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Since it won't be until late August that we get any more MCU or Star Wars shows, I thought this would be a good time to do a ranking of all the Disney+ shows so far (except What If, I still haven't mustered the energy to watch that). I'll avoid heavy spoilers.

Before doing the ranking, I would have thought the MCU shows would rank higher but, for the most part, I realised I still actually prefer the Star Wars shows. The MCU has long been criticised for not being visually interesting while impressive visuals are an essential part of Star Wars. So Star Wars shows with weak visuals tend to rank low on my list. But for both the MCU and Star Wars series, I generally found the shows that worked best tended to focus on character relationships, with an emphasis on focus. When actors and scripts are allowed to build chemistry organically over time, these shows do what television has classically been able to do better than most movies--give you a feeling that you live with these people. The shows that fail often do so because of a lack of this focus, coming across as scattershot and schizophrenic. The problem, in a word, is Disney. Or, in another word, morality. Superhero stories are traditionally stories of very simplistic morality, and so, as Alan Moore has somewhat recently said, they are inherently childish. Although Star Wars is commonly regarded as a story of good versus evil, it really isn't. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, the character at the heart of all the George Lucas films, occupies the role of both hero and villain and the films are interesting partly because they explore just what these roles mean. The Disney Star Wars shows have worked better the more they've drifted away from simplistic morality while the MCU shows have faltered the more they've steered closer to simplistic morality. Since this morality is likely composed of corporate memos, it's likely the kind of shallow morality more concerned with how one is supposed to feel than with how one actually does. The Star Wars shows have benefited from Jon Favreau's creative control, even though Faveau himself is not perfect. He does, however, show a good ability to recognise his own mistakes and improve.



12. Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Although the chemistry between the two leads on this series showed some promise early on, and Wyatt Russell's U.S. Agent was outstanding for his moral murkiness, this is easily the worst of the Disney+ shows. Its lack of focus could partially be blamed on rewrites forced by the pandemic (though, in retrospect, having a plot relevant to current events seems like it would have been more of an asset). But the confusing tangle of motives for the characters, particularly the villains, is likely due to more than that and, worst of all, the show was a really bad introduction to the Falcon's new role going forward.



11. Ms. Marvel

This is another one that started well--it started even better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier--but then got completely lost in ridiculous and sterile plot territory. A truly charming lead character is drowned in waters of meaninglessness by the end.



10. The Bad Batch

It's never as interested as Clone Wars was under George Lucas' creative control but certain episodes established and nicely built on the character of Omega. However, many episodes ran into the same problems as Star Wars: Rebels in which formerly lethal threats feel insubstantial, played for broad comedy with characters who don't seem particularly worried.



9. Loki

Once again, this show's biggest asset was chemistry between its characters, in this case between Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson. But the show lost focus when it shifted attention to Loki and his female variant. Plot problems that were already apparent early on began to overwhelm the show once Hiddleston and Wilson weren't playing off each other. By the end of the series, Loki's behaviour was wildly out of character for no apparent reason. The scheming Shakespearan character everyone loved from the Thor films was gone with no justification.



8. Obi-Wan Kenobi

The first of the live action Disney+ shows without Jon Favreau's involvement and it shows. The writers don't seem to be particularly interested in Star Wars or the characters and there are many moments of familiar characters doing and saying things that too drastically contradict their previously established personalities (why the hell would Obi-Wan Kenobi give anyone a blaster holster?). A weak sense of stakes established by characters shrugging off fatal lightsabre wounds is only one of the more vivid examples of weak writing. But it did have some strong performances and some late script contributions from Andrew Stanton elevated the final two episodes.



7. WandaVision

I have to admire the boldness of this show's premise and the performances from most of the leads were terrific. Some of the stuff related to the series' villain is great though Monica Rambeau failed to establish herself as interesting enough to be the lead for an MCU film. The show also had the infamous "Boner" fake out, for which it loses a lot of points. But there was some genuine insight into how it explored Wanda's psychology in the end.



6. Moon Knight

Here's an example of great character chemistry that's even more admirable when you consider it's one actor in both roles. The penultimate episode exploring their relationship was truly great. Ethan Hawke gives a nicely nuanced performance as the villain and Konshu is one of the best cgi creations in recent years. Sadly, the female lead is weakly established and the plot is jerked artificially in too many directions by corporate mandates.



