The Mandalorian and Grogu

We all know that May the Fourth is Star Wars Day, but did you know that just like how there are different dates for Easter and Christmas in the Orthodox Church, there is also "Orthodox Star Wars Day" on 25th May, which is the date Star Wars was originally released in cinemas in 1977? Well, if you didn't know that, now you do. 

A couple of nights ago, on Orthodox Star Wars Day, Cathy and I went to the local Odeon to watch the first Star Wars film to be released for seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu. (Yes, it really has been seven years. That was a whole pandemic ago!)

This latest Star Wars film is about the Mandalorian bounty hunter, Din Djarin, and his foundling trainee, Grogu, continuing their story from the three TV series of The Mandalorian (and the episodes of The Book of Boba Fett that they rather stole the show in).

Very mild spoilers follow below...

If you haven't seen the TV series, then you might struggle getting into this story. It is quite episodic, with three distinct story chapters that could have been episodes in a fourth series. (There are primers available online to bring you up to speed.)

The Mandalorian is now working for the New Republic, as a contractor bringing in former Imperial generals who are operating as war-lords. This makes narrative sense to me, as the surviving Imperial factions pose the most risk to Grogu, the child in the Mandalorian's care. 

His work for the New Republic brings the Mandalorian into the orbit of the Hutt gangsters who first appeared in The Book of Boba Fett. Carnage ensues. 

I enjoyed watching this but there were moments when it felt a bit indulgent. Dave Filoni, current president of Lucasfilm, uses the film to bring back certain characters he created earlier in his career. Notably, this includes Rotta the Hutt, spawn of Jabba the Hutt. 

Rotta is presented as a complex character trying to emerge from the bloated shadow of his father, but it feels a bit worthy and preachy the way its done. Rotta first appeared in the Clone Wars cartoon series that had a 'moral' for every episode and his story arc feels very Saturday-morning-cartoon.

There are some niche references as well. The INT-4 mini-rig vehicle produced as a toy by Kenner in the early 1980s makes a live action debut. It's the latest in a line of appearances in modern Star Wars media of those early toys that were the product of a toy designer's imagination way back when. 

Another returning character is Zeb, the darkly comedic Lasat from Star Wars Rebels. He was my favourite character in Rebels and it's nice to see he has survived the war against the Empire. He's still serving in the military, though. The war isn't quite over everywhere. 

My favourite callbacks were when the film-makers leaned into the "baby Yoda" idea and had Grogu picking up little Yoda-isms. He spends some time living in a swamp, with a mud hut and a walking stick. Cathy pointed out, there is also a crashed spaceship in the swamp - another Dagobah reference.

There has been some criticism of modern Star Wars - particularly the Mandalorian series - being geared towards 'fan service' (I thought BOBF had too much). But really why not provide some service to the fans? After all, it's the fans that turned this franchise into the behemoth it is. 

Next year it will be a whole half century since the first instalment of Star Wars was released in cinemas. I doubt The Mandalorian and Grogu will have the same cultural resonance, but as a small continuation of what has turned into a cultural movement, it ticks the right boxes. It was a fun movie and made me, a self-confessed fan, happy. 

More reviews

The Mandalorian Season 1

The Mandalorian Season 2 

A conversation about religion in The Mandalorian Season 2

The Book of Boba Fett review 

On "Separatism" - a post for Star Wars Day 2026

Happy Star Wars Day. May the force be with you this May the Fourth.

I often blog about Star Wars on Star Wars Day, and this year I'm linking my post to the very current Senedd election (happening on Thursday!) 

I've decided to write about a trending word in politics here in Cymru, that always makes me think of Star Wars. Recently some politicians have started using the word "separatists" to describe people who support Welsh independence. 

Which, of course, makes me think of the conflict in the Galactic Republic in a galaxy far, far away....

CIS ("Separatist") flag

Brief recap: in the original Star Wars film, there was a passing reference to Luke Skywalker's dead father fighting in "the clone wars". Very little was explained about that but 20 years later, when George Lucas wanted to write the Star Wars prequel films, he decided it would be about the 'clone wars'.

If you're going to write about a war, you need to have two sides. In 'star wars' the combatants were the Empire and the Rebels. But something different was needed for the prequels, so we had the Republic and, um, the Rebels Separatists.

In the prequel films, the Separatists were either conniving warmongers looking to make money from galactic upheaval, or were being manipulated by the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, who was using the war as a way of gaining total power for himself. However, in later media, like the Clone Wars cartoon, Separatist characters were introduced who had nobler reasons for wanting to be independent from the Republic.

