Fanboys Anonymous

The 74th annual Golden Globe Awards will take place Sunday, January 8, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton on NBC, hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Here are the nominees for all of the categories. Give us your predictions on the winners and your favorites in the comments below!

Best Supporting Performance by an Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film
Olivia Colman, The Night Manager
Lena Headey, Game of Thrones
Chrissy Metz, This is Us
Mandy Moore, This is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film
Sterling K. Brown, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager
John Lithgow, The Crown
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot
John Travolta, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Riley Keough, The Girlfriend Experience
Sarah Paulson, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Charlotte Rampling, London Spy
Kerry Washington, Confirmation

Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film
Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
Bryan Cranston, All the Way
Tom Hiddleston, The Night Manager
John Turturro, The Night Of
Courtney B. Vance, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Best Miniseries or Television Film
American Crime
The Dresser
The Night Manager
The Night Of
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Best Performance By an Actress in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical)
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Sarah Jessica Parker, Divorce
Issa Rae, Insecure
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Best Performance By an Actor in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical)
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Gael García Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Donald Glover, Atlanta
Nick Nolte, Graves
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Best Performance By an Actress in a Television Series (Drama)
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Claire Foy, The Crown
Keri Russell, The Americans
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld

Best Performance By an Actor in a Television Series (Drama)
Rami Malek, Mr. Robot
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Billy Bob Thornton, Goliath

Best Television Series (Musical)
Atlanta
Black-ish
Mozart in the Jungle
Transparent
Veep

Best Television Series (Drama)
The Crown
Game of Thrones
Stranger Things
This is Us
Westworld


Best Original Score
Nicholas Britell, Moonlight
Justin Hurwitz, La La Land
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Arrival
Dustin O'Halloran and Hauschka, Lion
Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams and Benjamin Wallfisch, Hidden Figures

Best Original Song
"Can't Stop the Feeling!" (Max Martin, Shellback and Justin Timberlake), Trolls
"City of Stars" (Justin Hurwitz, Pasek and Paul), La La Land
"Faith" (Ryan Tedder, Stevie Wonder and Francis Farewell Starlite), Sing
"Gold" (Stephen Gaghan, Danger Mouse, Daniel Pemberton and Iggy Pop), Gold
"How Far I'll Go" (Lin-Manuel Miranda), Moana

Best Supporting Performance by Actress in a Motion Picture
Viola Davis, Fences as Rose Maxson
Naomie Harris, Moonlight as Paula
Nicole Kidman, Lion as Sue Brierley
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures as Dorothy Vaughan
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea as Randi

Best Supporting Performance By an Actor in a Motion Picture
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight as Juan
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water as Marcus Hamilton
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins as Cosmé McMoon
Dev Patel, Lion as Saroo Brierley
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals as Ray Marcus

Best Performance By an Actress in a Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical)
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don't Apply
Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical)
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama)
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Performance By an Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama)
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Ruth Negga, Loving
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane

Best Motion Picture (Foreign Language)
Divines
Elle
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann

Best Motion Picture (Animated)
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia

Best Director, Motion Picture
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Screenplay, Motion Picture
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water

Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical)
20th Century Women
Deadpool
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Sing Street

Best Motion Picture (Drama)
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Welcome to the seventh edition of Fanboys Fix It, where instead of just complaining about what we don't like about something, we try to figure out how we can make it better. With the upcoming release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I can't help but feel it's time to reflect a bit more on Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens. We're a year removed from the release of that film, so we've had more than enough time to fully digest it and for the shock value to wear off. Now, with clearer eyes (shout out to Maz Kanata) we'll be able to break the film down better and more accurately pinpoint the problems with it that could have been fixed with a few more tweaks to the script.
For those curious, you can check out my initial reviews of the film and many more posts at the bottom of this article. I happen to love the movie, ranking it probably as my third favorite of the series so far, but even after my first viewing, I could see some issues that I wish had never popped up. Over time, a few more things have gotten under my skin, and that's hurt its reputation a bit. I still think it's great, but now more than ever, I wish the film had been approached in a different way in its execution.

With that being said, how do you fix The Force Awakens?

Here is a list of what I feel are the errors of the film and how I would have fixed them in a rewrite.

Core Problem #1: Being Kept in the Dark

There is a recurring theme throughout a good majority of this article, where many different problems are going to circle back to one fundamental concept: there were far too many mysteries in the film which didn't need to exist.

A good movie gives you all the information you need to know in order to get the full scope of things, while leaving minor inconsequential details out of the mix so things don't get bogged down. For example, the Lord of the Rings series can sometimes seem a bit bloated because they feel the need to explain the process in which dwarfs prefer their potatoes to be cooked on Saturdays, which comes from an old legend that blah blah blah. We can all agree that if you're a fan of the material, you want to indulge in as much of it as possible, so that stuff might be interesting to you, but that's where the expansion into other media can satiate you.

This film, however, has the opposite problem, as it relies too heavily on extraneous media to explain major plot points rather than just adding icing to the cake. The reason this happens is because they tried to rush 30 years of history into quick moments, meaning important elements are glossed over either too quickly to resonate or they are completely ignored entirely. It's a byproduct of not having enough time for the film and leaving things on the cutting room floor more than it is having told a full story and wanting to elaborate on it elsewhere.

The prequels did a great job of not falling into this pitfall, for the most part. By the end of Revenge of the Sith, you know that the clones will transition to the Stormtroopers, Obi-Wan has dropped Luke off on Tatooine where he'll watch over him as he grows up with Owen and Beru, Bail Organa has Leia and will raise her, Yoda is on Dagobah where he'll stay until we see him in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader is in his suit and the Galactic Empire is about to start tightening its stranglehold on everyone with oppression getting worse over the next 20 years. The Jedi are dead and a Rebel Alliance is going to have to spring up over time. The rest is inconsequential, as the first major victory is the Battle of Yavin, which we see in A New Hope, which then gives us the journey until Return of the Jedi.

Then, the next film we have—The Force Awakens—is a jarring jump forward which makes you feel like you forgot to watch at least one, if not three movies.

Why does it seem like it's taking longer to get rid of the Empire than it did for them to have their entirety of their rule? Oh, it's not the Empire, it's something called The First Order. What's The First Order, then? The first of what? Also, if the Empire isn't still in control, do we have a new Republic? What is the new setup of the Republic? Who is in charge? We went from Valorum to Palpatine to who? Is it Leia? No, she's the leader of The Resistance. Well, what is The Resistance? Why are they resisting something that is not oppressive if they're in charge? Shouldn't The First Order be The Resistance, then? Also, if she's not the leader, does that mean she's trained in The Force and this Resistance is some kind of militarized branch where she's a go-between liaison with Luke's Jedi Order and the armies of The Republic? Wait, she didn't train at all? Why? Where's the Jedi Order? They're killed by The First Order? Again, what the fuck is The First Order? The Empire in another name ran by a guy named Snoke? Who the fuck is Snoke?! The leader of The Knights of Ren? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS "REN" THING??!

The response you'll often hear is "read the books" which is just lazy and ridiculous. Even then, the books still don't explain much of this, as many of those questions haven't been answered yet a full year later.

Franchises work in three ways: 1) each new installment is standalone and you can jump in at any moment, 2) there are subcategories and as long as you follow the same thread, you're good, but if you branch out then you enrich your experience, 3) you need to pay attention to every little detail in every bit of canon possible. The Star Wars film series operates on the second wavelength. You don't have to dive deeper into anything other than the movies in order to get everything you need, but if you do read the comics, watch the cartoons, and so on, you're adding more depth and layers which were optional.

