My Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review (SPOILERS)

"Everything's changed and nothing's changed."

Mark Hamill said this in a behind-the-scenes video for Star Wars: The Force Awakens released six months before the film's premiere. Hamill was referring to all the real sets, practical effects and other pre-digital techniques of film-making that director J.J. Abrams and Force Awakens crew had been using in order to give fans the Star Wars movie they'd been waiting to see for the past 30 years. For those of us who have seen The Force Awakens since it's release last week, Hamill's statement takes on a deeper meaning. Once again, we've been taken back to our beloved galaxy far, far away, where everything has changed and nothing has changed. We've collectively familiarized ourselves with the history of this fictional galaxy since childhood, so it should come as no surprise that its history, like ours, is doomed to repeat itself.

If there's a real world-applicable lesson in The Force Awakens, this is it. History is a cyclical animal, and as a result, so are the mythologies we create in our feeble attempts to give some kind of meaning to our existence. Conflicts come and go, the players change, but the story—for better or worse—stays the same. Everything changes and nothing changes. This is the reality that the Star Wars universe shares with our own.

So what's the point? If history is doomed to repeat itself, what can we hope to ever achieve? What can our mythology possibly teach us about ourselves? Is there any hope in breaking the cycle? These are the philosophical questions that The Force Awakens asks—and in classic Star Wars fashion, all while showing us one hell of a good time.

Which is why I say to all the naysayers out there who have decided that The Force Awakens is just an inferior rehash of the original Star Wars: A New Hope—you missed the damn point. Yes, the new movie shares many plot beats with the original Star Wars film. You noticed this because it was a clear, deliberate choice on the part of J.J. Abrams and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan. In evoking the narrative of the 1977 original, Abrams and Kasdan are working within the mythology that's in front of them and weaving a new chapter into the mix. Everything that's the same is the same for good reason, and everything that's different is different to great effect.

If there is a problem with The Force Awakens, it's not that it covers familiar ground, it's that it speeds through it a little too quickly. This is a fast-paced film in every sense of the word—so fast, in fact, that there are a number of moments—both visually and narritively speaking—that never get a chance to reach full potency. Some of the most beautiful shots in the film run for about a quarter of the time that they should, and a few key emotional moments don't quite resonate as strongly as they could have. This isn't a huge problem, and for every shot or scene that moves a bit too quickly there's one that really works, but there are still enough blink-and-you'll-miss it moments in the film to make me wonder what an extra five, ten, even fifteen minutes of extra run-time might have done for the final product.

That being said, the film's fast pace is just as much a strength as it is a weakness, and J.J. Abrams does a miraculous job of squeezing everything he can into this one to make it feel like a "real" Star Wars movie. The humor, heart, and dazzling effects are all intact, and they all work together in transporting us successfully back to the galaxy far, far away. There's a certain Rip Van Winkle effect to The Force Awakens. When you watch it, it feels like you've been asleep since the battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi and you've woken up 30 years later. You recognize your surroundings, but you can't quite pin down exactly what has changed in the decades-long interim. Then the story progresses and the pieces start coming together. Some questions are answered, many are not, but along the way you are treated to sights and sounds that make you say "Yes, I know this." There's a moment early on in the film when BB-8—the adorable new droid on the block—rolls along the top of a sand dune on the desert planet Jakku. A puppeteered alien with glowing red eyes pokes its head out from under the sand and grumbles something at the droid, who beeps and bleeps like he's startled and moves quickly out of the frame. It's a great little moment, full of the same brand of humor, environment, and practical effects you saw 30 years ago. You know this. This is Star Wars.

And for the most part, the rest of the film follows suit. Much has been said in the months leading up to the film's release of the practical effects and old-school techniques Abrams was implementing to make The Force Awakens feel authentic. The end product mostly lives up to the hype in this sense, and the CGI that does make it into the film appropriately augments the analog stuff (with the exception of Andy Serkis' CG rendered character Supreme Leader Snoke, who looks more like he belongs in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter than he does in Star Wars).

But all the practical effects and real sets would be for not if they weren't inhabited by an incredible new cast of characters. As a fan, my biggest fear was whether or not I'd be able to love the new characters as much as the old ones. Thankfully, Abrams and Kasdan have written some wonderful new characters that have been brought to life by a brilliant cast of young actors. Hot off an impressive run of performances including the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, HBO's Show Me a Hero, and and new sci-fi classic Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac charms up the screen as hot-shot resistance pilot Poe Dameron, who the A.V. Club's Ignatiy Vishnevetsky aptly describes as "the swashbuckling pulp hero that the Republic-serial-indebted Star Wars cycle has, for some reason, never had before." Then there's John Boyega as rogue stormtrooper Finn, the likes of which we've never really seen before in a Star Wars film. His origins—a lifelong First Order soldier, trained from birth—grants the character a lovable sense naivete and other-worldly innocence that Boyega infuses with humor, wit and affability. Rounding out the new trio is Daisy Ridley as Rey, the scavenger-turned-force prodigy who, over the course of the film, secures her place as the hero of the new trilogy. It's astounding that this is Ridley's first movie role, because she throws down a mature, commanding performance. Rey is important to the future of the series for many reasons. It's great that the central figure of Star Wars is now a woman, and it's a relief that she's written and portrayed with the authority and dimension she deserves. Any hanging notion that Star Wars is a boy's thing flies out the door with Rey. In case you haven't figured it out already, Star Wars is for everyone.

The Force Awakens features some tremendous players on the dark side as well, among them Domnhall Gleeson as the weaselly General Hux, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma (who looks and sounds so cool it's a shame she didn't get more screen time, even if she ends up playing a larger role in Episode VIII), and lead villain Kylo Ren, played with emotional gravitas and scene-stealing severity by Adam Driver, this generation's Brando as far as I'm concerned. Kylo Ren is no Darth Vader, to be sure. In many ways, he's the opposite. Where Vader is cold, calculated, and distance, Ren exists in the moment, and nine times outta ten, the moment is rage. A few months after it was first announced that there would be a Star Wars: Episode VII, a friend and I were discussing the predicament of creating a villain to succeed Darth Vader. We both agreed that the best move would be to create a villain that was unstable, unpolished, and rash—the Id in every way that Vader was once the Ego. Thank God we were right.

Speaking of Kylo Ren, let's talk about the death of Han Solo. Let's face it, the deed had to be done. Han Solo is a big deal. In fact, he's the biggest deal of any Star Wars character (with the exception of Darth Vader probably). Had he stuck around for Episodes VIII and IX, he would have cast too large a shadow over the new cast. He was so sorely missed in the prequels that he had to come back, and he had to go just as quickly in order for the series to move forward in a meaningful way. Han's death at the hands of his son also makes for some weighty storytelling, giving the film an authentic sense of loss while adding new dimensions to the whole light side/dark side dynamic. Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is, in many ways, the anti-Luke—a glimpse at what Luke Skywalker might have become had he killed his father and turned to the dark side in Return of the Jedi—making his future in the series excitingly difficult to predict. Is Kylo Ren beyond the redemption that was granted his grandfather? Only time will tell, but right now I'd venture to say he is. Anyway, Kylo Ren will probably never be as iconic as Darth Vader, but he's certainly on his way to becoming the most compelling villain that Star Wars has ever produced.