But initially we were meant to regard the Separatists as bad guys. The offical name for the Separatists was the "Confederacy of Independent Systems" (CIS). 'Confederate' is a loaded word in US-centric cultural media. So the narrative dice were loaded against the Separatists from the start.

However, like I said, later Star Wars product has introduced some ambiguity. Can there be noble reasons for wanting to be independent? In other words, is separatism automatically bad?

Well, it seems the answer to that depends on what you are separating from and why.

We see in the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, that the Galactic Republic, is ineffectual at responding to an urgent threat to the planet Naboo. Decisions are being made at a distance from the flashpoint and there are multiple competing priorities. The reported suffering of the Naboo population doesn't speed up the decision-making process.

Additionally, there are wider issues. Slavery still exists on several planets. Large areas of the galaxy are under the dominion of crime lords and gangsters. The Republic has not used its strength and power to liberate people from lawlessness or to lift up people living in poverty. 

Certainly, within the Star Wars galaxy, "separatism" can spring from noble aims. 

And the Galactic Republic's response to the separatist movement reinforces the doubt about the Republic's legitimacy. They go to war. They take control of an army of clones - disposable humans - and fight against the Separatists. Now, sometimes this is justified because the Separatists are attacking planets loyal to the Republic, but as the war rolls on, any planet in the CIS becomes de facto an enemy. 

The other thing the Republic does is centralise power. The Chancellor becomes a proto-Emperor with emergency powers that become difficult and then impossible to revoke, and the Republic becomes an Empire.

And then, ironically the 'good guys' flip. What had been the good Republic against the bad Separatists becomes the bad Empire against the heroic Rebel Alliance.

And so to the discussion of Welsh Independence or Welsh Separatism...

I don't think 'separatist' is the terrible slur that people using it seem to think it is. Because, as I've said, that depends on what people want to separate from. It's fair to say the UK has problems and part of that is weak leadership both domestically and in a volatile international setting. 

It feels like Labour's hegemony has been broken in Cymru. While canvassing I have met loads of former Labour voters, including ex-members, who say they are done with Labour. The promise of change that many people hoped for when the Westminster government changed in 2024 hasn't been delivered.

And Westminster has had decades to make life here in Cymru better. Successive governments - Labour and Tory - haven't dealt with root issues, especially poverty in both rural and post-industrial areas. Poverty is always a political choice, whether it was David Cameron's cabinet of millionaires introducing 'austerity' or Keir Starmer's Labour Party taking away financial support for disabled people.

There are structutal and societal issues behind this too. Supporters of annibyniaeth (independence) are always told Cymru is too weak and too poor to go its own way - and when we ask why Cymru is so weak and so poor, we don't get an answer.

If we always do what we have always done then we will always get what we have always got. There is no plan in any party manifesto for parties that support the status quo to bring in any structural or constitutional changes to make life better in Cymru. It's more of the same, or slightly less.

Star Wars presents the warning that overarching political structures seek to protect themselves first and foremost. They respond to threats by centralising more and punishing those they think are an enemy. That natural sense of protectiveness is easy to manipulate by people who seek personal gain. They might not be Sith Lords, but they don't have to be.

In that context, if the government feels far away and seems more interested in it's own ends, that feels dominated by the wealthy and has permitted poverty to persist, is being a Separatist so bad?

A drove of dragons

It's Appreciate a Dragon Day according to one of the calendars we have up. So here's a drove of dragons to celebrate.

Gradually I've gathered up quite a collection of pics of dragons. Like this selfie taken in the fanzone at the 2025 Welsh Cup Final.

Here he is in action at a Wales game.

Barry Town also have a dragon occasionally in attendance. 

Channeling Edvard Munch,
or having trouble with the costumes head?

There are lots of dragons on flags at football matches, of course.

Although sometimes other animals replace them.

There's a dragon on the flag on my Plaid Cymru membership card.

And in April last year, at the March for Independence in Barry, I got this fridge magnet from Rebel Dragon Designs, which combines the Welsh Dragon with the Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars.

I like the way artists put their own spin on the Welsh dragon. The artist Revealist has created this "dragon in a bally" which can be seen in a few places around Cardiff. The best one is in Grangetown, though.

Meanwhile this print caught my eye at an art fair in Canton last year.

When the new Lego Shop opened in Cardiff in September they had a massive, very impressive, Lego dragon installed outside.

It feels like dragons are spottable any and everywhere!

And if you're very lucky, maybe you can grow your own pair of dragon wings!