Look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe for an example of how to properly balance things. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier saves the day by showing up relatively out of nowhere. If you just watch the films, the explanation they give is that Nick Fury, Maria Hill and the others on that ship had this stashed away in secret for an emergency, and while the other characters were off doing their own thing, Hill and Fury were retrieving that. Cool, that explains it. Now, if you watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television show, you get to see more of how that retrieval went down, which apparently also involved Phil Coulson. Awesome. You don't need to know Coulson's involvement to avoid being confused in the film, but watching the show gives you some added bonus fun.

Supplemental material should be used to explain only supplemental material. Star Wars Rebels explains how the Rebellion acquired the B-Wings. Cool. But when Hosnian Prime was destroyed, many of us thought it was Coruscant because the film didn't even take the time to say the name of the planet—or any of the planets except Jakku for that matter, oddly enough. We still don't know if Starkiller Base is Ilum, Hoth, something new, etc. The context we had with Hosnian Prime was that we had seen only one planet before that looked like a giant city and was the capital, and here is a capital planet that looks like a giant city, so why shouldn't we think it's Coruscant? 

So how do you fix this problem? You simply work harder on the script in the planning stages to explain these things in a more efficient manner. Dialogue can be great tools to cram a lot in just a few words. Tweaking a minor change to the line "It was the Republic. The First Order, they've done it." to something like "That was the Hosnian system. The First Order, they've destroyed the Republic." clarifies that and takes up a fraction of a second more time.

Adding a two-minute scene where Leia speaks to representatives of the Republic could give us a considerable amount of information very quickly. That's a small amount of time to add to the film and isn't going to hurt the box office, which broke damn near every record possible. Changing a film from 2 and a half hours to 3 hours can make a dent, but nobody's going to be flipping out if a film is 137 minutes instead of 135.

Some mysteries can still be left for future films to dive into, like what Luke has been up to since he went missing, because that's a mystery to our protagonists, but we shouldn't be unaware of what happened before he left, too. Leave the fans wanting more of what's to come, not being confused about what has already happened.

Core Problem #2: Family Matters

By the end of the film, why do we not know who both Finn and Rey's parents are or where they came from or anything other than the generic baseline character descriptions given out in press releases beforehand?

There are four brand new main characters introduced that we're following the journeys of—the other two being Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren. With Poe, we don't need this information. He was originally scripted to be killed off and he's basically just an amalgam of Lando Calrissian, a less important Han Solo, and Wedge Antilles. His backstory isn't something shrouded in mystery, so it makes sense to elaborate on it with the books. Kylo Ren's backstory is incredibly rushed, but we'll get into that later in another section below. However, Finn and Rey are the two true main characters and we still basically know nothing about them!

Since we don't know Finn's heritage, we're left with conflicting arguments about whether or not he's Force-sensitive. I'm really hoping he is, as it makes more sense than if he isn't. The marketing material always had him holding a lightsaber and if they were misleading just to dangle a carrot and then say "nope, he's just a normal guy", then that's very disappointing. If he has latent Force powers that he just hasn't tapped into yet (but now can, due to The Force Awakening and all) then that would explain 1) how he could use a lightsaber pretty damn well with no training, 2) why he was such a great Stormtrooper, 3) why he could resist the brainwashing techniques they use on the children they train. To be fair, knowing that his parents were John and Jane Doe and no other information doesn't clear that question up, but we don't even know what Finn's real name is! We can assume he was abducted as a child and his parents were killed, and they might have been just two random citizens on a random planet, but why is Finn so special, then?

Rey is an entirely different animal, and I addressed a lot of my gripes about her lineage here, so I recommend checking that out. I'll try to be as short as possible while elaborating on some more things inside this article, though.

Right now, the filmmakers have painted themselves into a corner. There's no way the answer to her backstory satisfies. If she's Luke's daughter, it's okay to save information about her mother for the next film, but why not tell us at the end? People will be disappointed, saying it's the obvious answer and there was no need to delay it. I myself want this to be the case, but I can understand the point of view that it was a needless tease.

If she's Han and Leia's daughter, why don't they remember her? Just because they wanted to leave a mystery for the second film to be revealed like in the first trilogy? That's stupid.

If Rey's parents are characters we don't know, then why is it a mystery anyway? Let's just say for argument's sake that her parents are Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor of Rogue One. We wouldn't have heard of them beforehand, but when they revealed that the first standalone movie would be not only the backstory of stealing the Death Star plans, but that it was also where Rey's parents met, then that would be super interesting to the audience.

When the reveal happens is also going to be a source of contention. Too early in the next film and you run the risk of people thinking it was a waste to wait and drawing comparisons to how The Force Awakens puts too much information at the start, too. If you wait until the end, then leave the film off with wanting more information that you won't get until Episode 9, you're pissing people off for waiting another couple of years and taking everyone's patience for granted.

Because of Max Landis, more people know the term "Mary Sue" than ever, and I agree with him on the issue that Rey is definitely a victim of that lazy writing scenario. For all intents and purposes, she has absolutely zero training in The Force not just at the beginning of the film, but at the end as well, so how does she know these advanced techniques? Because they wanted her to kick ass? That's a problem with the writing team beyond the fourth wall and not something built into the story from what we're aware of. There's too much ambiguity. People shouldn't be arguing about which stretches they make up to fill in the gaps of the plot holes you create. The fans are then doing your job for you. That's why we still have no definitive answer for how Finn could fight Kylo Ren and not be decapitated in a moment. Either we have to make the jump to the conclusion that he's Force-sensitive and untrained, which puts him on par with an injured Kylo Ren, or he's a regular person and the level at which Kylo was injured is much more than indicated.

Hell, we don't even know if Finn and Rey are going to be love interests in this series, which is really a shame. Both of them are in the exact same limbo in regards to the mystery of their backstories as they were in before the film premiered, and that's not good enough. To fix that problem, they should have given us all the necessary main information we needed to know where they were going, just not how they were going to get there.

Core Problem #3: Improve the Villains

The villains we have for this new series are Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo Ren, General Hux, Captain Phasma and to a lesser extent, Unkar Plutt and Kanjiklub and such. Some of these characters have a ton of potential, but most of it is untapped, while others are quite lackluster.

Kylo Ren as a member of the Solo family who turns evil and joins the dark side is a story we've already basically seen before, so I both don't want him to be redeemed and simultaneously don't want to see the last in the Skywalker lineage end up a villain (unless, of course, Rey is Luke's daughter, which I'm really hoping is the case as mentioned above). Having him dress up similar to Darth Vader is okay, but that name "Kylo Ren" isn't threatening enough to me in comparison. For that matter, all of the names of the villains are pretty lame. "Kylo Ren" could work very well for something else in the universe, but as the primary villain, meh. Think about it. What is more villainous sounding, Kylo or Sidious? Ren or Maul?

Snoke is a dumb name, too, and Phasma sounds like something that is better suited for Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek than Star Wars. It's too stereotypically sci-fi for this series, oddly enough. Hux is okay, but kind of lame, and it doesn't fit that particular character. To me, Hux should be the name of the overweight alien in Maz's castle, not Domhnall Gleeson (who actually could have been named Kylo Ren and I would have bought that, more). Star Wars Rebels has better names overall, like Agent Kallus, which sounds more threatening than Captain Phasma, so maybe those writers should have spent 5 minutes of Google research to find cooler sounding things than what we got.

Ignoring the names for a moment, the characters themselves are lacking in other ways, too. Snoke right now is WAY too much like Emperor Palpatine. They're both old, bald, pale, deformed dark side users who have menacing voices and wear black robes while sitting in chairs and are introduced via hologram and not wanting to get their hands dirty. Seriously, what's the difference? Why not do something that's a change of pace like making the big bad a woman or go with a completely changed design that we wouldn't immediately think of as a poor man's attempt to redo Sidious?

