Babylon 5: 3x04-3x06

This is a strong run of episodes. In most cases, the A story is okay, but the stuff going on in the background is fantastic. At the start of each season, JMS has done a bunch of standalone episodes, presumably to attract new viewers. It's somewhat frustrating, but he always manages to put something important in. 'Dust to Dust' is the best of these, starting out solid then metamorphosing into something fantastic. But, let's track back and start at the beginning.

'Passing Through Gethsemane' is notable for two guest stars, one being Patricia Tallman back as Lyta Alexander, the other is character actor legend Brad Dourif. Dourif's always fun to watch, and this is one of the rare cases where a guest character pretty much carries the episode. He's so good that you don't mind putting our main characters in the background for a bit. I like the fact that Brother Theo's group was set up back in the first episode, and lingered in the background for a while before getting their own storyline. It's not that tough to do this kind of advance planning, and it makes the episode feel like part of a whole, rather than just an isolated happening. Even though it is a standalone story, that sort of continuity places it clearly within the world of the show.

I really like the scene where Edward talks with Delenn about the Minbari religion. The show frequently indulges in these philosophical digressions with Delenn and generally they work. I could see these speeches bothering some viewers, but I find them consistently interesting, it's always good to see a show that's concerned with exploring the larger issues of the universe, not just whatever's happening to its characters this week. I also like the idea of connecting the story of Jesus with the story of Valen, implying that all gods hail from the same universal idea, they're just viewed through different lenses. It's a cool idea in general, and also ties in nicely with the theme of universal connectedness that's central to the series.

The way the Edward story unfolded reminded me of a good X-Files standalone. The idea behind it is strong, and it plays out well. The crucifixion imagery was a bit heavy handed, but it worked well enough, and the ending finds a nice mix of touching and creepy.

Elsewhere, we get Lyta's return to the station. Lyta's look is just fascinating to me. She's good looking, but not extremely attractive, rather there's something about her eyes that looks kind of alien. That quality fits perfectly with what she's doing now, working as a telepath for the Vorlons. As we see at the end of the episode, she seems to have taken on some non-human qualities. I'm uncertain what was going on there, was Kosh absorbing her memories, or was that actually his spirit transferring from her body to his suit? I'm not sure yet, but both possibilities hold a lot of potential interest and I assume it'll be followed up on soon. Also of note is the scene with Londo, she is beyond the human desire for material wealth, and there she takes the chance to flaunt her power over him. Good stuff.

'Voices of Authority' has a lot of good stuff, but also some plot developments that come dangerously close to Deus Ex Machina. Draal returns here and offers our heroes a chance to contact the first ones. Ivanova's vision sequence was pretty cool, though I feel like a bit more could have been done filmmaking wise to make us feel like this was a truly otherworldly experience. Apparently using her psychic abilities, she tracks through time and finds a message from the Vice President discussing the assassination attempt.

My big issue with this plot development is the fact that it makes no logical sense in the universe. They just all of a sudden get the evidence from some psychic plane, are able to capture it on to a data crystal and then put it out to the world. It would have been better to have them fight to find this evidence, handing it to them sucks the story of drama. The physics of the Epsilon 3 thing are unclear, so maybe it worked in JMS's conception of the machine, but for me, it felt unearned. I did love the look of the first ones' ship, though I'd have thought these guys would be beyond petty jealousy now, and not be so easily swayed by Ivanova's reverse psychology.

Elsewhere, we get a visit from Julie Musante, Ministry of Peace liason. A lot of the show's guest stars are not good, but she was great, throwing herself full on into the role, selling both the dramatic and comedic parts. The great drama here comes from the conflict between freedom and security. Earth was apparently changed a lot, with the eradication of poverty and all problems! Or not so much, they just pretend the problems don't exist anymore, and blame anyone who doesn't have a job for not wanting to work. Similarly, they have equated criticism of the government with treason, and are curbing free speech, just until this current conflict is over. This episode is nothing if not relevant to today. It's a bit heavy handed, but generally works. I particularly like Zack's conflict. He's kept outside of the station's inner circle, but is openly welcomed into Nightwatch. Is it any surprise he'd be inclined to support them? In the long run, the Ranger crew's secrecy could wind up backfiring and alienating potential allies.

On the comic side of things, there's the great scene in Sheridan's apartment. I particularly like the line "You're about to go where everyone's gone before." Even though I take issue with criticizing women for being sexually aggressive, the line's funny enough it works. Ivanova's shock when she appears there is fantastic. So, this episode worked well, it retreaded the thematic material of the previous Nightwatch episodes, but there was enough forward progress it was worthwhile.

Next up is 'Dust to Dust,' an episode that starts out alright, then become phenomenal at the end. Bester returns to the station and there's the predictable unease among the crew. Ivanova threatens to blow up his ship, but is stopped and we move into what seems to be a fairly standard buddy cops who hate each other, but work together to solve the case thing. The Garibaldi/Bester dynamic is fun, and I have to say, I agree with Bester when he says he hopes they could work together again sometime. The final revelation that Bester and Psi Corps are behind Dust is a great twist which makes perfect sense. Their xenophobic fear that it will be used by non-humans is thematically appropriate as well.

But, that's not what lingers from the episode. By the end of the episode, when we returned to the Bester storyline, I wasn't even sure that stuff was from the same episode I was watching, this thing was completely hijacked by the G'Kar/Londo development. Londo is excited to have Vir back on the station, but not particularly impressed by his report back. Vir has none of Londo's cynicism, he accepts everything the Minbari have to say at face value and that naivete draws Londo's criticism. During their conversation, they could just as easily be talking about the Centauri homeworld as they are about Minbar, there's an emphasis on fading glory. Londo fears that the Minbari will try to reclaim their power, his only frame for behavior is his own, and if he was in charge of Minbar, he would likely lead them on a campaign to gain more power in the universe.

G'Kar's dust trip sends him into Londo's mind, on a tour of various significant moments from the past. The black void interrogation is reminiscent of both 'And the Sky Full of Stars' and The Prisoner. I love the scene where Londo is sent off on his ambassadorial mission, they have no confidence in him, and no sense of how important Babylon 5 will turn out to be. Londo has built up power and confidence, but G'Kar saw his greatest weakness there. He also sees Londo's meetings with Morden, and confirms that Londo was the one who gave the order to destroy the Narn colony. He apparently still hasn't made the connection between Londo's allies and the Shadows, but that will presumably come shortly. When Garibaldi finally looks at the book, he'll see the Shadow ship and find out that G'Kar was right all along.

Just a side note, how many shows does this mark that have used those black contacts? It's been featured on The X-Files, Carnivale and Buffy. Interestingly, the X-Files' Piper Maru, which debuted the black contacts, aired a mere four days after this episode.

After the adventures in Londo's mind, we go into G'Kar's mind, where he encounters his father, who tells him a new path. G'Kar was ready to embrace peace back in 'The Coming of Shadows,' there he was thrilled to give up the fight, but Londo's actions meant that wouldn't happen. Betrayed, he returned to his old warrior ways. But, this encounter with his father changes his mind and sets him on a different path. The speech that his father gives is beautiful, everything about the sequence is great. As he ascended, taking on the glow of Kosh, I wasn't sure what was going on. Was G'Kar visited by his God, was his father an angel, did they just reuse the Kosh effect to make it look cool?

Moving out, we see Kosh standing over him, satisfied. The fact that Kosh gave him this vision is brilliant, it gives an explanation for what exactly happened, and also raises questions about Kosh's role in this war. He's become more involved as the series has gone on, and this direct intercession in someone's mind is perhaps his boldest gesture yet. I've been waiting for G'Kar to become a part of the Ranger crew, but they remain frustrating oblique towards him. I feel like the purpose of his imprisonment is to atone for his sins, both the obvious attack on Londo, but more generally his pride and aggression in the past. He has been profoundly changed and when he does his penance, he will come out into the world with a new, different message.

The question I have now is how this changed G'Kar will eventually become the killer we see in Londo's vision of the future? Will he again be betrayed? If the series so far tells us anything, it's that things will go bad for G'Kar, so even though things are looking good now, it will all eventually come crashing down. I'm curious to see both how long this new outlook on life will last, and how it will eventually be destroyed.

Well, coming up after one episode is the big three episode run of 3x08-3x10. The picture on the DVD certainly makes it look like things are really on. After the stuff with the Narn and Centauri in the second season, I feel like there's really no boundaries on what could happen, anyone or anything could go, and I'm guessing things are still going to get a lot worse before they turn around.

United 93

I didn't see United 93 when it came out, not because it was 'too soon,' rather because I'd heard it described as a non-political straight ahead thriller. After seeing the film, I would agree that it is thrilling, one of the most tense, exciting films of the year, but in retrospect, it's an essentially pointless film. The film is entirely dependent on our outside cultural knowledge for its impact, if you look at the film as a standalone entity, what makes this different than countless B action movies, where our hero triumphantly defeats some ethnic terrorists to ensure the safety of America?

After watching Schindler's List, I wrote this post, discussing the impossibility of making a good film about a culturally charged real event. What does make a film about the Holocaust fifty years later tell us, other than that something awful happened and we shouldn't let it happen again. That may be a valid message, but it's not a particularly interesting one. Setting a film in the historical past always drains it of urgency. With rare exceptions, like Barry Lyndon, there's no vitality or importance to films set in the past, they've already happened and made their cultural impact. I don't think there's anything shocking in Schindler's List, you go in knowing what to expect, and receive the emotional charge that was expected.

