmation, unwilling to consider anything besides "I am right and here is why". It's something which is a noted problem in any part of the debate surrounding this film, and that has only been further proven by how many articles responded to one part of it: The comparison with Russian bots.
You might have seen the accusation a few times already, but if not here are a few of the following examples:
"Star Wars: New Study Suggests "Significant" Amount of 'The Last Jedi' Trolls Are Politicized Bots" - Comicbook.com
"Half of 'Last Jedi' haters were bots, trolls, activists, study says" - Reuters.com
"Russian trolls likely behind negative tweets about 'Last Jedi': study" - CTV News
“Star Wars: Russian bots and trolls behind Last Jedi abuse, study finds” - Sky News
There are plenty of others, but I would hope those four would make it clear how eagerly many news outlets jumped on this point. There was a mad scramble to do just this, announcing to the world that the majority of those who dislike The Last Jedi, those who dare to criticise or oppose it, are mere sockpuppets working for Putin's regime. This, in turn,was quickly repeated by fans en-mass, as those with pro-The Last Jedi views jumped at the opportunity to slander any and all who disliked what they loved, with examples such as these:
There's just one problem here, however: This isn't true. In fact, the study itself doesn't even outright call most of these people Russian bots so much as compare actions with how Russian troll farms have influenced online discourse. Even then, accepting that fact, the study itself stands on some extremely shaky ground, thanks both to how it was conducted and the person behind it.
The study itself was not some massed sweeping examination across the fandom, but instead limited itself to Twitter. In fact, it was limited to a single Twitter account: That of director Rian Johnson. Bay opted to examine who was commenting to Johnson himself and the source of each Tweet. He examined its nature, content and who it originated from, going from one to the next. The end result proved that only a relatively minor fraction of these might possibly be Russian bots. That grand total? Sixteen out of nearly a thousand different accounts. You can find a good break-down of this here, but it goes to show that most writers were quite happy to jump on this and spread an easy lie if it supported their own side.
While a few articles have corrected their own mistakes - notably The Verge - many others still display this lie, without editing or correcting the information in question. Why? It's simple. At the end of the day, those who were most vocal in supporting The Last Jedi used the research as not something to be commented upon, but an excuse to attack others. These are often the same accounts which have been repeating from day one a single lie after another to try and downplay any frustration against Disney's productions, or write off such concerns as being from the scum of humanity. If you recall, the last time this was brought up on here was when someone decided to black-name and attack a charity when given an excuse.
Even those which have tried to correct this are still attempting to repeat this same mantra. Each is using the simple excuse as an opportunity to verbally shout down or sneer at those who have opposing feelings to them. You need look no further than the Dork Side of the Force for this, with an article titled "Political agendas, Russian bots and fantagonists: Why The Last Jedi backlash doesn’t matter". While I am not going to link them, as I do not wish to directly give their website undeserved traffic over such weasel words and implied insults, here's a good quote from what you can expect:
"Now it seems a new academic paper may have brought the online debate of Rian Johnson’s film to a whole level we never thought we’d see. Morten Bay, who has now bravely (naïvely?) inserted himself into the fracas, suggests slightly more than 50 percent of The Last Jedi’s backlash may likely have come from bots, troll accounts and politically motivated activists including those of the Russian persuasion.
[...]
But, Bay’s paper isn’t about proving whether The Last Jedi was actually liked, it’s a study in the breakdown of discourse. The audacity of opinion is something that’s been on display in front of our blue screens, attacking ones that differs from our own. Long gone are the days of debating Ewoks or what the hell George Lucas’ mindset was during the special editions. Replaced with recalcitrant vitriol by every beating pulse with a wire plugged into his cerebellum and fingers to record every preconceived judgment that passes through his mind that nanosecond."
