'The Last Jedi': The Only Review You Need to Read

Originally published December 15, 2017.

Alert: Incoming spoilers. Like, your cruisers can't repel spoilers of this magnitude. Shields up!

I walked out of The Last Jedi thinking, This movie is going to be polarizing. I came home and checked Twitter, which only confirmed that suspicion. There were plenty of people saying Last was the best Star Wars movie they’d ever seen, but there were also plenty of people expressing their frustration or disappointment.

Which am I?

I loved it. Mostly.

A few flaws aside, director Rian Johnson has boldly gone where no Star Wars has gone before, to use a line that I totally made up myself for this occasion and obviously didn't steal from a less exciting sci-fi franchise. Does it falter a little along the way? Yes. Is the ride still thrilling? Of course.

So let’s talk about how the movie works best: as a brilliant subversion of The Empire Strikes Back. Remember when The Force Awakens came out and the primary criticism was that it followed the story beats of A New Hope a bit too closely? Last plays with the expectations that it would do the same with Empire. You go in thinking it’s going to go a certain way, but as a rain-sodden Luke says halfway through the movie, “This is not going to go the way you think.”

Prime example: the scene with Kylo Ren and Rey in Snoke’s throne chamber after that awesome part where they dispatched Snoke’s elite guards. Kylo reaches out to Rey, quickly establishing the parallels between this scene and the famous “I am your father” scene from Empire.

“Join me,” Kylo says. He beckons to Rey, offering to tell her the truth of her parentage. What’s he about to say? Maybe “I am your brother”? “I am your cousin”? After years of speculating on Rey’s parentage, we’re about to get a dramatic revelation.

Her parents were nobodies.

Wait, what?

I can see why some people would be underwhelmed, or feel the revelation is anticlimactic if you spent two years really wanting her to be the child of Han and Leia or Luke or Obi-Wan, but it’s brilliant, because it subverts your expectations and throws away the cliché that you have to be related to someone to be significant. Star Wars invented—or at least popularized—that cliché in 1980, but these days you can’t do it anymore without it feeling totally rote. So The Last Jedi dispensed with it, and it did so brilliantly.

But wait! Star Wars is all about the Skywalker family, so Rey should be a Skywalker. Well, maybe. But the franchise is also about the Skywalker legacy. The end of the movie established that the future is all about the legend of the Luke Skywalker and the legacy he left behind. Rey may not be a Skywalker by blood, but she’s the heir to the Jedi and everything inherent in the Skywalker name. I’m sure some people will still harbor a desperate need for Rey to be related to somebody—anybody!—but that’s a theme that The Last Jedi conveys brilliantly: that you don’t need to be from some magical dynastic space lineage to make a difference.

That’s not the end of the subversion of expectations. Rey ventures into a mysterious nexus of dark side energy, just like Luke did in the tree-cave on Dagobah in Empire, and we think she'll learn some mystic truth about her parentage. But guess what—instead she receives the seeds of a harder truth: that her path lies forward, not backward, and she needs to let go of her need for answers about her past (much like many fans, I imagine).

It goes on from there. The good guys don’t blow up the giant laser at the end. Vice Admiral Holdo, initially presented as a bureaucratic impediment to hotshot Poe Dameron, goes out with the audience rooting for her. (Man, that part was cool.) Benicio Del Toro’s shifty character shows he's just in it for the money and leaves, just like Han Solo, but he doesn’t have a change or heart and come back just in time to save the day. There was so much subversion going on that I was kinda expecting the Resistance to break out the tow cables and grappling hooks at the end to try to take down the First Order walkers, only to have that fail miserably.

I understand why some people might not like the departure from the norm. There are certain conventions that come with a Star Wars movie, and you might be understandably upset if the movie doesn’t deliver those things. (Remember the freakout when Rogue One eschewed the opening crawl?) The gray area between retreading old steps and striking out into uncomfortably new territory is not very wide, but I’d rather err on the side of innovation.

And killing off Snoke? Bold and exciting. He was always less compelling of a character than Kylo Ren to me (basically, he's just an Emperor wannabe in a fabulous gold bathrobe), so killing him to further Kylo’s storyline works for me. I’m sure people will be disappointed that the movie didn’t reveal that he was Darth Plagueis in disguise (this was always a terrible theory and you're silly if you believed it) or Grand Admiral Thrawn after a really bad plastic surgery job or just a bunch of porgs stacked up in a trenchcoat. But answers are often not as interesting as the mystery itself, and I’m sure the canon will reveal his backstory someday. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing more people’s ridiculous Snoke theories.

The plot wasn’t the only area where The Last Jedi tried something new. It also introduced storytelling elements you don’t see in the other Star Wars films: off-camera narration (with Rey in the cave), Rashflashbacks (the same scene in Luke’s old Jedi temple told three times, each slightly differently in a Rashomon style), slow- and fast-motion shots, and an epilogue not featuring any of the main characters.

People were annoyed that The Force Awakens played it safe, giving us a well-crafted story that we’d nevertheless seen before. Now The Last Jedi shies away from franchise conventions, and some people still aren’t happy. There’s just no pleasing everyone.

There were other things I really liked as well. Several scenes had me cheering in my seat. Kylo Ren kills Snoke via telekinetic bisection, then teams up with Rey to fight Snoke’s guards! Vice Admiral Holdo jumps a whole freaking cruiser through a Star Destroyer! Luke drops the mic when it’s revealed he’s been on the island all along! The movie gave us a lot of visually striking imagery—like the last bomber disappearing into the fiery conflagration of the First Order dreadnaught, the dramatic crimson flares of the Resistance craft as they streak toward the attacking walkers, and Luke's final sunset. The opening battle was thrilling and funny (despite the fact that everyone involved was kinda incompetent, I'll admit), and John Williams’ score delivered. (Everyone, please pray that 85-year-old Williams survives to score the last movie in the trilogy, at least.)

That’s not to say the movie was perfect. It has its share of flaws. Some of them may have been the director’s fault, and some of them are probably the results of the iron will and rapacious greed of the evil Empire Disney. They are, in no particular order:

• The biggest issue, for me: the movie was the victim of a bit of unfortunate Disneyfication, the omnipotent studio's consistent attempts to pander to kids, no matter what the property. Because of this, the movie's tone was inconsistent at times, with a few too many prequel-era goofy CGI aliens providing comic relief. Disney probably told the director he’d end up with a cinderblock tied around his neck and be left to drown in Splash Mountain unless he threw in something for the kiddos.

• BB-8’s exaggerated competence is a little ridiculous at times, as though Disney said, “Hey, can you make BB-8 a freakin’ ninja so we can sell more BB-8 toys?”

• And porgs? Disney, stop trying to merchandising happen. I'd like my porgs in smaller doses, please.

