Film, art, and culture are all explored. What does a corporation, or an artist, owe to the fans that support and love and even identify with someone's art? George Lucas gave us Star Wars, then tried to mess with it. As an artist, he's allowed to. But as a fan, I beg him not to mess with the originals (which he's said the original film footage is even lost). "Special Editions" should be just that, and not replacements for the originals that now connect to our cultural Zeitgeist.

That said, our expectations of who Luke Skywalker is and is not is informed by decades of fan-fiction and the expanded universe of books and comics, setting the stage for the rage-monster nerd reaction against Rian Johnson's fantastic new film. So many people came to the movie expecting one thing and Rian Johnson wanted to give us something new. Insert conflict here.

Even a rant about maintenance-mode Catholicism comes in to play! The frog-nuns are caretakers of a dead religion and are fussy when young blood is messing with the buildings. Luke wants to burn down the sacred Tree, but find that he cannot, until Pope Yoda does the thing himself. Yet! The sacred texts survive and endure. So with the Jedi. Fascinating.

Special Guest: Greg Iwinski.

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• The Rotten Tomatoes score for "The Last Jedi" may be rigged — Quartz — The latest Star Wars film scored a 93% on the Tomatometer, which shows the share of critics who gave the movie positive reviews on the site, and a lowly 55% with audiences who submitted more than 116,000 user reviews since the film’s US release last week, as of the time of this writing. One angry, anti-Disney Star Wars fan is proudly claiming the credit for the disconnect. An anonymous individual who runs the Facebook page “Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys” claims to have used bots to create fake Facebook accounts that logged into Rotten Tomatoes and posted negative reviews of the film to lower the audience score.
• ‘The Last Jedi’ Subverts Some Of The Worst ‘Star Wars’ Tropes — I’ve become so inured to it that when a Last Jedi character fired up the Randy Quaid mobile to drive it straight into that gun barrel/alien gun/portal and incinerate himself to save the galaxy/rebellion/rec center (I’m keeping this vague to avoid the no spoiler Gestapo), I’d already prepared myself to accept this bit of momentarily lazy plotting. Like giant portals or the expanded universe, I thought suicidal characters were just something I would have to learn to accept in order to enjoy a blockbuster in 2017. But this time, just when the would-be Quaid mobile was about to save Earth (so to speak), another character swooped in and stopped Quaid, nearly suiciding to prevent a suicide. We could argue about hypocritical tactics, but Rian Johnson gave the Quaid stopper the perfect line, about how The Resistance is “about saving what we love, not destroying what we hate.”
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - Alternate Ending : Alternate Ending — Indeed, I'd almost go so far as to say that The Last Jedi is only good when one of either Luke or Rey is in a scene, and it is always good when one of them is in a scene, though this ignores the setpieces that work with neither of them being involved.
• The Last Jedi Doesn't Care What You Think About Star Wars — Legends Bleed Mark Hamill famously disagreed with Johnson on the direction of Luke Skywalker when he first read the screenplay for The Last Jedi, and it’s clear why. Luke, the farm boy who became a war hero who became a warrior knight who became his father’s savior, has fallen into disgrace. While The Force Awakens featured a Han Solo falling back into his old scoundrel ways (a position of comfort for those worried about a watered-down take on a character who was at his best when he wasn’t playing nice), The Last Jedi features a Luke Skywalker that is unlike anything we’ve seen before – a broken shell of a man who believes that everything he fought for and achieved was for naught. By telling young Rey that none of this matters, he’s also telling the audience the same thing. The stuff you love? The details that have reshaped pop culture and created a geek language that everyone speaks? Yeah, they’re wonky. Or rather, they’re broken. Your faith was flawed.

