Wooderon Movies of the Year 2018: Best Surprise

It’s difficult to be surprised when you’ve become risk adverse with how you spend your time. Like I spoke about before I started my game of the year lists, my approach to consuming media has changed. I value my time more than I used to, and while movies aren’t quite the same time investment that video games are, the same rule has applied to them in 2018, maybe even more so.

I still found myself surprised by a few of the movies I saw, and pleasantly so. Which is always a good thing. But really, the most surprising thing about all of this was that I had low expectations for a Star Wars movie at all. I hope it isn’t a sign of the mass push back against the franchise isn’t having an effect on me… nah.

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Rogue One: Star Wars should Lean into its Stories

Recently I went back an watched Rogue One, the first of the Star Wars Stories movies. And after much thought and soul searching, I think it might be my favourite of the modern Star Wars movies. It feels like the one movie of the franchise that understands why the series was fleshed out as much as it was in what was once known as the expanded universe.

In my mind there are two kinds of “hardcore” Star Wars fan. There are the people like me who have spent the last few decades of their lives buying terribly written novels, collecting comic books and playing all of the games, simply enjoying spending time in the world and getting an increasingly complex sense of this fascinating setting.

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I wanted to hate the Han Solo movie

I walked into Solo with pretty low expectations, I’ve not been especially excited about this one since it was announced. Walking out though, I can happy say that I has a lot of fun with this movie. I worry though, that my enjoyment of this movie was purely from a place of deeply seeded Star Wars fandom that lessens me as a person.

I spoke about the problems this movie had in its production before, how Phil Lord an Christopher Miller were given the boot as directors and replaced with an infinitely more middle of the road director in Ron Howard. And while some of the excitement I had upon leaving the cinema has worn off, I still got a lot out of this flick.

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