Happy Appreciate a Dragon Day! I hope you enjoyed seeing this drove of dragons!

Trying something new - an unboxing video

Watch me unwrap and open a Disney Doorables Death Star on the tube of you! (I was looking for an "ultra rare" figure of Boba Fett.)

The Lighter Side of Star Wars

Happy Star Wars Day. I started the celebrations early this year, by collecting the free build of baby Grogu (not Baby Yoda!) from the Lego Store. I had to queue but was entertained by members of the Saber Guild and the Rebel Legion - people who clearly love Star Wars.

I've been thinking recently about the many send ups and spoofs of Star Wars that I've enjoyed over the years. This was prompted by seeing the  Star Wars episodes of Phineas and Ferb as part of our watch through of the show on Disney Plus. I hadn't seen them before this year and they have quickly become some of my favourite Star Wars homages. 

What makes Phineas and Ferb different, to say, the Family Guy retelling of Star Wars, is that instead of the main characters in the TV show assuming the roles of key characters in the films, they set Phineas and Ferb along with their friends and associates in roles around the original story. So Phineas and Ferb live on the next farm to Luke Skywalker, they meet Isabella the star ship captain in the same cantina where Ben and Luke meet Han Solo and Chewbacca, Perry the Platypus is a rebel agent and so on. In this version of the story, Phineas and Ferb are returning the Death Star plans that R2-D2 accidentally dropped in their landspeeder. 

There were several funny knowing gags in the film. Darth Doofenschmirtz 'flushing' after going to the bathroom setting off the trash compactor is one that made me chuckle. The jump scare Tusken Raider made me laugh out loud. A discussion over who started shooting in the cantina prompted knowing nods. There are also some great songs, full of nerd-level jokes. 

I think it was one of the best, and most enjoyable, retellings of Star Wars, and I'm delighted to have discovered it. It was much better than some of the Lego Star Wars shorts that have been made more recently. Those seemed to have been written for kids rather than old fans like me. 

I've already mentioned the Family Guy trilogy of special episodes. I'm not a fan of Family Guy but they had some clever bits. Half the jokes relate to the Family Guy characters so I felt I was missing some of the humour. It's been years since I watched them, though, and I don't really feel any desire to watch them again. 

When I watched the Family Guy Star Wars, I  was making a direct comparison with the Robot Chicken Star Wars series that came out around the same time. Robot Chicken was a lot funnier; a series of short sketches and gags that jumped around the Star Wars universe, sending up particular scenes from the movies and exploring what was happening off-screen. 

The most widely shared Robot Chicken sketch is probably 'Darth Calls the Emperor', showing the phone call that Vader makes to tell the Emperor that the Death Star has been blown up. "What the hell is an aluminum falcon?!?" still makes me laugh despite seeing it numerous times. Other favourite bits include Admiral Ackbar on a game show, the tragic story of Ponda Baba's ruined career as an architect, Max Rebo's greatest hits album, and Admiral Ackbar (again) out for brunch with Mon Mothma. 

Robot Chicken came out before the Disney sequels and TV series and I'd love to see the team have a go at mocking the Disney era. There would be ample material in just The Mandalorian.

But the grandaddy spoof of them all is the film, Spaceballs. Written and directed by Mel Brooks, it's an older film now, but it still checks out. It's very loosely based on Star Wars, sending up the look of the franchise and its impact more than anything else. The main villain wears an outsized black helmet and is known as Lord Dark Helmet. The wise old master of the Schwartz is a small green character (played by Brooks walking on his knees) called Yogurt. There is a whole sequence making fun of merchandising and how the name of the film gets slapped onto everything - then later in the film characters are using Spaceballs-branded merchandise. Lord Dark Helmet plays with Spaceballs action figures at one point.

My brother and I watched Spaceballs multiple times when we were kids. Recently we introduced by eldest niece and nephew to it as well. They found it hilarious too - a real test of how well made it is considering it's a spoof movie. It helps that the special effects were done by the same people who made Star Wars, with George Lucas's blessing. 

I've said before that the escapism of Star Wars, with its simple good v evil plotting, really helped me when I was a child and adjusting to a very big life change. One reason why some of the newer Disney Star Wars projects leave me cold is they deliberately pursue ambiguity, with characters being morally grey and storylines exploring more complicated approaches to the old good guys versus bad guys trope. (Even if, from a certain point of view, that has always been there.)

Star Wars, to me, was always meant to be a bit simple and silly, and I think that's why I enjoy watching silly spoofs of it. My dad would often sum up a film by saying 'It's not to be taken too seriously'. He was right, and the comedy versions of Star Wars help me do that. 

