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The preceding image is for use until I have a proper logo for non-review posts on the site, upon which it will be adjusted to that.
Hello, everyone. It’s a new year, which means new possibilities. For the first time in three years, I feel like I can do a Review Schedule post again.
In my previous post, there were a couple things I had to address first, so I would suggest checking that out first prior to this one.
Since I addressed those couple things separately rather than start here with them, I felt it’d be more fun if I just jumped right into what I have planned.
Now, these are not in any particular order, as I cannot always promise that these reviews come out as planned, similar to how these movies and shows have had to be adjusted.
However, some of these actually follow up on movies I have already covered.
First on the List is one of many things that’s been a long time coming, as I have planned to get these out before a couple times, and they ultimately did not happen.
Now it seems like the perfect time to do it, as not only does this franchise celebrate its 45th Anniversary this year, but we also had one show finish airing a few weeks ago, and it was announced shortly after that the next one starts airing 45 years to the day we first witnessed these immortalized words pop up on the screen: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”.
That’s right, everyone, I hope to finally get to covering Star Wars this year. Even though its 20th Anniversary passed, I do still plan on starting with The Phantom Menace (AKA Episode I).
The plan for that will be as follows:
The Phantom Menace (Episode I), Attack of the Clones (Episode II), and Revenge of the Sith (Episode III) leading up to the next spinoff series, which is set 10 years after the events of Episode III… Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Then next up will be the two “A Star Wars Story” movies, those being Rogue One and Solo (but with the order swapped, as Solo is apparently set after Episode III, and before Rogue One, which leads into the Original Trilogy).
Then we go to Episodes IV-VI, which are mainly referred to by the original titles they used (which is just Star Wars (in the case of Episode IV, rather than Episode IV: A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi).
Then, despite it being an ongoing series (with an upcoming third Season), next up will be Seasons 1 & 2 of The Mandalorian, followed by The Book of Boba Fett, which finished a few weeks ago.
Then finally, we get to Episodes VII-IX, which consist of The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, which conclude the main saga, or The Skywalker Saga, as it’s commonly referred as.
However, this applies to at least the movies. The shows will be included once they finish, whether it’s a miniseries or the latest Season if it’s an ongoing series.
While that does mean that it will not be chronologically (let alone canonically) accurate, it’s better for consistency.
The same applies to the Middle-Earth Saga, where I’ll be starting with The Hobbit before going into The Lord of the Rings, leading up to the Amazon series, The Rings of Power.
Next on the List is something I had also meant to do at least one for last year, which is an Anniversary Review for Aliens, but it’s one of at least two franchises that I had a backup plan in place for.
As it turns out, the flip side, the Predator franchise, is getting a new entry this year with a prequel called Prey, which is also supposed to be an origin story for the Predators.
Now, I won’t actually need to start these, as I already covered the original Alien and the original Predator in their respective Anniversary years, so feel free to go check those out before the remaining ones in the series go up.
Therefore, my backup plan I had in mind was to actually cover the remaining entries of both franchises starting with Aliens.
For the Alien franchise, that consists of Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien: Resurrection.
For the Predator franchise, that consists of Predator 2, Predators, and The Predator.
In between will be the two Alien vs. Predator films. The sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, might be the most difficult to cover, the main reason actually not being how the movie is shot (although that is one of them). The real main reason for me is because there aren’t really any even remotely noteworthy cast members in that one compared to the rest, including its immediate predecessor.
Any huge fans of the Alien franchise in particular may have noticed I did not include the prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, on this List. I don’t need to, because I also already covered them.
Next up we have some Anniversary Reviews that I put on the List simply because I wanted to do them.
In no particular order, we have what will actually be one of the first to go up, and that is one of my personal favorite superhero sequels, and still as of right now the best movie featuring the character: Blade II.
I also already covered the first one, and I’ve been waiting to be able to do this one anyway.
As for Blade: Trinity, that comes later. The best I can say is this: It will be covered before the MCU reboot comes out with Mahershala Ali taking up the mantle from Wesley Snipes, and as a result, we go from one perfect Blade casting to another.