• The Canto Bight detour was simultaneously too rushed to flesh out the themes it was trying to explore and too long to mesh well with the rest of the movie, though the space horse chase on Canto Bight felt very much like something from the peak Spielberg years, suffused with childlike wonder and giddy joy. So it had its moments.

• The whole Finn/Rose storyline ends up being mostly inconsequential. (Cynical right-wingers will even probably dismiss Rose’s inclusion as a forced concession to political correctness, which is unfortunate. She’s a nice character, if a little uninteresting so far.)

• Phasma dies doing what she loved: being an underutilized character.

• Interesting, having Benicio Del Toro’s character stutter. I thought that was pretty cool, till he betrayed his new friends. Not cool. #NotAllStutterers

• There’s no scene where Darth Vader slices through a hallway full of terrified Rebels. Every movie should have at least one, because HOLY CRAP THAT WAS COOL. Remember that?

That seems like a lot, but I'm mostly being really nitpicky. So it has its flaws, and I'd cut off a hand (maybe not mine) for the chance to get in front of a Disney conference room and tell the execs to give the fans what we really want, not what's going to sell the most toys. But in the end, when Luke Skywalker arrived, reunited with his sister to the touching strains of "Luke and Leia" from the Return of the Jedi soundtrack, fought the First Order like a boss, and then become one with the Force while the ghostly twin suns of Tatooine welcomed the hero to his rest at last, the good outweighed the bad. Luke's Hero's Journey, begun while gazing into the twin sunset 40 years ago, came full circle.

That's Star Wars for me—a franchise I fell in love with as a good so hard that I've put up with even through its rough patches. If I could stick with it during the prequel era, the movies where Anakin Skywalker used his hatred of sand as a pickup line and went from a good guy to a child-killer psycho in about ten minutes, I can certainly put up with and even continue to enjoy this new era, warts and all.

Read my further defense of the movie here.

A Beginner's Guide to Marathon Running

Originally published June 1, 2015. 

About nine months ago, I had marvelous idea. Just for fun, I would shoot myself repeatedly in both feet, then bludgeon myself in the gut with a mace, and maybe round things off with a good pummeling from a mafia thug. Or to avoid the hassle of finding medieval weaponry and mob enforcers, I’d just run a marathon. 

I was going through a period in life where I really needed some kind of personal triumph, and for some reason I thought that inflicting unwarranted pain upon myself would be a good idea. I had done a half marathon before, which had overall been a pleasant experience. Half marathons are probably the best kind of race. They’re long enough that you feel a sense of accomplishment but short enough that you don’t spend the last few miles cursing the parents who dragged you into this cruel existence. 

But I wanted to try something a little crazy. And so, in a fit of reckless ambition, I elected to try running a full marathon.  

I ran a few other races during the year in preparation. Prior to the marathon itself, the most miserable I’ve ever been came during the 2014 Zion trail Ragnar relay race, during which an unexpected spring shower became an unexpected spring blizzard while most of us were still realizing we were underdressed for the rain. I only managed to finish two of my three legs of the race before the officials called it off and sent out search and rescue for the runners who were still staggering through the snow; I expect that they're still finding the frozen corpses of the stragglers. I also did Bone and Back, a relay near Idaho Falls; a 5K in Puerto Rico, which felt like a 10K due to the humidity; and a half marathon in Pocatello.

Three to four times a week I ran laps around Liberty Park in Salt Lake. Occasionally, I ran a different course that included some hills, but for the most part Liberty Park's predictability and regular access to running water suited me fine. I also appreciated it because no matter how far I ran, I was never more than half a lap away from my car. Three runs a week were four laps each—or about six miles—but my final run every week was a bit longer. At the beginning of the summer, my long runs were only about 7.5 miles, but by the end of August my long runs had reached a torturous 18 miles. If you add up all the laps I completed that from about March to September, subtracting a few laps here and there to account for the days I missed, I figure I did 380 laps around Liberty Park in 2014. This means I achieved a level of intimacy with Liberty Park that is usually only attainable by squirrels and homeless people. Around and around and around I went, usually accompanied by the complete works of Brandon Sanderson on audiobook.

The fateful day of the race dawned. Technically, I suppose, the day dawned at some point during mile 8 or so, because the race started at an hour when sensible people would be blissfully unconscious. I and a bunch of other aspiring masochists shambled onto a bus, which deposited us at the starting line like load of unwanted puppies on the side of the highway.

At the beginning of the race, we are all shivering, clad in our jackets and tights and happy to crowd into a heat tent with a hundred strangers. The race began, and people began to shed layers as the temperature rose. This resulted in a course littered with more discarded clothing than a Hollywood romance movie.  

The first pain to manifest itself was an ache in my abdomen, as though my long-removed appendix had come back full of vengeance. My feet soon ached in throbbing harmony with my abdomen, and then my legs and lower back gleefully joined in. Somewhere past the halfway point, my original abdominal pain was eventually subsumed into my body's general agony. 

After a while, though I was listening to a favorite audiobook, it made more sense to shut off my brain and retreat into some secluded cavity of my mind, letting reflex govern the incessant thump-thump of my shoes on pavement.

Over the course of the last mile or so, my legs and knees staged a mutiny, threatening to falter unless I acceded to their demands, which basically included resting. But I kept on, mostly because I was pretty sure if I stopped my legs would lock up completely, possibly never to move again.

There is no sweeter sight than the giant blow-up arch that served as the finish line, bobbing gently like inflatable gates to paradise. If there had been luscious maidens waiting there wearing hula skirts and holding plates of barbecued spare ribs, the sight couldn’t have been any more welcome.

For half a week afterward, I hobbled on stiff legs that never quite forgave me for putting them through that ordeal. Most of my toenails turned black and fell off. A pain in my abdomen re-emerged every time I ran for the next few months. 

But do I regret running? Of course not. Because while you’re still running a marathon, your body feels sorta like this. 

But when you’re done, you feel a bit more like this:

How Was Your Trip? (Germany, Switzerland, and Austria Edition)

Arrival

Originally published July 5, 2017.

There’s an old superstition that if you see actor Henry Winkler in an airport bathroom, you’re in for a great European vacation. (Don’t bother looking it up. Just trust me on this one.)

My unforgettable two weeks in Europe got off to an auspicious start when I met the aforementioned actor in the men’s room at LAX. For the more seasoned TV viewers, that’s Arthur Fonzarelli from Happy Days (or for my millennial friends, that’s Jean-Ralphio’s dad from Parks and Recreation and the hilariously incompetent family lawyer from Arrested Development). Probably unaware that he was a harbinger of good fortune, he did me the honor of asking me if the touchless faucets were working for me, which I figure is celebrity-speak for a warm greeting.