In my last Star Wars blog post, I mentioned that the final trailer for The Force Awakens gave off the vibe that the interactions between the old characters and the new ones act as a metaphor for the way new generations of fans continue to discover the original Star Wars trilogy. For the most part, this ended up being the case. When Rey and Finn first meet Han and Chewie, for example, there's a great moment where Rey and Finn argue about whether the legendary Han Solo was a general for the rebellion or a just a smuggler. It sounds just like a conversation any of us in the real world might have about Han Solo. What we share in common with Rey and Finn is an inherited mythology. Names like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker mean the same thing to them as they do to us. The only difference is that Rey and Finn actually live in the same universe as their mythological heroes. Is there any hope in breaking the cycle of history? Even if we can't, the mythology of Star Wars teaches us that the mere hope of breaking it is enough.

My Star Wars Story

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

When you begin your film with these words, you're making a statement. You're saying, "This movie is going to be like everything and nothing you've seen before. It's going to be equal parts past and future, fantasy and western, familiar and unknown, and it's going to stay with you for the rest of your life."

There's no tagline quite like it in the history of cinema. It's almost mathematical in its self-contained genius. No word is out of place, and every word is necessary. My cynical side wants to say that this phrase contains the essence of what makes Star Wars so easy to market to the masses, but the kid in me wants to tell you that it captures the essence of what makes Star Wars so personal, precious, and moving for so many. And it's the reason I am about to tell you my Star Wars story...

When something big happens in your life, the details surrounding it tend to get lodged in your memory. I was 7, maybe 8 years old and I was with my parents at Chuck-a-Rama, a local buffet restaurant in Utah Valley. Blockbuster was next door to the restaurant and my parents were trying to decide what movie they should rent for me. At the time I loved old movies, and my parents were vital in introducing me to classic cinema and setting the stage for my lifelong love of film. As they brainstormed, my mom's eyes lit up. "We should rent Star Wars for Andy!" she said with an enthusiasm that immediately caught my attention. "What's that?!" I quickly asked. She then proceeded to sell me the movie, citing everything about it that she thought would appeal to my mini-movie buff sensibilities. "It's in space" I think she said, "and there are these two robots named R2-D2 and C-3PO and they go on an adventure..."

I don't remember what else she told me about it, but I remember how it made me feel. I hadn't even seen the movie yet and I was already dying to see what these two robots looked like, what type of creatures they would encounter, and what kind of universe they would inhabit. I remember seeing the VHS cover for the first time at Blockbuster after dinner. Though they stood off to the side, under a towering Luke Skywalker and buxom Princess Leia, R2-D2 and C-3PO caught my eye first as I recognized them as the robots my mom had described. Then we drove home and I watched Star Wars for the first time. First there was the 20th Century Fox fanfare, which I recognized from countless other old movies I had already seen. Then silence, and those words came across the screen in blue. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." then, there it was, STAR WARS, the title taking up the whole screen with that wiz-bang opening note of the John Williams soundtrack. I'm sure I didn't bother to read the title crawl, but it enthralled me nonetheless, like nothing I had ever seen in a movie before.

Then those two robots (actually called droids, as I soon learned) I had been waiting to see showed up in the first interior shot of the movie, and I was hooked. I would watch the other two Star Wars films in the coming months, and throughout the trilogy I saw R2-D2 and C-3PO as the main characters. They were my through-line, my connection with the story. I think they serve this function for most children. I guess for a child, these two little droids are easiest to relate to. On the playground I pretended to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, but when I watched the films, the droids were the avatars—the route through which I felt like I was part of the action. This is why I still feel the same way about R2-D2 that I feel about my cat. They're both faithful friends who speak to whatever innocence and child-like wonder I have left.

Like any kid who grew up in the '70's, '80's, or '90's, I interacted with Star Wars largely through the merchandise. I was really into action figures as a kid, and my favorite one was a Han Solo who could fit into a little carbonite-freeze casing. I spent hours playing with that thing, and as a result found myself looking to Han Solo more than R2-D2 and C-3PO as I got a little older. Around the same time I discovered Star Wars, I also discovered Indiana Jones, which would become my absolute favorite thing on the planet for the next 4 or 5 years of my life. With the one-two punch of these two movie trilogies, the combined efforts of George Lucas and Harrison Ford (with a little help from Steven Spielberg) consumed and completely shaped the landscape of my imagination for years to come. From about 4th to 6th grade I wore a leather jacket and fedora to school, for which I was teased mercilessly. My love for Indiana Jones was too visibly different to have it go unscathed by the brutality of boyhood. Luckily, I still had Star Wars, which was always a source of connection with my childhood peers rather than alienation. It may not have been cool in my neck 'o the woods to dress like Indiana Jones every day, but it was cool to engage in lightsaber duels on the playground or talk about which books from the Star Wars Expanded Universe we had read...especially after The Phantom Menace came out. It may be a dud of a film, but Episode 1 was a source of much fun and friendship for me and everyone else my age.

And I'll say this for all three of the prequels: they re-kindled the hell out of my interest in the original trilogy upon their respective releases. I didn't really hate the prequels at the time, but even then I found myself re-watching A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi as a pallet cleanser. Re-visiting these movies again and again as a teenager placed Han Solo alongside Indiana Jones and James Bond as my go-to cinematic heroes, and gave me a chance to delve into the mythology more deeply.

After my first year of college, I spent two years as a missionary for the LDS church. In Mormon culture, missionary service is a right of passage for young adults, and it's supposed to be a time of great joy. The fact of the matter is, it's a really dark and sometimes nightmarish time for many of us. The separation from home is a lot to deal with and the pressure to generate success in the mission field is a disastrous mental and emotional strain. One of the ways we dealt with all this on my mission was talking about Star Wars. We'd debate everything from which prequel movie was the worst to whether Yoda was more powerful than Darth Vader. There was even a group of us who had come up with our own Star Wars alter egos and made up stories about how our characters interacted with each other and what sorts of adventures they would have. I guess it was the most common denominator, the most shared experience from our combined pre-mission lives, so it was the easiest way to generate conversation. I think it was also a way of remembering who we were as people, keeping one foot in our real lives so we didn't lose ourselves completely to our whitewashed missionary identities. During this strange, dark time in our lives, Star Wars was truly a saving grace.

I returned home from my mission in, 2011. A little over a year later, Star Wars would play a huge role in connecting me with the love of my life. Jenna and I met on a study abroad program in Berlin. We spent our first day together with the rest of our study abroad group at the Brandenburg gate, where a guy in a Darth Vader costume was charging 2 or 3 euro to take pictures with him. As Jenna paid this guy and posed for a picture with him in front of this historical landmark, I silently judged her like the smug idiot that I was. "She probably doesn't even like Star Wars, and she's paying money to take this dumb touristy picture." I soon learned that she was a bigger Star Wars fan than I, but before I learned that I was already developing a huge crush on her anyway. I embarked on that trip all hopped up on Hemingway and Bukowski, planning to avoid any and all romantic entanglements and take a long stroll down the male bleeding-heart-expat-poet road. I hadn't dated anyone seriously since my last break up the year before, and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to keep it that way. Instead I found myself on an adventure with a woman who would shatter all my expectations (sound familiar?). Over the course of the three-month trip we watched all three Star Wars movies. A New Hope we watched early on with some friends over a Saturday breakfast. This was when I realized how big a fan she was, so I spent the whole breakfast talking everyone's ear off about the genre roots of Star Wars, probably in a feeble attempt to impress her. About a month later we were on a weekend excursion to Greece. Our second night there we watched The Empire Strikes Back on somebody's laptop, there were four of us cuddled up on a couch and Jenna fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. I was really falling hard for her at the time and I had no idea how she felt about me, and I sat there with her head on my shoulder watching Han Solo and Princess Leia slowly moving in for their first on-screen kiss, and I realized that I was living out this love story in space that I had seen a million times. Like Han Solo, I had embarked on an adventure, getting more than I bargained for in the form of a strong, beautiful woman who wasn't going to put up with my scruffy-lookin'-nerfherderness, and the more I tried to pretend otherwise, the more obvious it was that I was falling in love with her.