Unlike Schindler's List, United 93 is set a mere five years ago, and as a result, it should have more relevance to today's political scene. The film was so charged that people criticized it for coming 'too soon' after the event. After seeing the film, I have to say this film is about four years too late. In the six months or so after the event, 9/11 was a tragedy, after that it became a political object, endlessly distorted to serve the interests of a President out to create a war without end. Even this week, Bush was using 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq and a potential invasion of Iran. The destruction of the towers was an awful event, but the real tragedy is how Bush used what happened to forward his agenda, and actually wound up killing more Americans than the terrorists did on that day.

For me, that is what 9/11 is now, and to make a film like United 93 that naively addresses the day itself without any comment about what would happen after seems hopelessly dated. This is the sort of film we needed a year after the event, as a way of processing things. I think the film does a wonderful job of capturing the shock of the day, the disbelief of the air traffic controllers who laugh at a hijacking as something quaint. Watching those sequences has heavy dramatic irony, we know what's going to happen and want these characters to figure things out. Of course, we know they don't, and in a stunning sequence, the air traffic controllers at Newark watch the plane hit the tower.

That sequence has a lot of power, but it doesn't really earn the power, it just uses a culturally charged image to produce a reaction. In the world of this film, why should we care about anything that happens to the vast, anonymous cast? Now, I think it wouldn't have worked to give obvious emotional hooks to what's going on, but I think Elephant gives a good model for how to use a cultural tragedy in the service of ideas, rather than just recreating something on screen. In Elephant, we see various viginettes showing characters' everyday lives. These viginettes are interesting on their own terms, and we know just enough about the characters to identify with them. I think Elephant would have been a good film without the school shooting ending, but with the ending, it becomes a great one. Van Sant uses the cultural memory of Columbine, and then deflates that mythology, bringing it down the brutal reality of just a frustrated kid with too many guns.

In some respects, I think that was the goal of this film, to bring 9/11 down to a personal level, but it just doesn't succeed. It makes no sense to cut between five different air traffic control rooms. It's just a bunch of anonymous characters talking about the same stuff. I think it would have been more effective to focus on one guy's journey through that day.

The parts on the plane were more effective, but to me, the film just felt like an episode of 24. It was really exciting to watch the passengers prepare their resistance and I was rooting for them as they rushed the cockpit and things descended into chaos. I loved the filmmaking in those final moments, a rush of chaotic camera moves, blood and violence everywhere, as the plane descends toward the ground in a fantastic closing sequence. But, really, what did this film do that 24 hasn't done? It's that same embrace of the essentially conservative action message, cheering on as Americans take down some foreigners. Harrison Ford might as well have been on there telling the terrorists to "get off my plane."

If the filmmakers' mission was to create a compelling action film, I think they succeeded, though from that point of view, I've got to question the lengthy air traffic controller stuff. If the goal was to make us experience what these people felt on 9/11, I think that was pretty much accomplished. But, if the goal was to make us think about the days' events in a different way, I think they failed.

A mere two weeks after 9/11, 24 began, and as the show has progressed, it's been a barometer of post 9/11 thought, an alternate America constantly under attack from terrorists, where torture has seemingly become the only alternative, and a place where the president and big business are constantly working together to create a feeling of terror among the American people. The show has no consistent message about our post 9/11 world, but the schizophrenic mix of liberal and conservative paranoia is precisely what makes the show so relevant for today's world.

And, two years after 9/11, Ron Moore made the new Battlestar Galactica , a work that essentially takes 9/11 into a sci-fi context, and in that work, he creates an emotionally devestating, riveting piece of fiction that tells us a lot more about the way our society reacted to 9/11 than United 93 did. The miniseries was basically the same story as United 93, but full of more interesting characters and concepts, and a deeper exploration of what the attacks mean to society as a whole. Since then, the show has explored our post 9/11 society from every angle, and while the cinema was hinting at current problems with period pieces like Jarhead and Good Night and Good Luck, this season's opening New Caprica arc was the only important reaction to the War in Iraq that's been produced so far in cinema. Freed of the need to be historically accurate, and non-biased in representing real events, the show can get to the core of the issues that matter to our world today.

I think people need to realize that it's never too soon to address what's going on in our world. The War in Iraq is killing people everyday and cinema needs to address that fact. If we'd had films like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket in the early 70s, maybe the Vietnam War wouldn't have gone on so long. Today's Iraq War is a massive catastrophe and it's time for filmmakers to stop being 'impartial' and start interrogating the reasons for this war and the culture it has created in dynamic, exciting ways, not just polemical documentaries. The way to do that might be through the use of genre, as in New Caprica, or maybe it's just in not trying to tell stories about our entire society, as in Syriana, and instead just focus on a few people and demonstrate the way their lives have been changed in this new world. Apocalypse Now doesn't indict the war through an in depth exploration of its causes and global consequences, it does so by immersing us in the mental space of the soldiers and showing that they're not liberators, not peace-bringers, they're just trying to survive in the chaos.

So, I enjoyed United 93 as an action thriller, but as a political or important film, it's grossly lacking. 9/11 isn't about the actual attack anymore, it's about the symbol that it's become for Bush's conservative agenda, that's the story that needs to be told and we can't wait until the time is 'right' for that to happen.

An Evening With David Lynch and Donovan @ Lincoln Center

Lynch has been going all around on a promotional tour for INLAND EMPIRE and his book, Catching the Big Fish. Lynch is a great speaker, and obviously a master filmmaker, so I always like to see him speak. Back in September 2005, I saw him speak at Yale, a promotional event in conjunction with the Maharishi University of Management. Here, I was very impressed by his discussion of filmmaking, but less thrilled with his discussion of transcendental meditation. Back in October, I saw him again, at the New York Film Festival. Here, he stuck mainly to film, and it was much more interesting to listen to.

This event had more in common with the Maharishi tour, though it wasn't so strictly focused on promoting meditation. Rather, it was a celebration of what Lynch had done, and another venue for him to promote his general ideas on meditation, creativity and life to a large audience. Entering the theater, I was looking down at a moody stage, populated with a grand piano, bongos, guitar and a couple of podiums. Things started up and Justin Theroux came out to ask Lynch a bunch of questions that had been submitted by fans earlier in the evening.

I've read so much about Lynch that very little he has to say is surprising to me anymore. He told some classic stories, the Toby Keeler's dad becoming an artist story, the getting into meditation during Eraserhead story and a lot of general discussion of his creative process that I was familiar with. The best new material was an odd, funny story about how Lynch discovered masturbation. As he said it, in the fourth or fifth grade, some friends told him that you get a really good feeling if you rub a certain part of your body, and the more you do it, the better it gets. He was very skeptical, but decided to try it, he didn't get anything, but then the feeling starting rising, and it all hit him. The reason for telling this story was to say that the feeling you get from TM can actually top the orgasm because it never ends.

I respect Lynch's interest in TM, and I think it's critical to his success as an artist and in life in general. But, it can be tiresome to continually hear him talk about it. I suppose the whole point of the evening is to promote this stuff, not give me anecdotes about the production of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, but Lynch is much more interesting talking about film than when repeating the same beats about TM and the unified field. I suppose I wasn't the target audience for this, having already heard him do virtually the same presentation, but still, give us some more info on the experiences making the films.

It was still fun to hear him speak, but I think the two of us need to take some time off, so he can get some new stories to tell. I suppose it's the same with any artist, they create a myth that has a set of anecdotes. I have the same experience with Lynch as I do with Grant Morrison, the new interviews mostly retread stuff I've already heard, with a sprinkling of new material in there. When I actually met Grant, it was surprising to hear him talk so openly about the meaning of the end of The Invisibles, and what exactly the supercontext entailed. I was used to the Lynch style of total ambiguity with regards to the intentions of the film.

I think their difference in approach is largely due to the medium. Grant has little control over the end product of his work, he writes it, and sends it off to the artist. Lynch writes, directs and edits, refining the film until it's exactly what he wants. Grant doesn't have the same luxury, and as a result he can be more open about where the published work doesn't convey everything he intended. Plus, Lynch's work is never meant to be an espousing of personal philosophy. The Invisibles is a cosmology, it is Grant's view of the universe, so it serves a dual purpose. Lynch's doesn't, it's just an experience in the moment.

I deeply respect Lynch for not giving people the 'answers' to his films, he knows that meaning lies in the mysteries. In the book, he talks about how people know much more than they think they do, it's just a matter of talking about the work and bringing that knowledge to the fore. I would agree with that, in looking at works like Seven Soldiers or INLAND EMPIRE, the more I wrote about it, the more I understood what were initially rather opaque pieces of art.

I bought the book at the event and read about half of it on the trainride home. That tells you something about how dense this book is, but it does have a lot of good material in there. I think Lynch on Lynch is a more essential book to understanding his work process, but there's a bunch of good stuff in there. I particularly like the advice he has for people making their own films. It's not a great value at $20, but if you can get it cheaper, it's worth picking up. If you have a coffee table, this'd be a great book to put on it, with a bunch of short chapters that you can pick up and read in the downtime between other stuff. After I finish reading it, I might do a more in depth writeup, though I feel like I've already covered most of the issues raised by the book.

After Lynch, we got a performance by Donovan. I'm only really familiar with one Donovan song, 'Atlantis,' and I was disappointed that wasn't played. But, it was still a good show. Donovan has a great voice, and he told some bizarre anecdotes between songs. It was interesting hearing him analyze the songs he'd written years ago, finding meaning in them he didn't have then. I would have liked a few more people in his band, to vary the sound more, but considering it was free, I left happy.