5. Hawkeye

Of all the MCU shows, this is the one that most felt like it managed to do what it set out to do. It didn't aim as high as the others maybe, but that's perfectly all right, especially when you've got that great chemistry between Hawkeye and Kate Bishop. The only real complaint I have about this show is in how it took a previously interesting and complex villain and turned him into a simplistic thug. But I'm far from alone in complaining about that so hopefully Disney will listen this time. Otherwise, this is a sweet, cosy little Christmas series.

4. The Mandalorian, season one

There are a lot of problems with how this show conceptualises the Star Wars universe but by the end it does manage to establish truly good characters with interesting relationships. Favreau's interesting casting decisions--particularly Werner Herzog, Bill Burr, and Carl Weathers--pay off big time. Taika Waititi's direction of the series finale elevated it considerably and cinematography by Greg Fraser in a few episodes gave this show the kind of beauty essential to giving Star Wars the sense of awe it ought to have.



3. The Mandalorian, season two

And here's what I'm talking about when I say Favreau is good at learning from his mistakes. He completely abandons the silly "bounty hunter guild" from the first season and a lot of the simplistic morality. This was a season focused on giving us action and adventure in a distant galaxy and at times it was even breathtaking. Robert Rodriguez's episode reintroducing Boba Fett reminded us why Rodriguez is one of the great action directors to come out of 1990s indie cinema.



2. Star Wars Visions

Although this series is a mixed bag, it's altogether a triumph. Unfettered for the most part by Disney's creative mandates, this series truly explored new territory in Star Wars, visually and thematically. "The Elder" is the only piece of Star Wars fiction under Disney that truly reflects an understanding of what the Jedi are supposed to be while "Lop and Ocho" has the kind of pairing of family relationship and pulp adventure that was integral to the original films. This is Star Wars. Although, ironically, it's essential to watch Visions with the Japanese language track. A lot of people discovered for the first time by watching Star Wars: Visions just how bad English dubs of anime tend to be, even with celebrity voice actors.



1. The Book of Boba Fett

This show had heart and made a truly interesting character out of Boba Fett. His integration into a Tusken Raider tribe and the changes it wrought in his personality truly fulfilled the promise of Spaghetti Western via Star Wars that Favreau had teased from the beginning of The Mandalorian. The relationship between Fennec and Boba was nice and subtle, too. I only wish there'd been more time to develop a relationship between Boba and Jennifer Biels. And once again, Robert Rodriguez brought the right kind of attitude for the material. I only hope he returns for season two after internet users orchestrated such a vigorous campaign against him for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of his work.

Once more down the rabbit hole, friends. My survey of Disney's animated canon brings me now to their 1951 adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, a film I've written about numerous times, most recently just two years ago. My love for the movie can be seen in one of the few kitchen items I brought in my luggage to Japan, this coffee cup:



This was a gift my parents brought back from Disneyland some years ago. I was happy to see plenty of Alice in Wonderland merchandise here in Japan, too. Not long after arriving I compulsively purchased a pad of pop-up notes at Daiso, the 100 yen store.



Teaching at junior high, I've been delighted to see how many girls have Alice in Wonderland pencil cases and notebook dividers. Here, at least, the Tim Burton live action film has not supplanted the 1951 adaptation in the public imagination. When I was a kid in the 80s, my friends and I would watch Disney cartoons from the 40s and 50s without any awareness of how old they were. Here in Japan, it's the same, and children are equally as familiar with Cinderella as they are with Frozen. Live action Disney movies don't seem to be quite as well known. All of this was a pleasant surprise because I'd recently had an experience that led me to expect otherwise.

I had a series of tutoring jobs before coming to Japan. One of my students was a fifteen year old Chinese boy whom I tutored in his very large new home in one of the more affluent areas of San Diego. One of the reasons gentrification is--or was--getting so out of hand in California is an influx of investors from China and other countries suddenly buying a lot of real estate. I drove to this kid's house every night, his whole neighbourhood was so new it wasn't even on satellite view on Google maps yet. He was a good kid and I always felt bad for how little free time he had, his parents kept him under a pretty strict regimen. He was learning English but he'd also somehow gotten himself into an advanced English literature class at an elite private high school. My job was not only to tutor him in English as a second language but also to assist in his comprehension of recent, snooty postmodernist novels (one being a novel called We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the title of which was alone a nightmarish layering of references for the poor guy), Macbeth, and his history homework, which consisted of watching a smug YouTuber called John Green whose "Crash Course" videos are a perfect storm of inscrutability for the English language learner featuring complex English in rapidfire delivery riddled with ironic asides and jokes based on politically oriented presumptions spoken in the same tone as facts. Green's videos are bad enough to confuse a native speaking high school student. In the same breathe he talks about ancient currency, condemns ancient leaders for often being male, and makes a crack about his luck getting dates as a teenager.

