First Impressions | Star Wars: Episodes I-III

Hello there.

I never thought I’d be here to discuss anything to do with Star Wars, but here we are!

As of May 10th, I have completed five movies, and I needed a way to express my feelings out loud because Nolan isn’t, technically, old enough to watch the films yet. I’d like to say he was the reason I decided to watch them, but I can’t. I’ve always been curious about the newer movies and since Disney+ has a few series about the past and present stories of this drama–plus the mania that surrounded the “Baby Yoda” a couple of years ago!–I realized I needed to see what all of the fuss is about once in for all.

So, with this being sad, let’s get into my top five impressions from, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars, and Revenge of the Sith. I’ve recently watched Rogue One but will not talk about it in this post. I hope to do another on the next three films and finish with the latest movies as well.

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5. My Love for Jar Jar Binks is Infinite

When I started my SW journey, I knew any character(s) that were quirky in some way, would capture me almost immediately, and when Jar Jar Binks was introduced in the middle of the first film, I knew I was a goner! I really wish he was around the third film instead of that one little scene that he is walking in Padme’s funeral. I enjoyed his bubbly personality and in an odd way, he, R2-D2 and C-P30 reminded me of Hagrid in the Harry Potter series, because despite his big appearance, he is such a lovable guy, who has a different way of speaking to others.

4. Tatooine Looked Like Bedrock from ‘The Flintstones’

As I was watching all of the scenes that feature the desert planet Tatooine, I was always thinking in my head of how much it looked like Bedrock from the live action versions of The Flintstones! I didn’t understand my thinking about it at first, but then I started to pair different things up like the usage of little handmade huts, giant weird creatures, and the angry alien versions of Fred Flintstone.

3. Master Yoda Can Really Move

This one really threw me for a loop. but you’ll (hopefully) understand in a minute.

Ever since the “Baby Yoda” craze erupted all over the world, I did know he was sort of portrayed as an older character, whenever I did see scenes of any of the movies, I would notice he was either propped up by a crutch or sitting in a levitating chair of some kind, so imagine my reaction in the third film and he is just running around like crazy, I was very shocked but I know when your adrenaline kicks in, you can do almost anything with your body and mind. So, as he was fighting Count Dooku, I was taken back by the spirit of Yoda’s abilities.

Master Yoda is like every elderly man out there, and that includes my papaw, because even though he wasn’t the strongest–physical wise–he had a restless mind, and he definitely did not like to be told ‘no’ about anything. We knew he shouldn’t bend over to pick up a tissue he dropped on the floor when I was around, but I think he did it because to give us mini heart attacks, so Yoda basically abandoning his cane altogether was somewhat familiar to me. As a newbie to the universe itself, now I am wondering if he is merely hiding this on the account of being an older creature to the Jedi council or what actually happened to earn that type of battle wound, so I’m hoping as I continue on with my list, I will finally get my answer to this burning question.

2. Anakin & Padmé

Okay, let’s start at the beginning, where we meet a young Anakin Skywalker in his cute chubby cheeks and inventive mind on Tatooine. I absolutely adore this little cute from the start of the whole thing. I vaguely remember seeing promos from “The Phantom Menace” and thought he was adorable, but it wasn’t enough to check them out along with my peers. I thought superheroes were cooler for me!

Anyways, when you are introduced Queen Amidala, you automatically think “she looks like a geisha!” because that’s exactly what she looked like and then before heading out to Tatooine, we meet her most trusted handmaiden Padmé and she obviously looks young, I’d say around 14-16 years but compared to this little boy that seems to be around 10, you would hope they would be able to keep up with each other as friend, but then “Attack of the Clones” comes on and Anakin definitely has a crush on her and acts on it, kind of bothered me at first. I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to see happen between these characters, but I did not believe they should be a couple throughout the entire film.

1. The Origins of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia

I am still reeling by the events that happened in third film. Despite my feelings against the union, I did warm up to them and I didn’t realize how much I felt for Anakin and Padme as individuals until I got to the moment Anakin attacks the younglings at the Temple. I am surprised I didn’t believe in that change to Darth Vader after he killed Master Windu but once he walked into their room, my mind didn’t want to believe he’d kill them. This has happened before, and it was when it was revealed on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. about which side Agent Ward was really working for, and I had the same exact reaction where I didn’t want to believe it until I saw the person mentally and physically change into the enemy.

