Ronan_Shepherd Reviews

Reimagining Safety (2023)

A biased and shortsighted wasted of any activist's time.

[1/10 · 17 April 2024]

This film is simply profiteering in the wake of George Floyd's killing. It wastes your time with emotionally manipulative, racially charged, and ultimately divisive content that fails to address the widespread and indiscriminate reality of police abuse and corruption.

The film has a microscopic focus on racially motivated problems and invokes the memory of George Floyd. All while conveniently leaving out names like Linden Cameron, Hunter Brittain, Edward Bronstein, Zachary Hammond, Keith Vidal, Kelly Thomas, Ryan Bolinger, Tony Timpa, Duncan Lemp, Ryan Whitaker, or Daniel Shaver.

The "experts" are anything but, all you have to do is listen and laugh. They openly admit that "rehabilitative justice reform" will result in dangerous criminals getting out sooner and harming people. Multiple times throughout they include sex workers, drug users, and even drug dealers while talking about abuses faced by actual protected classes like Black people, indigenous people, people with disabilities, etc.

The ultimate conclusion of "prison abolition" and the idea of sending social workers out on police work is a pipe-dream, band-aid, non-solution that does nothing to address the street-level abuses on display in this very "documentary". Nor does it address the abject cowardice shown at Uvalde or frankly any other form of real police corruption.

Our laws need to be rewritten. From departmental guidelines everywhere, to state and federal law, to the precedents established in Warren v. District of Columbia, Deshaney v. Winnebago County, and Castle Rock v. Gonzalez.

Our police forces need to be completely rebuilt from top to bottom under those new guidelines. Everything discussed in this biased and racially motivated film is ultimately a misguided waste of time.

(Also worth noting the otherwise perfect 10s here and on RT. This film is being astroturfed.)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

An offensively bad affront to Tolkien.

[1/10 · 7 September 2022]

Worse than expected, which shouldn't have been possible. Every single aspect of the show is just wrong. The timeline has been "compressed" meaning that literal thousands of years are now crammed into roughly a single human lifetime. Characters have been relocated in the world and the timeline, and others have been "adapted" into entirely new characters. Entire arcs have been discarded and others wholly invented.

Simply put, this is not Galadriel, this is not the Second Age, and this is not Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It may as well not be called Lord of the Rings. Worse still, even if you remove every reference to Middle-Earth, you'd still have a fantasy show more incompetent and less coherent than the 8th season of Game of Thrones. The costumes are terrible when compared with contemporary shows like House of the Dragon, and the CGI pales in comparison to Peter Jackson's LOTR films 20 years later. In fact every single aspect of this series is a step backward compared to 20 years ago.

Halo (2022– )

An abjectly offensive dumpster fire that insults the intelligence of anyone watching it.

[1/10 · 7 September 2022]

Terrible casting, terrible effects, and somehow even worse writing. This is a flaming dumpster fire of abject nonsense from people who clearly have no concept of the Halo franchise whatsoever.

None of the plot points follow established lore, nor are they even internally consistent within the show alone. The characters are radically different and are entirely worse off for it. Nearly everyone is so unlikable that you'll end up rooting for the enemy, who are handled just as badly I might add.

There is no payoff or justification for these changes, no improvement whatsoever to the story or even it's accessibility to broader audiences. Everything about this show is done poorly and to the detriment of the franchise, the story, and the viewer whether they are a Halo fan or not.

Game of Thrones (2011–2019)

Phenomenal television with a bitterly disappointing end.

[6/10 · 7 September 2022]

This show is amazing, make no mistake. The costumes, the set design, the blended use of CGI and practical effect are all phenomenal and well above anything on TV before. The actors as well are top-notch with nearly everyone excelling in their role, or at least coming into it quickly.

The first 4 seasons are nearly flawless. They are equal parts dramatic, enjoyable, horrific, and ultimately fun. I would give them 8-9 stars.

Season 5-6 are a bit rougher, the writers have less book to go off of and it shows. That said they still manage to build on the previous seasons in a satisfying and entertaining way. I would still give them a solid 7 stars.

Season 7 is like watching a window shatter in slow motion, at first you can only see the cracks and they're small. The plotlines get a little less logical, things happen inorganically because the story demands it, and characters start to feel a lot more shallow and/or different. I would give this season 5 stars at best.

Season 8, the window has shattered and now there are glass shards flying at your face. Everything here is an unmitigated trainwreck. The characters feel like caricatures, the pacing is awful, and the choices both in the show and in the writer's room are baffling and at times offensive. It's a painful and frankly stupid end to an otherwise entertaining story. I would give this season 1 star.

All in all it's good, but held back from being great by one of the worst endings in storytelling.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2020)

Amazing storytelling, this elevates a cartoon to art.

[9/10 · 7 September 2022]

Absolutely phenomenal show. With few exceptions every episode is entertaining, whether it's comedic or dramatic. The characters really come alive which is a credit to the voice actors and animators alike.

It of course goes through some growing pains, but it builds on it's failures. Character's grow and deepen with time. The storytelling gets grittier the further into the Clone Wars we go. It manages to hit realistic tones and an emotional pitch one simply would not expect from an animated child friendly television show.

The finale especially manages to be an amazing, sincerely painful, and ultimately beautiful piece of art.

The Mandalorian (2019– )

Surprising solid and very fun.