2024 telly round up

Here is a round up of very short reviews of the more memorable telly I watched in 2024.

Bluey - The Sign / minisodes

I love Bluey. It's one of my favourite TV shows. The big thing this year was the release of a half hour episode called 'The Sign'. The big plot point is the impending sale of Bluey's family's house and the family moving to another city. Meanwhile Bluey and Bingo and their cousins Muffin and Socks are preparing to be flower girls at their uncle's wedding. Things go slightly awry and the four flower girls become part of a last ditch attempt to make sure the wedding goes ahead. 

There is a big emotional ending that I'm willing to admit made me cry, and the overall message - that you don't know how things will work out in the end until you reach the end - was positive without being wishfully optimistic. There was also an interesting sub-theme of parents trying to do what is best for their children, but not really knowing the best way forward and reconsidering decisions.

This year there have also been several 'minisodes', very short tales from the Blueniverse. I've found them very entertaining. 'Burger Dog' is probably my favourite. (The way Bandit's eye twitches as he is forced to listen to a terrible song makes me laugh every time.)

Wallace & Gromit ~ Vengeance Most Fowl

We watched this on Christmas Day and laughed a lot. It was packed full of jokes, saw the return of the evil penguin, Feathers McGraw, and managed to find a suitable replacement for the vocal talents of the late Peter Sallis, the original voice of Wallace. I think this is the best one off programme I saw in 2024. 

Ludwig

David Mitchell stars as a puzzle-setter who takes on his twin brother's identity as a police officer when his brother goes missing. Of course, he soon proves himself rather good at solving murders. I found this highly enjoyable and some of Mitchell's lines really made me laugh.

A Man on the Inside

This Netflix comedy starring Ted Danson was written by Michael Schur, whose previous credits include Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine Nine and The Good Place. Those are all shows I enjoyed and I enjoyed this too. Ted Danson is a retired college professors hired by a private detective to go undercover in an elderly care community to try and solve a theft. Stephanie Beatriz, one of my favourite actresses, is the manager of said care home who suspects something is up. There is a deeper theme about loss and continuing to love those we have lost, and learning to live without them, that elevated this above other comedies. 

Nobody Wants This

Another Netflix comedy, this time starring Kristin Bell (who was in The Good Place) and Adam Brody. She's a sex and relationships podcaster, he's a rabbi. They meet. They fall in love. Worlds collide. There are some very funny moments, particularly from their supporting cast. One thing I noticed was the cinematic way of filming, especially in some scenes set at a youth camp. The series ended on a cliffhanger and there was a reassurance that a second season was coming. 

Star Wars: The Acolyte

This was supposed to be the big 2024 reboot of Star Wars. I found it boring. Some Jedi are being held to account for something they did by someone who feels wronged. I found it hard to care. I gave up watching. 

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

This has been dubbed 'The Goonies in space' and so far it has been brill! (Half the episodes were released in 2024, there are still a couple yet to drop.) A bunch of kids find a crashed starship and accidentally fire it up. They end up on the run from murderous pirates searching for lost treasure. It's silly and goofy and fun and what Star Wars is meant to be! (In my opinion as someone who has been a fan for over 40 years now!)

Doctor Who

I watched the series with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. It was okay. I feel like I say that a lot about Doctor Who these days. 'Dot and Bubble' was the most interesting episode. The overall story arc for the series seemed to be a whole lot of nothing. Literally. The Doctor's companion, Ruby, was 'special' because she was so ordinary, seemed to be the big reveal. It felt like a cop out. I suspect the showrunner Russell T Davies wrote himself into a corner and then couldn't come up with a satisfactory way out. I haven't watched the Christmas special but haven't heard much positive about it. 

Old stuff...

In addition to the series released this year, I've watched a lot of older stuff. This included:

Both seasons of Gravity Falls - a cartoon about two kids who go to stay with their great uncle (grunkle) who runs a 'Mystery Shack' roadside attraction in Oregon. Started out very funny, then became a story about averting an apocalypse.

All three seasons of Amphibia - a cartoon about some tweens who accidentally get transported to a world of talking frogs, called Amphibia. Again very funny, but the final season was about a war to free Amphibia from an evil hive mind.

The four seasons of Never Have I Ever - a Netflix series set in high school about a girl who is terrified she might never lose her virginity. This actually became quite a sweet story of finding love and growing up. 

