Reviews

**yes this makes mention of things but no details. It won't ruin it for you. The show takes care of that**

I started off watching Picard and was excited to do so but I started to trail off by the end of Season 1. Heard Season 3 is out so I thought it time to dust off Season 2. This feels a mistake. If Paramount+ did not have ads, I might make it through better but it does.

Problem with going back to 2024 is we live in this time. It's not like 20 years ago where things are hazy or 20 years in the future and who knows, maybe? It is 2024 and there are few similarities with how things are in LA. I have little regard for the French Defense System but surely they would see a ship from space land in their territory, right? They didn't even kick on the cloaking device and when they did it was an afterthought while they were sitting there on the ground.

The big break in to the Gala required the science lady to . . . Sing? Can't say exactly how that happened as I was going in and out of consciousness by then.

Why is Renea so hot? That would have been a woke move I could get behind. All members of Starfleet are hawt apparently. She could have been a homely shrew.

I came here today because Picard 2 is getting worse and worse and it seems by the ep reviews it is going to keep going. Not sure I am going to make it. May have to jump to Season 3.

Would recommend to watch just before you want to go to bed. Better than medicating yourself and achieves the same effect.

Right now I am at 3 of 10 and a great Season three might raise it to 5 of 10.

***Edit - You can watch Season 3 without 1 and 2, you should***

Finished Season 3 yesterday. The entire S3 is all 6s and 7s. There is nostalgia and you will enjoy it if you have watched THG.

I truly believe if you watch S2 it makes S3 less. That should never happen in a series. It calls into question everything that happened in S2. It is a big Why?

I think if you skip all of Season 2 you will enjoy S3 far more. It actually had a decent plot. Picard's son could be an interesting future character.

Anyway, overall it didn't even approach great and relied too much on nostalgia, which I did fall for.

Edit: Watched the first 10 episodes. Still bad but obviously watchable if you like SciFi. This really could have been so much better. They really needed better writers with actual life experiences.

So the G-lady Doctor found out something bad happened to her lover 10,000 years ago. Shockingly that is a hi-point of this show because it is really the only way that should have gone. Given how bad the rest of the writing is I was absolutely certain that was not going to happen though it is the only way a reasonable person would have handled it.

I was shocked. Every character does the dumbest things for the most dumb reasons. The motivation of the major characters (and if I am being honest, most all the minor ones too) are really short sighted and completely self-serving in a situation where that will get everyone killed. The one that cracks me up is the guy that finds himself in 10,000 BC along with his product intact. That genius has convinced himself that when they escape, and they will escape regardless how improbable, he will have that product in-tow when he arrives back at present day. He is going to do all he can to protect that product. (In episode 7/8 it does appear he might be letting go a bit)

Hard to not see parallels between this and Terra Nova. I have to say arriving in the Cretaceous period is about 85 million times more interesting than arriving 10,000 years ago but perhaps more survivable. After 8 episodes it is just hard for me to understand why La Brea gets a season 2 and Terra Nova did not. La Brea will likely not get a season 2 from me unless the conclusion to season 1 is amazing. I think that is unlikely.

Way too much interpersonal drama all around and it is not needed. You drop in the middle of 10,000BC there are unlimited plot vehicles. I get that we want human connections anyway but the writers and/or producers are terrible at their craft. First thing to line up is survival and after a few months of surviving you can go with the relationships. Teenagers get a pass on this, they will go the relationship route regardless.

Terra Nova has diversity. They have it all over the primary family and it just worked because it was not really a focus. La Brea goes out of its way to make this a diversity story set in 10,000BC.

They really have to come up with material that is interesting and entertaining and this isn't a good attempt. It is 2022 and I am fine with diversity. I was fine with it in 2011. I was fine with it 50 years ago. Diversity just isn't a story.

Gets a 2 because it is eye-rolling, poorly acted by most but the premise has potential. They could still pull out something interesting in the last couple episodes but I doubt it.

Anything Star Wars should start at 6 and go up from there by individuals. Especially a series. That is not what we are getting. Given that there are so many folks that will give this a 9 or a 10 without thought, the average of all ratings should be at least an 8 and probably a 9 for a series associated with Star Wars. Why a six part limited series and not a movie or multiple seasons? To better flesh out what was going on with Kenobi at a time we know little about. Not enough for a full seasonal series but allow for more time than we have in a movie.