With my trip properly blessed by the gods of travel, my hearty band of travelers—myself, my mom, my 18-year-old sister Abby, and my 16-year-old brother Quinn—traveled to Stockholm, Sweden. We didn’t get much of a good look at the country outside the airport windows, but it seemed like a pleasant place. From Sweden we went to Munich. Our first minor hiccup of the trip came when I couldn’t figure out which button in German disengaged the parking brake on our rental car, but crisis was averted and we found our way to a pleasant little hotel on the outskirts of Munich. We would only stay here one night, but we would return to Germany later in the trip.

In the morning we sampled the local bakery and found, to our delight, that German pretzels are made from fairy dust and children’s laughter, in addition to regular flour and salt. No pretzel I’ve ever had is as good as the pretzel bread I had that morning in Munich. We set out toward Switzerland, stopping at two castles on the way. Lichtenstein Castle was notable because, as the tour guide informed us, it once housed the guy who invented the pretzel. Since said baked bread product was still warming our bellies, we were infinitely grateful for that guy’s contributions to culinary science. Next we visited Hohenzollern Castle, a grand fortress looming over a wooded hill. It’s a stately edifice, still in use for ceremonial functions and even a summer camp for needy German children, but as far as we could tell its owners have yet to make contributions to the field of pretzel-making. Keep trying, guys.

This is Hohenzollern Castle. Europe just has castles lying around everywhere like we Idahoans have old tractors. 

Switzerland

That night we slept in Zurich, Switzerland. We wandered the streets around sunset, appreciating the cleanliness and friendly people. The public parks have giant chess sets full of old men of various ethnicities squatting around with looks of intense concentration. Some of them broke concentration long enough to look at us funny when we used the giant chess pieces to play a rousing game of checkers, the uncultured Americans that we were. (In case you’re wondering, I soundly defeated my little brother Quinn.)

From Zurich we headed into Switzerland with the vague intention of finding something called Trift Bridge, a suspension bridge over a 300-foot gorge. For a few hours we corkscrewed around winding mountain passes, each successive turn bringing us to quaint alpine vistas that looked more and more like our mental image of Switzerland. After driving our car past several no-vehicles-past-this-point signs (they were in German, so cut us some slack, please), we found out that the the bridge was only reached via several hours of hiking. After two hours, some ominous-looking stormclouds started to roll in. A seasoned-looking Swiss hiker warned us to turn back, but we pressed on, undaunted, and reached the bridge late afternoon. (They were Swiss stormclouds, after all, so they never really threatened anybody.)

Trift Bridge is a dizzying suspension bridge over a yawning expanse of granite and icy water far below, the kind that conjures up completely irrational images of crocodiles snapping below, a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, because most things make me think of pop culture references. My pride compelled me to cross the bridge before my mom and younger siblings, but I did it slowly and while repeating I am not afraid of this under my breath.

Not pictured: certain death far below. I'm not lying whenI say that one of Google's search suggestions for Trift Bridge was "trift bridge deaths."

We stayed that night above Lauterbrunnen Valley, a picturesque Rivendell of a community where the cliffs are practically pinstriped with gorgeous flowing waterfalls. A cable car brought us to our destination, Gimmelwald, a hamlet of less than a hundred people inaccessible by road. The Hotel Mittaghorn, our sleeping accommodations for the next two nights, was a creaky three-story building run by a mostly deaf old Swiss gentleman named Walter Mittler, where the shower was a coin-operated contraption located in one of the other rooms. Whatever inconvenience the showering situation presented, it was more than remedied by the realization that we had wandered into a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. Our front porch was a portal to another world, a titanic panorama of natural majesty whittled from the bare rock by a masterful Creator.

Anyway, here's the view from our balcony.

The next day began with a morning run up the trail to the neighboring town of Mürren and continued with a hike down from the Männlichen station down to the resort town of Wengen. That hike provided us with our most stunning view yet. Because I’m the super cultured type who occasionally takes a break from books with titles like Monster Hunter Nemesis and Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company long enough to delve into great literature, I likened it to a passage from Frankenstein, where the eponymous doctor wanders the Alps in search of solace after abandoning his creation:

"Still, as I ascended higher, the valley ... was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings."

The endless vistas helped me gain a newfound appreciation for the glories of the natural world—and for the powers behind them.  It’s hard not to look out on the majesty of creation and not feel some small measure of reverence. Even the most avowed heathen feels it, even if they don’t choose to ascribe it to the same source I do. There’s no doubt that the mighty glaciers and jagged peaks and filaments of water cascading down the sheer face of the mountain were created by natural processes, nothing unexplainable by science, and yet to me the evidence of a supreme Creator isn’t in the sights themselves but in the irrepressible, undeniable deference to the divine we feel when we gaze upon their wonders.

Or maybe, to paraphrase Paul Bettany’s Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale, sights like these are far too rare to cheapen with heavy-handed words. So here's another picture.

No caption needed. 

Germany 

But I digress. We left Gimmelwald after two days, sad to have spent far too little time in so heavenly a place. We hit the road to Germany again, stopping at the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. I’m not ashamed to admit it—I’ve always had a weird fixation with the glory days of lighter-than-air travel. There’s a stately grace to an airship that no fixed-wing aircraft can equal. Or maybe their abrupt departure from public use early last century earned the airship a permanent place on the shelf of mankind’s most tantalizing might-have-beens. Whatever it is, I’d have loved to board one and see the world from within that rumbling chariot of steel and cotton fabric. At least until its gas cells caught fire and exploded and everyone aboard died a horrible death—which, as the museum informed me, was pretty much what zeppelins liked to do from time to time. (You can’t have everything, I guess.)

And so we were back in Munich—for a few days this time. It's a clean, orderly city. A sprawling park near our Airbnb provided a place for us to run every morning, and the fish market in the middle of town afforded us a pleasant place to eat. The town center is home a various cathedrals and medieval-looking buildings. One of the most arresting sights for me was a glass casket in an alcove in St. Peter’s Church, where the bones of a saint named Munditia are coated in jewels. She died a martyr at the hands of the Romans. Hundreds of years later, the Pope decided that dying a martyr was a pretty swell thing to do for the Church, so he showed his appreciation by having her bones plastered with shiny rocks. (If it doesn’t work for me to be frozen in carbonite when I die, Han Solo-style, I would like my next of kin to consider a similar method of interment. Maybe have a bake sale at the funeral to pay for it.)

St. Munditia: rest in bling. 

While in Munich we visited Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, now converted to a sobering memorial and museum. More on that later. It should be noted, however, that we saw Henry Winkler for the second time there. Seriously, what are the odds? The Fonz followed me from Los Angeles to Germany. I thought about approaching him, but there are probably better places for that than outside a Nazi barracks. Regardless, I took it as an omen that our trip was still blessed by the travel gods.

