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This past Monday night, the Alamo Drafthouse here in Winchester held an advance screening of Syfy Channel’s The Expanse: Season 2.

Wow. Just wow.

First, Alamo Drafthouse is a national treasure. Just is. It’s a movie chain owned by people who love movies and anything that looks like a movie, heck anything that tells a story via film. A TV series on the big screen? For free? With free popcorn and a beer, to boot? Man. And NO ADS!!!!! Suck it, AMC.

Second, there is nothing better than well-done scifi. Blade Runner, Gattaca, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (both versions)…you know, scifi where the story is more important than the special effects, which rules out everything done by George Lucas.

And The Expanse is well-done scifi. Set centuries ahead, there are now three distinct human civilizations in the solar system: Earth, Mars, and the Belt, asteroid belt, that is. Earth is Rome, Mars is Sparta, and the Belt, well, they’re Dickens’ London. All three of them are ready to go to war with each other over anything at all and they might just have that ‘anything at all’ when a Belter salvage ship is nuked by what can only be a Martian stealth ship except, maybe the ship was built by a shadowy terrorist group that has about fifty different factions wanting to kill everybody else for a hundred different reasons and maybe Earth is using them to start a war with Mars and then again, maybe it’s something else entirely.

Bingo.

Season One ended with one of the most terrifying weapons tests ever. Season Two begins right after, and the nature of the weapon…Ho. Lee. Crap. And the implications. And the double dealing and things not what they seem. This is Game of Thrones in space. Complete with dragons.

Great characters. My two favorites: Joe Miller (played by Thomas Jane)

is a Belter detective employed by a private police agency on Ceres. He has seen it all. All. And he is jaded and sardonic but still willing to find some truth and to be surprised by justice. He conducts an act of pure sanity at the end of the Season 2 premier. Chrisjen Avasarala

(played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, whose hand I seek in marriage) is UN Assistant Undersecretary of Executive Administration…read “Gestapo.” She is cruel and murderous and she knows something is going on, she knows they are being played, and she is going to do whatever necessary, including hanging a Belter or two up by their clavicles, to find out.

Special effects? Oh sure. Marvelous ones, especially the rail gun battle between the spin station, the stealth ship and the Rocinante; the beer can breach of the station wall; and that weapons test. Man, that weapons test. The effects are right, as if somebody took the time to ensure the science matches the scene. F’rinstance, sitting inside a ship laced by rail gun slugs, you’re not going to hear Pew! Pew! and the sounds of tie fighters growling like Chewbacca’s pissed-off girlfriend as they go racing by. No, it’s going to be rather tranquil because you’re buttoned up in a pressure suit because, you know, rail slugs breaching the hull and look at all those fireflies shimmering and dancing all through your crew compartment, ripping everything to shreds in zero gravity and sound. Lovely.

If I have a beef, it’s the introduction of an outside-the-solar-system element. In other words, BEMs.

Too bad. IMHO, it lessens the story somewhat. The intrigue and the savagery and the backstabbing among the humans is fun enough and aligns rather nicely with my own view that, no matter how advanced our tech gets, we’re still monkeys throwing poo at each other.

Rogue One is a Star Wars universe I could get into, dark and murderous and crazy and action packed. Not the George Lucas Star Wars universe of namby-pampy muffin religions summarized by a bumper sticker, and adolescent barely-shaving heroes who really don’t want to hurt anybody, and muppets, and outlandish aliens which are there just to give the make-up people something to do and a story line right out of My Weekly Reader. That’s because George Lucas didn’t really have anything to do with this movie other than putting his name in the opening credits. Residuals, doncha know.

So this was an actually GOOD Star Wars movie. A damn good one, probably the best of the first three (which is NOT the prequels! They are NOT the first three movies! They are afterthoughts, embarrassments, more of Lucas’ muffin universe where we gotta have clones because, ewww, we can’t show PEOPLE getting hurt! Except Darth Vader. Who becomes evil because of a girl. Isn’t that always the case?)

Ahem…

Based on an offhand remark made early in the first Star Wars (yes, dammit, the FIRST Star Wars!), Rogue One is a Star Wars movie for grownups. This is war as it actually is: people die, things get broken, great tragedies are visited over large swaths of territory usually because some overbearing, nasty, and oppressive power wishes to be overbearing and nasty and we freedom loving people object. So, war, because oppressive powers don’t understand anything else (got that, bleeding hearts?) And what a war, fought with the terrible intensity you would expect from high-energy weapons and technology. You will be stunned. You will be engrossed. You won’t even notice some glaring inconsistencies.

Like…there’s still a Senate? Didn’t that kinda end when the Emperor made his move? But, wait, wasn’t Princess Leia a Senator or something in the first movie and, wait, that didn’t make sense back then, either.

I’m confused.