I felt like I did a pretty good job tutoring him on Macbeth though when he heard initially that it was going to be about a man murdering his king I think he hoped it was going to be a different kind of story. It was about this time I started thinking about tutoring him with Lewis Carroll's original Alice in Wonderland books.

When I brought up the idea he didn't seem enthusiastic and told me that he'd already seen the movie, meaning the Tim Burton one. Speaking recently with other young people I've discovered the Burton film has solidified for one reason or another in the minds of people under 25 as the story. And many are understandably underwhelmed. Burton's movie, more of an action film about a young woman fighting the forces of darkness, has little actual relevance to the lives of school children. I assured him the book was very different and we started reading. Very quickly I could see, and in spite of himself, it was connecting with him. When we came to this part of chapter three he was provoked to genuine laughter:

“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—”

“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.

It was one of the most rewarding moments so far in my brief career as a teacher. I knew the job I had with him was practically impossible but I decided to focus on showing him that literature, and English, could be something more than a chore or a grade to be earned or even money. It could be a friend.



The thing adaptations almost never understand about the books, including the 1951 film, is that the books present the senselessness of an adult world from a child's perspective. Even good children's fiction is often more about the challenges of an adult than a child. Sometimes a child can enjoy such fiction because, after all, kids are instinctively looking for models of how to behave as an adult. But Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of those rare works that capture a child's experience. Among many other things.



Another facet of Carroll's genius is that the books can be many different things to different people. Alice's existential questioning in the beginning of the book is deeply evocative for anyone of any age. The commentary on cliques in "The Garden of Live Flowers" in Through the Looking Glass is an amusing sociological satire and the Queen of Hearts' every line is a potent critique of tyrannical mindsets. Another reason the books endure in the mind so much is their curious scarcity of sentimentality. The opening and closing poems are really the only time you get anything like the infamous Victorian sentimentalizing of children. But Carroll knew the wistful remembrance of expired childhood had little to do with a child's point of view, by definition. The Alice books are also two of the few 19th century novels to feature a female protagonist who never falls in love. The absence of these things has the result of making them more conspicuous in the mind of the reader, which is one reason I think people obsess with discussing Carroll's possible attraction to Alice Liddell.



The 1951 film stays away from romance but it does indulge in some sentimentality, and very successfully, when it comes to the beautifully animated daisies in the opening sequence and the title song. That song, of course, has become a jazz standard and it's hard not to be wooed by the gentle melancholy of Bill Evans' interpretation:



Or the brisk affection in Oscar Peterson's:



The film also features great visual design by Mary Blair and some of the best executed comedy moments of any Disney film.

1951's Alice in Wonderland is available on Disney+.

My ranking of Alice in Wonderland film adaptations can be found here.

There are other treasures on Disney+ besides Star Wars and Marvel. There're also Disney things. Many of my childhood favourites, like DuckTales, for example. I mean the old one, of course. I've seen the first episode of the new one and I'll probably watch it through eventually but for now I'm content to have a reliable source for the classic series. Though, like many series, Disney is for some reason streaming the episodes out of order. In this case, it's an old problem because I remember my DVD sets also did not include the first episodes on the first collected volume, I think because they were labelled as pilot instead of as the first episodes. Whoever puts these things together seems to be on autopilot. Or maybe that's just it; it's AI.

Anyway, I hopped into the middle of the first season a couple nights ago with "Magica's Shadow War", a surprisingly provoking tale of Magica De Spell (June Foray) bringing her shadow to life in order to steal Scrooge's lucky dime.



It's her usual goal, established by Carl Barks in the original Uncle Scrooge comics, but it's one that is curious in itself. The concept that this item, to which Scrooge (Alan Young) himself mostly only ascribes sentimental value, is coveted by De Spell, a witch, as something of great value. Is Scrooge really a self-made duck, or was it a matter of destiny, fate arranged by the gods via a dime? In this, one can surprisingly see a basic argument between left and right. The ambiguity is fitting, too, because usually we don't see exactly to what extent someone owes their wealth to luck or their own talents. Magica, in the villain role, seems fitting as her conception of the dime would mean the world is a place where Scrooge's own decisions and actions have little meaning.