Two nights in Munich later and we were on our way to Vienna. For this we ditched the rental car and took a train. A multi-country European train ride is something everyone should experience at least once, so we did. More than enough for our liking.

Austria

I had heard a lot of favorable things about Vienna, and for the most part it didn’t disappoint. Most of the things people recommended to me when I asked about Vienna dealt with Mozart or The Sound of Music, which are both things I have only a distant, detached appreciation for. So I wasn’t in Vienna to visit any Julie Andrews sites or embed myself in the classical music scene, but there was still plenty to do. For instance, there was the ice cream.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had whatever Viennese ice cream we had, but to say it is the best dessert ever created by the hand of man is to slightly undersell it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recipe included ground-up Prozac with a sprinkling of that really good cocaine that movie stars take. I may never love a woman like I loved that strawberry ice cream.

This ice cream is fluffier than a box of poodles. And way more tasty.

Months before, my mom, sister and I decided to partake of some real Vienna cultural experience, and I saw that Swan Lake was playing at the Vienna State Opera House, so that seemed like as good an idea as any. For Mom and Abby, this turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip—to see world-class dancers exhibiting nearly inhuman levels of athleticism and grace, accompanied by one of the finest orchestras Europe has to offer. I appreciated everything about it, but it was three hours. I mean, three hours. If I'm gonna watch something for three hours, there better be hobbits destroying a ring in there somewhere. If you don’t know the story—and I still wouldn’t, if I hadn’t read the helpful synopsis in the program, because there’s zero dialogue—Swan Lake is the story of a prince in really tight pants who falls for a girl who’s been turned into a swan by an evil magician who turns girls to swans and keeps them in a gigantic magic swan preserve for some reason. Prince Tight Pants promises to break the spell by falling in love with her, but the evil magician tricks him into falling for her doppelgänger, a mysterious black swan. (Which I guess is a risk when you’re in love with a bird.)

Halfway through, I found myself wondering if there was an alternate production I could watch that just had the highlights, like maybe just one of the times the prince did that twirly thing. Still, there were several truly arresting moments, like the dramatic finale, where the famous theme plays (you know the one, you’ve heard it) and the hapless prince is swept away by a flood conjured by the evil magician, his tragic fate accented by the thrilling swells of the music.

Here's the opera house. I didn't take any pictures of the actual performance. I'm pretty that would be punishable by death.

We went to church in Vienna. Mom convinced me to depart from my preferred travel church policy and go to all three hours, which—are you reading, Mom?—turned out to be a good thing, because one of the people we talked to there recommended that we take the train to the neighboring town of Melk, see the abbey there, and then bike back in the direction of Vienna.

We took our fellow traveler’s advice. Melk Abbey sits atop an outcrop of rock overlooking the Danube. Our favorite feature was its expansive, elegant library, the kind of thing Belle from Beauty and the Beast would really fall in love with a giant hairy buffalo-man for. But the best part was the ride back. We rented bikes and cycled twenty miles or so along the Danube, where every bend in the river concealed a new castle and every pit stop proved to be another charming Austrian town.

Here's me biking by the Danube. This is just before I was passed by another pair of extremely fit septuagenarian cyclists. 

Our last night was spent in the Klastergastof Raitenhaslach, a mouthful of a monastery partially converted into a lovely hotel. There were no monks in sight while we were there, but upon checking out our hosts proudly presented us with some monk-brewed beer. None of our party are beer drinkers, but our hosts were so earnest that we didn’t dare reject the gift. We ended up giving both bottles to our very appreciative taxi driver. He didn’t speak much English, but I guess the gift of alcohol is a universal language.

The monastery took a leaf from Gaston's book, using antlers in all of their decorating. 

The journey home would have benefited from another Henry Winkler sighting. Several hours on a train took us back to Munich, where we flew to Sweden, then to Malaga, Spain. You can imagine our sheer delight when we checked our itinerary and realized we had a seven-hour overnight layover in Spain before our long transatlantic flight. (It was similar to the delight you might feel if somebody told you it would be necessary to rip off all of your body hair with duct tape, or maybe watch an Adam Sandler movie marathon.) We were already plumb tuckered out (a phrase that leaps inexplicably to mind), but no weariness is enough to make the prospect of sleeping on an airport floor appealing.

We soon traded not sleeping in Malaga to not sleeping on the plane to Los Angeles. And, just like me on the ride back, you’re probably ready to be done with this, so let’s just get to the end.

We made it back an indeterminate time after leaving Germany. Honestly, I have no idea. Between the time change, several trains, and four flights, our journey home lasted anywhere between a day and the length of the entire unabridged works of Tolstoy on audiobook. But in the end we staggered back home to our own beds. Thrilling vistas are nice, but sleeping in your own bed after a long journey, it turns out, has a certain thrill of its own.

Afterword: Dachau

It seemed a sacrilege to sandwich my experiences at the former Nazi concentration camp between jokes about funeral bake sales and ice cream cocaine, so there's one more section this post, presented out of chronological order.

This arresting sculpture captures some of the horror we can't afford to forget at Dachau.

The words “Arbeit Macht Frei”—“Work Makes Freedom”—are wrought in iron over the gates of Dachau, after which you stroll through a devastating tableau dedicated almost entirely to man’s utter inhumanity. It’s hard to stomach at times, but it’s worth the visit. At Dachau, the Nazis not only subjected prisoners to hellish conditions, but they also used their victims for human experimentation and denied them the most basic human dignities. It was my second visit to Dachau, but the impact was no less vivid for me.

I don't know which was harder to believe—that my fellow humans were forced to endure such horrors, or that it was other fellow humans that inflicted those horrors upon them. My brief time at Dachau made me reflect, readjust my perceptions of the world around me, and resolve to do what I could next time I saw the chance to keep another Dachau from happening.

There's no denying that such a shift in perception is part of what makes travel appealing. It's not the only reason, of course—who doesn't go for the new cuisine, Instagram-friendly vistas, or the chance to tell stories? I sure do. But I count a trip successful when something happened that forced me to shift my view of the world around me, to add a few strokes to the mental picture I've painted about humanity. That's something no hashtag can accomplish.
 

Happy Holidays from the Kunz Family (2016)

Originally published December 13, 2016. 

I was tasked with writing the family Christmas card again this year. Here it is, in its joyfully hyperbolic entirety:

Hello! A full year—otherwise known as the time between new Star Wars movies—has passed since our last card, so it’s time to update you, our faithful Christmas card recipients, on the happenings in the lives of the Kunz family.