All 6 seasons of Spin City - a comedy from the 90s that hasn't aged well and had to go through a hard re-casting when the star, Michael J Fox, had to leave due to health reasons. He was replaced by Charlie Sheen and the show went rapidly downhill. 

All 8 seasons of Psych - a comedy-drama about a guy who pretends to be psychic and help his local police force solve crimes. The pilot for this played it fairly straight, but it quickly became very silly indeed. 

Several seasons of vintage Doctor Who. These are now all available on iPlayer. I started watching them semi-accidentally, and watched a series with the Daleks in the era when Jon Pertwee was the doctor. I then carried on watching Pertwee's final season, then into the Tom Baker era. It's actually great fun seeing actors and trying to work out where I know them from. I spotted Camp Freddy from The Italian Job, but I had to look up the guy who played Chief Bast in Star Wars. (I could have kicked myself for not working out who he was before I googled him.)

Star Wars Droid Factory Advent Calendar

For the second year in a row I was a very lucky boy and had a Star Wars Droid Factory advent calendar. The basic premise is every day you get pieces to build a festive-themed droid and you end up with a collection of droids by the time Christmas comes.

The advent calendar is designed to look like a sandcrawler - the iconic vehicle full of salvaged (ie stolen) droids in Star Wars: A New Hope.

The first piece out was a leg for an R2 unit, sporting a gingerbread-themed paint finish.

The complete R2 unit has already featured on my blog, but here he is again. He is carrying a tray of drinks like R2-D2 does on Jabba's sail barge in Return of the Jedi. 

I hope he's mixing egg nog, but surely in the Star Wars galaxy they would use blue milk so the nog is the wrong colour.

Gingerbread R2 was soon joined by a mate - a snowman version of BB-8 from The Force Awakens. 

I was highly amused one day to just get a pair of feet.

The feet belonged to a Gonk Droid, who was both wrapped up as a gift and sported a Santa hat.

Now, that's a possible Star Wars Christmas song. "Santa Gonky, slip a laser under the tree, for me, I've been an awful good droid, so hurry to the crawler tonight!"

Well, maybe not. 

I don't know the identity of this droid. It's large and stripey like a candy cane.

However, I did recognise the holidayfied version of B2EMO, who first appeared in the series Andor.

I'm not sure if he be too emo, but he does seem to have a fringe.

One day there was a complete droid - D-0 from one of the newer Disney-era films. If you didn't know it's name, don't feel bad. I had to look it up too.

I think they missed a trick with this. Painted brown with a red nose it would make a cute little Rudolph.

The final droid was a mystery. Literally. This is what was printed on the back of the calendar.

Well, I say a mystery but the little wheel on the middle leg and arms coming out of the head gave it away. I guessed it would be Chopper from Star Wars Rebels.

And it was!

The wreath doesn't sit easily and it interferes with the droid's little arms. But eventually I got it to pose for a photo. I think it's meant to be decorated as a penguin. I'm not certain though.

I added the droids from last year's advent calendar to the display as well. The final line up of 13 droids looks great.

Comparing this year to last year, there is more variety. The selection peaked with the first droid, gingerbread R2, but this year's Gonk droid had a much better pattern (and a Santa hat!) It was also cool to get BB-8 after getting his nemesis droid (BB-9E) last year.

I really enjoyed building these droids from the Droid Factory and with any luck a new sandcrawler will wend its way from the depths of the deserts of Tatooine in time for Christmas next year.

Some cheery Chrimbo things

With all the work going on in the house, Christmas decorating has taken a back seat.

However, my sister sent us a festive dinosaur diorama that is on the side in the kitchen.

And this year I have a Star Wars Droid Factory advent calendar again. It's taken five days to get all the pieces for the first droid - a gingerbread R2 unit with a mixer tray of drinks. I hope it's mixing whatever the version of egg nog they drink in a galaxy far, far away.

Wolverhampton graffiti Jedi wisdom

Star Wars graffiti spotted in Wolverhampton. Poor old Artoo getting clamped!

Yoda's advice was very timely as we were on our way to a gig!

2024 General Election Review

The result: Wales stops feeling blue

I stayed up until almost 5am watching the election results come in. Admittedly, I didn't watch it all - after the exit poll announcements at 10pm I watched the Star Wars film, Solo, to kill a bit of time before the actual results were declared.

By now, everyone with a passing interest in politics will know the headlines. Labour won with a big majority - something that felt unthinkable after Boris Johnson's huge win for the Tories in 2019. 

The Liberal Democrats went big as well, their 72 seats being the party's highest total for a century - going back to when they were just Liberal, no Democrat. 