Sadly, it wasn’t until Obi-Wan was fighting Darth Vader, and he couldn’t allow himself to kill him, even though he saw the evidence of execution of the younglings and Master Windu, although there wasn’t footage of that scene, but it was absolutely heartbreaking hearing him groan and wail in pain as he’s being burned alive and seeing Padmé lose all hope for her little Anakin and the life they both desperately wanted for their little family, At the end, and Padmé gives birth and it is revealed to be two babies, who turn out to be Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, the former Queen dies, but while this is going on Anakin is essentially reborn as Darth Vader, and it really pulls at your heart and you can’t quite understand how it all went to hell so fast for them.

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I couldn’t believe how much I adored these early characters so much. You get a chance to see the beginning of the whole world that makes STAR WARS so special. However, since I chose to watch the films in order, and seeing the special effects between the original three movies against what CGI can do to films, might’ve been my downfall because I am currently at a crossroads because I cannot stand to watch anything past the mid 1990’s movie magic, so I’m not exactly going through the group as I was when I started this list. I’ll get there, but I wouldn’t exactly hope for another update until possibly the start of July!

If you are a fan of the STAR WARS franchise, do you have a favorite film and/or characters? I’d love to hear what everybody enjoys about the pandemonium below in the comments, but please do not tell me any spoilers, it’s bad enough I know Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker have heck of a meeting so, please be considerate of this newbie, okay?

The Book & Cookies Tag

Howdy!

One day I realized it had been a long time since I read some blog posts of some of my favorite people, and as I scrolled through the long list I found a really fun and interesting tag about books and cookies. Marie had published this on her blog last month and I thought her answers really great and I just thought it would be a great first post of 2019!

I had to write out all of the questions on my note pad so that I could basically memorize most of them and think of the answers while lying in bed watching a really awful Rockets game! We’re not going to go there! I hope everybody enjoys this and if you decide to do it too, please let me know because I’d love to know what kind of books you picked for each cookie!

Chocolate Chip – A Classic Book That You Love Or Really Enjoyed

Unfortunately, I haven’t read a lot of Classics, even when I was in school, we rarely read anything which now is a bit of a bummer because I feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting books and lectures, but my teacher wasn’t the type to read the kind of classics I’d like to read nowadays.

However, when I was a junior I took a Novels class and we read three classics. The one I loved the most was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It was the first book we read and it’s been the one to last the longest in my mind. I could understand Victor for the fact that he was seeking attention from his father and the love of his life, by doing something that was seemingly impossible and criminal to do. In 2016, I got to learn the origins of how Mary came up with this beloved Gothic story, and I think all that did was make me fall in love with the story even harder!

Thin Mints – A Fandom That You Really Want To “Join” and/or A Hyped Up Book You Want To Read

I’ve noticed that every book I read, I’m usually one year or in some cases 10 years after its original release and you miss everything that the rest of the speedy readers of the fandom have been able to enjoy. A part of me isn’t as upset about it, but since I have found my love for the Harry Potter, Red Queen, and To All Of The Boys I’ve Loved Before books, I feel like I’ve been left out again but instead of it being the other person’s fault. This one is all me. I feel like I am apart of their fandoms, I just don’t voice it out loud very often.

Now for the hyped up book though. I’ve tried my hardest to get into Paula Hawkins’s The Girl On The Train novel and I just cannot get into it. However, if I were to decide to say “screw it” and watch the movie without picking it up again, I would probably enjoy the movie because I have been loving suspense-thriller type of films lately! It’s really hard to explain why these two sections have different results, I’ve never been able to solve the mystery.

Shortbread – An Author You Can’t Get Enough Of

This is really difficult to answer because I’ve only read a handful of books with sequels. I know that’s not exactly the question, but I guess my favorite author is Olivia Cunning.