Two years later, Jenna and I were married. Being the James Bond fan that I am, I wore an ivory dinner jacket like the one Sean Connery wears in Goldfinger, but not without a pair of cufflinks Jenna had given me as a wedding gift—one with the words "I Love You" on the face of it, and the other, "I Know". When we graduated college together, we wore matching Star Wars vans to the ceremony. A few months ago, we had neighbors stop by our first apartment. I let them in, and one of them took a quick look around and said, "I guess you guys really like Star Wars, huh." I hadn't realized until that moment that nearly half of our apartment decor was Star Wars-related, and I was even wearing a Star Wars t-shirt at the time. I guess Star Wars is no longer something we enjoy separately. It's now our thing. Like any couple, we've taken a common interest and made it something that's indicative of the life we're building together.

Me and Jenna at Graduation

    

So...here we are, all caught up to the present. Tomorrow at 10:15p.m. I'll be sitting in a theater, dressed as Han Solo, watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens. For the past year I've been thinking a lot about what this new movie will mean for me and countless other lifelong Star Wars fans. Judging from the message of the movie's trailers and other promotional footage, it seems that the new characters interacting with the old ones may act as a metaphor for the way new generations of fans keep discovering and connecting with the original trilogy. For me, The Force Awakens will mark a new chapter in my Star Wars story. I have no idea how I'll feel about any of the new Star Wars films, but I do know that I'll always have the original trilogy. Star Wars became a property that reached far beyond the films very early on, but it's still those first three films that mean the most. George Lucas once called mythology a "form of psychological archaeology". Pop-culture tends to serve this function in the 21st century, and there is no pop-culture phenomenon more universally captivating than the original Star Wars trilogy. This is why we revere these movies as a culture. Sure, they have their flaws, their silly bits of dialogue, bad acting, etc. But whether we like it or not, Star Wars is our shared mythology in the 21st century. At its core, the mythology of Star Wars sends a message of hope to the masses. As someone who has benefited personally from that message since I was kid, I'd say we could do a whole lot worse than a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

My Favorite Designs from the Star Wars Prequels

I gotta admit, the whole "Star Wars prequel trilogy sucks" shtick is getting kinda old. Don't get me wrong, I'm prone to flat-out despise all three prequel films as much as the next guy, but isn't it about time we all calmed down a bit and recognized that they weren't complete garbage? There may not necessarily be plenty to enjoy about the prequels, but anyone who loves the aesthetics of Star Wars should be able to find something enjoyable. As a fan who loves Star Wars largely (though not exclusively) for its visual pleasures, I've selected my five favorite designs from each film in the prequel trilogy to demonstrate that the parts are sometimes far greater than their sum.


The Phantom Menace

The Naboo Starfighter

A sleek, fun, retro-futuristic ship design 

Naboo Royal Starship

The sleekest, sexiest, most retro-futuristic ship in the galaxy

The Podracers

A great vehicular addition to the Star Wars universe, they emulate that "lived-in" look of vehicle designs from the original trilogy.

Queen Amidala's Wardrobe and Makeup

Always a beautifully alien-looking design, look of royalty that's truly other-worldly.

Darth Maul's Face

Without question the coolest character design since Darth Vader

Attack of the Clones

Coruscant

Prominently featured in all three prequels, but the chase sequence in Attack of the Clones really showcases the fun and excitement of this metropolitan planet.

Lars Homestead

Not only is this set a welcome return to an original trilogy location, it's a tactile, welcome break from the green screen-centric sets of the rest of the film.

Count Dooku's Lightsaber Hilt

The sith lord's curved saber handle design facilitates a unique combat style and just looks cool.

Mace Windu's Purple Lightsaber

Dooku may have the cool handle, but no sith or jedi ever looked cooler in combat than Mace

Jango Fett's Armor

This sleeker, shinier version of Boba Fett's iconic armor is one of the few designs that successfully creates a sense of visual continuity between the prequels and original trilogy.

Revenge of the Sith

Jedi Starfighters

Another design that successfully creates a sense of continuity between the prequels and the original trilogy...at least, until they're attacked by those stupid looking "buzz droids".

The Star Wars Universe's Answer to Opera

...or maybe it's more like a Pink Floyd laser show. Either way, it's an intriguing design.

Mustafar

I'm not a huge fan of the final showdown between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but this lava planet in and of itself is pretty dang cool in concept. 

Darth Vader in the Promotional Material

Anakin's transformation into Vader may have turned out kinda lame, but seeing the old Vader mask return in the movie's promotional material was a real visual treat.

The Final Shot

The best type of fan service. This shot doesn't save a terrible movie, but it does evoke the spirit and iconography of the original trilogy quite beautifully.

What are some of your favorite designs from the prequels?

A New Hope vs The Empire Strikes Back—Which is the Best Star Wars Film?

With the exception of those psychos who argue that the prequels are better than the original trilogy, most Star Wars fans tend to rank either Star Wars: A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back as the best Star Wars film of all time (There's also a solid camp of Return of the Jedi die-hards out there, but in my estimation these folks tend to be more influenced more by unchecked nostalgia than the rest of us. "Jedi is my favorite because I watched it the most as a kid" seems to be the most common argument). I've spent equal time in both New Hope and Empire camps over the years. Those first two films are the heart and soul of the entire Star Wars franchise—the source of whatever magic it is that turned this little-space-opera-that-could into a juggernaut of contemporary culture. But if we had to choose, which one is the definitive Star Wars film: the original that gave birth to the phenomenon, or the triumphant sequel that upped the ante in every way possible? Let's make the best case for both and see where we end up...

The Game-Changer: Star Wars—A New Hope

As crazy as it is to think that there was a time when Star Wars didn't exist, it's almost crazier to think that there was a time when it only existed as one single film. My Dad has told me numerous times about his experience of watching Star Wars for the first time. It was at a theater in his hometown of Logan, Utah and he was one of only three people in the whole place. In this isolated viewing situation, on the eve of the first explosions of the Star Wars phenomenon, I imagine my then-18-year-old Dad must have had a pretty clear picture of all the pop-culture ornaments from his adolescence that were coming together in this new Space saga—Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, John Ford westerns, Clash of the Titans, and 1960's hot-rod culture—it was all there, synthesized into one big-screen adventure.
And that is the genius (and charm) of Star Wars: A New Hope. To fully appreciate the staying power and cultural impact of the Star Wars franchise, you have to look back to the source and see where it came from. Star Wars is not just Star Wars. It didn't just come out of nowhere. It is an amalgam of many different cultural influences that George Lucas brilliantly synthesized in the first film, and with this synthesis changed the course of film making and popular culture at large. On top of all that, it's a hell of a lot of fun. If A New Hope is the greatest Star Wars film of all time, it is not solely because it is the original, but rather, it is an original piece of work that brought together a bunch of old things to create something new.

