Hello, friends!

This is your friendly neighbourhood Urban Spaceman, reporting in after… *checks last post*… nearly 2 years? Gosh, I didn’t think it had been that long! Tales of my demise, yadda yadda.

I recently received an email notification that my domain was up for renewal, and that I should cancel in advance if I didn’t want to fork out money for something I was no longer actively using. So I noted the email then forgot to do anything about it. Now, I’m glad for that.

Where exactly does an Urban Spaceman go when they aren’t conducting illegal scientific experiments on the lower-lifeforms most commonly known as “humans”? Some sort of hibernation? A cryo-pod on my ship to preserve my youth while time passes for homosapiens to allow me to observe the evolution of a sentient species?

Well, I’ve done a lot. And I’ve done nothing at all. I took a break from writing. Also somewhat from reading. I got a new job (can’t remember if that was something I mentioned before my absence) and another dog (briging the total up to 3). I failed to win the lottery several times, and am not currently living in a nice, remote mansion where I can collect dogs and spend my time doing nothing but writing.

But I’m healthy, I’m not homeless, and I have enough money to feed my dogs (and, usually, myself). And in the current political and financial climate, having health, a home and food is pretty good. It could be worse. For a lot of people, it is.

I thought for several days about how to make my gloriously underwhelming comeback. Write a short story or a poem? Give a detailed account of where I’ve been and what I’ve done? Post some cute dog pictures? Rant about the latest Star Wars movie? Publish one of the 12 posts I have sitting in my ‘drafts’ folder that I can barely recall writing 2 years ago and may have involved a lot of heavy use of alcohol?

I spun the wheel and it landed between ‘detailed account’ and ‘rant about Star Wars’. Now that the account I’ve given is detailed enough for everybody except my most fanatic of stalkers (of which I am also fortunate to have none!) I want to rant about Star Wars. Because there isn’t enough of that on the internet already, natch.

I could talk in depth about storytelling, pace, character development and how the sequel trilogy, despite its flaws, is still better than Attack of the Clones. I could touch on the things I think worked and didn’t work, the things I enjoyed and enjoyed less, or the annoying lack of continuity between the three films, and I could probably spend ten or twenty thousand words doing this.

Instead, I’m going to explain, very briefly, why The Rise of Skywalker is a movie that should not have happened. And I’m going to do it in a ‘choose your own adventure’ style manner. If you haven’t yet seen the movie, or the 40,000 youtube videos and interweb articles discussing it, and you don’t want to be spoiled, please avert thine eyes now.

You are an evil, semi-immortal intergalactic dictator who survived an attempted murder and spent the last 30 years secretly building up a massive fleet of unstoppable ships equipped with Death Star technology. Finally, after long years of plotting in the shadows, you are ready to launch your attack to conquer the unsuspecting galaxy and rule it forever with an iron fist. Do you:

Option 1: Launch all your ships immediately and head towards the first important inhabited planet. Use the power of your mighty fleet to destroy the planet as an example of your uncompromising might, then issue a warning that all other inhabited systems can fall in line and submit to your control or suffer the fate of Planet BoomBoom. Sit back and watch as your Machiavellian scheming comes to fruition and you crush any and all rebellion beneath your ancient but still stylish boot.

Option 2: Send out a warning to all across the galaxy, including the sneaky rebellion members who so effectively thwarted your previous attempt at galactic domination, warning them that they have an arbitrary time frame in which to capitulate or you will destroy them. Meanwhile, leave your fleet of upstoppable ships equipped with Death Star technology in the one place they are vulnerable; your planet’s weirdly dense atmosphere. Do not move your fleet to a more secure location, and entirely underestimate the cunning and determination of your old enemies, instead giving them ample time and opportunity to formulate and carry out a plan to bring about your downfall. Again.

If you selected option 1, then congratulations, you are the new updisputed ruler of the galaxy!

If you selected option 2, then you now have the premise of The Rise of Skywalker.

Remember how you shivered in A New Hope when Vader took Leia to Alderaan and forced her to watch the Death Star completely obliterate her entire home and the only family she’d ever known? What happened to our callous villains? What happened to common sense?

That’s why the entire movie should not have happened. It’s based on the premise that the most evil man in the galaxy, who schemed his way to power, slaughtered the Jedi (including the Younglings! Won’t someone think of the children?!) and was obsessed with extending his own power and life by any means necessary, is actually… well, kinda incompetent. Not some cruel military mastermind, but just another silly badguy for Our Heroes to defeat.

*yawn*

And with my rant over, I hope to get back to writing very soon. Feel free to direct me towards whatever flash fiction/fan fiction/poetry/drabble prompt is hip and cool today!