If you want a book that is in the exotica genre but not as “degrading” as Fifty Shades, I would suggest you check out Olivia Cunning’s books. She writes about rockstars! The series that I love the most is the Sinners On Tour and I’ve always been torn between Trey and Jace being my favorite male characters. I have a soft spot for the both of them! Olivia has been working on another series/band, called Exudes End and I have read one of the novellas and I didn’t like it as much but I want to give it another try as we get to see what’s happened with Trey and his ménage à trois with Reagan and Ethan.

Somoas – An Emotional Rollercoaster

This was the easiest one of the bunch, because it’s tie between The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and Me Before You by JoJo Moyes.

I find it a little odd, although it definitely didn’t surprise me that these would be the ones I’d chose because I bawled my eyes out for the both of them. Since they discussed real disability issues, it would have an effect on me but I didn’t know how bad until I got to the stuff I have, myself, have thought about, like leaving a legacy and contemplating suicide. I wish I could say, I didn’t cry as hard while watching the films as I did reading those heartbreaking senses, but I did and I’m not ashamed to admit that it got me twice!

Oreos – A Book Whose Cover Was Better Than The Story Or Vice Versa The Story Was Better Than The Cover

Unfortunately, I am the type of person that does judge a book by its cover. However, I am still very picky with the stories no matter what the cover looks like, because I’ve seen some gorgeous front covers but the stories were not my cup of tea, like Melissa de la Cruz’s The Ring And The Crown. I thought was cover for both editions were absolutely beautiful but the actual story was a nightmare. I never finished reading it because it was such a let down for me.

The only cover that I feel like was perfect to the theme was Nikki Sixx’s photography book called This Is Gonna Hurt. The cover is very dark and mysterious; it was exactly what I wanted to see for this type of book. He tends to like a lot of different oddities, and thinks the ugliest of things are the most beautiful of all. He was trying to give you a different perspective of things and I loved it!

Peanut Butter Patties – A Book That Wasn’t What You Expected

I think we all have our expectations of what a certain is going to be like, sometimes we’re right with our assumptions and other times we’re not. I’m always in the middle of the pack when it comes to thinking about where a book is going to go, but I do try to keep an open mind as much as possible!

I had decided to read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher while the first season of the show was on Netflix. My sister had bought the book after she completed the series, which I thought was strange, so after she was through with it, I asked if I could have it next to see what all of the fuss was about and I had heard of what it dealt with and I was both curious and shocked by it. However, when I started reading it and learning about the significance of each character and what made Hannah Baker want to take her own life. I felt bad for both Hannah and Clay, he about broke my heart in half with his sweet personality, but I carried on because I wanted to know more, but once I was finished with the book I made the decision to not watch the series. The book was enough for me.

Snickerdoodles – A Book You May Never Stop Loving or Re-reading

Well, since I hardly ever re-read a book, I can’t answer the last bit, but I love a lot of books. I love my historical books–they’re my babies, but weirdly enough my beloved stories, would probably be counted as short stories or novellas? They are The Last Leaf by O Henry and The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I read both of them while I was in high school. They both have really interesting plots and I’ve never been able to forget them and I’ve been out of school for close to 10 years!

So what did you think of this tag? Have you read any of books I’ve shared with you today? Hope you all enjoy your first day of the new year too!   

An Ode To My Pokemon Days

Howdy!

Today’s post is going to be a little different. Technically, a part of me wanted this to be written like my non-Disney posts because what we’re going to be discussing is definitely not Disney related by any means! However, I have a lot of stories to tell that I think you will love to hear, my sister will want to yell at me afterwards, but I’m willing to take the risk anyways!

Blondie and I grew up in the 90’s; since we were somewhat close in age, we liked some of the same things, but she was also my shadow in a way, learning off of me and what I did, which in a way is a little weird, but the fact that I’m the one that taught her to write her name in both print and cursive before she entered the grade where they teach kids to do that!

Anyways, as I was getting on into my teenage years, we were both discovering things in different directions, but one thing that we seemed to like a lot was Pokemon. Later on, I actually started to explore Digimon, because I thought Blondie was just obsessed with Ash and Pikachu, that I felt I didn’t want to take over what she liked, funnily enough, my mindset for that is actually a reason why I don’t want to dive back into rap music again. That’s her thing and I just don’t want to overstep on what she likes.

