Film Review: Star Wars- The Last Jedi (Spoiler Free)

Being a Star Wars fanboy from the original trilogy, of course, I had to go and see the latest release in the series. The hype was real for this latest film. Some of the original characters returned such as Leia, and Luke, and some who I will not mention so as not to spoil it for those who have yet to see this. I enjoyed it and it was suspenseful with not many slow or dull scenes. But it used a lot of scene ideas from previous hit films, such as the Hoth like battle scene on the reddish salt planet, and another key scene and ideas from Return of the Jedi. I felt like this kinda had to rely on the previous films to make this feel like it was just as good as it was not very original. There were a few 3d type scenes but it didn't rely on 3d effects to make it good. Another thing I didn't like was that this film seemed to cater to a younger audience. We all know the criticism that Rebel One got for being too mature with its content. I feel like the writers of Last Jedi felt like they had to make this one more family friendly as it featured a lot of comedic scenes and cutesy characters such as the animal bird hybrid creatures. Some of the dialogue near the end of the film kind of implied to me that this is a new market for young viewers as they kept implying forget the old ideas you had about this story. I'm fine with that letting the children of a new generation have their pop-cultural iconography of a New Star Wars.

So, in the end, I enjoyed the film but just didn't find it as enjoyable as the original trilogy. I think any fan of this series will enjoy this movie. Somethings about the past of this universe and from the prior film were explained but some things were just simplified and I felt the wider audience was expecting a better and bigger explanation than what was offered. yet again I will not spoil this and say what was revealed that dashed my expectations but once you have viewed this film you will see for yourself.

Review: Ramses the Damned- The Passion of Cleopatra

Finally finished reading the long-awaited sequel to The Mummy or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice. Safe to say I read the first book around the time of its debut in the '90's and loved it. I really enjoyed everything I read by her during that time period. She was right up there in my fave authors list along with Stephen King and Clive Barker.

But enough with the trip down memory lane. I received a digital copy from NetGalley for a fair and honest review. This sequel was co-written with her son, Christopher Rice who I have added a few of his books to my TBR but have yet to read. Even though it has a been a very long time since I had read the prior book the authors give a refresher as to what had happened previously in the first few pages. So of course I quickly got up to speed on what had happened and the story rolled right into the events of the present happenings of this one. This book focused more on the character of Cleopatra and her dealing with her new found immortality. (Not to get too far off topic but this took me quite sometime to finish and I can only imagine how thick a paperback copy of this must be.) I still enjoyed reading this follow up but I felt that it dragged on way too long. There were some very long scenes that just could have been shortened for the sake of keeping the reader interested. I pressed on as I did because I had enjoyed the first book, and being that I liked Anne's writing I felt I should finish this. There were times I became overwhelmed by too much story that I put it down for days on end. The ending of the story seemed to be rushed as in it kind of left much to the imagination and was not very clear. This was a portion of the story that could have been more embellished versus the boring back story of certain characters that I just felt were not that important to the plot. An explanation of the title characters connection could have been explained further. Also one fo the things I felt that this book lacked to the prior book and others by her was the hot and steamy sex scenes that she was known for. I do not know if time and age has tamed her writing of sex, but I felt the romance between characters to be very flat and dull. Don't get me wrong I liked this, but felt it was nowhere near as good as the first or prior books by the author. I rated this 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I would say that if you had read the first book you may want to read this to discover what has happened further to the characters.