Captain Phasma was advertised as this big deal and she ended up being less threatening than Grand Moff Tarkin as well as having less screen time than him. Why make her out to be a badass just to have her give up at the first sign of a threat and then be unceremoniously thrown into the garbage and presumed to have blown up on the planet which, of course, has no name yet because they don't like naming planets anymore I guess. I know I'm not in the minority when I say she was one of the biggest disappointments based on the advertisement material building her up to be something she wasn't. That scene with Nines—who, again, we only know the name of because of the novels, not the movies, which is why everybody knows him better as TR-8R—should have been Captain Phasma's part in the movie. They gave no explanation for her surviving and if she had been fleshed out more, it would have been okay for her to be killed off in that scene since no villains are killed at all in this movie.

Starkiller Base is just another Death Star. If you need something big for them to blow up (which I don't think you do, by the way) then why not do the Sun Crusher from the Expanded Universe? That's at least more interesting than "a bigger Death Star that can shoot multiple beams instead of one."

The Rathtars are pretty lame and that scene slows down the movie and eats up time that could have been used for something else, like a space fight scene or more time for explaining all those things we were kept in the dark about. Even worse, though, is that you had the guys from The Raid do something that wasn't an actual fight sequence—and this is coming from a guy who hasn't even seen that movie! I've heard nothing but amazing things about their choreography and how great the action was in that film and to see them do nothing but run from tentacles was such a wrong choice. They should have been cast as members of the Knights of Ren and shown killing off the new Jedi or something.

Let's finally circle back to Ben Solo and how everything with him was rushed. When we last left our heroes in Return of the Jedi, Leia wasn't even pregnant with him. The audience didn't even know that Han and Leia had a child, so we need to be caught up on: 1) they had a kid, 2) the kid is named Ben, 3) he trained with Luke, 4) something happened where he turned to the dark side, 5) he's now going by the name Kylo Ren, 6) he's defected to the villains and has a high ranking there. That's SO much information that we don't have much time to process without even getting the details of those things—just the bulk concepts in general. Right now, Kylo Ren exists more as a concept of a character than a truly fleshed out character himself, and he's not supposed to be as mysterious as Darth Vader originally was. In A New Hope, we didn't need to know much about him. He's just the evil guy who trained under Obi-Wan and killed Luke's father. Done. It was simple, effective, and it worked for the film. Lor San Tekka—a character we know nothing about and learn nothing about—basically just says at the beginning of the film "You're the son of Han and Leia and turned bad for some reason."

The villains in The Force Awakens aren't memorable yet because they haven't done anything, except for Ben killing Han, but it doesn't have as much gravitas as if we would have known more about the character before he made that choice. We never got a chance to see Ben in a way that makes us heartbroken to see him kill his father. To us, he's always just been a villain, so it's not surprising that he kills Han, which is why everybody saw it coming from a mile away. If you watch The Phantom Menace first, by the time you reach the scene where Anakin chops off Mace Windu's hand, you're surprised he took the evil action instead of turning against Palpatine and doing what's right. When you watch The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren has been nothing but evil from the start and he's just some punk ass whiny emo dickbag who murdered one of your favorite characters from the original films. Without killing Han, nobody cares about Kylo Ren, just as the only thing people care about with Snoke is his learning his identity. Without that mystery, Snoke is a poor man's Palpatine just as Hux is a poor man's Tarkin, Phasma is a poor man's Boba Fett (albeit with an equally bad track record), Unkar Plutt is about on par with the Tusken Raiders and the Rathtars are even less interesting than the Rancor.

Core Problem #4: Properly Illustrate the Passage of Time

Why does everything feel exactly the same as it did in Return of the Jedi if so much time has gone by? If the answer is just because they wanted people to feel like it was tied more to the original trilogy than the prequels, that's a misguided attempt to pander to audiences rather than to justify it within the story.

Obviously, after the horrible dictatorship that went down, there would be a healing process where the galaxy would need to take a long while to get back to normal, so they shouldn't be as prosperous and clean-looking as things were in the prequels, but this should have been bridging the gap at least. Why is there seemingly little to improvement in decadence in this time of peace? Everything is still a barren wasteland with old technology. It's been 30 years and they're still using X-Wings and TIE Fighters? They're antiquated!

If your answer is "The Resistance was forced to rely on leftovers and use old technology as they weren't given the proper funds from The Republic due to a political struggle where some people didn't support them" then I ask you where that information was relayed in the film. Again, if your answer is "it's in the books" then I'll point out that six other movies didn't run into that problem, so this one shouldn't have, either. I should be looking into the books for information on why Kylo Ren prefers a crossguard design to his lightsaber, how BB-8 and Poe Dameron first met, the backstory on how Han stole the Rathtars and simple things like that, not big questions.

We should have had different ships, or at least alterations to the ones we're used to, save for the Millennium Falcon. Admittedly, it was nice to see that they changed the circular dish to a rectangular one, which means they do pay attention to some details, but why are the X-Wings basically the same? Shouldn't they have upgraded to a different type of ship by now or at least augmented them with some new advancements other than that gun turret which may or may not have already been part of the other ones in the original trilogy but just never seen on film?

One argument I could make is BB-8 being a more modernized version of R2-D2. I'll give you that one. The spherical design allows for much better maneuverability, which shows that at least in the field of astromechs, someone's trying to take things to the next level. That's the type of philosophy that should have been applied all over the place.

Similarly, we ended Return of the Jedi with Luke being the only Jedi and this film starts off with him being the only Jedi. We couldn't even get half a film where there were some more? Why couldn't The Force Awakens be the tweaked where instead of it being a hunt for Luke, the movie's midway point isn't the destruction of the Hosnian system, but the eradication of the new Jedi? To preserve the mystery of what happened? That just brings us back to the argument asking why we needed to have all these mysteries to begin with!

Miscellaneous Extra Flaws & Nitpicking

Basically, those big problems above are the things that would have saved these movies and made them better as a whole, but there are smaller things that could have been changed as well. I'm obviously not going to nitpick every little detail, but a few things that stand out to me are as follows:

1. Use the Force, Luke...I mean, Rey – When Rey and Kylo Ren are dueling, the tide turns when he says he'll train her to use The Force, and she simply says "The Force?" closes her eyes, relaxes, and can suddenly fight better. I've heard this suggestion before and I absolutely love it, that it would have been so much more powerful and made much more sense if she had overheard Luke's voice telling her to use The Force, similar to what had happened with him in the X-Wing with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Some would take issue that Luke isn't a ghost, so he shouldn't be able to communicate in the same way, but why not? He's the most powerful Jedi ever. You mean to tell me he couldn't send a message like that in a great time of stress to someone who may be his daughter, particularly when we've seen Yoda speak to Ezra Bridger in similar fashion while still alive? Luke would be able to reach out, and it would give her the guidance she needs to explain how she can fight better. I'll even one-up this, by saying it would be great to hear Snoke before this tell her to kill Kylo, so we could hear a battle of influences between the light and dark sides. You can even justify it by saying when Rey touched Luke's lightsaber, a connection was established through psychometry. On top of this, it would give the viewers a chance to think "Wait, is Luke dead?" which makes the finale reveal so much sweeter.
2. Easy on the References – The callbacks to the original trilogy were fun, but too numerous. The trash compactor joke and Finn picking up the little training ball served no purpose other than to get fans to chuckle.
3. Give Finn a Theme – Rey has a theme. Kylo Ren has a theme. Why no Finn theme?
4. R2-D2's Convenient Timing – Why does Artoo not wake up from sleep mode when BB-8 first comes to the base? The true answer is "because they wanted to keep the map reveal until later" which is no excuse if there's not an in-story rationale. Something should have given that a reason to be delayed. 
5. Where is Lando? – How was he not included in the movie or even mentioned?! That guy needs to be a senator or in control of a planet or something.
6. Who is Lor San Tekka? – Who is this dude? His death means nothing because we don't know him. 
7. Kill Chewbacca – I can't imagine Chewbacca carrying on as a character without Han Solo. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just think he'll be a shell of his former self and his death won't matter as much now. He should have died in a self-sacrifice to blow up Starkiller after Han bit the dust. You might ask what would have happened with him not being able to save Rey and Finn with the Millennium Falcon, right? Well, how about Poe saves them instead? There. Now Poe and Rey can actually have a scene together, which brings me to...
8. Give Rey and Poe a Scene Together – They seriously don't exchange a single word to each other. Isn't that weird to think about?