Anyways, when we were little, this was the one thing that we both loved. However, I think she went a little overboard with it. She was in preschool when we started watching it, and she made everybody call her “Ash” and she would dress up and act like she was going to go on this big adventure to become a Pokemon trainer at probably six years old! One Halloween, she and I dressed up in our favorite characters. She was Pikachu and I was Charmander. Now we went trick-or-treating at my nana’s house and this was a time where our grandparents had a screen door that had a smaller window on the door itself and I’m not kidding when I say, another kid in a Pikachu costume came up to the door and she and this kid were acting like mimes, they were so happy to see each other like whenever Pikachu finds others like him on the show!

I recently started watching the very first season, I guess it’s called Indigo League and it’s weird as crap that there are episodes that I seriously remember so vividly! Apparently in that one season, there are roughly 52 episodes and I did not realize that until I went scrolling down through the description. I’m hoping one day I’ll be able to actually finish it, because I think I missed it. Now that I’m older and can be hormonal, some scenes have made very sad. The episode we’re introduced to Caterpie got me big time. I literally couldn’t finish the rest of the episode because I knew it would eventually make cry!

Last year, there was a really fun chat on Twitter called #nerdybloggers and unfortunately, we don’t have it anymore, but this one theme has been ringing off and on in my head because I think it would be a fun post to do and I know it would make other people that read my blog remember enjoying Pokemon, whether it was playing the games, watching the shows or movies, and even collecting all of the movies throughout their childhood, so better late than never that I decide to do this now!

Since I’m part of the earlier generation, I only picked the ones that were on the original 150 Pokemon, or at least I tried to! I know there are people who would probably say they wanted to be water Pokemon trainers or whatever. Apparently, mine was always based off if they were adorable or not.

Celebi, Eevee, Mew, Jiggypuff, Pichu, Vulpix, Caterpie, Butterfree, Pidgey, Ninetales, Persian, Growlithe, Rapidash, Dewgong, Horsea, Goldeen, Staryu, Jolteon, Moltres, Chikorita, Teddivrsa

Now that I’ve listed my favorites, I want to know which ones you liked! Oh, and since I said I liked Digimon, would you like another post about that too?

 

What The Vampire Diaries Taught Me

Howdy!

It’s been a whole year since the final season of The Vampire Diaries aired on The CW. I haven’t accepted it fully, mostly because we still have The Originals for the time being, and as it was just announced a last month that Hope Mikealson will get her own show called Legacies with Matt Davis, as he was on the banner with the older “Hope” played by Danielle Rose Russell! So that’s all exciting that we’re going to get another TVD spin-off soon!

Today’s post was inspired by a meme I saw on Pinterest, literally stating “what TVD taught me” with what the general fan base could agree with, so I wanted to play off of that idea and come up with my own. If you loved the shows, because even though I’ve only put “TVD” on the title/banner above, we do have to include TO in there too!

6. ) You may or may not have a doppelganger out there!

Before this show, I never really heard of the word “doppelganger” and now that’s it’s over, I actually hear and see it frequently online and other shows! It’s actually started a weird obsession that I now have, where I’ve gone on different sites to see exact replicas of people, mostly celebrities throughout history! It’s actually fun but also strange too, but they are so dead on with facial expressions and alignments too.

One of my favorite seasons of TVD was season two, we got to dive into the history of Katherine Pierce and why she and Elena look so alike, and how the both of them have the Salvatore brothers under their spells. No pun intended. I also feel after this happened, that should have prepared us for season four and eventually meeting “Tatia” in an episode of TO! We have officially met all four doppelgangers of “Amara” and then on top of that, we met “Silas” who just so happened to be Stefan’s doppelganger and we met other smaller versions of his distant relatives too. It was cool.

5. ) Nobody ever dies.

I know a lot of people will think this probably should be #1 but I had others that I felt as though they needed to be higher on the list.