The Ante-Upper: The Empire Strikes Back

I tend to think that the original trilogy is much more interesting when viewed as a series of "epic retro-futuristic eastern mythology hero space westerns" than simply as Star Wars films. In other words, the further Star Wars gets away from its genre roots and becomes its own thing, the less intriguing it gets. But that doesn't necessarily mean that each film isn't worth looking at on its own merits. At the end of the day, no other Star Wars property beats The Empire Strikes Back in terms of storytelling, character development, and just about every technical aspect of film making. Perhaps the most important narrative development in Empire is the addition of Yoda. Not only is Luke's Jedi training at the hand of the pint-sized Jedi master a brilliant elaboration on the eastern philosophy-influenced Jedi mythology from A New Hope, but its setting on the swamp planet of Dagobah makes for an incredible set piece which, along with Empire's other two major locations, marks the true beginning of the saga's unique and highly influential world-building capacities.
The story and scope of Empire wouldn't be nearly as effective, however, were it not for the inspired work of director Irvin Kershner and director of photography Peter Suschitzky. Together, Kershner and Shuschitzky meet the added emotional depth of George Lucas' second act with dark atmosphere and somber mood. Even something as simple as a shot of the Millenium Falcon's cockpit is improved upon by their combined visual flare. Take a look:

Here's the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon in A New Hope...

And here it is in Empire...

There's a clear shift in visual style here. Where George Lucas and A New Hope D.P. Gilbert Taylor gave us a brilliantly updated version of 1950's sci-fi cinematography, Kershner and Suschitzky take spaceships, ice planets, and sky-cities and make them look dark, moody, and romantic. Both approaches are great, but in terms of sheer visual pleasure, The Empire Strikes Back clearly takes the cake. 

Conclusion

So, given the evidence, if we had to chose, which is the better: Star Wars: A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back?
Here's the thing—we don't really have to choose. At least, not definitively. What it all barrels down to is whether you prefer the swashbuckling, genre-mixing entertainment and retro-futuristic sheen of A New Hope, or the deeper dramatic pull and visual splendor of The Empire Strikes Back.
And for those of you who are still annoyed that I left Return of the Jedi out of the mix, just bear in mind that I didn't do it without good reason. If A New Hope is the "game-changer" and The Empire Strikes Back is the "ante-upper", then Jedi is kind of just the third Star Wars movie, no matter how good or bad it is or how much sentimental value it holds for you. It's not so much that Jedi isn't a great third act, because it is. In fact, it deserves a lot of credit for maintaining the adventurous spirit that defined the the first film as well as the drama that permeated the second. It just doesn't fire on all cylinders like the other two films do, perhaps largely because it's visually the least distinguished work in the trilogy. Had David Lynch or David Cronenberg agreed to direct Jedi when it was offered to them respectively, we'd probably be having a completely different conversation right now.

What do you think? Which is the best Star Wars film?

My Season of the Force

We're so damn close.

That's right. I'm talkin' about Star Wars.

We're a month away from the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which means that very soon this movie that we as a culture have been talking about incessantly will finally be an actual movie, and not just the most monstrous marketing campaign ever for something that doesn't really exist yet. For every Star Wars fan, the past year has been a visceral, excruciating exercise in expectation management. I'm sure others have fared better than I. Once I saw the first teaser trailer, my hopes for The Force Awakens rose immediately (and stupidly) high. There was no helping it. I mean how could I not be stoked out of my mind after seeing this:

Fast forward to now and we've got just about every piece of footage, merchandise, and bit of information about the film that we're gonna get before it comes out and the infernal mystery is finally over. For we obsessive fans, that means we'll have very little to wet our appetites for the next month, which in turn will make for a painful four weeks of naked waiting. We're so close we can taste it, yet far enough that it seems like we'll be trapped in hyperspace for eternity. I don't know about y'all, but I intend to spend the coming weeks thinking and talking about Star Wars as much as possible, further exacerbating my unbridled enthusiasm for the franchise as well as the prospect of "new Star Wars". To make matters worse, I'll also be writing a series of Star Wars blog posts, so all of you will be forced to join me in this masochistic exercise in geek-outery.

So stay tuned, and may the force be with you...

...I've got a bad feeling about this....

10 Essential Bond Films to Watch Before SPECTRE

Every time a new James Bond movie comes out, the adolescent 007 super fan in me comes out to play. I saw my first Bond film in 1998. I was 9 years old and my parents had rented the newly released Tomorrow Never Dies from Blockbuster. I had come home from school just in time to see Pierce Brosnan swiftly hijack a missile-armed jet from a terrorist arms bizarre, defeat his adversaries with some aerial acrobatics, and brush off all the carnage with a clever one-liner. Then the trippy, sexy title sequence rolled and I was hooked.

Every Bond enthusiast has a story similar to mine. From 1962's Dr. No to 2012's Skyfall, the release of every new Bond film inevitably ushers in a new generation of fans who look back at the whole series for the first time. As we're only a week away from the release of the latest Bond adventure, here are 10 essential Bond films that every beginning, intermediate, and expert Bond fan should see before watching SPECTRE:


From Russia With Love
The second and greatest Bond film of them all, From Russia With Love is a classic piece of Cold War spy cinema that gives audiences their first real look at SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), the evil worldwide terrorist organization that would provide Bond's most iconic group of adversaries. Most notably, From Russia With Love marks the first appearance of SPECTRE's enigmatic leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (though we never see his face). In addition to the winning plot that places Bond in the thick of SPECTRE's revenge scheme for the death of their operative Dr. No (the titular villain of the previous film), From Russia With Love features Sean Connery in his finest performance as 007. Long before the cinematic James Bond became a much-parodied caricature, Connery created a version of the character unlike any big-screen hero we had seen before; taking the blue print found in the source material of Ian Fleming's novels and infusing it with a devilish mix of steely ruthlessness, catlike elegance, brooding danger, and ferocious sexual potency. In From Russia With Love,  Connery provides a character framework that will make it possible for 5 other actors to re-interpret 007 in future films.

Goldfinger
This is the film that most frequently snags the #1 slot on Bond movie ranking lists, and not without good reason. Is it actually the best Bond film ever made? Not quite, but it is the film that triumphantly established what is now referred to as the "Bond formula". Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called it "the time capsule Bond movie, the one that explains to future generations why we've been obsessed for 50 years and counting with British agent 007." Indeed, the success of every Bond film that comes after this one can be measured by how well it manages to hit all the Bond formula beats while also bringing something new to the table, which is why even the most casual Bond enthusiast should see Goldfinger at least once.