Well, there you have it—some insight into how I would have changed things in hindsight if I was magically given me the ability to do so. Some of these problems just cannot be fixed anymore, while others can hopefully be elaborated on in Episode 8 and future films to help explain why we're left in the dark about so much information.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has a ton of potential to completely change the game as far as Star Wars films go, but on the glass half empty side of things, since this is uncharted territory (or unknown regions, as you might say) there's also a chance it could mess with the feng shui of it all and throw it off-balance.

I have my reservations about some of things I've seen so far, ranging from the ships looking somewhat fake to my speculations that none of these characters will be fleshed out enough for me to truly care about them and even the possibility this muddles with canon in ways that are upsetting to me. However, since I'm a big fan of the series, I'm also geeking out so much over some different things I'm really hoping we get to see at some point in the film.

Thus, I figured I'd write out a list of ten things I really want to happen during Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, although I'll admit that some of them aren't essential to the film's success or failure in the grand scheme of things. A few of them are minor touches that I feel could really spice things up and make a lot of difference in the overall enjoyment of the film, but if they aren't included, it doesn't mean the movie is doomed, so you won't see anything on the list like "a good plot" and "great actors" or anything substantial like that.

In no particular order, here's my list:

1. Illustrate Darth Vader's True Power

For being the biggest badass in the galaxy, Darth Vader doesn't have a great track record on film. Sure, if you count The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels along with the comics and novels, he's beyond an imposing threat, but in the movies, he's yet to come off as that same type of monster. He's always fumbling around and getting beaten as Anakin Skywalker and by the time we see him in the original trilogy due to the limitations of filming several decades ago, the action is quite awful. Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi essentially don't even duel, he holds back considerably against a wildly untalented Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back and he's somehow beaten by that same untrained kid in Return of the Jedi.

This movie needs to show him at the height of his powers as an unstoppable force (no pun intended) nobody can even dream of matching up with. Please don't give me Jyn Erso taking him down with a blaster just to make her look cooler. Don't waste Vader on two or three talking scenes where he does nothing but storm out of a hallway. Have him go on a kill-crazy rampage mowing people down, slaughtering rebels left and right. He should be the final boss fight beyond even the Star Destroyers and AT-ATs. Darth Vader should be that presence on the battlefield where as soon as he starts getting down to business, everybody panics and realizes they have to flee or possibly even sacrifice themselves to take him down.

Vader shouldn't be defeated, he should only be stalled after something huge. I'd love to see the rebels reach a point where they blow up an entire ship just to attempt to slow him down and he gets injured just enough for him to need the bacta tank we've seen in the first teaser, allowing them to jump to hyperspace and escape. That way, we can understand going into A New Hope that this badass just took all they could give him and is still recuperating, which is why he's so slow, but if he were to fully recover, he'd be able to take on the entire army himself like in Rogue One.

2. The Exhaust Port

One of the big criticisms of the destruction of the Death Star is how the exhaust port machinations make any sense. Why would they build this structure and leave it with such a huge vulnerability?

The first answer is pretty simple: what huge vulnerability? They make it a point to say how it's an impossible shot that you'd only be able to reach with a small fighter to begin with, and you'd never make it past the turrets and the enemy ships, and even then, it has to be an exact hit to cause the chain reaction. It's one air vent on a battle station the size of a moon!

However, there should be steps taken in this film to make it even harder for people to complain. We know Galen Erso is working on the Death Star and that he isn't an Imperial empathizer by any real means, so why not have him explain that he purposely added this into the plans as a failsafe?

He can clarify that no great inventor makes something without knowing how to destroy it and with such a dangerous weapon, he needed to apply the same philosophy, but he was also under close watch, so he needed to do it in a way that wasn't suspicious. If it were a glaringly obvious killswitch button, they'd never allow it, but something small like this exhaust port is exactly the type of thing they would overlook. Are the odds of destroying the Death Star monumentally against the Rebel Alliance? Sure. But a small chance is better than no chance, right?

Galen should pass that information on with the plans that R2-D2 ends up with so when the rebels retrieve it from Leia and company in A New Hope, they basically just open up the folder and read the technical layout which explains where to find the exhaust port and such.

3. References to Star Wars Rebels

I don't read the novels or the comics as I have way too many things on my plate to be able to spend the time and money on them, but I do watch Star Wars Rebels and as such, I want to be rewarded for my efforts. That show is canon and they can't keep everything under lock and key where it doesn't leak elsewhere into the movies. There are limits within reason, of course, so I don't expect Ezra Bridger to be Snoke or for anything huge like that, but since the show takes place roughly around the same timeline as this film, why not throw us a bone here and there?

Saw Gerrera is popping up, which is amazing and exactly the type of content I'd like to see apply to Star Wars Rebels. Why not have a character mention that they would send Captain Syndulla and her crew on The Ghost for the mission, but they're already on the other side of the galaxy doing something else. That way, the only character we know sticks around is Hera, but we can lose anybody else on the show or they can still be alive and it's left for the TV show to figure out. We're not pigeonholing ourselves with something super over the top like seeing Zeb and company all appear, spoiling any potential deaths that could happen on the show, but we're getting a nod that those characters are actually important members of the rebellion. Maybe Commander Sato is at the war room conversing with Bail Organa and Mon Mothma? That would be awesome. What if Director Krennic mentions past failures of Agent Kallus?

That's all I need. Just give me something that definitively proves these characters aren't going to exist solely on the animated show.

4. Alderaan

This one is very, very simple: you need to show Alderaan. All we've seen of the planet so far is the quick shots in Revenge of the Sith and its explosion in A New Hope. Give us some time on the planet's surface itself so we can see the people there who will be meeting their doom very soon. Hell, give us a scene where there's a bunch of children playing happily so it makes us feel awful as we know their time is so extremely limited. It will make the scene where Tarkin orders the destruction all that more painful to watch in the future since we'll have a better connection to the billions of lives that were lost.

5. Where is Snoke? Where is Palpatine?

I would love to see Emperor Palpatine show up in a scene, even if he's a hologram speaking to Vader, and I also would like to see that there's at least an attempt to give us a rationalization for how Supreme Leader Snoke could witness the events that transpired over the films that preceded The Force Awakens. I'm certainly not expecting a scene with Snoke, so I won't be shocked if that doesn't happen, but considering the ease of how you can film a quick scene with Ian McDiarmid, I'll be annoyed if Palpatine doesn't make some kind of appearance in some fashion. Ideally, I'd love to see Vader talking to Palpatine and when they hang up talking to each other, we can have another quick scene where Palpatine converses with Snoke, but I'll settle for just the two Darths talking.

6. Explain Chirrut Imwe

All it takes is one or two lines of dialogue to explain how Chirrut Imwe was able to survive Order 66 and the subsequent Jedi Purge and I'll be happy. I don't want there to be leftover Jedi hanging out in the galaxy by the time Luke is told he's the last of his kind save for Kenobi and Yoda, so that means if Imwe is a true Jedi like Ezra and Kana Jarrus, all three of them need to be killed by the end of this film, but there's some wiggle room if you make Imwe not a true practitioner.

The Force Awakens introduced this concept of The Church of the Force. Why not have him be one of the founding members of this? Maybe he was a Padawan who wasn't particularly skilled enough to train at the Jedi Temple, but was still imbued with some power (hence being able to see despite being blind) and those people are the ones we see like Jocasta Nu working in the archives and doing work on other planets. Jedha is going to have some kind of significance, so why not make that an ancient planet they used hundreds of years ago as a monk-like training ground for less advanced recruits who could dedicate themselves less in the fighting skills and more in the meditation practices or whatever?