Nobody ever dies on either show, and if they have died, their character has been brought back in some form, like in a dream or flashback. It’s always these two moments though that can create the most tears though! Only a couple of people have actually came back in living form, which had better consequences for them then the first time around! My favorites were: Grams, Alaric, Lexi, Katherine, and Liz of course! And we have to admit, nobody can say they are the top of this phrase, but Mama Salvatore! She was the best surprise of them all, even if her introduction scared the living shit out of me!

4. )  It’s hard to resist.

One thing that I’m really missing on my TV screen are the scenes with Mr. Tyler Lockwood. I will admit, I hated that character during the first season, but once Uncle Mason showed up and Tyler broke his werewolf curse, I started crushing on him hardcore. His death about killed me!

We’re just going to continue confessing up some things on this post. Matt Donavon! Oh. My. God. Again, this was another character that I never meshed well in the beginning, actually if I’m being honest, there’s been many times where he aggravated me, but who can deny his baby blue eyes! Everybody had a thing for Damon, which yes, I did too, but to me Matty is the true blue eyed boy that all of the girls loved!

And we can’t forget about the ladies. Hell, I’d be pissed off at myself for not saying anything about the women of both TVD and TO. So let’s discuss Anna first, yes, I thought she was very pretty. I could understand why Jeremy had the hots for her in season one and two. Hayley, was another favorite, I mentioned her on my top hottest vampire diaries and originals characters post, and I still love her to pieces! Her character just continued to get better and better!

3. )  You need a good bourbon on hand for any occasion!

There are scenes, especially in the early seasons where you could literally play a drinking game of whenever Damon (or Stefan) grabbed a bottle and a glass, everytime he took a sip, you would too! Thankfully, I wasn’t 21 during that time frame so I never could join in with some crazy, hardcore fans on that little adventure! My emotions were already messed up as it is, I did not need alcohol to cope, I’d prefer ice cream to be quite honest with you!

2. ) It doesn’t matter if it’s one witch or a dozen, don’t mess with them!

I think if there’s one thing we’ve learned from both shows, is that do NOT mess a witch. I think between the Gemini coven during season five and the addition of the dead New Orleans witches were probably the strongest group of characters. I’ve always loved Bonnie. I think she’s one of the most underrated people on the series, but the storylines of where these two covens belong in their respected shows was very neat.

I think being able to put Kai into another world and then as Kai went on to kill Jo, her family went on to basically give their lives to safe the lasting reminder of their coven. So they transferred the twins into the only living (or in this case, un-living) thing they could, Miss Caroline Forbes. Even if that whole plot was designed to hide Candice King’s real life pregnancy, it was still unbelievable considering what we just watched beforehand; out of all that bad was this miracle.

And then you have the influence of the NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) witches after they’re dead and gone, you knew that once they brought back both Celeste DuBois (season 1) and Esther (season 2) you know they had a bigger story to the mix and when Davina destroyed the control that the Ancestors had over not only her, as they didn’t like her one bit, but the other witches.

1. ) Don’t break a brother’s heart.

This kind of goes with the doppelganger point I made earlier. Before Elijah and Niklaus showed up in Mystic Falls during season three, we thought the only sob story was the fact that Katherine used both Stefan and Damon’s affections against them. I know Damon gave Stefan a lot of shit for being the reason he killed/fed on his first victim, thus turning him into a vampire afterwards.

When the whole story of why Katherine became a vampire in the first place, everything started to make sense. She was also flirting her ass off to the Mikaelson brothers as well! I find it hilarious that one of those brothers wasn’t Kol. I feel like he would have been a better candidate since he was pure evil, I just want to clarify this suggestion is prior to meeting Davina! Anyways, I think it’s fair to say that Klaus never really fell in love with Katherine, he just wanted to use her as part of breaking the Sun and Moon curse, but we can say he dived all in as much as Damon did. He loved Katherine, he would do anything for her, obviously, but I don’t think there was anything else to expect out of Damon then destruction after she confessed that she never loved him.

After I finished writing and scheduling this, I accidentally went through my other vampire related blog posts I’ve done, and it’s shocking how many of these I’ve done since the beginning of The Vampire Diaries in general! I really do miss the show, but I have the first two seasons on DVD and I know both series are on Netflix so if I ever decide to create it as “Vampire Day” I can, well.. when it decides to work again!