The shadows bring this to another level. First there's just one, Magica's, then, when it rebels, it spawns others. All alike, each the same distorted copy of Magica herself. And they all want the dime, insisting that it's their right. They've fully assimilated Magica's idea that the dime is responsible for Scrooge's success and it becomes, in the minds of the shadows, a power Scrooge has stolen. It can't be that Scrooge owes his success to his own hard work and ingenuity.

Bitter minds of indistinct individuals, resenting one successful duck. It sounds like Twitter.

Twitter Sonnet #1316

A penny school removed the dollar's worth.
The flying car advanced beyond our reach.
Another Mars displaced our lonely Earth.
There's something else a plastic globe can teach.
A shadow's dime was lost in piled cash.
Exclusive banks encase the liquid gold.
The market value's printed 'long the sash.
Expenses crush the story while it's told.
A hidden cake conceals another chip.
Computer thoughts begat careers at home.
A cottage quilt portrays the vicar's lip.
The metal showed the water where to roam.
The pictured cat resolved in pixels clean.
A giant land condensed inside a bean.

One thing was made clear by last night's two new Star Wars Rebels episodes--the show is a lot better looking than it was in season 1. It looks about as good now as Clone Wars looked in its last couple seasons so I guess Dave Filoni finally convinced Disney it was worth spending money on a show like this. If only Rebels had the same calibre of creative talent when it came to writing.

Spoilers after the screenshot



I watched the "Rebels Recon" followup interview package that went with these two new episodes. Dave Filoni, showrunner on Rebels and nominally on Clone Wars, wrote and co-directed last night's two episodes and in the interview segment he talks about how the "Mortis Gods" featured in the episodes were created by George Lucas for a story arc on Clone Wars. Not my favourite arc from Clone Wars as it happens. They look pretty cool and I like design of the mural but I don't really like the vaguely Catholic Holy Trinity aspect of the Mortis Gods. It is, however, another example of the show leaning on teases of things Lucas came with to try to string us along with Ezra's (Taylor Gray) story. An even better example is when Ezra enters the cave, hears a bunch of soundclips from all over Star Wars history, and then saves Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) from her duel with Vader via a time portal on what looks like a great Mario Kart map.



So they actually came up with an explanation for that lame jump in time at the climax of season 2. I only wish Ezra had reached further back to when Ahsoka had her original face. I'm glad she's alive, hopefully in her next incarnation she'll look like herself. There was a little while where Rosario Dawson was rumoured to be up for a life action Ahsoka, something I whole-heartedly endorse. There is a real physical resemblance and Dawson is one of the most under-appreciated actors of the past thirty years.



Anyway, of course Ahsoka being there is all about Ezra and her teaching him how to let go of Kanan. I guess if Ezra's voice didn't annoy me so much, and I wasn't so bitter about how Ahsoka's been relegated to an advisor role on this series, I could've found the moment poignant. Ezra's one of two elements that Filoni seems to consider a point of deep personal expression, the other being those Loth Wolves.



If only they didn't look exactly like the wolves from Princess Mononoke, something I'm far from alone in noticing. It invites a really unflattering comparison for Rebels. So far they've been transport and quest givers on Rebels, nothing like the truly fascinating dramatic conflict from the Miyazaki film about the need for humanity to exploit nature for survival. But last night's episodes of Rebels did introduce an interesting Imperial character voiced by Malcolm McDowell.



Until he inexplicably had a stormtrooper knock Sabine (Tiya Sircar) in the head I liked how he was actually trying to win her over instead of immediately going for the slobbering Nazi interrogator thing. Though here, as I have since the beginning of the series, I found Sabine's attitude about art insulting. In season one we were supposed to take her Sixth Doctor colour palette as a sign that she was just so creative and rebellious, and now she says that everything about art has meaning, like it's a secret code only artists can read. I did like how the score seemed almost to be quoting Raiders of the Lost Ark when she and Ezra were looking at the mural, though.