Thunderball
The movie that introduced the world to the jet pack. Thunderball is a sleek, bold and beautiful follow up to Goldfinger, and in many ways it's superior. Connery is at his coolest and most confident, as are the villains of SPECTRE (Italian actor Adolfo Celli is sufficiently devious as baddie/playboy Emilio Largo, and Luciana Paluzzi gives a strong, inspired performance as femme fatale Fiona Volpe), whose plot to steal nuclear weapons and hold them for ransom in the Bahamas makes for some beautiful location shots and an exciting finale of brilliantly choreographed underwater action.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Most famous for featuring Australian model-turned-actor George Lazenby in his one-off 007 performance, On Her Majesty's Secret Service claims a devoted fan base who hails it as the best Bond film of all time. As I mentioned before, every Bond film should be judged by how well it either follows or deviates from the Bond formula. OHMSS deserves a lot of credit for being the first post-Goldfinger Bond film to deviate heavily, and to great effect. In addition to a much more character-driven screenplay (featuring the strongest female character for Bond thus far in Diana Rigg's Tracy Di Vincenzo), Director Peter Hunt's '60's-arthouse visual style, combined with his notable faithfulness to the source novel, make the film stand out as one of the aesthetic triumphs of the series. It also features one of Bond's most acclaimed action sequences: a thrilling, ingeniously filmed ski-chase. For new fans gearing up for the release of SPECTRE, the film will serve as a great introduction to Blofeld (who may or may not be appearing in the new film). Though he was first revealed in the previous Bond adventure, You Only Live Twice, Blofeld's appearance as played by the bald, prosthetically scarred Donald Pleasance may resemble Dr. Evil (a parody of Blofeld who has since become far more famous than his inspiration) far too closely to even look at without laughing. Meanwhile, Telly Savalas' portrayal in OHMSS is still menacing, but tempered with a healthy dose of charm.

Live and Let Die
To a modern audience, Roger Moore's bizarre Bond debut may be about as politically incorrect as they come. The film takes a big queue from the blaxploitation craze of its era and pits Bond against a cast of black, drug-dealing villains who practice voodoo rituals. Nevertheless, there's plenty of fun to be had with this movie (It also helps—if only a little—that the villains are cooler and smarter than Bond every step of the way). As the second actor to step in for Connery, Moore succeeds where Lazenby failed by completely re-interpreting the role and making it his own. Younger fans beware: this is not the gritty Bond you've seen in recent years. Moore's Bond is defined by his humor, elegance, and dandy-ish charm. The stunts in this film are also a riot, especially the insane speedboat chase at the end of the 2nd act. It's also worth noting that Live and Let Die was the first Bond film that both Daniel Craig and SPECTRE director Sam Mendes ever saw. We've already seen plenty of visual homages to the film in SPECTRE's promotional material, so be on the look out for more when you see the new movie.

The Spy Who Loved Me
Everything that the Roger Moore era has to offer is perfectly encapsulated in The Spy Who Loved Me. The action (Bond ski-jumps off a cliff and ejects a union jack parachute), the ladies (Bond is partnered with a sexy Russian agent with the code-name XXX), the villain plot (a maniacal wealthy recluse intends to destroy the world and create a new civilization under the sea), the henchman (Jaws, the 7'2" assassin with a nasty set of metal teeth), the gadgets (Bond's car is a Lotus Esprit that turns into a mini-submarine) and the humor (the now-famous "Keeping the British end up" line)—it's all so wonderfully ludicrous. The series would completely jump the shark with 1979's Moonraker (where Bond goes to...you guessed it...outer space!), but in The Spy Who Loved Me, all the insanity amounts to a solid helping of sleek and sexy entertainment.

Licence to Kill

After Moonraker left the Bond creators with nowhere to go but back to earth—literally—the films took a major back-to-basics approach in the '80's. Moore would do three more Bond films, each maintaining the humor and camp associated with his tenure, but with stories more akin to the Cold War exploits that defined Bond in the '60's. Timothy Dalton would then take over the role for two films: The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989). The latter is a particularly dark, bloody outing, sort of a prototype for our current incarnation of 007. At the time of its release, Licence to Kill garnered significant criticism for its grittier violence and drug cartel revenge plot, which seemed to evoke the oeuvre of popular action properties like Lethal Weapon and Miami Vice more than they did a proper Bond film. As time has passed, however, the film has aged surprisingly well. Outside the context of other '80's action franchises, Licence to Kill's story of Bond going rogue and seeking revenge for the torture of CIA buddy Felix Leiter at the hands of drug kingpin Franz Sanchez (brilliantly played by Robert Davi) is one of the most effective in the series, and Dalton plays Bond with powerful rage and Shakespearean gravitas.

Goldeneye

Pierce Brosnan's reputation as the 5th Bond has wavered significantly since Daniel Craig took over. His first Bond outing serves as a reminder that he was truly great in the role. Before Goldeneye, the series had been dormant for 6 years and the cultural relevance of James Bond in a post-Cold War world was highly suspect. Brosnan's graceful, enthusiastic approach to the role removes any doubt that, as one of Goldeneye's taglines suggest, "you can still depend on one man." The film itself also addresses these questions directly, boasting a shadowy aesthetic and compelling story that forces Bond to confront the ghosts of his Cold War past (there's also a tank-chase sequence that's freaking awesome). Brosnan's three subsequent Bond films may have been duds, but Goldeneye will always be one of the series' finest moments.

Casino Royale
2006 saw the first official reboot of the Bond series by way of a modern-but-faithful adaptation of Ian Fleming's first novel. It was an inspired choice on the part of longtime Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, as was the casting of Daniel Craig. Each actor who played Bond after Connery has brought something of themselves to the role, but Craig is the only Bond to completely rise above the long-cast shadow of the original 007. As the only Bond film to completely ignore any sense of loyalty to the Bond formula, Casino Royale shifts its focus to explore the emotional brass tacks and fascinating psychology of the troubled spy that Ian Fleming created. Just as Goldfinger is the route to understanding James Bond the franchise, Casino Royale is the route to understanding James Bond the person.

Skyfall
The movie that marks the 50th anniversary of the series, Skyfall is deeply rooted in the strange, sinister camp of Fleming's novels, and does much with the history of the franchise by making it all resonate emotionally. Skyfall reinforces the notion that James Bond is a deeply conflicted character who dulls the pain of his violent existence with all the glamorous trappings of his job that have brought fans back to see him for decades. It's also the most beautiful looking Bond film ever, thanks to the top-notch work of cinematographer Roger Deakins and director Sam Mendes. Most who read this will have already seen Skyfall, but seeing how Mendes returned to direct SPECTRE out of a sense of ownership over the characters and story arch that he introduced, its probably worth another watch before stepping back into the theater for the next James Bond adventure.

My Season of Horror

I love horror films.
But it'd be dishonest of me to call myself a "horror fan". Doing so would imply a certain level of expertise and devotion to the genre that I simply don't have (...yet). That's why, for the past few years, I've devoted the month of October to watching as many horror films as I can. Last year I wasn't particularly successful (with the notable exception of watching The Blair Witch Project and Re-Animator in one sitting, possibly the most bizarre horror double feature ever), so this year I made an extra conscious effort to put in some solid horror-watching hours. Here's what I ended up watching this year, as well as some thoughts and reactions to each film:

The Visit
This year I kicked off my season of horror at the theater with the latest from M. Night Shyamalan—a low-budget horror flick centered around two kids being slowly terrorized by their estranged grandparents. Despite the fact that this film contained just every cringe-worthy Shymalanian trope—sappy family drama, painfully jokey dialogue, not-so-subtle foreshadowing, and the inevitable third-act twist—this one worked where other Shyamalan films have failed. Sure, it's as big a mess as anything else he's ever done, but The Visit sets itself apart from the rest of Shyamalan's filmography by reveling in its wackiness. Here's hoping that Shyamalan continues to work outside the big studio system, 'cause when the stakes are this low, there's a fun time to be had.