So, this was another entertaining event from the Lynch foundation, but I'd prefer to hear Lynch speak with a focus on film, rather than this general lifestyle promotion.

500th Post Spectacular!

It all started inauspiciously back on March 1, 2004, with this post, which claimed that...

This is a place for me to archive my postings from various places on the web, and in the process, create a little time capsule of my thoughts at a particular time.

I put some message board posts on there, but it wasn't until October 2004 that the blog proper began with this post about Cowboy Bebop. And things kept going from there, until roughly three years after the first post, we're at the 500th. To note this occasion, I'll be going back through the entire history of the blog to spotlight what I'd consider my best posts. There's no spoilers below, so read on, if you've already read/seen the works in question, you'll have some reading material here, if not, I'd reccomend checking out all this stuff.

Was the Past Really Better (I) (II) - This was an early article that explored the way memory warps our perception of things, specifically with the creation of 'Golden Eras' of music and film. Most of this is still relevant, particularly the comment about the pitfalls of 'ironic nostalgia.'

Writing People/Finding Meaning in Discussion: On Linklater and the Before Duology - These are two lengthy articles. The first explores the way that fictional characters seem to take on a mind of their own as you write them. This segues into a discussion of Before Sunset, and a lengthy analysis of Linklater's oeuvre and what makes his films unique. After seeing Before Sunset, I was so in love with his dialogue heavy style of filmmaking, this article reflects my feelings at that time.

The Office (II) - Because it's ostensibly a comedy show, you don't see that much in depth thematic analysis of The Office. After rewatching the series, I wrote two lengthy pieces on it, exploring the thematic intent of the show. There's a lot of layers in there.

Top Ten TV Moments - This is exactly what it says, my top ten favorite TV show moments. In retrospect, I'd place OMWF over the Office ending, but I wrote this right after watching The Office, so it still had that shiny glow of the new.

And the Work which Has Become a Genre Unto Itself... - This is an extremely long analysis of Cowboy Bebop, which I wrote after rewatching the series. I've read very little academic analysis of the show, there just isn't much out there, if you've seen it, give this a read, there's so much in the series, and you can easily watch it without unpacking it. This may be the longest post in the history of the blog.

Pop!/More Pop! - These two posts are critical to understanding my approach to fiction. I'll frequently throw the word pop around, and if you're curious what exactly I mean by it, read this two parter.

Promethea: Until the End of the World - Another massive post, this one an analysis of the last eight issues of Promethea. It's an astonishing work and worthy of better analysis than I can give it. But, this is my reaction.

Better to Burn Out than Fade Away - This is an analysis of Angel's final season. I wrote it after my first rewatch. Angel season five is my third favorite season in all the Buffyverse stuff, and it's one of the most thematically dense.

Time Destroys All (Irreversible) - Irreversible is one of the best films I've seen in the past five years, and one I just love talking about and analyzing. It's a perfect example of what I want from cinema because it's simultaneously a visceral experience in the moment of viewing, and full of material to consider after.

Irony and Filmgoing - This is a more general post, discussing my issue with the 'ironic filmgoer.' It's a major problem to this day, so consider it.

Ten Works that Changed My Life (I)/(II) - This a critical post for me personally because it explores the works that shaped my personality. And, if you're a regular reader, you'll probably see the way that these works shaped my perception of everything I watch/read.

Magnolia: PTA's Masterpiece - It's one of my absolute favorite movies, and this is my definitive statement on the themes and construction of Magnolia. If you haven't seen this movie, watch it now, then read the post.

Six Feet Under: Goodbye - If you want to check out my reviews of the entire last season, and some additional analysis, go here, I chose to link this post because I wrote it right after seeing Ecotone for the first time, bowled over by what happened there. Other than the last episode of Twin Peaks, I was never so shocked watching an episode.

Making Films About 'Real' Events - This post explores my personal bias against films based on real events. I think it's a shortcut to use our cultural memory of real events to produce an emotional reaction, and makes it impossible evaluate films centered around events like the Holocaust and 9/11 on their own merits. Battlestar Galactica is a more valuable exploration of what 9/11 meant to our culture than United 93 is.

X-Men: Wrapping it Up - This post was the culmination of my eight month long readthrough of Chris Claremont's original X-Men run. Again, I spotlight this post because it's an extensive analysis of something I haven't seen addressed in a critical fashion. Sure, a lot has been written about the Dark Phoenix saga, but to really appreciate what Claremont did, you have to look at the development over the course of the whole run. It takes a bit to get used to the style, but Claremont's work on this title is one of the greatest, most influential long form narratives ever created.

The New World of TV and Film - Here I explore the idea that TV has surpassed film as a storytelling medium. To quote the final sentence: "Conventional wisdom holds that The Godfather is one of the top five movies of all time. If The Sopranos does everything The Godfather does and more, doesn't that mean that The Sopranos is better than any movie ever made?"

Meeting Morrison - Over the course of the blog, I've met many of my idols, but no meeting was cooler than talking with Grant Morrison about the Supercontext. If you ever have the chance to see the man speak, do it, to speak to the mind that created The Invisibles was an awe inspiring experience.

Seven Soldiers Wrap Up - Speaking of Morrison, this is the index of my coverage of Seven Soldiers. The thing I love about Seven Soldiers is that it practically demands blog-length analysis. There's so much in the work beneath the surface, unless you've broken it down and thought about it, you haven't really read it.

From Hell: Gull's Ascent - Another major blog project was the read through of From Hell. Gull's Ascent was my favorite part of the book, and the most thematically rich. This post brings in The Invisibles and a lot of general Moore/Morrison concepts to look at the work.

And that brings us pretty much up to the present. What does the future hold? Probably more of these longform review/analysis projects, we've still got a ways to go with Babylon 5, and I'm planning on doing a re-read of Grant Morrison's New X-Men soon. But, pretty much whatever interesting comes up, I'll write about it. And, if you're interested in checking out more of the archive, all the blog posts are indexed here.

Winter 2007 Movie Preview

January through April are usually the most barren months of the film calendar. I've still got a bunch of leftover '06 stuff to get through, specifically Pan's Labyrinth, Curse of the Golden Flower and Perfume, but other than that, it could be a slow time. Let's see what the studios have for us...

January 26
The Host - It was last year's top grossing film in Korea, and it's also been getting great internet buzz. I'm not usually a fan of monster horror films, and all I can picture for the film is Flukeman from The X-Files' episode of the same name. But, if it's got such good buzz, there's probably something worthwhile here. I'll probably end up seeing this on DVD at some point.

February 9
The Lives of Others - I don't know much about this one except that it got a bunch of awards over in Germany, and I've read a bunch of good things online. This is another one I'll probably see on DVD eventually.

February 23
Black Snake Moan - I loved Brewer's Hustle and Flow, and this follow up looks like it'll tap into that same Southern exploitation flavor. I love the posters and the cast is great. The plot, Samuel L. Jackson chains Christina Ricci to a radiator in her house to cure her of her wickedness, is thoroughly odd, and I'd imagine this'll be a really fun, crazy movie.

March 2
Zodiac - Other than Fight Club, I'm not a big Fincher fan, but this film will benefit from its March release date. Put this out in December, amidst a whole bunch of quality films and it's a low priority viewing, put out in March, when I'm looking for anything that at least tries to be good, and it's a must see. Plus, I'm eager to see his digital photography in action. Plus, the cast has a ridiculous amount of hipster cred, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Chloe Sevigny, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo.

March 9
300 - I'm not a big fan of the book, but the trailer for this is just nasty good. Of course, I'm guessing it will turn out like Sin City, where the trailer is an absolute masterpiece, and the film itself is just good. I'm just not that into Miller's view of the world, and since this one appears to be pretty faithful to the original book, it'll be bound by his themes. Still, I'm sure it'll be great fun to watch.

March 16
Sunshine - Danny Boyle's made two really great films, and as he showed in 28 Days Later, he can bring a lot of humanity to genre filmmaking. This one's got a great cast and a cool premise that I'm confident Boyle can pull off. Should be cool.

March 23
Angel-A - This was on my 2006 film preview a year ago, and it's good to see it finally getting released. Besson seems to have sailed off into kiddie film purgatory, and this could wind up being his final live action directorial statement. The man can capture great images like few others, and I loved his last live action project, the unjustly maligned The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Stop making sequels to The Transporter and start making more of your own films, Luc.

April 6
Grindhouse - By far my most anticipated film of the season, this project looks to be thoroughly entertaining. Sure, it's not a particular challenge for either director, but perhaps the dual film format will push them to try and top each other. New Tarantino is always worth getting excited about.

April 13
Hot Fuzz - Spaced is genius, and Shaun of the Dead was a lot of fun, so I'm eager to see whatever Pegg and Wright put out. Throw in Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy and you've got pretty much every interesting comic in Britain. It should be a great time.

April 20
The Kingdom - The plot doesn't really jump out, but the backstage talent does. On story, there's Michael Mann, coming off of 2006's best film. Directing is Peter Berg, coming off the brilliant pilot for Friday Night Lights. In the film we've got Chris Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Richard Jenkins and Jennifer Garner. The trailer's a bit generic, but there should be something worthwhile in here.