Ian McDiarmid returned as Palpatine, the Emperor, last night, which was great, though his moments felt a little deflated. Being absent for the whole series, and absent in Rogue One, has lent him some mystique that felt kind of squandered by him showing up to have a chat with McDowell's character. And the idea of him caring so much about Ezra seemed ridiculous.



This moment at the end with Ezra and Hera (Vanessa Marshall) was nice, though. Really pretty. I hope Ezra dies early on next week so I can enjoy these visuals without him around. I hope his eyebrows fall off when dies, like that guy from FLCL.




Twitter Sonnet #1088

A quarter candle's lit for later ghosts.
The fire shades support a nymph and swain.
Into the ceiling reach the leafy hosts.
A deep above, a pitch as blood contained.
A string denotes the brow against the paint.
A struggling wind revived the ancient drapes.
Recumbent wrists in darkened heat were faint.
The silhouettes in plaster burned their shapes.
The blurring branches blend behind a tree.
Tornadoes smaller than the dream approach.
The second leaf in ev'ry bush can see.
A watchful ceiling cloud amassed reproach.
A shadow's budget broke the paper dogs.
A velvet fire's stitched to velvet logs.

When it was announced that George Lucas was selling Star Wars to Disney, I was optimistic. I liked the idea that Disney wanted to put out a lot more Star Wars film and television than Lucas tended to--I figured, sure, Disney would make mistakes but more material means more chances to learn from mistakes. But it's hard to imagine how some mistakes weren't easy to avoid, like the new Forces of Destiny animated shorts Disney has put on YouTube over the past few days.

Three episodes have been uploaded as I'm writing this--two starring Daisy Ridley as Rey and one starring Shelby Jones as Leia. Jones doesn't sound remotely like Carrie Fisher, which is to be expected, but it would have been nice if they'd at least found someone whose performance isn't as flat as stale root beer. Anyway, that's not the biggest problem in her two and a half minute short, called "Ewok Escape", which is set between scenes of Return of the Jedi. Keep in mind, Disney says this stuff is canon:



You would think if there was one thing Disney would be sure to get right it was animation. Why would they release something that looks like this? The animation quality is of a parody video and it looks even worse considering these shorts were obviously influenced by Gendy Tartakovsky's hand drawn, 2003 animated Clone Wars shorts. Tartakovsky's style is simple so maybe that's why Disney thought it could be easily replicated. But there's more too what Tartakovsky does than stylistic simplicity. In his Clone Wars shorts as in his Samurai Jack and Sym-Bionic Titan, Tartakovsky uses simple designs to emphasise action, easily setting up contrasts between layers of foreground, background, and character. Tartakovsky's a master at composing sequences of images to tell a story. Forces of Destiny just looks like someone was trying to cut costs.

Another difference is that Tartakovsky had the advantage of being focused on telling a story while Forces of Destiny seems to be first and foremost about branding. Each episode focuses on a female character, part of an initiative at Disney to focus more on women in the Star Wars universe, which I think is great except for the fact that there's little effort put into these beyond this idea. It makes me wonder if this is going to end up like the Marvel exec, Dave Gabriel, blaming their sales slump on the increased racial and gender diversity in their comics. When people are eventually turned off by the lazy shit Disney's trying to push, I can imagine someone similarly saying, "Well, I guess it must be the female characters."

And part of the bad writing here actually has to do with some conservative themes. The first two shorts featuring Rey are about how she's protecting her little BB from a monster who turns out to be friendly anyway. And there's no way I'm considering "Ewok Escape" canon.

You can sense the checklist of appropriate messaging that must have gone through making the entire story, beginning with establishing the Ewoks as an indigenous people the evil Empire is subjugating--which is a fine starting point for a story outline but, for gods' sakes, you really want to do this with the infamous talking teddy bears? Then we have to establish the Ewoks as smart so we're given another of their goofy gags, a rope trip that actually makes the Ewok slapstick in the film look reasonable--and then we need to explain to the audience that Leia's costume change was totally consensual. The episode ends with one of the most weirdly flat footed scenes I've seen in anything. The Ewoks give her a dress, she likes it, she puts it on, and she thanks them. Nevermind the dress is actually kind of plain. But this was apparently so crucial that the story establishes Wicket can translate Basic for the other Ewoks, calling into question what the point was of having 3PO translate later on. Things might've been improved a little bit if the episode ended with the card, ". . . and then Leia watched them devour the stormtroopers."

Fuck, Disney, make an effort.