Grade: B-

Night of the Living Dead
I should never have let my general sense of disdain for Walking Dead fandom keep me from watching real zombie horror for so long. If you consider yourself a film buff in any right, this is one you gotta take in at least once. It may be less and less accessible to modern audiences with each passing year, but watch Night of the Living Dead in earnest and it becomes pretty obvious that this film was highly influential on generations of filmmakers. It's shot and edited with a fearless sense of vision that many filmmakers would mimic in the '70's. It's bold, provocative, audacious, and a whole lot of fun...and like any good zombie movie, it leaves you more afraid of society's watchmen than of any zombie invasion.

Grade: A-

The Nightmare
Every bit as much a horror movie as it is a documentary about sleep paralysis, The Nightmare managed to creep me out a hell of a lot more than any other film I watched this year. Intercut between interviews of real-life sufferers of sleep paralysis and reenactments of their horrifying visions, it's a film that earnestly investigates and informs while relentlessly delivering first-rate scares. It was so effective that I walked away feeling like I had somehow been infected by what I had seen, and it took me a few nights to feel like I could go to sleep safely again.

Grade: B+

Sleepy Hollow
If you've seen this one, then you probably already guessed it: this was the dud of my season of horror. I wasn't expecting much from it, but I was at least expecting to be entertained. Instead I was bored out of my mind from start to finish. Other than his two Batman films, I don't fancy myself much of a Tim Burton fan, but I was always curious about this one for a couple reasons: a) the Gothic aesthetic always looked intriguing to me, and b) the Headless Horseman is such a cool, intimidating figure of American lore. Unfortunately, Sleepy Hollow only manages to provide the dullest of Gothic visuals, and the mystique of the Headless Horseman is all but obliterated, as Burton insists on providing a backstory featuring a sharp-toothed, frizzy haired, yammering Christopher Walken as the Horseman before he lost his head. Johnny Depp turns in one of his less cartoonish Burton-helmed performances as Ichabod Crane—re-imagined as a detective whose dedication to deductive reasoning is always impeded by his timid nerves—but if you live in the year 2015, you're probably sick of Johnny Depp, so there's really no win here.

Grade: D

Rosemary's Baby
Normally I try to devote my October horror watching exclusively to movies I haven't seen before, but I this one kept popping up as a suggestion on Netflix and I couldn't resist re-watching it. For those of you who haven't seen Rosemary's Baby, let me assure you that it lives up to all the hype. I haven't seen any of his other horror films, but this one is more than enough to solidify Roman Polanski as a master filmmaker. Polanski really forces the viewer into the terror of pregnancy. Both hypnotic and repulsive, Rosemary's Baby remains a must-see-before-you-die movie.

Grade: A

It Follows
This one also lives up to all the hype as far as I'm concerned. Director David Robert Mitchell constructs a truly mesmerizing piece of cinema, grounded in its own sense of primeval terror and brilliantly imbued with the visual language of late-20th Century horror masters like John Carpenter and George Romero. In recent weeks, It Follows has garnered more attention after Quentin Tarantino criticized the film in a much-publicized interview. Though he had much to say in praise of the film, Tarantino stated that ultimately, it was "one of those movies that’s so good that you start getting mad at it for not being great." Sorry, Mr. Tarantino, I'm one of your most loyal admirers, but I gotta say, you're wrong. It Follows is already a great movie.

Grade: A-

Crimson Peak
My other trip to the movie theater this month happened because my wife and I were looking for something to satisfy our mutual desire for something aesthetically spooky. Once we heard that Crimson Peak featured an immaculately lit haunted mansion complete with breathing rooms and bleeding walls, we figured it was our best bet. Unlike Sleepy Hollow, this film if a visual feast of Gothic horror (seriously, the production and costume design alone are well worth the price of admission), and it tells its bloody Gothic tale rather effectively. I found it strangely refreshing that director Guillermo Del Toro managed to make this movie 100% earnest and completely void of the misplaced sense of "irony" that plagues many of today's genre films. Unfortunately, what Quentin Tarantino said about It Follows is much more applicable here: Crimson Peak is just good enough that you really wish it were great.

Grade: B+

The Host
This 2006 Korean creature feature has been recommended to me for years by practically everyone whose taste in movies I trust. Finally got around to it and thought the same thing I think every time I watch a Korean film: "Damn, those Koreans sure know how to make movies." Like most of the Korean films I've watched in recent years, The Host seamlessly mixes a wide variety genres—family melodrama, screwball comedy, action, and horror just to name a few—and to great effect. The Host's titular creature is a slimy mutated amphibian much smaller in scale than your average movie monster (though still big enough to swallow people whole and cause plenty chaos wherever it goes), which allows the film to focus its critical eye on the horror of incompetent governments, as any good creature feature should do.

Grade: A

Paranormal Activity
Of all the post-Blair Witch "found footage" horror films I've seen, this is one of the better ones. Largely absent of the cheap scare tactics that seem to be plaguing it's many popular sequels, the original effectively builds tension by keeping things quiet for extended periods of time while ever so slowly increasing the level of demonic terror surrounding the protagonist couple. Paranormal Activity probably won't age into a modern classic, but it was more than enough to end my season of horror on a sufficiently spooky note.

Grade: A-

Top 5 of the Season
1. Rosemary's Baby
2. It Follows
3. Night of the Living Dead
4. The Host
5. Paranormal Activity

M*A*S*H: Re-visiting a TV Classic

When I was in junior high, most of my friends looked up to rappers like Eminem and 50 Cent, or basketball players like Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant. My hero was Hawkeye Pierce.

As far back as I can remember, M*A*S*H has been a part of my life. It's on TV in my earliest memories, and it continues to be quoted frequently whenever my family gets together. My parents were born in 1958 and 1964, respectively, and came of age during the show's eleven-year run. It was a staple of their childhoods, and they made it a staple of mine through re-runs on Fox and various cable channels. In my early teenage years, the show's anti-authoritarian element really clicked with me. It was no longer a show I watched with my parents. It was my thing.  I had a lot of friends in middle school, but I couldn't really relate to them. They were all gearing up to be jocks in High School and I was the awkward non-athlete of the bunch who would much rather watch the Marx Brothers or Monty Python than Sports Center or MTV. The ages of 12 to 15 are a rough time. You go through puberty, you fumble through learning how to interact with your crushes, you're constantly trying to act cool without the slightest idea of what "cool" is. And when you're going through all that, and you can't even relate to your closest friends, it leaves a void inside you. For whatever reason, M*A*S*H filled that void for me. Every day I'd come home from school, grab a snack from the fridge or pantry, and flip on the TV to watch M*A*S*H reruns on FX from 3 to 5. For me, M*A*S*H was more than an escape. It was my introduction to righteous rebellion, honest empathy, and the notion that the strongest bonds are forged in blood. And it was funny. More importantly, it was funny to me and not to my friends. Sometimes it bothered me that my friends didn't have the cultural foresight to appreciate humor not of their generation, but most of the time it made me feel good to be the only one in on the joke, like I knew something that they didn't.

For those of you who only know M*A*S*H as that "army show" your grandpa or uncle or dad used to watch, here's a quick primer of the whole franchise to put us all on equal ground moving forward:

Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould in MASH (1970)

Before M*A*S*H was a TV show, it was a novel by Richard Hooker, based on his experiences as a surgeon in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. In 1970, the book was adapted into what is now considered one of the most groundbreaking American films of all time. Directed by Robert Altman, MASH stars Donald Sutherland as Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce, Elliot Gould as Trapper John McIntyre, and Tom Skerrit as Duke Forrest; a trio of army doctors at the 4077th M.A.S.H. who deal with the insanity of war and military bureaucracy through playful anarchy, mischief, and humanity. The film's anarchistic, yet humanitarian take on government apathy and the horrors of war made it a breakout hit among the Vietnam War generation, and sparked a new era of American film-making.