Babylon 5: 3x01-3x03

Season three starts off pretty strong, then settles in for a couple of solid, but unexceptional episodes. In season two, JMS started with a burst of energy, carried over from season one, then scaled things back for a while, doing a bunch of loosely connected standalone episodes. Things didn't really rev back up until 'The Coming of Shadows.' In those standalone episodes, it would typically be a standalone plot, with some connection to the overall Shadow development revealed at the end. Here, we have a standalone story that draws on the events of season two to fuel it. Other than 'Matters of Honor,' none of these really pushed the arc forward, but they're all important to fleshing out the current status quo for the world.

Let me start with the new credits sequence. I love that they change the credits every year, and provide hints for what will happen in the credits themselves. Ivanova is now doing the voiceover, picking up where she left off in 'The Fall of Night.' Previously, I'd just assumed that the Captain did the voiceover, I'm not sure if there's a significance to the switch. Most of the images we see are from season two, so it's tough to comment on the future, but things generally do not appear to be going well. It's a very somber voiceover, backed by images of violence and conflict. Talia has definitely left the show, as has Na'Toth, who never seemed to appear after the original actress left. Joining up are Zack and the new character, Aragorn, oh wait, Marcus Cole. I was surprised Talia didn't make the credits, but considering she is on the cover of the season box, I'm assuming she'll make her presence known shortly. One other credits issue I'm curious about is why Peter Jurassik and Andreas' credits changed order.

The opening of the season is quite exciting, with Marcus escaping from a Centauri attack on the Ranger training base. The scene is very well constructed, dropping us right into the tumultuous world, and establishing the desperate lengths people are going to to escape the Centauri attacks. Marcus definitely seems like a Lord of the Rings character, I'm assuming the Rangers name is drawn from there. But, I think he'll be a good addition to the show. He's only been in one episode so far, but I could see him developing in an interesting way. Hopefully they'll actually invest the time to do that, rather than just have him appear occasionally without any real focus, like Warren in season two. I'm not sure if Warren was ever meant to be a real character, or just there to die at the end of the season, but it seemed like no time was invested in making him human. Hopefully they won't do the same thing here. Even if he is there just to die, make us care about him, and that payoff will be a lot more emotional.

This episode finds Londo regretting his continued alliance with the Shadows, deciding to 'go straight,' and break things off with Morden. Unfortunately, it's much too late to mean anything, Morden happily breaks things off because he's already working with Lord Refa. Refa lacks Londo's moral troubles over what the Shadows are doing, so he's perfect prey for Morden. Morden makes it clear that the Shadows don't want to be challenged, they want the Centauri to take over a specific part of the galaxy, I'm assuming they want to consolidate enemy power, so when the time comes, they can defeat the Centauri and take over the entire galaxy. It's possible they don't want the Centauri to expand for the obvious reason, they don't want to be attacked on their own territory, but I think they're too powerful to worry about that. Instead, I think they don't want the Centauri to overextend themselves and weaken their own forces. Clearly, it's in the Shadows' interest to have the Centauri in power, but it remains unclear exactly what their endgame is.

Earth clearly has some major factionalism going on in its government. As we find out at the end of the episode, Psi Corps and at least some other parts of Earthdome are in alliance with the Shadows. Is the guy they sent to Babylon 5 aware of this? It remains ambiguous, but clearly this alliance will pose major problems for Sheridan and Babylon 5. How can they find a war against the darkness when their own army is against them? Will battling the Shadows mean turning themselves into outright outlaws? Part of the reason for strengthening the relationship between Delenn and Sheridan was likely to make it clearer which was the good side and which was the bad. Because we're aware of Delenn's goodness, Sheridan can turn against his own government, confident that he's doing the right thing. I'm really curious to see how the Earth/Shadow/Centauri alliance develops, it's not touched on again in what I've seen so far, so I'm still waiting for some further development.

I was surprised that Londo said outright that he saw that ship in a dream. I would have thought he'd be more canny about revealing that, but maybe he was just so shocked, he said it without thinking. Or, it might have just been a way to remind viewers of his dream. It made more sense for G'Kar to talk about the connection, he's been saying this for so long, yet no one listens to him. I'm guessing that down the line, G'Kar will join the Ranger alliance, he's clearly got the respect of Sheridan, but nobody's made the connection between what he was warning them about and the Shadows yet.

Elsewhere, Sheridan gets his new ship, the White Star. The ship is pretty cool, and their battle with the Shadow ship is great. They get a small victory here, but I'm assuming the trap them into a jump point tactic won't be a good longterm strategy for victory. From a narrative point of view, giving them this ship makes it easier for the action to expand beyond Babylon 5. Now they can travel wherever they want to go and still stay on a set. With a war this big, action will certainly be happening off station, and now it's easier to cover those territories.

'Convictions' is an episode that's probably more politically relevant today than it was back when it aired. In light of a war, civil liberties are being restricted and a mad bomber is on the loose, blowing stuff up and causing havoc. This is more 24 than Babylon 5, and I think this sort of story doesn't work to the show's best instincts. It always feels a bit off when the Captain goes into action himself, be it Sinclair or Sheridan. It makes sense within the story, but the show doesn't do hand to hand combat so well. It usually works best when we see the people on the station commanding their influence over space battles. That actually feels more personal and relevant than the sort of action scenes we see here.

This episode does have some good bits, particularly the Londo/G'Kar elevator sequence. So far, they've each been in all three episodes, and I'm hoping they're bumped up to every episode cast member status. To some extent, it makes their appearances less special, but both of them bring such great energy, it's good to have them on. G'Kar's high pitched voice taunting of Londo is great, if a bit broad. But, on the verge of passing out, I don't think he's concerned about keeping his comedy subtle. From a thematic point of view, the elevator storyline reveals their critical differences. Londo is always looking out for his own self interest, and expects other to act accordingly. However, G'Kar has been burned before and would rather take Londo down with him than save them both.

On the whole, the episode has some good stuff, but isn't totally satisfying. The main story is rather perfunctory and, while it may be thematically fitting for this era of the show, it's just not particularly exciting to watch.

'A Day in the Strife' is stronger, though still not quite at great status. Here, we get a cornucopia of plots. The least interesting is the probe sent to the station, this is a season one level occurrence with a pretty anti-climactic resolution. JMS clearly enjoys talking about philosophy, and a lot of those conversations are great, but the issues raised by this aren't particularly interesting.

More interesting are the trade guild negotations. The thing I really liked here is that there's no resolution whatsoever. It's an impossible choice, you cannot work fast and safe without charging more, but people aren't willing to accomodate the changed conditions, they want things to be like they were before. As the episode ends, the negotiations rage on, no end in sight. I also really liked the resentment aimed towards our main characters from the average citizens. None the groups are able to appreciate what the others have to do.

Also, Na'Far, a representative of the Vichy government, is sent to Babylon 5 to coerce the Narn into going along with Centauri rule. I liked that Na'Far wasn't a cardboard villain, you could understand his point, he was just trying to work within the system to protect his people. But, it turns out that these people would rather put themselves and their families at risk than give up on the hope of freedom. Londo was right when he said their pride was not yet broken, I love his totally callous treatment of Na'Far, talking to him like a slave, and Na'Far has no choice but to take. Londo can see just a flicker of pride in him, and chastises Na'Far for it. Rarely has Londo been so outright nasty to someone, he has so much more power, there's no reason at all to be the least bit diplomatic.

G'Kar is ready to sacrifice himself for the people on Babylon 5, but they wind up stopping him and supporting his rule. G'Kar is the Narns' last, best hope for freedom and they're willing to sacrifice anything to ensure he has the chance to work. While last season was about totally destroying G'Kar, here we're starting to see things turn around. He has the support of his people and Sheridan, and is already building a resistance against the Centauri. It's still not good, but I could see things getting better for him as the season progresses.

Londo arranges to have Vir sent away, effectively ridding himself of his conscience. He appreciates Vir, but too often Vir is bringing up legitimate points about Londo's moral corruption. He doesn't want to face what he's done, and as a result, he arranges to have Vir shipped off. In getting rid of Vir, Londo is further isolating himself, he now has no one he can talk to left on the station. While Delenn may meet with him and do a favor, she pointedly tells him that they never talked, they were never friends, and she is not likely to have much affection for the man who instigated genocide against the Narn.

The final plot thread here was Franklin's addiction to stims. I think the dinner scene with Garibaldi was a bit cliche in its "I don't have a problem" obviousness. Yes, that may be what someone would say, but I'd seen that scene too many times before. I like the fact that we're finally getting some consequences for Franklin's work/stims addiction and I'm curious to see where the plot goes. While I had issues with the rest, I loved the final scene where Franklin lies to Garibaldi and says he worked the whole night without doing any stims. I like that there was no obvious commenting on his lying, he's very casual about it and the only thing to let us know something is awry is our knowledge of what actually happened.

So, the show is going along well now. I'd like to see things rev up a bit with the Shadow War, but we're still exploring the new status quo, with the Centauri in control of the Narn. Presumably, JMS wants to do stories about that before moving on to the next stage in the war. I'd guess there'll be three or four more semi-standalones before revving things up to the next level with the Shadows.

Miami Vice: The Director's Edition

I swear this is the last post about this movie, but hey, at least it's not another post about Babylon 5. Yesterday, I watched the Director's Edition of the film, which Mann claims is not a director's cut, rather it's just a different version. There's not that many differences between the two versions, and in most cases, I prefer the theatrical cut. I think what's most interesting about watching the Director's Edition is seeing how the stuff that Mann cut wound up making a more unique, focused film, cutting stuff that clarifies plot elements and provides the kind of pleasure the studio was advertising, replacing it with a more abstract, purely emotional experience.