But, don’t worry about it, because this is a straight up story. The Death Star has been activated and nobody in the Senate (which, really shouldn’t exist anymore) knows about it…I mean, the zillions of dollars and zillions of diversions of labor and materials from all over the friggin’ galaxy just wasn’t noticed by anybody. Jedi knights didn’t even pick up on it (that Force can be fickle). So, the evil Director

(played by absolutely one of the greatest actors of our time, Ben Mendelsohn. If you don’t believe me, start watching Bloodline) is trying to keep it hidden before unleashing it on the unsuspecting Rebels, because, ya know, nobody has even HEARD about this gigantic metal moon that’s eating up all the dilithium crystals (or whatever they are) in the universe when Peter Cushing shows up (wait, isn’t he dead?) and wants to take over so prove to me this hunk of junk actually works and so the Director does. Hoo boy, does it work, in a constrained test shot that is ten thousand times more graphic and terrifying than the much-beloved destruction of Alderan.

But, don’t worry, there’s a heroine, pulled into this entire mess by some of the most convoluted and downright implausible means that only a scriptwriter could manufacture, and she’s going to get those Death Star plans. Or die trying.

And there you have it.

Darth Vader is in this one.

The real Darth Vader, not that petulant kid you just want to slap the crap out of, or that Kylo Kilo pajama boy, but Darth friggin’ Vader hisself, all broody and scary and living in his Fortress of Solitude on the lava world. I swear he told his architect to make his home as intimidating as possible, to discourage visitors, I guess. And I guess he saved money by incorporating old Star Wars sets into the place, but it was good to see him. And he is a true badass, as the last sequence will reveal, when you’ll get to see Stepford Princess Leia, too.

There is a battle sequence involving a master switch that will make your head explode, because someone has to go to the master switch and set dial 7 to the 400 mhx range and then throw fuse 11765883 into the neutral position and then wait five seconds and turn the base plate 28.5 degrees magnetic north and then jump on one foot and hold your breath and…really, somebody should write this down. And, of COURSE, the switch is right out there in the middle of the entire Imperial storm trooper army. Of course. Wouldn’t it be easier to drive an Imperial Star Cruiser right through the Star Gate?

Sheesh, Captain Kirk would have just photon torpedoed the whole mess.

Anyway. Go see it. It’s a blast. And if you don’t cry at the end, you’re a Sith.

Godzilla! Or, more accurately, Shin Gojira, the latest iteration of the much beloved rampaging monster, who has been everything from a Hasbro Toy to a Saturday morning cartoon. Nothing endears more than destructive forces.

This version is all Japanese, which makes it a lot of fun. For one, Godzilla’s actually IN this movie, and not just making a cameo as he did in the recent American production. Nope, the Goj is right there big and bad and on screen in the first five minutes or so after the Japanese Coast Guard discovers a boat drifting aimlessly about the Bay (said boat becomes important later on. Sort of. If you’re paying attention. And you might not be by that time) and suddenly there’s steam and blood―yes, blood―pouring into a tunnel…wait a minute, tunnel disaster? Did we not just see something like this? Then Godzilla appears…in the guise of a giant sock puppet weasel. With button eyes. Kinda cute, in an Ultraman kinda way. But then it evolves into the Godzilla we’ve all come to love…actually, the most insane looking Godzilla ever. Really. This guy looks completely deranged, teeth and all. With a tail twice as long and a mind of its own. And lasers and an air defense system. Really.

The Japanese response is to legislate Godzilla to death. Never have you seen the formation of more and more elaborate committees, themselves evolving from “Basic Emergency Committee” to such things as the “Ad-Hoc Cross Party Unexplained Creature Smashing Us Committee for Peace and Well-Being and the Next Elections” committee, which can’t make a decision so they bring together the “Committee of Nerds, Dweebs, Mavericks, Rebels, Outcasts, Druids, Compound Interest, and A Couple of Guys who Are Standing Around” to make a decision but they can’t, either, but at least they can do research. Guys running around the instantly well-equipped and prepared conference room (I mean, wow, the moment a new committee is formed, phalanxes of toadies are putting tables and chairs and servers together in pleasing and tasteful manners) throw laptops at each other the moment they discover something interesting, like radioactivity is rising everywhere the insane sock puppet goes. You will be amused.

But, mostly, you will be baffled.

The onslaught of subtitles will blind you. There are two sets, a top one superimposed on the kanji explaining which committee this is and who comprises it (very important because you can’t know the players without a scorecard) and what their relationship to the government is, and the bottom set of subtitles telling you what everyone is saying. Essentially, it’s a movie sandwich, and I advise you to stick with the bottom ones only because the committees change so fast you don’t really care anymore. There is US intervention, honchoed by a Japanese woman who’s a US government representative…suuure she is…who essentially wants to nuke Japan. Again. The committees take a dim view of this and they invoke a National Emergency (finally! Someone makes a decision! We don’t know who!) and unleashes the Japanese military on the sock puppet.

Hoo boy. Shoulda nuked it.

Because vintage Godzilla swings into action as the sock puppet shakes off missiles and tank rounds and smashes Tokyo like the Hulk under the influence of the Scarlet Witch (see what I did there?) A couple of US bombers show up and put a hurtin’ on the Goj (to the enthusiasm of at least one cabinet member. Nice to know we’re still appreciated) but all that does is make it mad. You wouldn’t like him when he’s mad (see what I did there, again?). And the smashathon, radioactive-breathathon of Tokyo goes into overdrive. Oh no. Let’s freeze him.

Yeah. Freeze him.

But, don’t be put off. This is, indeed, a very fun movie…as long as you stay awake between committee changes.