Plaid Cymru won 4 seats, doubling their representation in the House of Commons. The number of constituencies in Cymru had dropped from 40 to 32, so some MPs had been squeezed out already. Every remaining Tory incumbent lost - including a record 4 former Welsh Secretaries. Most of the seats were won by Labour and the Liberal Democrats got one. 

The exit polls predicted a depressing total of Reform winning 13 seats. In the end they got 5, including panto politico Nigel Farage finally becoming an MP. Subsequently there have been questions over whether several Reform candidates were real people. The picture of their candidate in Clapham appears to be AI generated. Several candidates in Scotland have a nonexistent digital footprint. They still got thousands of votes though. 

I was happier to see the Green Party win a new record total for them of four seats. Jeremy Corbyn held on to his seat in Islington as an independent candidate having been ejected from the Labour Party. Amazing to think he was leading Labour in the previous two elections. Other independents won in areas with large Muslim populations, which is being taken as a protest vote against the Labour Party's stance on Gaza. The success of the independent candidates took some of the gloss off Labour's victory. 

I was flicking between channels on election night. I stayed mainly on BBC 1 Wales which focused on results from Cymru. BBC2 was the general BBC UK coverage chaired by Laura Kuenssberg, who I feel has been very partisan towards the Tories for several years. She was matey with Boris Johnson and seemed like his personal PR machine at times. Watching Laura slowly assimilating what was happening was quite amusing. Her expression turned increasingly sour as the night wore on. 

Meanwhile, on ITV there were some decent guest pundits including Ed Balls and Nicola Sturgeon. Sky's coverage was also quite good. It seemed that Sky announced results a fraction before the BBC. Sometimes they announced a bit too quickly, at one point they erroneously credited the Greens with a win in a seat Labour won off the Tories.

Early on in the night Andrew RT Davies, leader of the "Welsh" Conservatives, lost his cool on BBC1 Wales and lumped the blame for the Tory defeat squarely on (now ex) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In fairness, he wasn't wrong in his criticism of the decision to call an election without a coherent campaign strategy. Rishi may have felt a July election would wrongfoot his opponents but it also seemed to wrongfoot his own party. 

I knew two people personally who were standing as candidates. My fellow Barry Town fan, Ian, was the Plaid Cymru candidate in the Vale of Glamorgan. A former work colleague, Charlie, stood as the Tory candidate in Llanelli. Neither won, but props to them both for standing. 

Now the dust has settled and we get to see whether Labour have been all mouth and no trousers in their promises of change. It's been barely a week and so far they seem to have made the right noises. I'm a bit concerned that the new health minister has links with private healthcare companies. But overall it feels that things may be different now. 

Star Wars Day 2024 - 25 years since The Phantom Menace

It's slightly unreal that it's a quarter century since The Phantom Menace was released in cinemas. I remember the excitement about a new Star Wars film. I had been reading loads of spin off novels and comics and had been buying packs of a collectible card game for most of the 90s, but a new film was next level. 

Cathy and I went to see it in a cinema that no longer exists in Barry, and again in the brand new UCI cinema in Cardiff Bay (which is now about to be pulled down to make way for a new arena). We really enjoyed it. OK, yeah, there were a few things that weren't so great, but overall it 'felt' like Star Wars.

Subsequently it has become kind of cool among some people to sneer at The Phantom Menace and call it rubbish. I noted that back in 2012, and listed some of the problems with the film:

The Phantom Menace is almost universally derided among true fans, and yet I think it is still the best one of the three. True, it has no main protagonist. He should have toned down Jar Jar Binks a lot. Darth Maul was pre-hyped as a massive villainous character then had about three minutes of screen-time. The plotline is essentially feeble. But it’s a ‘set up’ movie – what would you expect?

There were two disasters, though. One was the ‘explanation’ of Anakin’s potentiality in the Force as being due to microscopic force-producing organisms in his blood called ‘midichlorians’ and the corresponding random decision to accord him a ‘virgin birth’ (seriously). The other was the repeated fudging of the monarchy issue. ‘Queen Amidala’ is a teenager, who has somehow been democratically elected queen. Yes, that’s right, the constitutional monarchist system of Naboo elects teenagers to positions of unquestionable power.

(That was taken from a post about how George Lucas needed to be kept away from Star Wars films. I got my wish, but have to admit now that I don't think George was the problem. Rogue One, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Rise of Skywalker have convinced me of that!)