[8/10 · 7 September 2022]

Great show, really feels like Star Wars again. Set design, costumes, and use of practical effects are all quite well done.

Casting is very good, with Pedro Pascal, Giancarlo Esposito, and Gina Carano standing out. Although the addition of Rosario Dawson is a really poor choice, she has none of the personality of the character she's portraying and her entire time onscreen is just grating. Everyone else performs adequately or better.

It goes through an interesting and satisfying overarching plot for the season, with each episode featuring it's own self-contained plot. While some episodes can be a little weak, they are almost all great fun.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

A tragic waste of Ewan and Hayden.

[3/10 · 7 September 2022]

A sad, sad misstep in the franchise. This series is the illogical story of an unlikable Inquisitor who survives not one but two completely unbelievable fatal wounds, wholly fails to accomplish any of her goals, commits various atrocities, attempts to torture and murder children, and somehow gets a "redemption" arc that amounts to not murdering one kid.

Obi-wan is relegated to being a side character in his own series. He spends the show babysitting an annoying young Leia who is both way too smart or way too stupid for her age depending on the scene. All while leaving Luke unattended on Tatooine with an Inquisitor known to be nearby. It's illogical, it's badly written, and frankly has far less to do with Kenobi than is fair for a show bearing his name.

Of course Ewan and Hayden are amazing and they do the do the best with what they're given. The sets and costumes are great, and it really does feel like Star Wars, at least until a literal child survives being impaled by a known blademaster with a lightsaber, and then again as an adult while fighting the same blademaster.

I wish I could rate it higher, I really do.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

A cinematic disaster that wholly fails to justify it's own existence and that of the trilogy as a whole..

[1/10 · 7 September 2022]

A tragic culmination of the flaws of the previous 2 films. Whether due to his own lack of imagination, studio meddling, or the previous abomination that Rian Johnson directed, JJ Abrams has wholly and utterly failed to deliver a satisfying end to this abysmal trilogy.

The storyline is a nonsensical mashup of bad original concepts and stolen ideas, the writing itself is hamfisted, and the climax is a laughable double ex-machina. The main plot point of the film is directly lifted from a 1991 comic series call Dark Empire, except the film did it badly. It comes off like a fan fiction story with a hollywood budget.

Any praise I could lay upon the actors themselves was wasted by the director and producers. Ultimately this film (and the Trilogy as a whole) is confusing, unsatisfying, anti-climactic, and wildly inconsistent with the original 6 films.

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

A truly terrible film.

[1/10 · 7 September 2022]

A confused and inconsistent waste of potential. Everything wrong with Episode 7 dialed up to 11, and then turned on it's head for good measure.

Whereas JJ Abrams may be a wholly mediocre director unworthy of the franchises he's involved in, Rian Johnson is a talentless hack whose contribution to this franchise could be described as an offensive dumpster fire at best, and frankly comes off more like an intentional act of vandalism against the SW universe itself, the fanbase, and even JJ Abrams' previous milquetoast entry.

The only positive elements are again the performances of the OT actors, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaacs. Even then, the writing and directing is simply so bad as to be unworthy of the actors or their characters.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

Mediocre at best, but with potential.

[4/10 · 7 September 2022]

A poorly written and wholly mediocre attempt at Star Wars, although not without potential. A basic rehash of Episode 4 with bits of the other films sprinkled in.

Daisy Ridley while talented falls short of her role, she comes off as awkward and stilted and somehow still cocky and overconfident. The juxtaposition of her relative skill with her outward attitude makes unlikable at best and unbelievable at worst. She and her character have plenty of room for growth though.

John Boyega on the other hand is wholly out of place. His character is an uninteresting waste of screentime, made worse by an almost childish performance that has no place in AAA cinema.

Only the performances of the OT actors, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaacs save this from being an entirely unenjoyable film.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

A surprising Gem in the Franchise.

[8/10 · 7 September 2022]

A stunning entry in the franchise, which frankly comes as a massive shock following Disney's previous entries in the franchise. This film manages to rewrite the EU canon in a satisfying way that up to this point was inconceivable from modern Star Wars writers and producers.

The casting is great, the acting is on-point, the effects are generally phenomenal, and the use of practical effects really grounds it in the OT Era. The setting of the final battle is gorgeous, both in it's landscape and the Imperial Installations. The space battle is phenomenal with extremely creative tactics combined with awesome cinematography.

Darth Vader is the most menacing he's ever been on screen. The finale hits the best emotional pitch since ESB and ROTS. Even the CGI de-aging while imperfect is satisfying enough to justify it's inclusion.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Shallow and Disappointing

[4/10 · 6 September 2022]

This is a reasonably well acted film, with decent modern effects and solid set design. It does feel more or less like Star Wars most of the time. But that's about the nicest I can be.

It's story is brought down by poor writing, the actors are wasted on inconsistent characterization, and the shallow fan-service gets zero payoff. It's campy in a non-SW way, and at times tries to extract drama from inorganic situations.

The side plot with the droid L3 is a terrible misuse of screentime that had me literally bust out laughing at it's nonsensical conclusion. It was a moment the director clearly intended to be somber and emotional but failed on every level and came off as a comedic waste of an "arc".

It's nowhere near the worst of the Disney SW films, but it is still nothing more then a mediocre mess of wasted potential ultimately unworthy of the franchise.