What are some things you learned on both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals? What do you miss the most about now that TVD is over? Who were your favorite characters too?

 

Life Lessons From “The Big Bang Theory”

Howdy!

We all have movies and/or television shows that we all know and love dearly, but have we ever been so inspired by them that we start to see life lessons within them? The answer is yes, but we’re not always open about it.

Sometime last year, The Big Bang Theory became one of the biggest shows for my family. My nana started watching it every once in a while, but it was when my mom started to watch it on accident. You know if one likes the show, the other will follow and he definitely did not disappoint. My dad loves this freaking show! It’s enough to actually creep somebody out too, because you could think he was in bed asleep until he hear him cackle up a storm! And sometime afterwards I followed suit and now I am making my way through the episodes on our DVR!

So I was wondering whether or not, if there are any life lessons with this exact show and surprisingly, there are a few of them! I hope you all enjoy this and if you have any more to add, let me know in the comments!

1.) Patience Exists.

For anybody who believes that “patience is virtue” you know I’m right about this when it comes to the characters of The Big Bang Theory!

Crazy enough, every single character has experienced it throughout the lives on the show! For example, Leonard and Penny, hello! He asked her to marry him a total of four times (some in awkward situations!) but she always told him no and then finally they get married in Las Vegas! This also works for Howard and Bernadette as well, as Howard was always the creepy, sexual friend of the four of them! You did not think he’d be the first to be married off, but he was!

Another way this works is Raj, he could not talk to women in the beginning. Poor guy having to rely on Howard to voice his hilarious comments whenever Penny or any other woman was in the room.  Thankfully, he’s finally able to discuss things in front of women and even found a girlfriend or two, once at the same time!

2.) Alcohol Is Always Needed!

To add to the last bit above, I watched the episode where Penny learns how to be a mixologist for her job at the Cheesecake Factory, and she makes drinks for all of the guys (except Sheldon of course!) and when she makes Raj a grasshopper, the poor man only has one sip before he just spills his emotions out to her which freaks everybody out, Penny included! I think she was more shocked than anything else!

I think there are a lot of people who hate how Penny is drinking in almost every episode but we also have to understand that if she didn’t have the alcohol she would have slugged Howard a long time ago!

3.) Change Is Good (No matter what Sheldon thinks!)

This is also another biggie as Sheldon is known to hate change in all forms! However, I think overtime he’s slowly seen that “good” change exists as the idea for finding a possible mate for him could have been a hit and miss until he met Amy Farrah Fowler.

Once he realized he was in a relationship with her, I think you slowly see a change in him. He’s still pretty selfish when it comes to everything, but he does seem less annoying whenever she’s around! I mean, let’s be honest nobody thought he was going to have coitus or move in with her but those were good and necessary changes to be made for him as an individual.

4.) You Are Not Ugly!

I think one of the biggest messages on the show is that people who are engineers, scientists, physicists, etc are just as attractive as anybody else! There’s more to them then they’re big paychecks.

I think besides the guys, both Bernie and Amy have very classic style compared to Penny. I’m still trying to figure out how Bernie’s choice of clothes isn’t as big of a topic than Amy. However, in defense of Bernadette, Amy does look like somebody in the 1950-60’s, which is totally fine. I mean, if it doesn’t bother Sheldon than everybody can go suck it!

5.) Nerds Rise!

Thanks to the never-aging characters of the show, anybody can be able to be a nerd freely. Unfortunately, I’m not into the comics but I love how much of the nerd community is represented. You hardly ever see comic book stores anymore and this show has them! You see how important some of these comics are to the characters. I still don’t think I’d ever risk one during a bet, ever! The reason why is it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, somebody will likely forget they even have it in their possession.

I love the episode where the girls go to the comic book store just to see why they’re significant others are so interested in them. I chose the gif above because Penny’s reaction to Thor is an equivalent’s to any man looking at a cover of a mutant woman with huge breasts.  Good luck telling me I’m wrong!

Are you a fan of The Big Bang Theory? Who are your favorite character(s)? Can you tell me a scene that makes you laugh every single time?

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