But, honestly, I don't remember there being much immediate criticism when The Phantom Menace was released. The common opinion that the film was a dud wasn't voiced until later. I remember some criticism of JarJar as a character - but Lucas has always included some slapstick and physical comedy in Star Wars. (He kept the scene where a stormtrooper smacks his helmeted head on a door because he thought it was funny.) 

What really stood out about the film was the CGI, which was ground-breaking at the time. It expanded the vision of the galaxy far, far away in ways that we would have been unimaginable when the original trilogy was filmed. 

Some of the other problems I mentioned back in 2012 have been rectified. Darth Maul was too good a character to kill off after just one movie. The Sith warrior was brought back in The Clone Wars cartoon, fitted with mechanical legs but on a separate path to his former master, Darth Sidious. In canon, Maul went on to run Crimson Dawn, the galaxy-spanning crime syndicate. He made a surprise appearance at the end of Solo, in this role. If you want to see a final conclusion to his story, you'll find it in the Rebels cartoon series. 

I'd also say that now, The Phantom Menace doesn't compare badly against some of the more recent glut of Star Wars product. There have been a few less-than-impressive films and TV shows. Compared to more recent grittier material, it's a brightly lit romp has retained a certain joyful innocence.. The Boonta Eve pod race remains one of the best sequences in any Star Wars film.

So, 25 years on, I'd suggest giving The Phantom Menace another watch and remember when Star Wars was meant to be enjoyable and not taken to seriously. 

2022 - a year in review

Rather than a long reflection, here is a month by month rundown of highlights and happenings during 2022. I published over 100 blog posts in 2022 and I will also be linking to some of them. 

January

We spent my Mum's birthday weekend with her and met up with some of my cousins who we hadn't seen since before the pandemic started. I went to several football matches and also supported Gambia at the African Cup of Nations. I published my tenth Annual Christmas Card Audit, and also blog posts about beliefs versus reality, "doomscrolling", and the five dimensions of personality. 

February

Whatever I was up to in February was overshadowed by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia - as I said in my review of the month. I didn't blog too much in the month, but I did write a piece about how one of the characters in The Mandalorian was being removed from the merchandise following the transphobic social media posts by the actor involved. 

March

Cathy and I had a week away in Calstock, on the county border between Cornwall and Devon. While we were there we watched the film of The Day of the Triffids from 1962. It hasn't aged well. 

April

I called my review of April 'A month of endings'. I finished working as the manager of the Children and Young People's Wales Diabetes Network ahead of starting a new job. I also attended the final service at Hope Church in Shrewsbury as the trustees had taken the decision to close the church down. I saw 10 football matches, making it a "decamonth", and unfortunately saw Barry Town close out a relegation season, ending their time in the top flight of Welsh football. 

May

I had a week off before starting my new job. During that time Cathy and I visited Oxford to see a friend who had moved back to the UK and took some fun photos with street art that I now use across all my profiles on social media platforms (and at the top of this post!). I also caught covid, which prevented me from going into the office for my first week and a half at my new employers. For Star Wars Day I blogged about the Disney Plus series The Book of Boba Fett, which I didn't feel actually went anywhere. I also blogged about how the FA Cup final makes me sad since my Dad passed away.

June

I rounded off a record-breaking football season with my 60th game of the season. Cathy and I said goodbye to the Snoopy statues that had been around Cardiff for a couple of months, at the farewell event outside City Hall. I went to my first stamp fair since before the pandemic, at Swinpex in Swindon. We also made a rare foray to the cinema to watch the new Pixar movie, Lightyear, the origin story of the character Buzz Lightyear. I completed the Prince2 project management course to Foundation and Practitioner levels and blogged about the barriers to project success that came up among the group of people taking the course. 

July 

After several months of scandals and shame. Boris Johnson finally got the boot from being Prime Minister. This felt at the time like it was the end of a chaotic era. Little did we know what was in store! I described it as 'popcorn politics' in my blog post about it and also wrote about the 'lucky unlucky' students studying politics this year. We took part in the Grangetown Zoo for the third year in a row, and I even dressed up as a dinosaur as the zoo went Jurassic this year. For the second month in a row we went to the cinema, this time to see Thor: Love and Thunder, which included some naked anti-theism that I subsequently blogged about. I watched a lot of the Women's Euros - the second international tournament of the three scheduled for this year. 

August

I booked a summer week off and we spent a week in Shropshire, including attending the relaunched (and slightly disappointing) Shrewsbury Flower Show. I went to the Cardiff Model Railway Exhibition in the ice rink in Cardiff Bay. August was another "decamonth" of football, including three Shrewsbury games, and a game with a very rare scoreline - a 4-4 draw. I also had a short article published in When Saturday Comes. 