Eric's demanding job as a CPA necessitates his frequent trips to Salmon, Idaho, where he recovers from the rigors of work by engaging in the kind of hard-core fishing you usually associate with manfully bearded, dentally challenged, wild-eyed recluses named Earl or Jim Bob on the Discovery Channel. If you see him, tell him to come home and clean his fish.

Trisha performed in a local production of Dancing with the Stars. She dusted off long-retired dancing skills to capture the imagination of a small town before losing to the local Zumba instructor. If you think it sounds like the plot of some inspirational ‘80s cult classic with a Cyndi Lauper soundtrack, you’re not far off. You should probably buy the rights to make that movie before someone else does.

Ryan occasionally does some cool stuff at his ad agency but is still waiting for someone to pay him to write the stuff he really wants to write. He is an aspiring fantasy novelist, which means he can Google stuff like “how to preserve a severed head” and not feel weird about it. On a totally unrelated note, he’s not married.

Reilly is going to physical therapy school. His life got even busier this year when he and his wife Briana brought into the world the first Kunz grandchild, little McKay, who has quickly become everyone's favorite family member. He recently spoke his first words: “Let it be known that I, McKay Kunz, do hereby state without equivocation that Ryan is my favorite uncle.” He’s such a precocious little cutie, isn’t he?

Connor, if his Instagram is any indication, spends about 80 percent of his time hiking across spectacular alpine vistas. We think he also attends school at BYU-Idaho, too. We haven’t been able to prove conclusively that he’s skipping class to go mountaineering, but the wolves he hangs out with aren’t denying it.

Dillon is a sophomore at BYU-Idaho, where he keeps busy working three jobs and is soon transferring to BYU. However, his studies may have to be put on hold soon, as he was recently elected president of the United States this year and now holds supreme executive power in the most powerful country on Earth. Okay, maybe not, but you can’t tell me you wouldn’t prefer him to the people who actually ran. (Ooh, non-partisan political joke! Zing!)

This year Abigail claimed the title of Miss Idaho’s Most High Outstanding Grand Young Woman Chancellor of Supernal Distinguishment, or something like that. Honestly, it’s sorta hard to keep track of all of Abby’s achievements. These days, we just sorta go with it. Go, Abby!

Quinn, who runs cross country and pursues a photography hobby, is also about to cross the twin thresholds of adolescent achievement—driving and dating. Now that he has his learner’s permit, you should walk up to him and make a joke about how you’d better stay off the roads now. He’ll love that and commend you for your originality.

Well, that’s us—stay tuned for next year! Will Dad abandon his career and retreat into a cabin in the woods? Will Mom’s foray into the reality show scene lead to fame, fortune, and her eventual fall from grace, after which she'll appear on the actual Dancing with the Stars? Will Ryan meet the woman of his dreams, publish a bestseller, and finally grow a full beard? (Two out of three would be acceptable.) What happens to their relationship when Reilly and Briana find themselves expecting octuplets? Will Connor finally surrender to the call of the wild and run naked with his wolf pack? Can Dillon’s calm diplomacy defuse the tense situation in the Middle East? What rivals will Abby have to ruthlessly eliminate on her ascent to the top? Will Quinn woo all the ladies and get married before Ryan does? Find out in next year’s Christmas card!

How Was Your Trip? (Britain Edition)

Originally published September 6, 2015.

Any mention of the mythic land of Britain has always evoked images of castles perched moodily on windswept moors, boy wizards and boy bands, licenses to kill, detectives in deerstalker hats, blue police boxes, coconut-laden swallows, and a couple of royal babies who have got to have realized by now that they pretty much won the lottery as far as birth circumstances are concerned. I’ve been captivated by all things British (and especially Scottish) since I was young, and my steady diet of British pop culture only increased my desire to visit the magical land where people somehow manage daily to survive despite driving on the left side of the road.

And so, about a year ago, I made up my mind that I would make a pilgrimage to that extraordinary place. I gathered an intrepid fellowship consisting of two of my brothers, Connor and Dillon, and my cousin Zack. After months of planning, we departed for Britain near the middle of August. 

Britain is a wonderful country, especially when you get over the fact that its every inhabitant is on a single-minded mission to take all of your money. The exchange rate during out stay was about 1.5 American dollars to every British pound, which means a decent plate of fish and chips costs about fifteen to the twenty dollars. Fuel costs £1.13 per liter, which adds up to a punishing £4.28 ($6.42) per gallon. And then there’s the cost of the attractions. Getting into Buckingham Palace, for instance, is a whopping £35, which perhaps offers insight into the source of the Queen’s wealth.

Despite this, everywhere we went, Britain was full of charming, delightful people. I never tired of hearing their pleasant accents, even if I occasionally had to squint, tilt my head, and ask them to repeat themselves. 

Among the first things we saw upon arriving in Britain was the Tower of London. There we saw the crown jewels, and like any normal people we immediately began plotting an elaborate heist to steal them. We proceeded to visit most of the stops along London’s tourist trail. I fondly recall the moment we came out of the Westminster Underground station and saw the majestic Palace of Westminster and Big Ben clock tower, larger than life and ready to hit us over the head with that “Holy-crap-we’re-really-in-London” feeling. 

We saw the city from the apex of the London Eye, the massive Ferris wheel beside the Thames river. We attended an Anglican service at Westminster Abbey (in addition to an LDS service at the Hyde Park chapel) and watched people attempt to foment street riots at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. We took the London tube—the subway—everywhere, and I remain impressed that such a large city can have such an efficient, clean, and comprehensive rail system. To whatever British person designed it, nice work. You deserve an extra crumpet. 

Driving, however, is another cup of afternoon tea entirely. After a few days in London, we rented a car and made the first leg of our drive across Britain. This involved getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Where America separates two lanes going the same direction by a white line and two lanes going opposite directions by a yellow line, Britain uses white for everything, which forces you into a fun guessing game about whether the lane you’re turning into goes the desired way or dumps you into oncoming traffic. On at least one occasion, I turned onto an innocuous-enough lane that turned out to be a one-way street. One British driver launched into a series of helpful gesticulations to inform me that I was an idiot, probably assuming that I, as an American, lacked the Sherlock Holmes-like ability to deduce it by myself. 

And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the fun that results from having a car with a steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. Driving on the left side of the road is one thing, but American drivers have been conditioned to guide their vehicles while sitting on the left side of the car. This means there’s a certain place for your body and a certain place for the rest of the car, and as long as you keep your body positioned in the lane the rest of the car will sit where it’s supposed to. Driving on the right side of the vehicle throws everything off. If you position your body where you’re used to positioning it in the lane, it means half of your car is in the next lane over. Zack did a lot of the driving, and we worked out a signal to let him know he had started to drift over and was about to lose a mirror to whatever obstructions lay on the left shoulder of the road. 