M*A*S*H Season 1 Cast Photo

In 1972, M*A*S*H was adapted into a TV series starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye and Wayne Rogers as Trapper John (Tom Skerrit was invited to reprise his role for the series, but turned it down). Despite a first season low ratings, CBS approved a second season and the show became a cultural phenomenon. And though significant cast changes would occur after its third year, M*A*S*H ran for 8 more seasons, it's final episode (aptly titled "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen") still holding the record for the most watched television episode in American history.

M*A*S*H began streaming on Netflix earlier this year. Since syndication airings of the show have dwindled to practically nothing over the years, it's been ages since I watched an episode beyond the first two seasons (which I own on DVD). So I started watching the show from the beginning a few of months ago and just finished the whole thing last week. Re-watching M*A*S*H in its entirety gave me a fun opportunity to look at the show with a critical eye for the first time. For all who might be interested in the ramblings of a devoted M*A*S*H fan, here are my critical observations at the end of a lengthy Netflix M*A*S*H-a-thon:

McLean Stevenson, Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers
and Loretta Switt

• The first three seasons of M*A*S*H have always been my favorite, and after re-watching the whole series, they still are. There's just something about the quality of the writing, the balance between comedy and drama, and the original cast that's nothing short of lightening-in-a-bottle. In one corner you have Hawkeye and Trapper John, the dynamic duo of gin-guzzling, prank-pulling surgeons whose mutual dedication to saving lives is the only thing bigger than their appetite for anarchy. In the other corner you have Majors Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret 'Hot Lips' Houlihan (Loretta Swit), a pair of sniveling army brat antagonists whose laughable love affair makes for some of the biggest laughs of the series. Stuck between these opposing forces are Col. Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) and his faithful company clerk, 'Radar' O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff—the only cast member to reprise his role from the film). As the 4077th's bumbling commanding officer, Col. Blake is arguably the most beloved character of the series, while Radar fills out the cast dynamic with endearing naivete and childlike innocence. Though Alan Alda became the show's true star early on, it's the ensemble that carries the show forward with brilliant comedic chops. As a befuddled Army bureaucrat points out in the Season 2 opener "Divided we Stand",  "These impossible people are in an impossible place doing totally impossible work. They're mad, quite mad, all of them, and the only thing I can think of that would be madder still would be breaking them up." As fate would have it, the original cast would be broken up after the third season, and the show would never quite be the same. Instead, it would change to meet the demands of new cast dynamics and break new ground in telling deep, thoughtful stories on television—the best possible outcome given the magic of those golden early years of the series.

• Of all the cast changes M*A*S*H would go through over the course of it's decade-long run, none were more profound than the loss of both McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers between Seasons 3 and 4. After McLean Stevenson announced his departure from the series, the shows producers decided that Col. Blake would be discharged from service, only to be killed after his plane home was shot down over the sea of japan. The loss of such a beloved character was an enormous blow to the series and to its fans, but the decision to take this loss and turn it into something so brutal and honest was a stroke of genius. Despite the disorderly antics and hilarious hi-jinx that made the show special, M*A*S*H demonstrated early on that it would pull no punches in portraying the senseless loss of life that inevitably comes with war.  

Radar informs the camp of Col. Blake's death:

Wayne Rogers as Trapper John

• Wayne Rogers' departure from the series was less impactful, though equally profound. Having originally planned to return for the fourth season, Rogers dropped out abruptly due to contract disputes and an ongoing dissatisfaction with his supporting role to Alda. Thus, Season 4 opens with Hawkeye returning from R&R in Tokyo to discover that Trapper was discharged and left for home in his absence. I've always thought it was a shame that Rogers left the show when he did. Trapper John may have often played second-fiddle to Hawkeye, but the "partners-in-crime" dynamic between the two characters was in many ways the backbone of the series. Nearly every episode contains moments—both comedic and dramatic—where Rogers' charmingly rugged presence makes for a perfect yin to the yang of Alda's rye energy. And where Hawkeye is combative and narcissistic at times, Trapper is a bit more rash and laid-back. It's interesting to think about what might have happened if Rogers had stayed, and how Trapper John might have developed as a character throughout the shows remaining 8 seasons.

Alan Alda (Hawkeye), Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicutt) and Harry Morgan (Col. Potter)

• Season 4 ushers in two new cast members (Harry Morgan as the new C.O., Col. Sherman Potter, and Mike Farrell as B.J. Hunnicut, Hawkeye's new bunkie and confidant) that dramatically shift the dynamic of the ensemble and contribute heavily to the evolving tone of the series. Both characters enter the scene as vital departures from their predecessors. Potter never fills Col. Blake's shoes. Instead, the character develops a special place of his own in the series with his prickly-but-lovable demeanor, temperate leadership and old-timey cadence. Likewise, B.J. Hunnicutt is a far cry from Trapper John's devilish rogue. Where Trapper's family life back home does little more than provide a darkly comedic framing for his many infidelities, B.J.'s separation from his young wife and newborn daughter takes up a lot more dramatic real estate. Growing up I was never a big B.J. fan. I found the whole brooding-nice-guy thing to be exhausting. In hindsight, I guess my dislike for B.J. was largely due to my family's loyalties to the original cast (We even used B.J. as a marker for when the series lost it's savor: "M*A*S*H stops being funny when B.J. grows a mustache." we used to say). But after re-watching the whole series, I now see B.J.'s narrative arc as a deeply moving, integral part of M*A*S*H's dramatic accomplishments. B.J. is a family man in every sense of the word. He's come to conceptualize his family as the best part of himself, and leaving them behind brings out the worst in him the longer he's away from them. The best he can hope for is to do as much good as possible while he's in Korea so he can return home with some sense that it was all worth it (a feeling any war veteran will surely relate to). Mike Farrell plays B.J. with commitment, warmth, and rage—taking what might otherwise have been a placid character and turning him into a tepid, complex animal.

• Despite the sudden cast-change—or, perhaps because of it—M*A*S*H's fourth season also marks a sort of creative peak for the series. When it isn't devoting time to working out how the new cast members function within the ensemble, Season 4 successfully executes solid comedy on par with the previous seasons while digging deeper into the drama of the show's premise. The best example of this is "The Late Captain Pierce", in which Hawkeye discovers he's been declared dead by the army in a paperwork mix-up. Hawkeye takes advantage of the situation in good humor at first, using his deceased status as an excuse to get out of camp responsibilities. But he becomes increasingly incensed when his "death" halts his pay and security measures for President-elect Eisenhower's visit to Korea prevent him from being able to contact his father. Eventually Hawkeye accepts his fate and decides to desert the 4077th and go home AWOL—only changing his mind as a new batch of wounded is brought in from the front. "They'll come whether I'm here or not." he remarks. "Trapper went home and they're still coming. Henry got killed and their still coming. Wherever they come from they'll never run out." Death is the specter looming over this episode, over this season, and the entire series, but it all intersects at this point in Hawkeye's personal journey. He's exhausted from constantly facing death in the operating room. To make matters worse, the death of Henry Blake and the departure of Trapper John have pushed him into a whole new realm of personal loss. It's arguably the most poignant moment of the series, encapsulating the show's ability to take absurd, sometimes morbidly humorous situations and interweave them with life's most universal and tragic dilemmas. 