The biggest difference between this edition and the theatrical cut is the opening, and it's the difference that made me buy the theatrical cut in the first place. The opening of the theatrical cut is one of my favorite film openings of all time. There's no titles, no background, we're just dumped right into a club, Linkin Park/Jay-Z going, and we spend the rest of the first half hour or so getting caught up on the narrative setup. Of course, the first time I saw the film, I didn't really get caught up at all, I just let the experience wash over me without worrying about narrative specifics.

The boat race sequence just doesn't work, but I could see why Mann might have wanted to include it. For one, it provides some glamourous action for the opening, the sort of thing viewers of the series would have been expecting from the film. Also, the sequence does give us some context for the club scene. It's interesting to have a better idea of what they're doing in the club, but it doesn't enhance our enjoyment of the film, and that's why I think this opening sequence was the best cut that Mann made. Opening the movie in the club was a bold choice, but it's perfect because it jumps us past all exposition and waiting, right into what we're there to see.

Reading about it after, I found out that the second track in the club sequence is a remix of Nina Simone's 'Sinnerman,' the song that was featured over the credits of Inland Empire. Mann has such a fantastic ear for music, that's a fantastic song and it segues into Goldfrapp. Great work.

For me, and I think for Mann too, the major focus of the film is the relationship between Sonny and Isabella. The scenes that are added generally distract from that focus by either filling in more background narrative information, or further developing the other characters. An addition that really hurts, even though it does convey important new narrative information, is the phone call/dinner between Rico and Trudy. In the film, Jamie Foxx gets virtually nothing to do, and these scenes give him the chance to do a bit of emoting, plus set up the bombing later in the film. However, by having him on the phone, we lose the original focus of the scene, which is Sonny and Isabella's eye contact as she's driving away. Then, that diner scene after just holds up our forward progress on their relationship.

I'd imagine there's even more material on the various people in the crew, and from a creative point of view, I think Mann was smart to cut that stuff for the theatrical cut. However, I think the added information of the new edition would make the film work better for the 'average viewer.' The theatrical cut is a Wong Kar-Wai style art film in the guise of a summer blockbuster, and that's why it largely fell through the cracks, marketed to one audience, but intended for another.

I was shocked to see Vice get some love on year end top ten lists, beyond just mine. Both Slant lists featured the film and Manhola Dargis had it on hers for the New York Times. I thought I was the only one who loved this film, but there's others out there, and I'd imagine as time passes, more and more people will recognize the film's greatness.

The middle segment of the film, tracking Sonny and Isabella's relationship is pretty much unchanged. There is one new scene, where they stand on a balcony and talk about her mother. I felt like this was unnecessary, the same material was covered in the scene with the picture, but it was good to see. Mann's eye for shots in this film is virtually unparalleled, there's so many memorable images, most of them a result of the framing and lighting that Mann and Dion Beebe choose. I particularly love the scene in Yero's club, the way the rest of the world seems to disappear as Sonny and Isabella dance with each other.

An addition I'm not sure about is putting 'In the Air Tonight' over the final showdown. It does work, but I think it makes the scene less tense than it was in the original version. On the one hand, it's a more enjoyable aesthetic experience, but I think it hurts the narrative. On the whole, I would say it was a smart cut. That said, I would have kept it over the scene where Rico and Sonny are in the car, leading up to the showdown.

The best scene in the new edition, and the only one I really wish was still in the theatrical cut, is the scene where Isabella is attacking Sonny in the car. In the theatrical cut, we only get a glimpse of her anger at finding out he's a cop, this extends that initial anger, making it more effective when she gives up the fight and just accepts what happens at the end of the film. Gong Li was great in the scene, that alone made the director's edition worth watching.

I also preferred having the film end with 'In the Air Tonight' over the credits, I liked the defiance, it fit perfectly with Sonny's walk into the hospital. So, while there's some worthwhile stuff in the new edition, when I watch the film in the future, I'll be sticking with the original cut. This new edition is most interesting because it demonstrates how a few subtle cuts can make a film much more evocative and emotional, as well as much tougher to follow. But, as I've said before about the film, the plot is just a shell to get us to the emotional relationships that are at the core of the film.

Watching the film again, I finally realized what work it was most reminiscent of, and that's Cowboy Bebop. The emphasis on lush visuals backed by great music is the primary point of connection between the two works, but there's also the themes, following people who are emotionally shut and then forced to confront challenging emotional situations. For the viewer, they reach that same emotional place.

Babylon 5: 'Comes the Inquisitor' and 'The Fall of Night' (2x21 &2x22)

It would be pretty hard to top the greatness of 'The Long, Twilight Struggle,' an episode that plays a lot like a season finale, wrapping up the Narn-Centauri conflict and moving on to a rebuilding phase for the story. These episodes move from payoff to rebuilding, though 'Night' does give us resolution to some major ongoing mysteries and sets things up for a very tumultuous season three.

'Comes the Inquisitor' is reminiscent of 'And the Sky Full of Stars,' both episodes recall The Prisoner and its mindwarping interrogation sequences. The main plot raises some interesting issues about the Vorlons, but ultimately doesn't tell us much we don't already know about the characters. As we find out in the next episode, the Vorlons are likely responsible for many of the supernatural sightings on Earth, be they angels or UFOs. More on that later, in the context of this episode, it seems like the excuse to do a story that JMS wanted to do. I suppose Kosh chooses this moment to test his people because he knows that the great war is about to break out, however it seems rather arbitrary.

The interrogation itself is designed to prove that Delenn and Sheridan are willing to sacrifice themselves, even if it means no glory or honor for themselves. The way things are set up however, it tells me that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. I'm curious to see how their relationship plays out, the end of this episode brings them even closer together, it's one of the major open threads going into season three. If this was a Joss Whedon show, they would be about to get together when Sheridan receives a call letting him know that his wife is still alive. I know that JMS likes to torture the people in his universe, but I haven't seen a tendency to force real pain on his main characters, as Joss did so frequently.

Having recently read From Hell, the revelation that this guy is Jack the Ripper is interesting in that it's more evidence of the power of Jack as mythology, to linger long after the man is dead. Sebastian even comments, he is remembered, but not as a person, only as Jack, this culturally constructed mythological figure. Even more than the in story content, the fact that JMS chose to make a story using Jack the Ripper is evidence of the killings' lingering fascination in our society.

Elsewhere, G'Kar struggles to maintain his fragile power base. The best moment here is in the elevator with Vir. Vir has previously been used primarily as a comic character and contrasting that behavior with G'Kar's intensity is a great choice. I was guessing that he'd try to use Vir to get a communication from Narn, further developing Vir's uneasiness with the direction of Centauri policy. But, I think the direction they went was a more realistic choice. Sheridan's aid to G'Kar here is critical in setting up the events of the next episode.

In general, this episode was better shot than most. There were a lot of striking closeups used, going closer than the camera usually does on the show. We also got some very strong visual storytelling, as in the afforementioned elevator scene.

That brings us to the finale. This episode was another really strong one, though not quite matching 'Twilight' or 'The Coming of Shadows.' There are some shows, like Buffy or Six Feet Under, where the seasons are structured as individual stories and, consequently, the season finale is a massive payoff. Babylon 5 is structured more like Angel, where the stories drift across seasons, meaning the season finale is less important than it would be on other series. Certainly this is a key episode, but it's just one among six or seven critical episodes in the season.

The most interesting development here is the way the two major plotlines of the season, the rise of the Centauri/Shadow threat and the corruption of Earth's government, come together. The arrival of Lantze comes at the worst possible time, with Sheridan having pledged to guard a Narn ship. Because we've viewed the war largely from the Narn perspective, we're totally behind Sheridan when he tries to offer aid to G'Kar. I particularly like the opening scene with Garibaldi and Sheridan talking about the change in Londo, the fact that you either feel sorry for him or fear him has been exactly my reaction to his development.

Considering it was a season finale, I was expecting something a bit more jampacked with events. The first half of the episode is pretty leisurely, spending a lot of time developing NightWatch. This group has sold a number of station personnel on its mission, and that's beginning to cause problems for the station in general and Zack in particular. There's clearly a communist witchhunt allegory here, with people getting taken down just for criticizing the government. The arrest of the shop owner at the end is a particularly strong visual.

Nightwatch seems to be offering Ivanova the same kind of deal that Morden gave Londo back in 'Signs and Portents.' Welles asks her what she wants and she replies honestly, appreciating any help he might give her, presumbly in exchange for a couple of small favors down the line. I doubt she'll be as stupid as Londo was, but it'd be interesting to have her question Sheridan more next season, and possibly even make a play for command of the station. The human characters are all pretty much unanimous in their support of Sheridan's goals, more conflict between them would add another layer to the next season.

But, there's certainly going to be enough conflict to go around. I was very surprised when Lantze announced the Earth's alliance with the Centauri. I'd just been assuming that Earth would realize the Centauri's danger and eventually side with the Narn, particularly when the Shadows emerged, but having the Earth government aligned with the Centauri actually offers a lot more interesting story possibilities. It puts Sheridan in a tough position, having to work against his own government's agenda.

This is all foreshadowed nicely by G'Kar's speech in the corridor. He's lost so much of his majesty, reduced to being that crazy guy preaching on the street and even hiding behind a bush to be present at the ambassadorial negotiations. He still has a critical piece of information, the connection between Londo and the Shadows, which will likely come into play later in the season.