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• The Mona Lisa – what’s the big deal? | Understanding Paintings — A desultory conversation with my cousin led us to the subject of art. He said, “What’s the big deal in the Mona Lisa? Why would anyone pay tons of money for it?” Well, I did manage to give him a prosaic answer, which didn’t convince me either. I must admit that the actual painting, at first look, is quite unimpressive; not because of the quality of the work but because it does not stand up to its perceived image of magnificence. The “Oh my God!” effect is missing. At first glance, it looks like all the other paintings in the Louvre, all wonderfully painted by great masters.
• HISHE Reviews: Spider-Man Homecoming — Published on Jul 13, 2017 HISHE Reviews Spider-Man Homecoming. There are spoilers here! Beware of your viewing and comment scrolling. Discuss the movie HERE: https://moviechat.org/tt2250912/Spide... Watch More HISHEs: https://bit.ly/HISHEPlaylist Subscribe to HISHE: https://bit.ly/HISHEsubscribe
• What is so good about Quentin Tarantino movies? - Quora — There are so many things that you can go on listing! Here are some that I can think of right now! Unique Style: He has his trademark style of smart witty dialogues. Nobody ever speaks anything you would expect them to in his movies! His dialogue seems to come from a reservoir within the writer, pouring onto the page and leaking over to the screen with ease. Another aspect that makes Tarantino’s films unique is their placement in an almost alternate reality. Tarantino’s movies all take place on Earth, but in a Tarantino vision of the world. His characters all speak in a crossbreed of magnificent prose and speedy vulgarity. Characterization: He gives so much importance to characterization that they stay etched in viewers’ memory for a long long time. Who can forget Mr.Jules Winnfield of Pulp Fiction or Dr.King Schultz of Django Unchained? My favorite is Colonel Hans Landa from Inglrious Basterds. Aside from the way they look and talk, his characters are also written with such description that their actions, their movement sets them apart. Some of his characters are twists on stereotypical genre types, while others are brand new creations. Pop Culture: I’m not sure if any other director makes use of pop culture like QT does! And he does it with great effect! Music: Music plays a key role in every Tarantino movie. He has a wonderful choice of soundtracks for his movies!
• 10 Signs You Have Superhero-Movie Fatigue - Rolling Stone — Article from June 1, 2016... We've just about hit the halfway mark for 2016, and already Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse have taken cineplexes by storm. August will see the much-hyped Suicide Squad premiere (at which point Jared Leto will presumably quit tormenting his former costars) and November brings Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton in the mystical Doctor Strange. Audiences can then look forward to new films featuring Wolverine, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Thor, and the Justice League in 2017, along with a soon-to-be-announced Marvel film from Fox. "A lot" is a relative term —and "too much" is a highly subjective distinction. But with every new cycle of deafening promotion, "there sure are a lot of superhero movies, and it's getting to be too much" inches closer to objective, uncontroversial truth.
• Kevin Smith Responds To Superhero Fatigue In Hollywood — "Look who you're asking. Look how I'm dressed, are you serious? You got me for five minutes and you're going to ask that question? No, they need to make more dude. I don't care if they're quote unquote bad or something, the more you see the better it is. Like, make it as, as ubiquitous as the western was in the fifties I say, because what's better than little morality tales. Some of them are going to be wonderful, some may be not as wonderful, but let em make them all. There's no such thing as too many of these things."
• KEVIN FEIGE Responds To 'Superhero Fatigue' — "People have been asking me that for 15 years," Feige elaborated. "In 2001, 2002, 2003 there were two Marvel movies, three Marvel movies, and I still believe the same thing, which is as long as the ones that we can control are as good as they can be, that's all that I care about. I think we've been doing pretty well. I'm very confident in the films we've announced that we have coming forward that they're going to be surprising and different and unique. I've said a lot: I don't believe in the comic book genre. I don't believe in the superhero genre. I believe that each of our films can be very different." Feige also responded to comments from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder that called Marvel's films "flavors of the week," saying "Those are all very different movies. They all happen to be based on Marvel characters and Marvel comics, but from a genre and a cinematic perspective, they're all very unique. Civil War may as well be a different genre from Age of Ultron."
• How Andy Serkis Became the King of Post-Human Acting - Rolling Stone — On a London stage in 1992, a young Andy Serkis thought he was reaching the limits of actorly transformation. Playing Dogboy, "a bizarre, potentially quite violent street kid who thinks he's a dog," he'd strip naked each night, barking and biting, "much to my parents' shame."