• Season 4 also marks the first time that the showrunners experimented with series format. The Season 4 finale, "The Interview", takes the form of a black-and-white newsreel featuring interviews with the 4077th crew, each offering their own insight on the war and their place in it. This episode is significant because it set a new precedent for the series to have one or two experimental episodes per season. Such episodes include "Point of View", an entire episode shot from the point of view of a wounded soldier; "Life Time", in which an onscreen clock counts down the time B.J. has to replace a G.I.'s damaged aorta; and "Dreams", a famous episode where the dreams (mostly nightmares) of each primary cast member are shown throughout a day of heavy incoming casualties. Some of these episodes fare better than others, but the show's dedication to telling interesting stories and experimenting with form offers a sort of precursor to the type of innovative storytelling we get from TV today. 

Loretta Swit as Margaret Houlihan

• Where Season 4 triumphs, Season 5 meanders. It's funny and heartfelt enough, but only manages to maintain a status quo for the series thus far. The most notable ongoing plot line of the season involves Margaret Houlihan ending her affair with Frank Burns to marry the accomplished Lt. Col. Donald Penobscot. Season 5 also marks the departure of Larry Linville from the series, who felt he had taken the character of Frank Burns as far as he could go. This was a smart move on Linville's part, whose hilarious and dedicated performance made Frank more a caricature of military lunacy than a three-dimensional human being that could evolve with the changing tone of the series. Margaret Houlihan, on the other hand, shows the first signs of evolving from an army brat/bimbo caricature into one of the strongest female characters in TV history. In "The Nurses"—perhaps the best and undoubtedly the most important episode of Season 5—Margaret reveals herself at her most vulnerable in a contentious run-in with her nursing staff. As they vocally object to her by-the-book command style, Margaret confesses the pain of her alienation from the rest of the nurses and they're failure to reach out to her. "Did you ever once offer me a lousy cup of coffee?!" she says. It's a powerful moment where the viewer is confronted with the pressure and loneliness of being a female officer in a man's army. Throughout the rest of the series, Margaret is confronted with a wide variety of personal challenges including divorce, sexual harassment, heartbreak, and constant disrespect from her male colleagues. At the end of it all, she emerges triumphant, and Loretta Swit imbues Margaret with warmth, power, sensuality, vitality, and authenticity every step of the way.      

• In Season 6, Frank Burns is replaced by Chalres Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers), a stuffy Boston surgeon whose intellect and surgical aptitude make him a far more challenging frenemy for Hawkeye and B.J. In his first two seasons on the show, Winchester's presence at the 4077th breathes new life into the ensemble and gives the writers ample opportunity to tell more intriguing stories. Winchester's ongoing, desperate struggle to maintain his dignity under the horrifying conditions of the 4077th is one of the most compelling aspect's of M*A*S*H's latter half, largely due to Stiers' brilliant performance. Stiers may have been intimidated at the prospect of joining such a beloved cast of characters so late in the game, but as soon as he enters the scene he develops great chemistry with each of his fellow cast members. His chemistry with Alda is particularly fun to watch as their respective characters hash out a competitive tension over the course of Season 6. In the series finale, when the war is over and each character bids farewell to the 4077th, there is no exit more satisfying and poetic than Winchester's. As he says his reserved goodbyes to Hawkeye, B.J. and Col. Potter, motor pool sergeant Luther Rizzo shows up in Winchester's ride out of camp: a grimy old garbage truck. "What better way to leave a garbage dump." Winchester says as he saunters over to the truck with his nose in the air. It's a fitting farewell for a man whose journey through hell may have hurt his pride often, but never stole his dignity.

David Ogden Stiers as Charles Emerson Winchester III

• Over the course of the series, there are two secondary characters that become much-loved principles: army chaplain Father Mulcahy (William Christopher), and the dress-wearing, Section 8-hunting Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr). My most recent viewing of M*A*S*H was the first time I considered how offensive a character like Klinger might be to a modern audience. A man who wears dresses to get thrown out of the army might have been funny in the 70's, but would the joke be completely unfunny in light of today's gender politics? Surprisingly, I found that the dress shtick holds up pretty well, but solely due to Jamie Farr's warm, nuanced, and almost vaudevillian approach to the material. Farr is a comedic talent of a bygone era, and it's his fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek delivery that makes Klinger work as a character, even when the dresses get old. When Radar leaves the show in Season 8, Klinger is appointed the new company clerk and ditches the dress-up gag for good, giving Farr the chance to add new dimensions to the character and show audiences that his talent reaches much farther than looking funny in a dress.

• I had forgotten the extent to which the specters of Henry Blake, Trapper John, and other departed characters haunt M*A*S*H's later years. Where other sitcoms of the '70's and '80's fall into the trap of retroactively erasing the presence of a departed character altogether, the writers of M*A*S*H do well to remind the viewer of their losses, and the remaining characters of the friends they had to say goodbye to. In the latter half of the series, Hawkeye in particular shows signs of deep emotional scars left by the trauma of Henry's death and Trapper having left without saying goodbye. The longer Hawkeye is trapped in this war-torn purgatory, the more deeply he feels the loss of his friends. The older I get, the more relatable this aspect of M*A*S*H becomes. We all lose friends and family, whether they move on to other places, or they literally move on from this life. It's all painful to some degree or another, and dealing with the loss is always a struggle.

• The drama in M*A*S*H is always more successful when the comedy is good. I used to think that the show lost steam in the last three or four seasons because there was too much drama and not enough comedy. Upon re-watching, however, it's clear to me that  M*A*S*H's dramatic moments account for much of the best writing, acting, and directing of the later seasons. Its obvious that everyone involved in the latter half of M*A*S*H's run was deeply committed to exploring war's psychological and emotional blows. Perhaps this is why they kept going as long as they did. Unfortunately, the drama—no matter how painstakingly executed—falls flat when the comedy isn't fresh. M*A*S*H's later years do have their funny moments, but nothing as crisp, brash, or timeless as the comedy of its early-to-middle years.  

• M*A*S*H may have run one or two seasons too long, but there's no denying that the two-hour finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", remains an undeniably powerful work of television. Written and directed by Alan Alda (with the input of just about every major writer of the entire series) "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" strikes a highly effective balance between constructing a palpable story of war & loss and hitting all the necessary beats for a satisfying ending.

Hawkeye and B.J.: The Last Goodbye

As a time-honored work of exceptional television, M*A*S*H stands as a testament to the power of a medium that our culture has taken great advantage of in recent years. We love television today for its ability to tell human stories in long form. At its best, this is what M*A*S*H was all about. On a personal level, re-watching M*A*S*H as a slightly older, more world-weary person has been a revelatory experience. Over the past year I've encountered family tragedy, financial uncertainty, crises of faith, and major life transitions. At the tail end of it all, reconnecting with M*A*S*H's much beloved characters—sharing in their struggles and their laughter—has been a great source of strength. It's often been said that, despite its Korean War setting, M*A*S*H is really a show about the Vietnam War. Cast and crew members have refuted this on a few occasions, stating instead that the show was about all wars. I would go one step further and say that the show is about all loss. As I've watched this 11-season story of tragedy and comedy from beginning to end, it's been both comforting and rewarding to find that bitter loss can be made more bearable when it is transformed into honest storytelling. And that is the big takeaway from M*A*S*H, an honest tale of the insanity we all endure together in the war against ourselves.