While it tries to be moderate in its tone, the author is clearly leaning far more toward enjoying the film than not, and is willing to repeatedly imply those who dislike it are wrong. Even the closing statement, which tries to encourage peace between the fractured groups, still carries this note, and it even skims over the fact Bay's findings are questionable in a brief paragraph before continuing to try and preach its message.
Yet the most problematic point is that Bay himself seemed to have few issues encouraging this echo chamber, because he seems to have already joined one. I already mentioned the "I'm right, you're wrong, here's why only my statement matters!" standing and direction of the article, and that's only further reinforced by his activity online. If you go through his Twitter feed, you will find tweet after tweet with the following content in them:
Despite claiming that he was careful to frame his work in the right way, the entire thing reads like an effort to support the side he likes while opposing the one who disagrees with him. That lack of an impartial view or effort to delve into further problems behind the discourse, such as the encouragement to spam positive reviews or create sock-puppet accounts purely to offset negative Rotten Tomatoes reviews. Oh, and if you think that's a lie, here's a recent one:
The thing to take away from this latest development is simply a repeat of what has been said before: There's no good way out of this. Things will just keep getting worse as both sides keep hammering into one another, unwilling to talk, unwilling to cede any ground on any point, and using any opportunity to insult and attack one another. No matter how good a person's intention might be, no matter how open they are in one way or another, efforts to discuss this will only end badly. The pro-Disney era fans will just keep using it as an opportunity to piss on those who disagree with them, while those who dislike it will just keep getting pissed off as a result. Producing something like this was never going to resolve anything. All it has done is add more fuel to the fire.
It has been said in the past that every incarnation of the Doctor is a response to their previous one. In some cases it can even be regarded as sort of retort or comment on the latest moment in their life. The Third Doctor's stern and more direct nature could be seen as a response to the inherently silly smokescreen of the Second Doctor, while the Sixth Doctor's bombastic drive was completely at odds with the Fifth's more passive nature. Equally, the Eleventh Doctor was described by the eternally awesome Chuck Sonnenburg as an old man in a young man's body, enjoying his final years before the end.
The same seems to be true when it comes to show runners, as each desires to leave their own mark, completely shifting gears from their predecessor. With Moffat having left the show for good, Chibnall seemed set to quickly establish his new direction for Doctor Who to contrast with the past two incarnations.
The Synopsis
The Sinclair family are not the most united group of individuals. Ryan is affected by dyspraxia which affects his life in odd ways - and his capacity to ride a bike - while his grandmother's new marriage to her boyfriend Dennis has strained their relationship. During an outburst, he ends up being forced to try and retrieve his bike from the forest and stumbles upon something strange, large and blue. As police officer Yasmin Khan is drawn into the mess, strange occurrences begin to take place, such as a hovering ball of metal eels bringing a train to a halt. No one fully knows what is happening, or how the manic woman going by the name of the Doctor relates to any of it.
The Good
The immediate stance The Woman Who Fell to Earth takes is to rob the Doctor of everything. There's no TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver, no psychic paper or gadgets. She simply has her wits, the few memories she can call upon and her natural intelligence. This forces the character to adapt to her surroundings, and to show off her ability to work with little to nothing. This benefits the story for multiple reasons right from the outset - It gives impetus for her to link up with others, and for the new companions to quickly become involved in her story. It serves to establish the full retooling of the series to better reflect this new era without the previous one overshadowing it, and it wipes the metaphorical slate clean for new writers.
Jodie Foster quickly gives a very good impression in terms of her competence in this role, as the story rapidly throws new elements at her. The fact she has to work without the benefit of the aforementioned resources is the tip of the iceberg, as she drops directly into the middle of an alien attack. Furthermore, she is written and acts just as the Doctor, and resolves things in a manner which is distinct of her character. This needs to me emphasised as (the more sane) fears surrounding the characters related to treating her as River Song Mk. 2 or every episode saying "Here, the Doctor is a woman now, and this is a big thing!" Gender comes up a grand total of once, and it's both well handled and genuinely quite funny.