So what did we get? We got Obi Wan Kenobi and Ewan McGregor did a very good job. Enough with all the positives.

We got Darth Vader, which should be good and it was for a moment. We got Darth Vader impotent as we have never seen him before. He does some really dumb things. If I were to bury someone under tons of rocks, brush my hands together and call it a good days work, that would be acceptable. Someone who exist through the force and knows it's power? He would know that wasn't going to get it done. I was fine with him leading Reva on. Accepting that was what he was doing makes the other silly things he does more acceptable.

We got Reva and no, she is not a good actress. Is her ability to act all that necessary? Not in Star Wars. It is all about the story in SW. The one that launched it all (New Hope) had two people that could act, Alec Guiness and Harrison Ford. I look through the actors in this one and we have Ewan McGregor. We also have Hayden Christensen and Rupert Friend and both can act. They didn't need to so they were wasted. I would listen to arguments about Christensen but he has been fine in other things.

Back to Reva, she needed better direction and it would have worked out. There were few moments where she needed to act and it could have been caught in brief shots and move on. After finishing all 6 it is obvious this was not Obi Wan Kenobi but a vehicle to launch the story of Reva. That is my biggest complaint about the character which is to say she had far too much screen time for her overall significance. Disney wants a youngling, fallen, redeemed and now doing good deeds in the SW universe with a certain set of traits. They got it but her story is not compelling. I mean, they had Obi Wan Kenobi whose story is similar and he is legendary. Go with that one.

No reason to go on ad nauseam about the characters. Their problem can be summed up in one word. Writing. Disney has purchased the intellectual property and they will be able to make money on it for a long time to come. If they want to lean back after a finished product with a satisfied smile they are going to have to hire and pay for real writing talent. Yes having Leia and Luke is a sure fire can't miss addition but they aren't needed and probably hurt. We would not have gotten the repeated child running away from full size baddies with improbable success.

Ultimately the fault lies with the producers. They should have recognized it was a lousy story. They should have recognized they needed other writers. They should have recognized their director was either bad or had nothing to direct.

It is still Star Wars and sadly, that does elevate it to a 4. This was better than the last 3 movies, VII, VIII and IX.

My last observation is, I got to the end of Episode 6 and thought "So I guess that is the end".

Best line (I did not read all) in the comments: People apparently can survive Lightsaber going through their body, twice! Should've shown Qui-Gon's reaction to that! It is a valid position.

I turned on the TV and this came on the screen. That means somebody in this household actually was on this Samsung Channel. It came on somewhere in the middle.

First thing I saw were two lieutenants in some army (US?) arguing and get over it just in time for a lady comrade to come onto the scene being chased by alien technology with potentially aliens inside. It was a flying ship about the size of a car.

She (obviously the heroine) jumped from a ledge and did a one handed cartwheel to turn and start shooting her handgun. Needless to say I was hooked for about 5 minutes.

Next lady hero enters the scene when all attempts to destroy the alien ship with handguns fail. She leaps down at least 30 feet to land on the alien ship and stab it with her katana and proceeds to walk away with the alien ship exploding behind (Nia Peoples was still hot at the time of this movie).

I tore myself away and made a sandwich.

Came back and there is some general looking guy with a hand gun and he apparently shoots down a alien ship (I think this one is a little different than the last). He walks up to it and delivers a kill shot to the alien ship extended cannon. Then he extends the cannon from the ship a bit and points it at another flying alien. He looks very pleased with himself and why wouldn't he be? This vehicle cannon has a trigger on it designed like that for a human gun and he is able to fire it at his enemy.

Unfortunately he misses repeatedly and the alien ship, obviously having studied the Japanese Kamikaze strike, flies into the guy killing the general and itself. Though it did kill itself in the process of taking out the general it was able to wipe that satisfied smile from the general's face, replacing the look with horror.

At this point I was distracted by something. Can't remember what. Perhaps a bird. When I saw what was unfolding on the screen. Nia, the real heroine (I consider the other heroine likely alien bait now. . . Because Nia Peoples) has guided the two lieutenants, the one handed cart wheeler and some unarmed guy that to me has a really suspicious look in his eye, to some super secret compound. They go in.