I just don't want them to have this random Jedi on the team who never appeared before, was lucky enough to survive being hunted just because they wanted a Jedi to appear in this story, and all sorts of other writer-driven coincidences like that.

7. The Crawl

I know it's already been confirmed that we won't have it, but I think we need it more than ever. So many casual fans are utterly confused about the time this film takes place, making it the perfect example of a movie that needs exposition to be told to you from the onset.

They most likely are starting this film off with a flashback, which is kind of jarring, but I'm okay with it. Here's how you get around it. Do the "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and have that fade into your cold open flashback sequence. When you're done with that, pan the camera up to the sky and the stars and then have STAR WARS pop up on the screen, give us the crawl to set everything up and explain the time jump, and then pan the camera back down from the stars into a ship flying by a planet. Done.

8. The Imperial March

I know this is the first time John Williams won't be composing the music for a Star Wars film, but if we don't get The Imperial March throughout the film, I'll be well past frustrated. I shouldn't even need to explain this, and hopefully, Michael Giacchino doesn't just want to put his own spin on things and abandon all previously established themes. Some new themes are necessary, but we need to hear some of the familiar ones as well just to make sure it still feels like a Star Wars film, and The Imperial March is an absolute must.

9. These are the Droids I'm Looking For

Artoo and Threepio need to make a cameo in just one scene or even one shot. They've been in every film so far and there's no reason why we shouldn't see them aboard the Tantive IV at the end of the movie or something like that. If we don't have R2-D2 and C-3PO, as annoying as the latter can be at times, I'll feel like something was missing.

10. A Sense of Direction

By that, I mean I want to fully see that the creators know where these characters are going and where they fit in the timeline going forward. I don't want to leave everything open ended where we have to read about it in books and get no closure at all. I don't want to wonder where these new ships and Death Troopers and everything went and disappeared during the original trilogy. Jyn Erso can't be someone who becomes the hero of the rebellion and then just never shows up or is heard from again unless she dies or they give her a reason to not be involved anymore. Director Krennic either needs to die or he needs to be sent to the outer reaches of space as punishment for failure to explain why he isn't sitting at the table in the Death Star in A New Hope. Don't create new plot holes, use this movie to patch up the ones from before.

That's what I have on my mind, but what would you like to see in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? Is there anything I didn't add to my list you think needs to be included in the mix?

Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Welcome to the sixth edition of Fanboys Fix It, where we address the problems a certain movie has and try to figure out ways to make it better in hindsight.

To coincide with the release of the Extended Edition of Suicide Squad, I sat down to rewatch the film and see if the problems I had with it from before were fixed. They weren't. I don't think a single one of them was corrected, so since we've done a Fanboys Fix It for both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it seemed like a good idea to point our pencils in this movie's direction and start erasing and rewriting the mistakes.

With that being said, how do you fix Suicide Squad?

Core Problem #1: The Villains

Enchantress and her brother, who I don't even think has a name, was a terrible choice to go with for the adversarial element. It's one of the universal things people dislike about the movie, along with the editing, which I would devote an entire section to but can be summed up mostly by saying "it sucks and the studio clearly messed around too much". The weird dancing twitches are made fun of, not creepy. The magic power base is such an alien concept to audiences fresh in this franchise that it can seem stupid to people who haven't invested in it yet, which is why Marvel played it smart by starting off simple and then building up to that. DC refused to play patiently and rushed, so by doing so, they're making people take leaps of faith.

In a film where lots of bad guys need to be killed, you can't have normal humans being shot up the whole time, so I get why they'd want to have some kind of faceless enemy that can be chopped to bits without getting an NC-17 rating, but they had no personality whatsoever and neither did Enchantress or her brother. And if you want to talk about tired tropes, why did they have the generic blue beam of light in the sky like so many other stories have had? This "swirling ring of trash in the sky" as they refer to it doesn't seem to be any different from any other similar concept: the Space Stone in The Avengers, the Technodrome in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and so forth. All it does is floats debris in a circle above a building and then act like any energy pulse.

Instead, they should have gone with OMAC as the villain with Brother Eye. The story could be that in the absence and response of Superman's presence, different sectors of the government are looking to find an answer for how to deal with metahuman threats. One section, led by Buddy Blank (or possibly Maxwell Lord, or better yet, even have Lex Luthor be someone who is involved in the mix) wants to create the One Man Army Corps as a means to create super soldiers. Instead, they go the cyborg route with the Observational Metahuman Activity Construct. Brother Eye is a satellite that will spy on people while these cyborgs will help police those threats. Bruce Wayne can be looking into it because he sees it as a threat. Amanda Waller agrees that they need some kind of military response unit, but she opts to keep control in her own hands with Task Force X. When OMAC goes out of whack, Task Force X has to swoop in to save the day and cover the government's asses, meaning a lot of the same type of film can play out but you've just changed some important details around.

No longer do you need to get into magical backstories, since this is all just computers, which is easier to explain. Hell, you can even have a big payoff at the end where OMAC's cybernetics can be worked into the explosive nanites implanted in the Suicide Squad!

Core Problem #2: The Style

Some of the choices made for the style of this film are absolutely fantastic, but a ton of others are tiresome, lame, overbearing and just self-indulgent.

Why do I get the feeling there was a decree to try to make everybody fit into either hood/urban or grunge stereotypes instead of everybody having their own unique identity? I'm totally cool with that being used with Diablo, but I hate how they turned Killer Croc into a guy in a hoodie who says "bruh" and "shawty" and his only request is for BET. That just comes off uncomfortably stereotypical.

And what's with the tattoos? Why do The Joker and Harley Quinn have them? First off, I'm not a fan of them because they didn't have them in any other source material. Second, I'm not a fan of tattoos to begin with. Third, to hearken back to the previous point, it seems like they thought "tattoos = bad people" which is another stereotype. Finally, it pigeonholes their look for future movies. Now, if The Joker doesn't always have those same tattoos, how are they going to explain the lack of "damaged" on his forehead and whatnot? It's a choice they made where they thought it would look cool rather than if it would serve the functionality of the universe they're playing in.

Another thing with Harley Quinn's appearance is her costume. As much as I love seeing Margot Robbie in as little clothing as possible, her outfit is just ridiculous. Yes, she's supposed to be sexy, as that's one of the staples of her character, but did she need to be dressed in a way that didn't try to mask that at all? She should have been wearing something closer to her Arkham City look where it covers her up a bit more but also can still turn heads.

Core Problem #3: The Music / The Humor

Piggybacking off the style problem, the same thing can apply to some of the humor in the film. The pink unicorn fetish joke screams of people that thought they'd get the leg-up on Deadpool which works for that series, but not anything else. It's such an easy, middle school level joke, similar to when people think its funny if an old person makes out with a young person or if a gross fat guy rubs up against someone on a bus.

But the bigger problem with the humor is the music, which needed to be toned down considerably. It's obnoxious in how much the film praises itself for its soundtrack. Just as they probably thought they'd throw in some Deadpool-esque jokes with the pink unicorn, I get the distinct feeling this is a full-on attempt to replicate the musical punches of Guardians of the Galaxy.

The repetitiveness of how the music is used is what is the most bothersome part about it, too. It's literally the same joke every single time: a scene where someone bad is doing something violent and it's set to a happy song that wouldn't normally go in that environment. It's a painful attempt to be hip and to juxtapose two different forces that would take audiences by surprise when they hear it, but by the time the opening scene is finished, you've seen the joke maybe six times and it keeps happening, so it loses all its edge.

Core Problem #4: Underutilized Characters

"Hey everybody, here's Katana. She's in the movie, too. Say hello."

