There are a couple of things I would have blogged about before now but somehow I couldn't find the way in in to the subjects. Disparate subjects if you're not a sci-fi nerd.
Star Wars Andor is the new Star Wars TV series. It has been critically lauded so I'm saying nothing startling here, but just to reiterate, Andor is at least a decade more mature and sophisticated than anything we've seen previously from the Galaxy Far Far Away.
Alien 3 is a movie which came out 20 years ago and was critically reviled for good reason on release. As David Fincher's first movie it has been appreciated somewhat since by some critics and fans, though is still pretty much hated by popular film fat by mainstream film fan.
The settings of both are heavily influenced buy the landscapes of post-industrial England.
One of the things that makes Star Wars Andor so special and such a success in comparison to other recent Star Wars content is it to use of striking real-world locations. In the same manner as it's predecessor movie Star Wars Rogue One used real world British locations, Star Wars Andor made use of real-world locations such as the Barbican Centre the McLaren Technology Centre and newly developed parts of Blackpool Pleasure Beach
The intelligent use of locations in Andor is striking on several levels. I recognised many of these locations and yet they still looked more exotic then the Fate locations in the other shows just because of their presentation I guess it also striking but parts of 21st century Britain look so convincingly dystopian when they are actually part of a real world reality. (another current sci-fi TV series I have not yet reviewed is The Peripheral which I did cover at length in book form when originally released. The Peripheral TV series also makes use of contemporary landmarks in London to populate a dystopian reality).
But the particular set location in and all that I want to draw attention to here is not a real world location. It is the huge physical set depicting the planet Ferrix, apparently built in a quarry somewhere in England, What makes this stand out to me is the familiarity of this alien setting in a galaxy far far away, a tight-knit working-class community surrounded by red brick deep class loyalty rigid social structures based on on the work and a cast iron resilience and loyalty.
Ferrix is very reminiscent of the working class communities in Yorkshire and the North which can be seen in movies such as Brassed Off.
Alien3 was universally loathed upon release but the revised Assembly Cut has given us an excuse to revisit it and maybe even appreciate it's unrelenting darkness. Once again somehow American directors and creators and production designers looked for an alien landscape and culture and went to post-industrial landscapes heavily influenced by the North East. The planet in Alien3 Fury 161 is a mixture of penal colony and abandoned industrial smelter. Anyone familiar with the ending of Newcastle set Get Carter will instantly see the giant cranes and bleak seascapes.
The inclusion in Alien3 of faces such Brian Glover, an icon of Northern England acting, makes this allusion even more more obvious.
In earlier versions of this blog this would probably have been a review. but I've never reviewed anything Star Wars here despite being a massive fan since seeing it in Canada on initial release. I actually reviewed Alien 3 Assembly Cut a few years ago go before the release of Alien Covenant.
I guess I should try that all up now I've already said Star Wars Andor is brilliant coming in a close second behind Severance as my TV of 2022. Watching some of the standard Star Wars Disney output really tests your loyalty to something you love. There is obviously relief when you hear people saying Star Wars Andor is the best Star Wars not since the 70s, but ever they are not being entirely unrealistic.
Fan disappointment and disillusionment has also of course recently been a major problem with the recent Alien films, going right back to the crushing experience of Alien3. I never reviewed Alien Covenant upon release I was as initially uncertain of several plot surprises.
Last week, in an attempt to make a visit to Avatar 2 to slightly more palatable, I re-watched the Alien films which I'm less familiar with. Alien3 Assembly Cut was as good as it was when I saw it a few years ago (which is to say still flawed but a huge improvement over the original release). Prometheus was I would say 20% better than my last viewing and I strongly defended it the first time round. With Covenant, now I could anticipate the plot, the second viewing was a huge improvement. If you felt these unappreciated Alien films were a disappointment initially I suggest you give them another chance. They are obviously meant to be surprising, different, and shocking.
Obsessive thinking on the subjects listed above has been hugely helped by several brilliant podcasts which I've been using to escape the news. For Star Wars, the Rebel Force Radio podcast is a great example of an old time fan podcast which sounds like a great radio show run by two older guys with some opinions, but nothing too toxic. It sounds as warm and welcoming as NPR Car Talk if you're aware of that radio phenomena. I highly recommend it if you need to re-discover your enthusiasm for that much abused franchise.
For Alien, The Perfect Organism podcast really helps bring to life what you might be regarding as an even more tired subject. Their approach is unflinchingly cerebral and quite informed. Even their contentious arguments are well put and worth listening to. Alien3 is actually their favourite of the movies - it's now cool to like Alien3, the most hated franchise movie of the last 30 years!
There's a lesson for fans in all of this. If we can find ourselves coming to terms with and appreciating a movie in Alien3, which is a slapdash mess which starts by brutally slaying two favourite characters from the preceding classic movie, then surely fans long term can cope with any kind of substandard content. Redemption and forgiveness is probably somewhere down the line for the worst recent Star Wars content, but, when the garbage is peppered with nuggets of gold like Star Wars Andor (and Prey, the recent excellent Predator movie) there are always reasons to hang on in there and always give the creators another chance to get it right.
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