There is a lot of Chading going on inside, men and women, all. Except Nia Peoples who is obviously secure in her own heroinity. Remembering back to the 30 foot drop and spaceship stab, I am guessing she is a android.

Inside the compound they are very secure in their protection so deep below the surface. This is your first sign they shouldn't be. They proceed to do some dumb things that fail catastrophically when they arrive at the point of everyone facing this alien orb about the size of a human softball in the middle of the circle of our hero's and heroines. Anyone from Mexico can tell you that is not a good formation.

Obviously some more stuff is going to happen for at least an hour more but I won't know what it was. I am officially out.

There was some fun in this film but not in the way a real director and producer would want it to unfold. I was laughing for the 15 minutes or so I caught. If it were just a bit worse I may have watched the whole thing.

Enjoy.

** Not only did I not watch the whole thing but I didn't even bother to go back and proofread**

TL/DR - Skip it.

There are plenty of problems with this film. It does seem the makers intend to remain fairly true to the poem but leave everything open to interpretation while as it turns out is pretty straight-forward as the poem goes.

Biggest mistake is Morgan Le Fey as Gawain's mother. That could have worked. Why would she bring the Green Knight for the son she loved? Seemed it should have been to present him with the vehicle of his renown under the control of his mother, but no. The GK shows up and presents his game. It is accepted and played. At no times was the GK in peril as he just wanders off with his head. But MLF has a trick up her own sleeve and gives his a sash that Gawain loses then regains (Let's just be glad Gawain does not bestow that which he received that day on The Lord on camera).

I just don't think Morgan Le Fey would put her own child at risk that way but maybe that is just me. Also, it leaves the woman sitting around with her eyes bandaged a pointless addition. Morgan as Mom makes the events in The Lord's castle pointless in general. Speaking of pointless, if a fox ever speaks and warns me I am going to listen and not shoo "him" for voicing his concern for me. Were the red fox Saint Winifred, that would have been cooler but nope, just some random talking woodland creature.

Having now read the poem, the events described in the poem make a much better story. The film started down a great many path's that could have been much better but not an accurate retelling of the story. It wasn't accurate anyway, so it would have been better to explore other options.

For example, Morgan brings in the Green Knight as a vehicle for her son to have acclaim and it evolves from there. Probably boring but they could have gone full creative.

Or, Morgan is the blindfolded woman at The Lord's Castle. Gawain knows immediately the unfairness of the "game" when the Green Knight picks up his head and shambles back to his chapel. Rest of the movie is Gawain striving to even the odds.

Anyway, 4 and above are movies I am fine with having watched. They don't all have to be great. Had this been a true depiction of the Poem on which it is based, easily a 5, 6 or 7. This, for me is a 3 because it is well produced but as seems to be the trend, the failing is in the writing.

I admit I really wanted to revisit the Matrix world again. Also, I admit I wasn't sure what additional, meaningful storyline they might have left to explore. Seems they didn't after all.

Liked the Neo/Trinity reintroduction.

I was able to embrace the "it was just a video game" to move to the real story.

Now on to the dislikes: You couldn't get Lawrence Fishburne?

You could get Niobe but not Morpheus?

After the reintroduction and exposition on why Neo was again Thomas Anderson it rapidly degraded.

After it degraded it became laughable for the wrong reasons.

After it became laughable it became abusive to their audience.

There were two characters that mattered and nobody else.

When you have a movie or trilogy about a central character and you get to know and enjoy that character but then you find out it was the bit character that actually mattered.

It fails to be a big reveal when one character is dangling in the grip of the other character or they will obviously fall, was it necessary for that character to declare that that character is not "doing this"? Not even remotely.

I am sure they thought they were so clever about the parent company Warner Bros forcing them to do the 4th or they would and could do it without them. I wish they had done it without them. This is one of the few times I wish I had missed a sequel and maybe somebody new would have done better.

To summarize, no plot, no story, no tension and no nostalgia. I gave it a 4 but I am going to have to come back and give it a 3 or 2 in the next couple days when I settle on one or the other.