That's basically what we get from Katana, outside of a few sword slashes. You couldn't have done a better job introducing her and making her seem like a worthwhile character? If you had no means of accomplishing that in the script, why not just save her character for the Birds of Prey film that is rumored to happen where she could maybe be given the proper treatment she deserves?

Let's talk about Slipknot, too. He similarly just comes into the mix out of nowhere and after having seen the film twice now, I still don't know if he has more than one line of dialogue. He definitely exists just to have his head blown off to show that it isn't an empty threat, but could you at least have attempted to not make it obvious that he was a sacrificial lamb? Audiences are smart enough now to know that the person who will most likely die is the one that hasn't had any importance placed on them and that was extremely poorly done.

Also, I would have enjoyed seeing someone like General Wade Eiling in the mix of the military supervisors and a recasting of Scott Eastwood's GQ character, as I think he accomplished nothing and that ended up being a waste of Eastwood, who could have been saved for a different role in a future DC film.

Miscellaneous Extra Flaws & Nitpicking

Basically, those big problems above are the things that would have saved these movies and made them better as a whole, but there are smaller things that could have been changed as well. I'm obviously not going to nitpick every little detail, but a few things that stand out to me are as follows:

1. Recast Rick Flag – Originally, Tom Hardy was going to be Colonel Flag, but I don't think he would have been great for the part, either. Joel Kinnaman wasn't bad so much as he wasn't good. That's probably half a matter of his part being written poorly and half a lack of preparation since he signed onto the film much later than ideal. I like my Rick Flag to be basically Captain America without the likability and this version just came off like your average southern military jackoff. At no point did I really root for the guy or his contrived romance with June Moon, but I also never reached a point where I believed that he was someone who was that great to be in that position of power as a leader for the team. Maybe Adam Baldwin? Maybe Kevin McKidd? Someone who could evoke a young Ed Harris would be great, where you just hate the guy but you respect that he could get things done.
2. Take the "Will Smith" out of Deadshot – Will Smith is great, and I'm glad they cast him as Deadshot, but there are times where he's clearly playing Will Smith tropes rather than the Deadshot character. Those times, he should've been reigned in.
3. Mallet > Bat – Harley should have used her standard mallet instead of a baseball bat.
4. Capture the Flag - Two times in the film, some creatures start dragging Flag away and they have to save him. Did you need to do that beat twice?
5. Killer Croc Looks Fake - Killer Croc's makeup, the way his face moves when he speaks, and any CGI they might have implemented all look off. None of it seems natural. It all looks reminiscent of Michael Chiklis as The Thing in Fantastic Four.

Well, there you have it—some insight into how I would have changed things in hindsight if I was magically given me the ability to do so. Some of these problems just cannot be fixed anymore, while others can hopefully be elaborated on in Suicide Squad and future films to help explain why we're left in the dark about so much information.

On the latest edition of Trailer Reactions for Fanboys Anonymous, host Tony Mango gives his live response and overall thoughts about the latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 released earlier today. Make sure to subscribe and tell us in the comments what you think of the trailer!

Set to the backdrop of 'Awesome Mixtape #2,' Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues the team's adventures as they traverse the outer reaches of the cosmos. The Guardians must fight to keep their newfound family together as they unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill's true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes' aid as the Marvel cinematic universe continues to expand.

Welcome to the fifth edition of Fanboys Fix It, where we address the problems a certain movie has and try to figure out ways to make it better in hindsight.

With the release of the Extended Cut of Suicide Squad out now, I thought it would be fun to look back on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice now that some months have passed and both films can be viewed with clearer eyes. I'll be doing a Fanboys Fix It for Suicide Squad once I rewatch that movie, but first, we have to backtrack to the film that preceded it as we've already done an edition for Man of Steel.

For those who haven't seen my previous reviews of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I'm actually a big fan of this film. Sure, there are flaws we'll be talking about here, but I feel like it gets significantly more flack than it deserves. It had a gargantuan task and on the list of 100 things it needed to accomplish, I think they knocked 80 of them out of the park once you view the Ultimate Edition, as that was an immense improvement on the theatrical cut.

With that being said, how do you fix Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?

Core Problem #1: Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor

This was just a terrible idea. There's nothing redeemable about his performance and that's not to blame things wholly on Eisenberg, because he can be a great actor when he's given the right material and the right direction. Unfortunately for him, he was wrongly cast in a part that was written wrong. Lex Luthor is supposed to be charismatic and not twitchy. He's supposed to be bald, yet for some reason every goddamn movie wants to make him wear a wig or have hair, which I'm convinced now is entirely due to actors not wanting to shave their heads or be put in a bald cap, which is ridiculous. Lex is also supposed to be a physically fit guy who everyone should be envious of because he seems to have it all—good looks, money, fame, intelligence, charm, etc. He shouldn't be a nervous schizophrenic wimp who looks like a trust fund douchebag better suited to run a TMZ-style blog than a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Basically, Lex should have been the exact mirror image of Bruce Wayne, but with a more likable persona on the outside and no hair. That way, they could reflect each other where Bruce appears to be a playboy jerk but has a heart of gold and Lex seems to be the more trustworthy but is evil inside.

Rewriting the character is the biggest problem, but in doing so, you also have to recast the part, as Jesse Eisenberg just doesn't fit that appearance. He would have been a great Jimmy Olsen, but he's no Luthor. I know a lot of people thought Bryan Cranston would be great, but he's too old for it. Lex should be roughly the same age as Clark and Bruce, so you'd have to go for someone between 35-45. Some names I think would have fit perfectly for the role are Bradley Cooper, Jude Law, or maybe Jon Hamm.

Core Problem #2: Editing and Pacing

For a little bit, there was a rumor going around that this could have been split up into two films entitled "Batman v Superman: Enter the Knight" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". While I don't like those titles, I do think if they added just a little bit more to the story and reworked a few angles, they could have gotten two films out of this, and it would have been interesting to see them released 6 months apart. Even if that wasn't the case, I think the Ultimate Edition proves that the theatrical cut was hacked to pieces and it made everything feel off.

At times, it's slow, but it also seems like those slower moments need to go on longer to allow them more room to breathe. It's weird how they have both problems happening at the same time. I'm not too sure how to get around that issue, as I'm not a professional editor by any means, but I think it might be a byproduct of trying to cram too much setup into one movie just to catch up to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This suffers from the same problem as Iron Man 2 where albeit a fun movie, it's mostly entertaining because it brings in Black Widow and it starts building up the Cosmic Cube and all of the other elements that would pay dividends later. They essentially threw it all disjointedly into that movie to be able to skip forward and that's what happened with Dawn of Justice.

It's hard to ask people to sit through a 4-hour movie, but maybe that's what we should have gotten in order for them to tell the full story that needed to be told. Or, alternatively, maybe there should have been one movie to focus solely on establishing Batman and having him look into Superman while setting up Lex Luthor as the big bad, then they fight, and the end of the film has them being friends again, while the second film released a few months later would consist of the trinity, Wonder Woman's backstory, looking into the metahumans, fighting Doomsday (and possibly someone like Metallo) and doubling the box office by having two 2 and a half hour movies come out instead of one that really needed to be at least 3 and a half hours long. Then, you can even have some more fun with fleshing out other elements like having Batman talk to Commissioner Gordon, maybe throwing in the scene where The Joker kills Jason Todd to help set up Suicide Squad, and so forth.

Core Problem #3: Batman Shouldn't Kill

Under no circumstances should Batman kill. There's no excuses. I don't care if he's at a darker time in his life and he's disillusioned with the world. Batman should never do anything to kill someone no matter how bad they are.

