A. J. Black lends his thoughts on the second season of Disney’s The Mandalorian… In so many ways, two seasons in, The Mandalorian is such a contradiction. On the one hand, it represents precisely the kind of fan service that I have...
As Star Wars and Marvel announce their future plans, A. J. Black discusses the phenomenon of milking the biggest franchises in the world for all they’re worth… Franchise cinema, let’s be honest, can be thrilling. It can transform movie...
Caution: here be spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, so I suggest only reading once you have seen the film. Upon leaving a screening of The Force Awakens in 2015, you would be forgiven for having one question on your mind: who exactly...
CAUTION: contains some major spoilers so only read on if you’ve seen the film. If you were looking for the perfect film to put a capstone on the 2010’s, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker arguably would be it. Even with the...
From 2012 onwards, before developing this blog, I wrote a multitude of reviews on the website Letterboxd. In this irregular series called From the Vault, I’m going to haul these earlier reviews out of mothballs and re-purpose them here. This...
Until this weekend, Star Wars: Episode IX was in serious danger of having its thunder well and truly stolen by the twin pop-culture giants on the immediate horizon – Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones’ final season. As if sensing a...
An unexpected comparison can be drawn this holiday season between two of the biggest science-fiction franchises – Doctor Who and Star Wars. In both Peter Capaldi’s final turn as the Doctor in ‘Twice Upon a Time’ and Rian...
Only a week old and Star Wars: The Last Jedi already feels like it’s been dripped dry of critique and analysis. The much-anticipated follow up to The Force Awakens, 2015’s bombastic revival of the Star Wars saga, has been polarising to...
The cyclical nature of storytelling is one of my fascinations, and something I fully intend to write more about on Cultural Conversation. Star Wars is one of many major franchises which taps into deeply mythological, archetypal stories which end up...