Once we were out of the city, we drove toward Stonehenge. There we paid an exorbitant sum to hop on a bus and stare pensively at some large rocks in the middle of a field. (We tried to sacrifice a virgin on the Druidic altar, but it was £30 per virgin sacrifice and we’re not exactly made of money.)   

From Stonehenge we headed to Conwy, Wales. The road from London to Conwy took us through picturesque little villages with names  where we spent a pleasant night. As we approached the city, we amused ourselves by trying to pronounce the Welsh words on street signs, like “Mold yr Wyddgrug." (I later looked up how to pronounce that one, and it sounds very little like the strange guttural sounds my unpracticed lips made when trying to say it.) In the morning, we toured the nearby castle. Most of the ancient city walls are still standing. This proved to be one of our favorite castles we’d see on the trip. It was ruined enough to retain a sense of authenticity, unspoiled by modern enhancements, but complete enough that it didn’t require extensive imagination to visualize what it must have looked like when it still guarded against invading armies. 

A night in Edinburgh, Scotland, followed. Edinburgh is a charming city, eager at every turn to show visitors what it means to be Scottish. Lest you forget where you are, there is a shop or two about every twenty feet dedicated to assuring that no tourist leaves without authentic tartan kilts, scarves, and hats.  

This tower looks rather ominous at nighttime, prompting my brother Connor to dub it the “Sith temple.” It’s actually a monument to the great Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, the guy who's credited with revitalizing the image of Scotland in the popular imagination. 

After Edinburgh, we left the metropolitan Scotland behind and headed for the austere expanses of the highlands. The roads, narrow enough to feel a little perilous, shrank to basically the size of a bike lane in the States. On both sides of us, undulating green hills, framed by stone fences and flecked with sheep, unfolded. You know when people make references to “God’s green earth”? I’m convinced that the divinely favored landscape they’re referring to is the Scottish highlands, a verdant Elysium that tends to rob you of any response other than “Whoa.” I’m specifically referring in this case to the stretch near Glencoe on the way to Fort William, which inspired us to pull over three times in the space of half an hour to take pictures and just gape. 

While Scotland’s people welcomed us with smiling faces and outstretched arms, at the same time Scotland’s terrain did its best to let us know we were unworthy creatures unfit to defile its unspoiled paradise with our presence. From the beginning of the planning process, one of our goals was to spend a night camping in the rugged, mist-shrouded wilds of Britain. You know those scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Harry, Ron, and Hermoine spend half the book camping? We sort of hoped it would be like that, though admittedly with an unfortunate lack of Emma Watson. Our hopes were kindled anew when signs informed us that scenes from the Harry Potter movies had indeed been filmed nearby. 

After driving around for an hour looking for a campsite, we eventually found a spot where we could pull over and set up the sleeping bag and tarpaulins that would protect us from the elements. (We didn’t want to being a tent, because anything we brought along with us would have to be dragged around Britain for a week and a half.) No sooner had we set up the tarp than we were introduced to the highlands’ dominant lifeforms: the midges.

The Harry Potter movies neglected to mention that the marshier areas of the highlands are the dominion of midges. Everything in Scotland is just a little more rugged, and that includes the insect life. The midges form swarms thicker than anything I’ve seen in the States, impenetrable little storm clouds hellbent on gnawing your face off. We quickly realized that sleeping outside would expose us to the wrath of these tiny satanic legions, so Zack, Connor and I decided to sleep in the car. Our rental car was a Jetta hatchback, which isn’t usually designed for three grown men to sleep in, but we managed it, because the alternative was a slow and painful death. Dillon, however, weighed his options and decided it would be more comfortable to sleep outside underneath the tarp than in close proximity with three other men. I actually slept fine until a few hours later, when a panicked Dillon jumped inside the car and told us he’d heard the footsteps of something large outside the vehicle. It was too dark to see what it was, but something then brushed up against the side of the car, setting off the car alarm. Nobody had the heart to tell Dillon to suck it up and sleep outside, so we spent the rest of the night huddled together, our knees in each other’s faces, listening to mysterious shuffling sounds outside and wondering if the midges and the large unidentified creature would kill each other in a titanic battle that would maybe allow somebody to sleep outside. 

In the morning, we found the midges buzzing around the desiccated corpse of a bear. Just kidding. The mysterious large animal seems to have escaped. The midges, however, were so thick that we didn’t bother putting our gear and tarps away: we simply threw everything into the back, unpacked and unrolled, and drove several miles until the midges were far behind. However, the fearful specter of the midges loomed over the rest of the trip. Even our brief time spent at the mercy of the midges the night before as we set up the tent resulted in tiny bites that didn’t stop itching for a week. 

Here we are hiding inside the car from the midges.

In the morning, we set out to climb Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Britain. I’ve climbed Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental US, and ascended dozens of smaller peaks over the years, so I thought that one measly little British peak wouldn’t pose that much of a challenge. In some ways I was right—but while the elevation gain probably wasn’t enough to deter a hiker who takes decent care of himself, the weather kicked our butts. It was beautiful, of course, even cold and wet as it was. As we began our ascent a halo of mist encircled us, the slopes of the mountains disappearing into the mist's hazy embrace. Higher on the mountain, the mist swallowed everything, and then omnipresent drizzle turned into a pummeling deluge. We were a little over halfway before we decided that we were unprepared for the weather and risked hypothermia if we tried to gain the top. (Or maybe we would have been just fine. We’ll never know now, will we?)

In other words, Scotland as a whole pretty much pulled up its kilt and mooned us. Nevertheless, when we finished our time in Scotland, we were left wanting more. Four days is too few to spend in such a remarkable place. 

On the final day in Scotland, we visited Loch Ness and several of its attendant Nessie exhibits. This yellow submarine was used back in the '60s to search the depths of the loch for the monster and gave us all a chance to make any Beatles references we'd been holding onto the whole time. 

We had a pleasant night’s sleep aboard a sleeper train from Inverness back to London, where we spent two more days. In those two days we managed to finish up our list of London to-dos, including the British Museum, seeing The Phantom of the Opera in the West End, the Churchill War Rooms, and the Imperial War Museum. Phantom is the timeless story of the love between a possibly underage girl with father figure issues and the creepy, sociopathic stalker guy who lives in her basement. But seriously, folks, the moment when the chandelier rises from the auction room floor, blazing to life to the keening accompaniment of the organ, is pure delight.  

After a week and a half in this wonderful, scenic, friendly, slightly overpriced land, we came back to the States. Someday I'll return to ride the London tube and walk the highlands of Scotland again, but until then, I'll just have to drive on the left side of the road occasionally and pretend it's Britain. 