The cinematography has undergone a definite upgrade this season, with a far more cinematic feel to many scenes. You will notice this the most when it comes to the darker scenes, especially in terms of how the camera utilises environmental elements or slow tracking shots to emphasise space. Jamie Childs' history with high budget television shows has definitely paid off here, as he actively does everything possible to avoid any set looking like a sound stage. Combined with how many scenes can be filmed in a way which can actively transition from any theme with only minor visual edits - such as its unique ability to cross back and forth between horror and humour - it's a definite boon to the story.
Finally, and most pressingly, is the fact that this is a simple and direct story. There's no effort to make things "intelligent" to the point of tying the script in knots or making someone their own grandfather. There's no effort to create some meta narrative nonsense, or turn the Doctor into the centre of the universe. The episode actively steps back to the "I'm just a traveler" narrative the show once had, rather than boasting about who she is. It's a refreshing change, and without that baggage the script moves much quicker and easier between scenes. As such, the story benefits from a rapid pace which never feels too fast.
The Bad
Every Doctor needs to strike a strong impression from the start and help to offer some indication of how they will behave from here on. There is a great deal of wiggle room on offer as she is undergoing the typically instability born of a regeneration, but her behaviour seems to be a little familiar. If you're watching her performance, the usual mixture of blathering and rapidly delivered commentary is very reminiscent of David Tennant's Doctor, and not enough is done to help make her stand out. While this is certainly something which can be improved upon as the show finds its footing, it's unfortunate when a first impression reminds an audience of a popular prior incarnation.
Equally, the companions here seem to be defined more by their histories than personalities. There are a few solid moments which work well, but their successes come down to the choice of actors far more than detailed writing. With three new companions in total, more could have been done to better define them, or at least give them something more distinct to stand out. As it stands, they are good but not great, and come across as a means for the Doctor to get around the lack of her usual equipment.
Still, another element which did cause a few obvious problems stemmed from the villain of the episode. Without going into details, the villain is effective largely when he is seen as little as possible. With implications of power, threats and acts of controlled violence, he strikes an imposing shadow over the episode. This sadly disappears as the story goes on, both due to a few laughable visual elements and because they serve as a relatively low-level threat. The low level threat in of itself isn't inherently bad (Tom Baker started with Robot, after all) but after decades of the Doctors starting their careers by halting full-scale alien invasions, it feels like a step down.
Finally, and most pressingly, the resolution to the previous story's cliffhanger is rushed through and left without resolution. The Doctor effectively walks off being dropped from near orbit and, while those in their early hours of regeneration tend to be quite durable, this is pushing things. After all, people complained when the Tenth Doctor dropped through a skylight from a moving ship. This is someone who drops from somewhere close to the troposphere and through solid metal. It's difficult to simply ignore the episode glossing over something like that.
The Verdict
While it doesn't reach the heights of the Eleventh Hour or Christmas Invasion, this new episode avoids the flaws inherent in many past regeneration stories. Many of its flaws stem more from the new direction than the story itself, and it shows great promise for the years to come. It's enjoyable and engaging, but it feels as if the show isn't quite there yet, and will take a few more stories to hit its stride.
Verdict: 6.0 out of 10
The return of Ciaphas Cain has been something many fans have been clamouring for ever since his last appearance. It's not hard to see why - Cain is Blackadder meets Flashman, with all the snark and intelligent humour involved applied to M41. Despite this, Mitchell is a talented enough author to avoid most of the truly dark elements within Warhammer 40,000 and still make it extremely loyal to the overall universe. He's a unique entity in this regard, and Mitchell's ability to add nuance to every joke (until returning to it can often allow you to find a good two or three you missed in every previous reading) and some fairly good action, and it's a good overall balance for the series.