Sure, he's inadvertently done things to lead to the death of different people, monsters and so forth in the comics, but it's always as a result of inaction or something you can get around. For example, it's okay that at one point in this movie, someone throws a grenade at him and he bounces it back. That's not Batman hooking a bomb to a clown and tossing him away to explode to death like in Batman Returns. I'll even argue that it's okay he shoots the flamethrower to stop KGBeast, as nothing definitively says he would die (or did die) as opposed to being burnt to a crisp. But why is Batman blowing up cars with people inside where it's impossible for them to have survived?

That's the line Batman refuses to ever cross, so you can't have him cross the line and then go back to acting like life is precious and should never be taken, which means now that he's killed people, there's no reason why he shouldn't just kill off The Joker for all he's done. With some slight tweaking to any of those potential deaths, the same story can be told without implying that Batman has murdered people. You lose nothing by having him not kill, you only gain respect because it's one less things the fans can complain about.

Core Problem #4: Motives for Fighting / Save Martha!

Here's a doozy, so strap yourselves in, as this section is going to be a long one.

It's made clear why Batman considers Superman a threat, so there's no problem there. Why Superman has a problem with Batman, though, is still problematic. The Ultimate Edition helps it a bit by showing Clark researching Batman's vigilantism and thinking that he's a menace, but it all feels contrived. There should be a scene somewhat early in the movie where he flat out states to Lois or someone else that after the events that transpired in Metropolis in Man of Steel, he feels personally responsible for policing the world and the more he looks into different threats, the more this Batman character seems to be a burden rather than a benefit. There's a perception that Batman is a killer and the discussion should be put out there that people are now comparing the two, saying Superman is the same as Batman, except he's more powerful and operates on a more global scale, which makes him even scarier. Clark, in an effort to prove to people that he isn't a corrupt vigilante, wants to take Batman down to show that he's there to stop people from getting hurt instead of imposing his own brand of justice. That should be explicitly stated and not just subtext hidden under multiple deleted scenes.

Clark is a great reporter and with his heightened senses, it's justified that he should learn who Batman is at that party scene, just as Bruce should figure out who Clark is. Also, as smart as Lex Luthor is, he shouldn't be able to pull the wool over Batman's eyes as much as he does. Bruce should somewhat know that he's being manipulated, but he's okay with it to an extent as he thinks it's all just leading him to the same goal he's trying to achieve, which is to stop Superman. He doesn't trust Lex by any means, but he trusts the enemy he knows more than the enemy he doesn't, and if push comes to shove, he thinks he and Lex can be a more united front against Superman because they're both human. Lex is an egomaniac and a bastard, but he's got some good points as far as wanting to protect the human race.

Lex holding Superman's mother hostage is a fine element. Clark holding it back against Bruce during their fight makes sense, too, because no matter what, he shouldn't be looking to kill him, only take him in to be arrested, but he also believes it's better for the optimistic arrest where Bruce turns himself in rather than to be dragged kicking and screaming. Right off the bat (no pun intended), he should also make it clear that Lex is playing puppet master, but Bruce should be too stubborn to want to listen. This is similar to what happens in the movie, but it's not emphasized enough. Clark should be saying things that are vague, which leads them open for misinterpretation. For example, instead of starting off the conversation with "Lex has my mom hostage and wants me to kill you", he should say something like "Lex is the real evil here, not me. I need your help. It's our job to keep people safe." which Bruce could then assume is a standard villain plot of "Join me and we can rule the galaxy together" in a way. Bruce is a dick. He doesn't like other people to be in charge and he doesn't trust Superman at all, so why would he want to listen to what he thinks is the sweet talk to convert him to the dark side?

And then there's the elephant in the room: the fact that the fight ends with the Martha name. It bugs a lot of people, and I can see why. I'll go on record in saying that I absolutely loved that they acknowledged that connection they had, since it's something I've wanted them to address for years, but the way they executed it was definitely flawed.
At the beginning of the movie, I immediately thought it was odd that Thomas Wayne only called out for Martha Wayne and that it might play into the events to transpire later. Just to downplay it a bit so it's more of a surprise for smarter audiences, Thomas should have called out for Bruce first, then Martha. That would justify flashing back to it a bit more as people wouldn't have paid as much attention to the Martha name being so blatantly obvious.

The line Clark says is also incredibly awkward. Why is he saying "save Martha" instead of "save my mother" or "Lex has my mom" or something like that? It's an unnatural way of speaking that nobody ever really does because they needed to have him say the name out loud for it to work. A slight reworking of that could be much less hokey where Batman isn't yelling back "Why did you say that name!?"

Let's take a look at the dialogue in the current version of the film:

"You're letting him kill Martha!" - Superman

"What does that mean? Why did you say that name?" - Batman

"Find...him.....save....Martha...." - Superman

"Why did you say that name?! Martha!? Why did you say that name!?" - Batman

"Stop! Please! Stop!" - Lois

"Why did you say that name!?" - Batman

"It's his mother's name! It's his mother's name." - Lois

First off, Batman should know it's his mother's name, because he's The World's Greatest Detective for fuck's sake. Second, this is exactly the type of screaming lunacy that we make fun of Christopher Nolan's trilogy for having done with some of those lines.

Try this on for size as an alternative rewrite:

"Bruce, stop! It's Luthor! You have to stop Luthor!" - Superman

"Shut up!" - Batman, who punches him in the throat, making it hard for Superman to breathe after all the gas he's inhaled.

"He'll...kill...her." - Superman, who starts to cough uncontrollably by now.

"What? What did you say?" - Batman stops attacking, as he cares about other people potentially being hurt.

"Stop! Please! Stop!" - Lois, running into the scene, yelling from a distance.

"M...moth...er..." - Superman struggles to get the words "my mother" out.

Batman mishears him as saying Martha and has flashbacks, paralyzing him in fear.

"Why did you say that name? Who is Martha? WHERE IS MARTHA?!" - Batman

"It's his mother's name! Martha's his mother's name." - Lois

Is it perfect? No. Is it better? I sure think so. It makes it a little more nuanced with Clark not just saying Martha for the hell of it. I'm sure someone else could take it to an even better level if they spent more than a couple minutes on it like I just did, but I think even on paper, this would have read weird and I'd have taken a lunch break to rewrite it a bit or played around with the dialogue when filming it.

Miscellaneous Extra Flaws & Nitpicking

Basically, those big problems above are the things that would have saved these movies and made them better as a whole, but there are smaller things that could have been changed as well. I'm obviously not going to nitpick every little detail, but a few things that stand out to me are as follows:

1. The Emails – I like the idea that Lex Luthor has been doing research on metahumans, but why the hell does he have logos created for The Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg? That made no sense whatsoever. Those files should have just been labeled with random numbers or codes.
2. The Flash's Beard – What's up with that facial hair on Ezra Miller? It looked awful.
3. Have Mercy on Mercy – This doesn't hurt the movie too much, but I was disappointed to see Mercy Graves killed off. She's such a great character and I would have enjoyed seeing her be Lex's assistant in the future.
4. Don't Kill Jimmy Olsen – I have never loved the whole sidekick young kid hanging out with Superman idea, but he's as much of an iconic supporting character as Alfred is to Batman. Jenny Jurwich in Man of Steel should have been Jimmy Olsen and he should have made another quick appearance here working for the Daily Planet, rather than being some CIA operative who gets a bullet in the brain. Who thinks of this shit and doesn't realize it will piss off fans of the source material?
5. How Many Stayed That Way? – When Bruce asks Alfred how many good people are still left, he should have also clarified things more by saying Harvey Dent turned into Two-Face, Dick Grayson is off in Bludhaven, Barbara Gordon is paralyzed and Jason Todd is dead. It's implied, but why not just say it? Those name drops would get fans giddy.

Well, there you have it—some insight into how I would have changed things in hindsight if I was magically given me the ability to do so. Coming up soon will be Fanboys Fix It editions for Suicide Squad as well as Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, so stay tuned for those!