The Yellowstone Supervolcano and Our Imminent Annihiliation

I occasionally blog for the Wyoming motel Flat Creek Inn in Jackson Hole. Last month, when the manager sent me a list of possible blogging topics, I scanned them for something that interested me. There was the usual smattering of promotions and invitations to view elk mating or whatever, but one topic caught my eye: the Yellowstone volcano. Because the Flat Creek Inn blog site can be a little cumbersome to navigate, here is the blog post printed in its entirety. (But go check out the Flat Creek Inn site sometime. Maybe I can score you some deals. Or direct you to some elk mating.)

Don’t let this put any wrinkles in your lovely Jackson Hole adventure, but it’s possible that a giant supervolcano will someday soon burst beneath the sandal-clad feet of thousands of hapless tourists, effectively eliminating much of the life in the western United States and ushering in a global nuclear winter. But also, we’re offering 20% off your motel stay, so there’s a half-full glass if we ever saw one. (More on that later!)

As the closest Jackson Hole lodging to Yellowstone National Park, we’re always concerned about natural conditions that may affect your next visit to the land of geysers and bison. And so it is only natural that we concern ourselves with the Yellowstone supervolcano, which could pretty much go off any day now, obliterating much of the American Northwest and making life unpleasant for a lot of other folks.

The volcano is among the largest silica-rich volcano fields in the world. It has lain dormant for 70,000 years, and scientists say the chance of it actually erupting is slim—one in 700,000, which is actually slightly more likely than we’re comfortable with.

If it were to go off, the resulting explosion would be one thousand times as powerful as the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980. The initial conflagration would kill as many as 90,000 people instantly and release a ten-foot layer of molten ash a thousand miles from the park. Sulfuric gases released into the atmosphere would mix with the planet’s water vapor. A gassy haze would settle over the country, both dimming the sunlight and cooling temperatures. Plant and animal life would suffer widespread extinction. Yellowstone tourism might even take a hit.

The Daily Mail, which supplied most of the information for this blog post, also included this cheery artist’s rendering of the catastrophe, in which Yellowstone is transformed into some sort of desolate, Mordor-like hellscape.

One does not simply walk into Yellowstone.

On the bright side, however, we have a deal going on, so there’s that. Enter the promo code "Secret20" when booking your motel stay and get 20 percent off! (This deal starts September 1.) Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Valentine's Day: An Origin Story

-Originally published February 14, 2016-

This is just one of the dudes named St. Valentine. 

My work compelled me to write a blog post about Valentine’s Day, which our digital team can exploit for their nefarious search engine optimization purposes, or whatever it is they do. And so here is a history of St. Valentine and the day named after him, a laboriously researched and comprehensive treatise full of facts whose verity I can’t actually guarantee. Enjoy! 

if you’re among the legions buying lots of lace, chocolate, or floral goods in an effort to show your love (or among the despondent masses for whom this time of year is an annual reminder of their perpetual loneliness), it’s about time for a very special holiday. That’s right, it’s about time for the Roman festival of Lupercalia—or as we less pagan folk like to call it, Valentine’s Day. Impress your (easy impressed) lover this season with a knowledge of valentine-related trivia this year as you learn all about the holiday, its roots, and the weird stuff we’ve grown to celebrate over the millennia. 

Who was St. Valentine, and what did he ever do to get a lovers’ holiday named after him? The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different guys named St. Valentine, none of whom were particularly notorious for going around and sticking people with love-inducing arrows. They were all, however, martyred for love-related reasons, which is as good a reason to get martyred as any. 

One guy was supposedly an ancient Roman priest. It’s said that Emperor Claudius II decreed that single men were better soldiers than those with families, so he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine realized the injustice of the new edict and kept marrying young couples in secret. The emperor found out and had him executed. There’s a legend about another of the Valentines, who was imprisoned for helping persecuted Christians. He fell in love with his jailor’s young daughter (whose blindness he had earlier healed, by the way) when she visited him in prison, and he sent her a letter signed, “From your Valentine." People found out and Valentine was put to death. Our modern tradition of exchanging handmade valentines stems from their timeless romance, which we try to forget was probably between some creepy old dude and an underage girl. 

The third Valentine was a shadowy figure martyred in Africa with a few unknown companions. We don’t know much about him or his death, but I like to think he spent years holed up in a monastery with his band composing the song “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” and then was murdered by the time-traveling Canadian singer Bryan Adams, who stole the soon-to-be hit for himself and returned to 1991. 

But why February 14? Some people believe the date commemorates the anniversary of one of the Valentines' death or burial around 270 AD. Other say the Catholic Church put St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to appeal to the pagans, who celebrated the fertility festival of Lupercalia around that time. In said festival, Roman priests gathered at a sacred cave and sacrificed a goat and a dog, flaying them and dipping their hides into sacrificial blood. Then they wandered around gently slapping women with the bloody hides, which was supposed to make the women more fertile but mostly just made them more bloody. Then, according to legend, all the women in the city would place their names in a big urn. A mystical fire would burn in the urn, spitting out the name of one of the women, who would then become the Hogwarts champion and compete in the Triwizard Tournament. No, seriously—then the city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for a year with his chosen women. These matches often ended in marriage. (I call dibs on pitching this idea to ABC as a new reality TV show.) 

Lupercalia was outlawed at the end of the 15th century, probably because the anti-hitting-women-with-dead-animals-covered-in-blood movement was starting to gain traction. During the Middle Ages, valentine greetings became popular, because exchanging tokens of love was preferable to dying of plague, which at that time was the chief pastime of medieval people. The oldest known valentine greeting in existence was written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Americans probably didn’t start exchanging valentines until the early 1700s. The first mass-produced valentines came in the 1840s, when a woman named Esther Howland (nicknamed the “Mother of the Valentine”) came to the rescue of procrastinating men everywhere and made elaborate lacy constructions they could give to their wives as though they had made the gifts themselves.

Today, the Greeting Card Association estimates that 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making V-Day second in card-sending only to that most celebrated of holidays, Talk Like a Pirate Day. (No, just kidding. Christmas, naturally, is the festival of consumerism where people send the most cards.) Women buy about 85 percent of all valentines. (Take from that what you will.) 

That, ladies and gentleman, is how Valentine’s Day came about, or at least it is according to the first couple of results that came up on Google. Next time you’re sitting alone on February 14, binge-watching Breaking Bad or Gilmore Girls and numbing your despair with perilously saccharine amounts of ice cream, blame St. Valentine. Any of the three will do. 

Happy Holidays From the Kunz Family (2015)

-Originally published January 8, 2016-

My family has a habit of releasing our Christmas card after the holidays are over as sort of a New Years thing. Here is this year's letter:

Happy holidays from the Kunz family! We maintain the firmly held belief that the holidays are a time for giving, celebrating, and eating, so we made a conscious choice to delay our Christmas card till after the new year. (Or it could be that we procrastinated, which, if you think about it, is also sort of a Christmas tradition.) Either way, happy New Year!