With all that said, however, there was no denying that the Ciaphas Cain saga had become somewhat repetative. Following the first trilogy, it seemed that every attempt to take a step forward resulted in at least one step back. The stories themselves were far from bad - and many of Cain's most famous moments come from the second omnibus - but the magic seemed to be wearing a bit thin. This is worth mentioning as, comparing Choose Your Enemies to The Greater Good highlights a sense of renewed energy behind the writing. It's not relying on the older tricks, so much as using them as a basis for new gags.
The Synopsis
Following multiple engagements against the Eldar, the Valhallan 597th are dispatched to Ironfound amid a Chaos uprising. While their initial battles prove to be a string of easy victories, Cain's troops soon find that corruption might be far more widespread than they first expected. Then things start to go very wrong as a few familiar faces show up, with danger close behind them.
The Good
The immediate bonus to this book's overall score comes from its choice of extra characters. As the synopsis implied, there are a lot of returning faces here, but the fact the Valhallan 597th themselves are present is a definite boon. The ensemble of secondary characters and mixed regimental figures always helped to bolster the stories. The a mix of familiar faces offered more opportunities for jokes, stories and material for Cain's narration to work with. While this might sound like hyperbole, if you compare the first three books with Death or Glory, you might notice that one is more engaging than the other. They're both well written, excellently paced and brilliantly described, but the supporting cast elevates the tale to a new level.
Additionally, the story utilises familiar elements without making them feel derivative. The old chapter outro style of "If I had known X I would have Y" is present, but the creativity behind it helps it to feel engaging. There are far more descriptions and humourous takes used to make it feel fresh in this regard, and equally the way in which Cain stumbles into the narrative works well. It doesn't feel as if the world is bending over backward to have him find a role within the larger story. The unintentional nature of their meetings and Cain's own dialogue helps to smooth this over, as always, but the greater scope at work really plays to the story's strengths. The ability for the narrative to interject accounts from other sources was always a major plus within prior tales, but here it is used to far more effectively flesh out the world. Part of that is down to the choice of placement within the narrative, but the details themselves have also become much more substantial.
The commentary delivered by Vail i as welcome as always, albeit with something of a change. There are remarkably few short versions here, the sort of interjections of one or two words. This allows her to have a greater voice in certain events and more substantial pieces to compliment where Cain glosses over key details. This is something of a running joke within the series, but this is a novel which has better utilised this than all others to really flesh out the setting. Given that, behind Eisenhorn, the Ciaphas Cain books are among the few which delve deeper into the inner workings of the Imperium's daily life, this is a very welcome addition. The fact it is set on such an unusual world gives the book more material to offer than were it another hive world or backwater planet, leading to some very interesting culture clashes.
Yet atop of everything else, Choose Your Enemies manages to sidestep a fair few of the pacing issues and structural problems inherent in the overall series. While hardly the worst example put onto paper, the efforts to reflect Cain's less formulaic style often interferes with the finer parts of pacing a book. When an event occurs, how it occurs, what drives the protagonist onward, how important something is to the overarching plot; that sort of thing. While it disguised this well for some time, toward start of the third trilogy these problems became much more obvious. A few of the more typically overused narrative devices were so often employed that it was clear how they were trying to distract the reader from problems.
The way the story manages to execute a better pace is by working around a lot of the flab present in past stories. While Cain is allowed plenty of time to ramble, discuss and comment upon ongoing events, it's more tightly executed and paced against said events. There is a more consistent effort to balance this against the major narrative, while the time-skips needed to work around story moments are far better placed. As a result, while it still offers commentary on a broader event, the story feels far more complete and better executed.
The Bad
So, what might be wrong with Choose Your Enemies? Oddly enough, a big one lies in something just praised: Vail's commentary. On the one hand, as mentioned above, the expanded sections help both her and the capacity to offer a greater voice within the story. On the other, there are far fewer brief laugh-out-loud moments from these. While one or two excellent ones - especially just as Cain discovers just what the enemy's plan is - which work in its favour, there are far fewer here to compliment the overall humour. While the reason behind this might become clear due to Vail relationship with the overall story, it makes the book feel lacking in an area which is typically a major strength.