For those wondering what was initially planned to be the first Anniversary Review for this year, but will now have to come later this year, it was what I consider to be the best found footage movie ever, which is a superhero movie done in that style, called Chronicle.
It could likely be the next Anniversary Review, as it’s actually already in progress at the time of this post going up.
Before I come back to franchises and close this post out, I also plan to do the two TRON films, The Thing (both the classic John Carpenter version and the prequel (and yes, it is a prequel))*, the two Blade Runner films (the original and Blade Runner 2049), and potentially numerous others.
There is one other that I can mention, and this will be the conclusion of the Trilogy of criminally underrated animated sci-fi movies. I started this with Titan A.E., then most recently I continued with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and now I get to announce what the third one will be. Much like Titan A.E., this one also catastrophically bombed. Unlike that, but like Atlantis, this was from Disney since Day One (Titan A.E. was initially Fox, but now technically Disney owns it ever since they bought Fox).
This one is Treasure Planet. Even though that’ll be close to the end of the year, I still cannot wait to get to this one.
Now for the last few franchises I want to mention here, because going forward with these Review Schedule posts, I want to try my best to not overload them. Doing so ultimately leads to a lot of those I announce not happening as planned. Therefore, starting this year, I want to try breaking that habit.
That pun is the perfect segue to the next franchise I want to do this year. Without this franchise, even more so with the first movie, I probably wouldn’t be as eager to cover this one. The first movie alone got me into two things, and the brand itself was one of them.
Despite its soon to be newest installment being bumped, and therefore covering this franchise next year for that was a backup plan, I want to at least cover what we have already, and that is Transformers. Either way, it’ll consist of the original five movies from Michael Bay, and then what is easily the best one since the first one: Bumblebee.
Before that will be two franchises that each celebrate their 20th Anniversaries this year.
One I absolutely hope to do this year is the one that got me into superheroes to begin with.
This one started two years after X-Men, and it also started the superhero movie boom that continues today, and helped pave the way for the MCU even more than Blade or X-Men did.
Even though he didn’t start out in the MCU, this might be the best way to lead up to one particular review in that series, and that is Spider-Man.
Similarly, to lead up to a newer review, I’ll be covering the Batman franchise, from Michael Keaton through Christian Bale, and maybe even The LEGO Batman Movie, leading up to my review of The Batman. Rather than leading up to the movie itself, as I ultimately was not able to do it in time, this’ll be leading up to my review of it, because it may end up being more convenient to do it once it arrives on Blu-Ray.
In this series, do not expect Ben Affleck’s Batman to be featured here, as that is part of the DC Extended Universe, which will be a review series of its own. Anyone wanting me to cover both Cuts of Batman v Superman and both Cuts of Justice League, they will be, just not here.
Also, do not expect Adam West, either.
Around the time of the Batman series, I hope to cover one of two spy franchises that celebrate an Anniversary this year, with this one having its 20th Anniversary, which would be the Bourne franchise.
The other one, which I chose to close this post out with for a reason, is not only another one that’s been a long time coming, but it is also one of the longest running franchises ever, and it celebrates its 60th Anniversary this year. With its 25th installment having concluded its most recent lead’s run, now is the perfect time to finally do it.
The last one I’m going to mention here… is the Bond franchise.
It may seem like a tall order, even with these other ones I have planned, but I think it’ll be worth it, because I get to do more content, and everyone gets to see more content.
One more thing: There might just be some surprises in between these, both newer and older alike.
In the meantime, I’ll see you guys next time with my Blade II review.
*There is a slight downside to that: I may have to do a comparison post where I go in depth in order to definitively end the debate once and for all (at least for me) as to why the 2011 movie is a prequel and not a remake (which the original actually was). The downside to that is that it would involve going into spoilers as I talk about the actual movies in question. The only times I usually go into spoilers in my reviews is to help explain the plot of a sequel, which may consist of huge spoilers for the previous movie, like more recently my review of Halloween Kills.
Other than that, I try to do my reviews with as few spoilers as possible.