Star Wars: The Last Jedi
“Star Wars time, film number nine, midnight opening standing in line. With Luke on an island, surrounded by sea, what happens to Rey, well you’ll just have to see…” - Cliff Richard.
OK, so Sir Cliff didn’t really write those lyrics, I did (and yes, I know it’s episode eight, but I needed it to rhyme with Mistletoe and Wine, so I counted Rogue Squadron). Ever since Disney bought Star Wars, a new SW movie has become a staple of Christmas for fans. The increasing number of trailers leading up to its release balances out the increasing fear in the pit of your stomach that you get when, just after the last firework has been lit, the shops fill with tinsel-coated “bargains” and Facebook floods with unnecessary reminders of how many paydays there are until you need to re-mortgage your pad to pay for the latest “must-have” piece-of-shit gadget for your ungrateful spawn or significant other. You can even sing “Luke and Rey are coming, Luke and Rey are coming…” over the Coca-Cola advert that now serves to culturally signify the start of the festive season in the same way that a pain in your left arm signifies the start of coronary arrest.
But back to Star Wars. It is pretty much universally accepted that Episode 7 was good, but certainly not a “Han’s down” winner (geddit?). So, what will Episode 8 hold? Well, there’s the return of the good (Rey), the bad (Kylo Ren), and the ugly (Snoke), although there are rumours galore surrounding whether we will be seeing a shift in Rey and Ren’s roles. Will this be the movie that shows the grey area in between the light and dark sides of the force?
The real winner this Christmas is the Porg. A creature from the trailer who, after less-than-2 seconds of footage, has taken a big, steamy space-piss all over that under-the-bed John Lewis monster in the cutest-Christmas-thing stakes. If only they could’ve got an AT-AT to stamp on that fucking Coca-Cola truck and my festive season would be off to a flying start. Merry Fucking Christmas, one and all.