Welcome to another edition of 6 Flicks Picks, wherein I list all of the upcoming films that are scheduled to be released in the United States for the month which is about to begin and break down which ones I'll be watching in theaters, which ones I'll wait to rent at home, and which ones I'll be skipping out on entirely. After going through the list, I'll choose which six films stand out to me as the ones I want to see the most, even if there are more or less than six that interest me.

Note: The list below is based primarily off the expanded nationwide USA release dates on IMDB as well as some other random outlets if possible, so some information may be different. If I am missing some of the limited releases or the dates conflict in some fashion, please let me know in the comments below and any adjustments and corrections will be made!

Without further ado, another new month means another new set of films, so what's coming soon to theaters in December 2016?

Jackie

Synopsis: Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband's historic legacy.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Incarnate

Synopsis: A scientist with the ability to enter the subconscious minds of the possessed must save a young boy from the grips of a demon with powers never seen before, while facing the horrors of his past.

Will I watch? = No

The Eyes of My Mother

Synopsis: A young, lonely woman is consumed by her deepest and darkest desires after tragedy strikes her quiet country life.

Will I watch? = No

Things to Come

Synopsis: A philosophy teacher soldiers through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job, and dealing with a husband who is cheating on her.

Will I watch? = No


La La Land

Synopsis: A jazz pianist falls for an aspiring actress in Los Angeles.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Office Christmas Party

Synopsis: When his uptight CEO sister threatens to shut down his branch, the branch manager throws an epic Christmas party in order to land a big client and save the day, but the party gets way out of hand...

Will I watch? = Maybe

Carefree

Synopsis: Set in Paris, Befikre is a free spirited, contemporary love story of Dharam and Shyra, who find love in an impulsive, engaging series of experiences. Doused in the spirit of Paris, it celebrates love- sensual, carefree and focused on living life to the fullest.

Will I watch? = No

Friend Request

Synopsis: When a college student unfriends a mysterious girl online, she finds herself fighting a demonic presence that wants to make her lonely by killing her closest friends.

Will I watch? = No

Harry Benson: Shoot First

Synopsis: What we know today about many famous musicians, politicians, and actresses is due to the famous work of photographer Harry Benson. He captured vibrant and intimate photos of the most famous band in history;The Beatles. His extensive portfolio grew to include iconic photos of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, and Dr. Martin Luther King. His wide-ranging work has appeared in publications including Life, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Benson, now 86, is still taking photos and has no intentions of stopping.

Will I watch? = No


Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Synopsis: The Rebellion makes a risky move to steal the plans to the Death Star, setting up the epic saga to follow.

Will I watch? = Yes

The Space Between Us

Synopsis: The first human born on Mars travels to Earth for the first time, experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street smart girl to discover how he came to be.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Collateral Beauty

Synopsis: Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Will I watch? = Yes

A Kind of Murder

Synopsis: In 1960s New York, Walter Stackhouse is a successful architect married to the beautiful Clara who leads a seemingly perfect life. But his fascination with an unsolved murder leads him into a spiral of chaos as he is forced to play cat-and-mouse with a clever killer and an overambitious detective, while at the same time lusting after another woman.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Neruda

Synopsis: An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.

Will I watch? = No

Solace

Synopsis: A psychic works with the FBI in order to hunt down a serial killer.

Will I watch? = Yes


Sing

Synopsis: A koala named Buster Moon has one final chance to restore his theater to its former glory by producing the world's greatest singing competition.

Will I watch? = No

Passengers

Synopsis: A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.

Will I watch? = Yes

A Monster Calls

Synopsis: A boy seeks the help of a tree monster to cope with his single mom's terminal illness.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Assassin's Creed

Synopsis: When Callum Lynch explores the memories of his ancestor Aguilar and gains the skills of a Master Assassin, he discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Patriots Day

Synopsis: An account of Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis's actions in the events leading up to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the aftermath, which includes the city-wide manhunt to find the terrorists behind it.

Will I watch? = No

Why Him?

Synopsis: A dad forms a bitter rivalry with his daughter's young rich boyfriend.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Silence

Synopsis: In the seventeenth century, two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and propagate Christianity.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Julieta

Synopsis: After a casual encounter, a brokenhearted woman decides to confront her life and the most important events about her stranded daughter.

Will I watch? = No


Live by Night

Synopsis: A story set in the Prohibition Era and centered around a group of individuals and their dealings in the world of organized crime.

Will I watch? = Yes

Hidden Figures

Synopsis: A team of African-American women provide NASA with important mathematical data needed to launch the program's first successful space missions.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Fences

Synopsis: An African-American father struggles with race relations in the United States while trying to raise his family in the 1950s and coming to terms with the events of his life.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Gold

Synopsis: An unlikely pair venture to the Indonesian jungle in search of gold.

Will I watch? = Maybe

20th Century Women

Synopsis: The story of three women who explore love and freedom in Southern California during the late 1970s.

Will I watch? = No

Paterson

Synopsis: Set in the present in Paterson, New Jersey, this is a tale about a bus driver and poet.

Will I watch? = No

Toni Erdmann

Synopsis: A father tries to reconnect with his adult daughter.

Will I watch? = No


Which films make the cut?

HONORABLE MENTIONS: This is the start of Oscars season, which means there's a ton of movies that have a LOT of potential. I counted well over a dozen films that could have made the list on a weaker month, but since this results in some heavy competition, I needed to narrow things down to the ones that stood out to me the most as the ones I'd actually pay to see as opposed to those that I think I might need to eventually watch before the Academy Awards. This is why you won't see Gold, Fences, Jackie, Silence, Hidden Figures, or A Kind of Murder on the list even though all seemed like they could be great. I've heard nothing but amazing things about La La Land but I tend to dislike period pieces as well as musicals, so it doesn't stand a chance compared to some other films on this list. Then, you have your stupid comedies which will offset all the dramas and probably make a lot of money since there don't seem to be that many this year, which means despite Office Christmas Party and Why Him? looking very "by the numbers" basic, they could make some bank. Finally, Assassin's Creed is going to be on a lot of lists, but I've never played the games, I don't trust the track record of video game movies, and the trailers haven't won me over yet, although I'm still interested. All of these films are ones that I could be checking out somewhere down the line.

6. [TIE] A Monster Calls / The Space Between Us — I literally cannot pick between these two. I tried, in the interest of keeping this the standard 6 picks, but after several days thinking on it, I couldn't decide. Both of them are similar in how they're the coming of age tale of a young boy with some other-worldly element added into the mix. Both look endearing, both look to be a refreshing change of pace to some of the other things coming out, and I'm equally interested in them to the point where there's no deciding factor to distinguish which one wins out to make the list.

5. Solace — Anthony Hopkins is awesome and when you basically do a reverse Hannibal where he's the one tracking down a serial killer, but you also add in that he has psychic powers, that's got me hooked.

4. Live by Night — While I think Argo is overrated, I thought The Town was great and this trailer gave me the impression that it could be the next awesome crime drama. Ben Affleck has really turned his career around, which is awesome to see. I'm expecting this to be one of those films that gets a lot of buzz but doesn't actually take home a bunch of Academy Awards in a "close, but no cigar" type fashion.

3. Passengers — I've been interested in this since I first heard the description about it and the more I get to see, the less I want to see, because I don't want it to be spoiled. This could be one of those sleeper films I end up loving the most out of the year.

2. Collateral Beauty — Will Smith is fantastic and he's joined by one hell of a supporting cast. I loved Seven Pounds and this seems like a similar tale but amped up with even more things that interest me. If you can talk to the personification and embodiment of Death and other more intangible concepts like that, how would that go down? I'm utterly fascinated by it and the first time I saw a preview for this film, I immediately whipped out my phone and wrote down a note to remember to see it.

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — Come on. It's Star Wars, baby. It has Darth fucking Vader in it. There's no contest, if I had to see only one film this December, it would be this.