I'd have liked to see what Delenn thought of the proposed Earth-Centauri alliance. How will that figure in to the existing plans that she made with Kosh? It's not really touched on, but I'm assuming much of next season is spent dealing with Sheridan's split alliance. He's fighting a war on every front now, and even his own ship isn't safe, with Night Watch constantly undermining his authority. If Earth remains aligned with the Centauri, how can he continue to do the diplomatic work Babylon 5 needs to do?

At the end of the episode, Ivanova claims that the station is now the last, best hope for victory. But, what is victory? Isn't victory for Earth now victory for the Centauri? This is another clear World War II parallel, with Earth having won the victory of peace, totally oblivious to the fact that the Centauri will not stop their advances because of a treaty. They will use this treaty as shelter until they have so much power they can overwhelm Earth.

The end of the episode felt a bit rushed. I assumed the 'Great War' meant war with the Shadows, not the Narn-Centauri conflict. But, it's been pretty warrish out there, so I can't really say I was lied to. The final scene, the ISN broadcast of the Shadow video, doesn't seem immediately troubling. But, Delenn claimed that their greatest advantage was that the Shadows didn't know anyone knew about them, this means that advantage is gone.

That leaves one major thing to address from the episode, the revelation of Kosh's true nature. After so much buildup, it would have been easy to disappoint, but this revelation did not. I love the fact that everyone sees him as something different. His glowing light body was very cool, with a truly alien, yet warm feel. That moment is a nice capper to his overall arc for the season, getting more and more drawn into the goings on with the station.

As the season ends, everything is in chaos and we get pretty much no resolution. But, without a gap between the seasons, that's not a problem. Season two was a major leap forward for the show. Season one had a few good episodes, a bunch of okay ones and a bunch of weak ones. Season two had a few truly astonishing episodes, a bunch of good ones and only a few okay ones. I was completely assured that JMS knows what he's doing and that all the pieces we see will resolve themselves in interesting ways. The show went to depths I've rarely seen in fiction, and I'm guessing will go even further before the series is through. On to season three, 'The Point of No Return.'

Babylon 5: 'Divided Loyalties' and 'The Long, Twilight Struggle' (2x19 &2x20)

With these two episodes, it is on. 'Divided Loyalties' has some issues, but is still the best Psi Corps episode yet and, as seems to happen increasingly frequently, I've got to cede the title of best episode yet to 'Twilight Struggle,' which is unlike anything I've ever seen on TV before, or in any other medium for that matter.

The first crucial thread of 'Divided Loyalties' is the return of Lyta Alexander, the telepath from the pilot. I assumed she was dumped due to poor acting, like a couple of others from that episode. However, she's pretty good here, and this is a perfect point to reintroduce her character into the series, with the Vorlons becoming critical to fighting the Shadow War. Lyta brings news of a traitor, sending Babylon 5 into chaos.

This is a densely packed episode. Seeing as its apparently her last episode on the series, Talia and Ivanova's relationship progresses forward quickly, confirming what I'd suspected earlier, that there was something going on between them. Talia has a pretty smooth game, using that air duct problem as the perfect excuse to get closer to Ivanova. I like the dynamic between the two of them, and it would have been interesting to see that relationship move forward. So far, we haven't seen any of the main characters involved in a relationship and it could certainly add another layer to the show.

But, instead of that, we find out that Talia is the traitor. My major issue with this revelation is that it plays out too fast, she wanders in, gets scanned and all of a sudden everything's changed and she's leaving the station. Considering her prominent role in the series to date, a slightly longer farewell would have been nice. Now, it's possible she may return, as they flashback to here, Kosh does have some kind of record of her personality. But, if they were going to try to bring her back, you'd think they'd keep her on the station, not send her off to Psi Corps. I do like the final scene with Talia and Ivanova, with Talia mocking Ivanova's emotional outreach to the old Talia. The story isn't perfectly handled, but it's still very good.

My favorite part of this episode was actually the end, where Lyta goes to see Kosh again. The opening scene, where the guy collapses in the sewer just abused the smoke machine, but here it worked better. Lyta does remember what she saw in Kosh, and it seems to be something so powerful, just returning to that moment gives her peace. The song his mind sings to her is a nice tie in with the ship singing the Doctor to sleep a few episodes ago. She asks him to show her his mind again, he complies and we get a closeup on her eye as she cries. It's one of the show's best visual moments and an unexpected, but perfect, moment to go to credits on.

I've got to see if there's some followup on what happened to Talia, but right now, I feel like everything went down a bit too quickly. I was reading and saw there was some behind the scenes tumult prompting Andrea Thompson to leave the show, but even so, this one deserved a bit more time to breathe. Still, I'm assuming she'll be replaced on the station by Lyta, and she was quite good in this episode, I'm eager to see how she develops.

I thought that was a good episode, but after seeing 'The Long, Twilight Struggle' it feels like a mere diversion. This episode is simultaneously the show's biggest, with two massive space battles and multi-planet spanning action, and its most emotionally focused, as the radically divergent arcs of G'Kar and Londo continue to play out.

The episode starts with Londo on Centauri Prime, being asked to use his Shadow allies, just one more time. This has happened before, and as before, Londo reluctantly agrees, even though recent events have shown that he has no reason to trust Refa. He feels that he has started down a path and must see his destiny through to its end. While he has done some awful, awful things in the past, this act goes beyond that, turning him into a genocial mass murderer. After 'The Coming of Shadows,' I thought Londo had gone as far as he could go, but this took everything to another level.

It's tough to watch as the Narns arrange the military operation that will bring about their own destruction. JMS likes to give his characters the chance to avert their destinies, G'Kar finds out the Centauri know about their planned attack, and he tries to get his government to turn back, but they, like Londo, feel that they have started down a path and must see things through. G'Kar has moved beyond this kind of thinking, he's become more rational, but he can't convince his people to do the smart thing and protect the homeworld. By giving characters foreknowledge of what will happen, JMS actually gives them more agency. They are not victims of plot manipulations, rather, they are shown a potential future and are given the chance to turn back or keep going. Unfortunately, everyone seems to keep going.

The Shadows once again rout a Narn force. The effects here are fantastic, and the Shadows remain a powerful visual. It's tough to watch them tear through the Narn ships. When the guy decided to turn back, I was like "Ok, that's smart," but then the Shadows break out the hyperspace destroying weapon and all the Narn are killed. That moment was just harrowing, the whole sequence is very powerful. Beyond any future narrative purpose, the jump destroying weapons fit in perfectly with the theme. In both Londo and the General's case, they're given the chance to turn back, but cross the point of no return. The General comes to his senses, but it's too late, he cannot escape the fate he has chosen.

This segues into another dazzling space battle, as the Centauri bombard the Narn homeworld. This sequence is also deeply powerful, playing on our own fears about weapons of mass destruction. The Centauri have clearly crossed a line that civilized people should not cross. Their leaders are only concerned with conquering territory and trying to achieve a semblance of this mythologized Centauri empire. Londo standing on the deck, watching the battle is one of the best images the show has presented so far.

In this episode, we see two Londos. In private, he is deeply conflicted about what he's done, arguing with Refa, only grudgingly agreeing to use the Shadows. He never saw the consequences of his actions firsthand until now and I think that destruction deeply distrubs him. He's a fundamentally moral person, but has gotten caught up in this web of bad decisions that pushed him over the line. In that moment, he knows it and dreads the eventual consequences of his actions.

However, when we see him in public, he is fiercer and more in command than ever. Londo dreamt of becoming Emperor, and now he is aware of just how much power is potentially at his command. In the Council scene, any vestige of the fun loving guy of the first season is gone, when he yells at Delenn and Sheridan, we see only a monster.

Concurrent with Londo's rise is G'Kar's fall. It's been heartbreaking to watch his journey over the course of this season, as every thing goes wrong for him. It all began in 'Revelations,' when he realized that Londo may have collaborated with the Shadows in destroying the Narn colony. From there, it's gotten worse, he is powerless to stop the Narn from attacking the Centauri supply lines and can't even go to Narn to die with his people. Instead, he is forced to seek sanctuary from Babylon 5.

The scene in the council meeting is just devestating as we watch this once proud man reduced to absolute nothing. He sits hunched over, just taking whatever Londo tells him. In this episode, the show goes incredibly dark, not only is the entire Narn homeworld conquered, the Centauri force upon them an incredibly strict peace treaty that leaves them with no agency at all. I was shocked by how bad things got here, I criticized the show early on for its sitcom like happy endings. That has totally changed, I've never seen a show follow through on the consequences of developments like this one has. There is no status quo, characters are constantly changing and the situation is constantly getting worse. The worse things get, the more satisfying the eventual victory is. Because the show has gone to such a dark place, it means that any small victory will have huge meaning. That's what made the miniseries and New Caprica arcs of Battlestar Galactica so powerful, and here, we seem to headed for something that will dwarf even those fantastic stories.

G'Kar's defiant speech to Londo gives us at least a measure of consolation. He walks out of the room proud, even though he is powerless, he has the desire for freedom and that will fuel him long after Molari's lust for power burns out. That scene is incendiary, G'Kar and Londo were great together back in the comedy days of season one, now there's so much between them, you can't help but think of Londo's dream and the inevitable end for these two.

G'Kar's final scene with Sheridan reminds us of how close the Centauri and Narn came to peace. He remembers a moment when he saw Londo as an ally, and again we're aware of the disastrous effects of Londo's choices. Each time he is given a chance to draw the line and save lives, and each time he fails to do so. Of course, G'Kar is the one with the most information on the Shadows and is already suspicious of Londo. Connecting Londo to the Shadows could lead to the downfall of the Centauri Republic and help the Narn regain agency over their homeworld.

