From time to time, SciFiHistory.Net receives inquiries and or promotional links from link-minded individuals.  As time permits, these get an honest 'looking over,' and those which are found of interest we're always ready, willing, and able to pass along.

For those who haven't heard of it, Walt Disney is launching a new streaming service, and one of its hot properties is the forthcoming live action series The Mandalorian.  It's been created and written by Marvel favorite Jon Favreau, and the trailers certainly do look like it might be something special.

Like so many households, ours has a relatively limited 'entertainment budget,' so we don't actively belong to any streaming services presently other than Amazon Prime.  This isn't to say that we don't feel streaming is the future: they said the same thing about BetaMax one day, people, so color us overly cautious about investing in yet one more portal.

Still, kudos to the MouseHouse for something which looks to be more in the spirit of the Original Trilogy of Star Wars films, something we've found lacking in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

As always, live long and prosper ... and may the Force be with you!

Recently, I was asked, "How long do you intend to do this?"  Uncertain as to what the person was referencing, I inquired and was further asked, "How long do you intend to keep your blog up and running on the world wide web?"  Initially, I was a bit perplexed: it wasn't an odd question per se, but I didn't quite know how to answer.

In any event, I fumbled around briefly, explaining that Science Fiction and Fantasy were a lifelong passion, and -- so long as I was capably both intellectually and financially -- I saw no reason to ever shut it down.  After all, the blog isn't all that expensive, but it does require a fair investment of time and effort to maintain a freshness of new material.  There's a wealth of trivia for the daily citation pages I have yet to post (one would be amazed at how much clutter I keep on my various hard drives), and website traffic continues to be good (not grand) ... so I can come up presently with no need for major change.  I am thinking about other ways to make it profitable potentially; but the nuts and bolts of merely 'celebrating SciFi' is really what this blog is all about from its inception.

The one thing I haven't had as much time for is celebrating the benchmarks achieved along the way.  Life -- as you know -- requires much attention; and it isn't easy to reach a milestone as one might guess.  Today, however, I've reason to shout my own praises ...

For those of you keeping score, October is the first month that I've been able to post 50 individual citations in each of the daily pages.  This means that a viewer can click on any of the days in the month of October to discover fifty (or more) bits of trivia involving that particular day, be they birthdays, movie releases, television airings, or the like.

I don't mind mentioning that it's taken a lot of time to get to a single month with that many citations.  It's an awful lot of research, and then there's the time required to find the proper graphics, format everything, come up with something to say, etc.  But it's still a milestone for me personally, and I'm pleased to share it with you.

​As always, live long and prosper ... and may the Force be with us!  Always!

For those of you either living on an island or (as stereotypes would have it) living in your parents' basement, this week marks the release of the much-ballyhooed "final" Star Wars trailer ever -- JJ Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.  In an attempt to bolster football's still sagging television ratings, the MouseHouse aired it during Monday Night Football and then blasted it to all corners of the Earth and beyond on the web not long thereafter.

As I've often warned, never put too much stock in trailers.  Typically, they're put together by folks with a greater interest in 'marketing' the impending release, and there's very little emphasis on story.  Instead, glitz and flash and pomp and circumstances rule the day, hinting at big moments that the studios seek to promote while quietly holding back their trump cards for audiences to relish on the silver screen.  Furthermore, trailers have been shown throughout their history of pushing a particular theme or event or plotlines that may or may not figure prominently into the final cut, and for those reasons I learned long ago not to give them more focus than a passing glance.

For example: sure, it's cool to see what may be one of the ships from Star Wars: Rebels ... but, in the end, that may amount to nothing more than a two-second throwaway  to a program that deserved more, especially more than a two-second throwaway.  Dave Filoni's work on television (Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels) is often cited as giving fans of the Original and Prequel Trilogies hope that Lucasfilm hasn't quite forgotten its roots; but I'll wait and see whether or not JJ and his Mouseketeers truly served those installments 'justice' or ponied up what little they could.  (For what it's worth, I'm inclined to believe the latter and not the former.)

Despite my tendency to dismiss dissecting trailers, I'm willing to concede minimally that Rise honestly looks to dish out "more of the same" of what I've humorously termed 'the Incoherent Trilogy' as so very little of what's come from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi added up to anything substantial much less a true 'hero's quest.'  While I've admitted time and again that neither film "felt" like they were constructed in the same vein as Lucas's earlier films, I've also said that I do tend to try and find things to like -- even in the worst cinematic experiences -- and both Awakens and Jedi provided me with enough escapism to appreciate the efforts of their respective storytellers, talent, and shapers.

So ... I know I'm a bit late to the party in hawking what promises to be 'the last film in the Star Wars saga,' I'm still giving it a nod today.  Enjoy it for what it's worth ... and, as always, may the Force be with us, always ...