2015 was an exciting time in the Kunz family. Dad (Eric) is still a CPA. He’s holding out hope that at least one of his children will follow his footsteps into the fast-paced, action-packed world of accounting. Despite the multitude of blockbuster movies about suave, womanizing accountants who do people’s taxes while dodging bad guys in sports cars, he has yet to convince any of the kids of the job’s appeal.

Mom (Trisha) spends most of her time quilting, cooking, and keeping her younger children busy, except recently when she spent ten hours on the phone trying to reset her iTunes password. In the process, she bonded with the technician who fielded her calls. Tanikia, from Apple Tech Support, recently broke up with her boyfriend. Despite logging enough hours with Mom on the phone to qualify as an honorary member of the family, she is regrettably absent from our Christmas card picture.

Ryan works as a copywriter for an ad agency and lives in Salt Lake City, where he mostly just writes the family Christmas card every year. In other exciting news, he finally figured out the lyrics to the chorus of Jimmy Eat World’s 2001 hit “The Middle.”

Reilly and Briana got some exciting news this year: they’re expecting a little baby boy next May. Though they’re still taking suggestions for names, they’re currently leaning toward Kylo Ren, Donald Trump, or—for a nice, classic Biblical twist—Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.

Connor continues to explore the outdoors whenever he has time off from school, slowly building up a small outfitter store’s worth of gear. He recently won the respect of a pack of wolves after staring their leader in the eyes until it backed down.

Dillon returned at the end of the summer from an LDS mission to Canada. He has since exhibited disturbing foreign mannerisms, like referring to restrooms as “washrooms,” exercising restraint when eating meat, and regarding curling as a legitimate sport.

Abigail relinquished her title as Miss Idaho’s Outstanding Teen this year and is a junior in high school. She is actively campaigning for more sisters-in-law, and her ever-dutiful single brothers are diligently working to oblige her, their quest toward matrimony motivated by nothing but undying love for their sister.

Quinn is still the youngest sibling, a status that is unlikely to change any time soon. Having ruthlessly devoured his twin in the womb, he has double the wit, speed, and charisma you would expect from someone of his age.

Happy New Year! We look forward to 2016. Stay tuned for next year’s holiday letter! We promise it won’t be boring.

In Further Defense of 'The Last Jedi'

I finally got around to seeing The Last Jedi for the third time in theaters. The flaws bother me less and I appreciate the many good things more. And because the debate over the movie is still raging across the Internet (and likely will for some time), I have more thoughts. If you have nothing better to do than debate the merits of a work of fiction about space wizards with laser swords, read on.

(I love debating the merits of a work of fiction about space wizards with laser swords, by the way. Somebody should pay me for this.)

SPOILERS BELOW, obviously.

You can dislike the movie if you want. That's well within your right as a Star Wars fan or moviegoer. But maybe watch it a few times and think about it before you succumb to knee-jerk hate generated by unfair expectations. Don’t judge the movie harshly because the events that transpired didn’t line up with your personal post-Return of the Jedi head-canon, either.

1. I'm tired of people claiming that the new movies ruined Star Wars. No, they’re not perfect. But they are really good movies. Part of the reason the Disney-era movies can’t seem to please a vocal contingent of longtime fans is the new movies have an impossible bar to clear. It’s not just that we think the original trilogy were great movies; we’ve practically canonized them, Catholic-style, and sent them on the fast track to movie sainthood. We enshrine the original trilogy on this unassailable pedestal, looking back at them through the rosy lens of nostalgia.

They're great, don’t get me wrong. I love them. But they aren't perfect.

They did have their flaws. Boba Fett stood around and did nothing, then died like a chump. The whole Leia-is-your-sister reveal was clearly a late-conceived, awkward solution to the Han-Luke-Leia love triangle. Leia herself didn’t get the character development her male counterparts did. Jabba the Hutt's scenes were full of burp jokes, long before a certain floppy-eared Gungan ever came along. Star Wars NEVER gave a crap about real laws of space physics. And of course, a tribe of teddy bears defeated a galaxy-spanning Empire by throwing rocks at them.

And yet we love the movies anyway, because of the moments that made us sit up straight in our seats and cheer, or the moments where we saw ourselves looking out with Luke into the twin suns. In this cynical age, it might be too much to ask to extend the same courtesy to The Last Jedi, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

2. And as for the controversy about "ruining" Luke Skywalker? Just because you defeat evil once doesn't mean you get a free pass from your personal demons for the rest of your life. Sometimes even heroes backslide, screw up, and don't get to walk off into the Endor sunset. Luke failed with Kylo Ren (how could he not when he got, like, six total days of master-student Jedi training himself?), he paid the price, and he was crushed under the weight of his despair, fleeing from his friends and from the Force for fear of further failure. (Whoa, sometimes my alliteration game in ON POINT.) But, like his father, he was redeemed in the end.

Don't mistake Luke acting like a real human being for bad character development. Sometimes even our heroes fall. So why can't we cheer when they get back up again, Force-project themselves across the galaxy, and drop the mic on Kylo Ren?

3. And then there's Snoke. I’ve heard people complain that “after all that buildup,” he died without having his backstory revealed. Well, guess what? So did like 4,256 other Star Wars characters. I’m sure the canon will fill it in eventually. And what buildup was that? The characters certainly never built up the mystery of Snoke. Star Wars fans just love a good mystery, so we may have inserted one where there really didn’t need to be one.

(You know one person in particular who died without having his backstory revealed? The Emperor. And yet we were perfectly fine just knowing that he was a super evil, ugly dude with a penchant for building really big things and wanted to rule the galaxy. Then George Lucas gave us three movies about his backstory, and they were mostly about Anakin Skywalker using his fear of sand as a pickup line. So was all that backstory really needed, anyway?)

4. One last thing. You know those so-called gravity defying bombs? Not an issue for me. All ships in Star Wars have artificial gravity. Ever wondered why they’re not floating around the Millennium Falcon like astronauts? There’s no real science there, but we’ve never questioned it, so why start now? The bombs were carried to the bomb bay doors via the momentum of their racks and the artificial gravity, after which Newton’s First Law carried them in their uninterrupted momentum toward the First Order dreadnaught. Mystery solved. Stop whining about it and enjoy how cool that scene is.

There are more defenses I could muster, but I'm tired of writing. Go read my previous post, in which I do acknowledge the movie's flaws, which are in no way eclipsed by the good aspects.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just wish our opinions were a little more thoughtful before we start crying foul at the apparent despoiling of our childhoods.