Elsewhere, we get further development of the Sheridan/Delenn relationship. Before, I was wondering if it was just me seeing something there, but it's pretty clearly in play, Sheridan is aware of Delenn's feelings and he's unsure how he feels about it. I thought I caught a little twitch on Delenn's part when Draal mentioned Sheridan's wife, that could cause some major complication down the line. I wasn't thrilled to see Draal return, but the trip down to Epsilon 3 was entertaining, and the weapons he offers will likely enable Babylon 5 to be the center of the defense against the Shadows. With the two of them, I also really like the opening scene of 'Loyalties,' where we find out Delenn eagerly awaits the Minbari gossip column. Her adoption of human characteristics has been fascinating to watch.

This episode was packed with stuff. I didn't even mention the Rangers, who seem to have a critical role to play. The most intriguing part about that is the fact that Kosh openly supports them. His neutrality is dissipating in light of the imminent start of the war. Things end with an inspirational speech, and the knowledge that within two episodes, the great war will come upon us all.

Just when I think the show can't go darker, or get better, it drops another masterpiece. I can't wait to see how this season resolves itself and then move on to season three: Point of No Return.

2007 Movie Preview

2006 was a pretty good year for cinema, a lot of my favorite directors had projects coming out, and most of them turned out quite good. And next year looks like it should have an equally exciting plethora of new films to delight and enthrall.

10. Electroma - This is Daft Punk's film about a robot's quest to be human. It's supposedly very experimental, and seems like the kind of thing that could be either great or tedious depending on your mood. But, I love the trailer and I'm very curious to see what they do as film directors. I'm not sure what the status of this is, it showed at Cannes back in May, but I havent' seen much since. Hopefully it will re-emerge and get a 2007 release.

9. Smiley Face - This year, Gregg Arkai became one of my favorite directors, and I'm eager to see some new work from him. that said, this one sounds like a much more straight ahead mainstream comedy than he's done in the past. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, as long as he maintains his own voice in there. The plot, surrounding a woman who eats some pot brownies and has a crazy day offers the potential for some Doom Generation or Nowhere style craziness. After the intense drama of Mysterious Skin, he's earned a lighter film.

8. Be Kind Rewind - Another director's lightening up for a more accessible mainstream comedy. However, with Gondry at the helm, it's sure to be idiosyncratic and full of weird, wonderful images. The premise, that a guy who work sat a video store gets zapped with a magnet, erases all the tapes, and has to remake them himself, is absolutely ridiculous, but full of comic potential. Jack Black is great in the right role, and this sounds like it has the potential to harness that School of Rock go getterness. The combination of him and Gondry should be brilliant.

7. Grindhouse - Tarantino has never made a film that's less than great, and he's only gotten better as time passed. So, I'm going to check out anything he does. That said, I feel like this film will allow him to indulge all his worst instincts, and the premise, a slasher film with a car as the killer, is pretty inane. Without considering the director, the Robert Rodriguez side of the project looks a lot more interesting, Rose McGowan with the machine gun leg is genius and we've even got Freddy Rodriguez, Six Feet Under's Rico, in the film. Ultimately, I think this will be a joycore film, full of so much love from the creators, you can't help but get caught up in it.

6. Sweeney Todd - Burton made a virtually unmatched run of quality films from 1988-1994, but since then he's been a bit underwhelming. After the good, but not great Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I said that he should do a musical, so I was excited to hear he'll be adapting Sweeney Todd. I haven't seen the show, but the subject matter fits perfectly into his visual world. Rarely do you see a musical that fully uses the possibilities of cinema, I'm really excited to see what Tim brings to it. On top of that, there's a fantastic cast, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen and even Anthony Head. This has the potential to be Burton's best film in a long time.

5. I'm Not There - Normally, I would be disgruntled that we're seeing yet another musician biopic. These films are usually boring reenactments of culturally iconic moments that give no real insight into the person they're interrogating. The only two musician biopics that really worked were Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and Velvet Goldmine, both directed by Todd Haynes, and what do you know, he's directing this film as well. Haynes is a conniseur of pop culture, using cultural trends to examine the direction of society as a whole. Superstar and Velvet Goldmine are more about a time and place than specific people and I'd imagine this film will be the same. The fact that there's seven actors playing Dylan could potentially be gimmicky, but it makes me think this'll be a crazy, surreal film and that's a good sign. He's never made a bad film and I doubt he'll go wrong here. Plus, the cast is just fantastic: Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Heath Ledger to name just a few.

4. There Will Be Blood - Finally we're getting a new Paul Thomas Anderson film. Magnolia is the best film of the past twenty-five years, PTA the rare person who's equally adept at writing and directing. Paul himself said he didn't think he'd ever top Magnolia, and I'd agree, but I'm still eager to see new work. There's not too many details out on the project, but I've got to say, a period piece of this nature is not what I'd really want to see from him. Still, all his films are amazing in their own way, and someone with his talent is going to make films that are full of compelling details even if the whole doesn't work. I'm eager to see some stills or a trailer because right now I really have no idea that this movie will be like. It's just PTA's name that earned it this place on the list.

3. I'm a Cyborg (But That's OK) - After wrapping up the Vengeance Trilogy in spectacular fashion, Park Chanwook moves on to a lighter, but still odd, comedy. The premise of this one is great and I think it has the potential to be that rare kind of movie that is simultaneously very funny and very touching. It's difficult territory, but the hard edged sensibility of Park means we won't drift too far into melodrama. And, as the trailer shows, virtually no one working today can make images as striking as Park's.

2. Southland Tales - Many of my favorite films have been described as self-indulgent messes, so I wasn't too wary when Southland Tales got savaged at Cannes. I'm increasingly less concerned with narrative coherence, instead interested in seeing moments of cinematic transcendence, and even the bad reviews concede this film offers those. Kelly's Donnie Darko is one of the best films ever, even though every re-edit and comment he makes about the film makes it sound like he has no idea why it worked in the first place. But, I still believe in him, this one sounds so over the top weird, I can't wait to see it. If Inland Empire showed us anything, it's that a three hour, barely narrative piece of directorial self indulgence can be utterly satisfying. Of course, Kelly isn't Lynch, so this one could really just be bad, but there's only one way to find out.

1. My Blueberry Nights - Wong Kar-Wai is the best film director of all time, he has redefined the way the medium can be used, inventing a totally different, more emotional, language for cinema. No one works like he does, and no one makes films like his. So, a new Wong Kar-Wai movie is an event. 2046 was a great closer to one part of his career, and My Blueberry Nights offers a lot of changes. The major one is that he's shooting in America, in English, with an American cast. I love the Hong Kong cityscapes his characters usually inhabit, but Happy Together worked well in Argentina, pushing WKW to even more visual experimentation. Perhaps shooting in America will do the same. An article I read about the shooting made it sound like this will have plenty of classic Wong Kar-Wai moments, though they're taking place in a Midwestern diner instead of a Hong Kong fastfood stand. He's got a fantastic cast, and the way he works, he seems to push people to their best work. And, it'll be great to have my first viewing of this movie in a theater instead of on an import DVD.

In addition to films, there's a few other things I'm eagerly awaiting.

True Blood - Alan Ball's work on Six Feet Under is some of the best writing ever, and I was thrilled to hear he's doing another HBO series. This one involves vampires. A supernatural conceit like this should allow him to mix things up a bit from Six Feet Under. Rarely do you see a TV auteur like Ball do a second series, primarily because a series uses up so much story, how much can one man have left? Clearly, SFU was very personal, and I'll be curious to see how the way he reimagines his trademark themes to fit in this new genre context. I'm not sure if the show will actually premiere this year, but whenever it starts up, I'll be there.

The Sopranos - More HBO, we're going to finally see the end of The Sopranos in April. There are a select group of TV shows that I consider to be in the pantheon, the absolute best series, and The Sopranos is the only one is still on the air. I'm really curious to see what happens in the final season, will Chase continue the lethargic, introspective style of the second half of the sixth season or will things rev up and end in fire? I'd guess it'll be more of a fade away than a burn out, but we'll see. Even when it's frustrating, there's no current show that can match it.

New Babylon 5 - I've still got a lot of material to go through, but I'm happy that JMS is doing some new stuff in the Babylon 5 universe. The direct to DVD format has been much discussed as an option for continuing cult shows with a small, but devoted fanbase. I would love to see the movies become wildly successful, and possibly open the door for the Buffyverse direct to DVD movies Joss wanted to do. He claimed it came down to a budget issue, so maybe some success here would inspire Fox to do an about face and fund those movies. Maybe it's been too long, but if Babylon 5 can return after eight years, why can't Buffy after only three?

Buffy Season Eight Comics - Speaking of Buffy, if we can't get DVD movies, at least there's something coming in. I'll be picking up a monthly comic again for the first time in a while. It's been too long since I spent time with these characters and I'm eager to see what they're up to. The preview pages indicate we're still in a season seven millieu, which doesn't thrill me, but I'm sure there'll be some great stuff in there as well. I don't know that a project like this has ever been attempted, a canon continuation of a series in comic book form by the original creators. I'm excited to see how it works.

Morrison/JH Williams Vertigo series - This one is the most hypothetical. In a recent interview, Grant said he was working on an original series for Vertigo with JH Williams on art. The two of them did amazing work on the two Seven Soldiers bookends, in the first creating an entire universe of believable characters and then destroying it in only thirty pages. The second was a hypercompressed pop speed pill, one of the most dizzying, awe inspiring single issues I've ever read. Morrison's projects are frequently riddled with artist problems, the few times all has gone well on art, as with Flex Mentallo, We3 or Kill Your Boyfriend, he's made masterpieces. The thought of JH on a long term project with Morrison is almost too much to handle, I just hope that it happens.