Even without the commentary angle, however, the actual fight scenes are geared far more toward spectacle or large scale events over all else. In fact, it's often at the expense of everything else here. While fighting as a whole has typically been good within the series, it tends to be at its best when Cain is dueling someone or engaged in a very up-close-and-personal matter. His famous fight with a Khorne Berserker alone proves this. However, when it gets away from that area it tends to lack the innate descriptive strengths or narrative of more conventional stories. Here, however, the story seems to largely avoid these. Those present are typically quickly interrupted or favour action sequences instead, and it lacks some of the satisfaction needed in terms of violence. Yes, this might not be a bolter porn novel, but when it's based around war, the effectiveness of storytelling in war needs to be commented upon.
Yet perhaps most of all, the story is wrapped up extremely quickly within the final few pages. It goes from having an intense and well executed final act, to abruptly racing through to the ending, and resolving things far too cleanly. Part of this might be down to some surprisingly odd actions by the races involved in the story, but also how everything is instantly resolved. In most prior stories, the rapid wrap-up was far better justified, either by diverting one enemy into fighting another, or intervention by another force. With this one, that just isn't the case. It's irritating as it seems as if the story was written with a larger page count in mind, and was then forced to wrap things up all too quickly.
The Verdict
I could really just end this by saying "You enjoyed the past ones, so you'll love this one". It would be accurate and the truth is that, whatever its inherent problems, Choose Your Enemies still stands out thanks to its sharp writing and angles most stories avoid. It's one of the strongest stories of late, and a major improvement over the last two books in the series. If you can get your hands on a copy, definitely set cash aside for a hardcover copy of this one.
Verdict: 8.4 out of 10
So, things have been quieter than usual you might have noticed. Even with the usual ongoing problems, there has been a sudden dip in output, with few to no articles being released. There are two very simple reasons for that:
As things have gotten back to relative normality - even if it is a frequently disrupted and delayed normality - I was hoping to get back to a bi-daily release of articles. In order to kick-start this, the end of September and early October were to be a mixture of various video game releases which had clustered together. These were to be a variety of genres, but largely a few specific ones I had kept an eye on until late. This led to several day's worth of delays, until most reviews were almost done and they were ready to be posted.
And then Microsoft happened.
Windows 10 is not exactly loved by most people. Actually, it's largely hated for a lot of its less user friendly additions, such as the frequent removal of restore points and the multitude of mega-patches we keep getting. Well, this was one such patch that I got earlier than planned. You can read the full details here, but suffice to say it's a poor addition. Now, while I am not the most tech savvy man on the planet, I do know how to look after a machine. The hard drive had plenty of space left on it, it was frequently defragged, cleaned up and its interior dusted. It was a perfectly serviceable machine. Then this thing hits.
Suddenly the download takes the better part of twelve hours to fulfil, the PC repeatedly black screens, and the few times I do get through to the desktop it brings up a dozen error messages. One of which kept claiming it couldn't find the C drive. So, for the next two days I went about doing everything possible to fix this, and then pinned down the problem to a multitude of errors the patch had created (notably 0x80070003). The problem was that, as it was constantly freezing and pausing mid action, and the desktop itself was a black doom void which would not respond to any command, I could not use the repair tools needed for it. After several failed attempts to restore the machine to previous points, I was forced to effectively perform a factory reset.
The good news is that a fair few documents being worked on were held on a cloud drive, along with a multitude of important bits of information relating to reviews. The bad news was that this wiped out the saves for every game, each right near the end, and several documents close to completion. Oh, and every program I use on a daily basis. So, several weeks of work went right down the drain, because of Microsoft's tendency to be bastards.
We'll be going back to these games soon - and commenting on a few ongoing events - but a few might be shorter than usual in order to speed things up. So, we're back in business, but that business might be a bit shorter than usual until the backlog is dealt with.