September

Another major event in the wider world, with the passing of Queen Elizabeth II shortly after a new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, was finally appointed. The late monarch passed away just before Cathy and I were due to spend a week in Caernarfon, where we stayed within a few hundred yards of the castle. It was a slightly subdued week although that didn't stop us from enjoying some lovely days out in North Wales, including trips to Anglesey and a scenic drive around Eryri / Snowdonia. 

October 

Cathy and I went to our first gigs since before covid shut the world down. We saw Counting Crows in Manchester and at the end of the month we saw Tony Wright, the singer from Terrorvision, at a small venue in Newport. I saw three Shrewsbury games - at Cheltenham, Shrewsbury and Portsmouth. The latter game was the 450th game I have attended and I blogged about how I passed up going to other games so that I would record the trip to Portsmouth as a significant number on the footballing app I use. My blog post about it has been one of the most read posts ever on my blog. Politics went chaotic again, with Liz Truss ousted and replaced by Rishi Sunak who became the first British Prime Minister of Asian origin.

November

As a family we lost Cathy's Grampy at the start of the month. I blogged a tribute to him where I said how blessed I felt to have acquired another grandparent in my life. As ever, all the occasions come at once and at the end of November I became a godfather for the third time, as our friends Tom and Helena asked us to be godparents to their son, Herbert. It was a Catholic christening, so each time I have been a godparent has been in a different church denomination. The bizarrely timed World Cup started as well, but my sporting highlight of the month was a "two-sport twofer" with my brother, Dave. 

December

And the year closed out with the usual pressured excitement of the run up to Christmas. We spent Christmas and the subsequent few days in Shrewsbury. I captured some of the other stuff that happened in my monthly round up last week.

This wasn't meant to be such a long post, but it turns out a lot of things happened in 2022!

Categorising "speculative" fiction

I was in a recent conversation about what classed as 'speculative fiction' and how it was different to science fiction. This followed an observation that when established authors decide to write stories set in the future they prefer to describe it as speculative fiction rather than science fiction. 

To me there is a difference. Speculating on how the world might turn out doesn't necessarily relate to changes in our scientific understanding of the world, which is a cornerstone of science fiction, nor does it depend on the ability of humans to deploy science to push back boundaries.

There was also a question of alternate history (alt-hist), which is also 'speculative', but that seems quite clearly defined already so we can save the term 'speculative' to apply to stories of a possible future instead of a different version of now. 

A suitably spacey photo...

I also divvy up sci-fi into science fiction and space fantasy (also occasionally called 'space opera'). This roughly follows the rules of 'hard' and 'soft' science fiction, although I'm not keen on those distinctions. They are dated and don't really capture the intersections of scientific progress.

The old rule used to be that 'hard' science-fiction bent or changed one rule of science, while in 'soft' science-fiction, pretty much anything goes. Keeping the former as science fiction, I'd describe space fantasy as advanced technologies separated by vast time periods from our present, or unconnected to current human history at all, like the Star Wars films being set 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'. 

Here are some examples of books I've read in the four rough categories...

Alt-hist - changes details in the past to create a different set of events, or a different contemporary reality. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth explores how the USA could have adopted Nazi ideology in the 1930s. I'd also include Jasper Fforde's books about Thursday Next here and any other books about a world that looks a bit like ours but is different in some way.

Speculative fiction - starts (broadly) with where we are now and predicts what might happen in the future. This can drift towards science fiction when something novel is introduced (like triffids, for example) but the emphasis is always on the human side of things rather than the technology. Well known examples would be The Handmaid's Tale, or Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World (in a previous generation). JG Ballard's books The Drowned World and The Drought fit more here rather than in science fiction.

Science fiction - stories that revolve around or focus on a particular discovery, advance in knowledge or change in technology. 2001: A Space Odyssey and I, Robot fit here because humans discover or introduce something that changes the world. I feel this is getting rarer as a genre in terms of new releases. However, the Expanse novel series is a good example of how this genre can still produce new compelling stories.

Space Fantasy - examples would be Dune by Frank Herbert, the Culture novels by Iain M Banks, novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and several of Alastair Reynolds's books. I enjoyed reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's books Children of Time and Children of Ruin, and both of those belong in this category. 

These are just my own categories and I'm probably inconsistent. But then I'm only classifying books for my own enjoyment, so it probably doesn't matter which category books end up in.