Babylon 5: 'Knives' and 'Confessions and Lamentations' (2x17 - 2x18)

These two episodes have some decent stuff in them, but generally feel like a break before the season revs up for the final run of episodes, in which we will finally see the moment when "the great war came upon us all." Having that statement in the opening credits, along with the image of the Shadow ship, has definitely affected the way I viewed the season. Early on, everything seemed to be buzzing around them, and I figured that the outbreak of the war was imminent. But, the Narn-Centauri conflict came up, and the Shadow story has stayed on the backburner. It's barely touched on in these two episodes, at this point we know pretty much all the background on them, the next step if for the Shadows to make themselves known and instigate a war that will engulf the galaxy.

For now, we continue to develop things slowly. The most interesting part of 'Knives' is Londo's storyline. Again, we see him dealing with the consequences of his search for power. First, I've just got to comment on how brilliant the picture of him in his quarters is. It's the ultimate representation of his ego, and can be used to show him as either a comic fool, or a menacing figure. It's a small thing, but adds another visual layer to all the scenes there.

To some extent, this story is a retread of what we've seen before. It's not news that Londo is power hungry, and that that hunger is distancing himself from everyone around him. What this episode adds is further evidence that Londo has chosen the wrong allies on all counts, with both Morden and Refa. Refa is clearly a devious figure, and I don't know that Londo is fully aware of that. Sometimes he seems totally lucid about the actions he's taken and other times you get the sense he thinks he's acting in the good, unaware that he's a puppet of these larger interests. I don't say that as a criticism, I think it's a great ambiguity, and ties in with the fact that he probably goes back and forth on that very issue.

Londo claims he is acting in the service of returning the Centauri to glory, but in the service of that goal, he is destroying the very proud tradition he hopes to restore. The two most noble Centauri we've seen are the Emperor and Urza, and Refa has acted to destroy them both. However, Londo has gone too far, and now must play out the consequences of his actions. It's tough to watch the scene at the banquet where he realizes that he must fight Urza. He thought it would be easy to manage his power, but he's now placed in an awful situation where he has to kill his friend.

The duel itself could have used a bit more pizazz, but the end was great. I like the fact that Urza went to the ship on a suicide mission, and Londo's eventual realization that this was so. He's drifting further into melancholy, as it becomes clear things aren't working out as he planned.

The story with Sheridan is a bit more obvious. The playing out of the story itself isn't particularly interesting, it was clear that Sheridan was having some kind of visions, transferred to him by this dead guy. Where it got interesting was in the final moments, where we find out Sheridan served as the host for some kind of time-traveling entity, and get our first followup on the mysterious appearance of Babylon 4. I feel like this story was meant to let us know that they haven't forgotten, that story is still in play, and presumably Babylon 4, with future Sinclair aboard, will return at some critical point in the story's future.

As with the Sheridan storyline in 'Knives,' the main story in 'Confessions' isn't that interesting as it plays out. The plague storyline isn't something particularly original and I feel like we've seen five episodes with Franklin desperately racing against time to cure some disease. I guess there's only so many stories you can do with the character, but I think we've seen the same behavior too many times now, there's got to be some payoff to his obsessive commitment to his work. Give him some negative consequences rather than just continue to tease that something bad might happen to him as a result of his work habits.

So, the actual playing out of the episode wasn't particularly notable, however, the ending worked very well. Much like 'Believers,' this episode sets up a typical TV problem and leads us to believe they've found a solution, only to pull everything out from under at the end and give the bleakest ending possible. The scene where they open the isolation area and find all the dead bodies was quite powerful, particularly Delenn's emotional breakdown. The fact that the entire race was wiped out, to no particular concern of most people, was a good capper. Perhaps it will be the knowledge that if he had only worked faster, he could have saved this race that will finally push Franklin over the edge.

Beyond the main story, the thing that left me wondering about this episode was Delenn's relationship with Sheridan. We've seen the two of them on a 'date' before, and now they do the same Minbari style. Her tearful embrace of John at the end was clearly more about the death of the Markab than anything else, but I definitely feel like something's going on between the two of them. I'm curious to see if the show will cross species lines with a relationship, the possibility is definitely there.

According to Keith, things intensify after episode 18, I'm very curious to see.

X-Factor and the Catastrophic Rebirth of Jean Grey

During my eight month readthrough Chris Claremont's original X-Men run, I bought Essential X-Factor. Now, I'd read some of the early X-Factor issues, and knew they weren't very good, but having so much new X-material at such a low price was too sweet an offer to resist. I didn't actually start reading the book until a couple of days ago, and it lives down to my expectations. Rarely have so many quality stories been rendered completely nonsensical in the service of setting up a book. Let us delve deeper.

The book begins with two issues that give us the retcon that allowed Jean Grey to return to life. Retconning is always tricky territory, for every William the bloody awful poet, a retcon that fit perfectly with what came before and brought a lot more depth to the character, you're going to get five nonsensical, story killing developments. Bringing Jean back was a bad idea from the start, the power of the Dark Phoenix, the reason it stands out so much in comic book history, was largely the ending, where a hero had to face up to the consequences of her actions, not just forget about them and do something new next month.

So, the retcon was destined to fail from the start, bringing Jean back, no matter what Marvel's party line would tell you, does numb a lot of the power of the original story. The primary theme of the Phoenix storyline is that power corrupts, infused with this cosmic spirit, Jean gradually loses touch with humanity and responsibility, she indulges in all her personal fantasies, with Jason Wyngarde, and then proceeds to treat the universe like a toy. Given such power, we see that anyone could give in to these impulses and become a monster. So, the Phoenix force is a neutral power, it takes its emotion from Jean. When that emotion is love, as in the initial crystal universe saving storyline, it can be a powerful force for good.

When she becomes corrupted however, the Phoenix force becomes too dangerous to exist. Jean herself is caught between the pleasure she gets from enacting her new power and the morality she held before. Her personality has been warped, but part of the original her is still in there, and she gains control for long enough to aim the laser at herself and die on the moon.

The retcon alters things so that the real Jean was locked in a cocoon under the ocean while the Phoenix moved around in an exact duplicate of her body. Now, they claim that the Phoenix was pure evil, but some of Jean's goodness fought through and caused the entity to destroy itself. This just makes no sense, why would the Phoenix fuse the M'Kraan Crystal and save the world if its nature was evil? And, it utterly invalidates the original story's point about the corruption of power, replacing it with the maudlin idea that Jean's goodness somehow shown through and forced the Phoenix to kill itself.

One of the problems with this ressurection of Jean is that she's not a particularly interesting character on her own. Like Scott, she has no edge, she's just someone who wants to do good. This is boring, Scott's most interesting time under Claremont was when he was getting into the relationship with Maddy Pryor. He knows he only likes her because she looks like Jean, but that doesn't stop him from going forward with the relationship. So, Scott at least has a little edge, Jean now returns to a boring, pre-developed state.

The major problem with X-Factor is that the original X-Men were generally boring characters. Claremont made X-Men the success it was, and he did so with his people, not these five. So, we've got a bunch of rather boring superheroes lumped onto a team with an absoultely ridiculous premise. The idea of them as undercover mutant hunters seems like it would only feed into prejudice, by making mutants seem devious and secretive. Now, I believe later in the series, they acknowledge that it was all a scheme by Cameron Hodge to undermine them, but at the time, it was clearly meant to be seen as a good thing. It is weird to see Cameron Hodge here, with a human body, not a giant spider thing.

The Jean rebirth was pretty poorly handled, but I think the greater crime of X-Factor #1 is what it does to Scott and Maddy's relationship. What happens here is that Scott finds out Jean is alive, promptly leaves his wife and son without any explanation and apparently has no plans to return to them, instead returning to superheroics. Now, there are some hints that Scott is uneasy about what he's doing to Madelyn, but the fact that he leaves his wife in that manner is pretty much unforgivable.

The book tries to makes us believe that it makes more sense for him to lead this team because he can do more good than he can as a husband, but that just doesn't click. He could be a superhero, and still have his wife and child with him, the real reason he goes to New York and joins the team is because he's still in love with Jean. There's something a bit creepy about Scott, who's been through so much, trying to restart a relationship with Jean, who's living in such a different world than him. I know the passage of time is screwy in the comics world, but emotionally, Scott has grown so much, beyond the sort of childish love that he and Jean once had. He may be able to have a relationship with her in the future, but it's wrong to try to be with her right out of the cocoon.

If you're positioning Scott as the hero of the book, it's a critical mistake to make him such a bastard right from the start. Now, I always have been a huge fan of Madelyn, her story is so sad, she'll always be second best to Jean in Scott's eyes. One of the best moments in Claremont's entire run is during Fall of the Mutants, right before Maddy is going to sacrifice herself to save the world, she tells Scott she still loves him. She took all the awfulness that was heaped on her, and still was ready to let herself die in service of a cause. What happened to her afterwards, in Inferno, was all justification to get Scott and Jean together without guilt.

Reading X-Factor, and the two other issues, made me appreciate just how far ahead of everyone else Claremont was. His emphasis on character growth and continual evolution was unlike anyone else, and a stark contrast to the conservatism inherent in the premise of X-Factor. His run on X-Men is one of the great achievements in serial storytelling, no matter how much Marvel screws with it through retcons like this.