In Defense of Bad Movies Part 2: FLAAAASSSHH!

Check out the muscles
on Blonde Conan!

In Part 1 of  In Defense of Bad Movies, I outlined the disconnect between film critics and the general public. If you want to read it, you can certainly do that. Now that I have made this particular bed, I’m going to lie in it by taking a pipe wrench to the skull of a film most beloved and personal to the Geek Nation. Let’s all watch some people’s heads explode. Fun!

Since I mentioned Flash Gordon (1980) in Part 1 as an example of a bad movie, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why I think this is so. Before you start typing your hate mail, there's some objective criteria below that you ought to look at. I put pictures in the post, so you wouldn't have to just take my word for it. If you make it all the way to the end and still feel triggered, just follow this link over to my Facebook page and let fly with your invective. I'm bracing myself for impact. Okay, enough of that; let's go tip some sacred cows!

Intellectual Property Homesick Blues, Part 3: You Kids Get Your Banthas Off My Lawn

Now this tag line is actually
truthful. It was forever ago.

Part One is Here: Rocky and Bullwinkle
Part Two is Here: Solo

Solo came out last week, and it landed like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl as the intelligencia—ahem, excuse me—I mean fandom—savaged the movie for not being necessary, and also not being what they wanted it to be, a state of being that can only exist in the intellectual miasma of the Internet. I’m speaking, of course, about the vocal minority, out in force, clutching their lightsabers and calling for the resignation of Kathleen Kennedy for “ruining Star Wars.”

Mind you, I’m not talking about people with legitimate problems with the movie. If you don’t like the lack of tension, the uneven pacing, the need to self-reference other movies in ham-fisted ways, I’ve got no problem with that, because while I just don’t particularly care about those concerns, I freely acknowledge that they are there and you are right.

No, I’m talking about these guys here, the Poisonous Minority that seems to be infecting all levels and areas of popular culture these days.  I find this unfathomable in the extreme, and if you’re one of the people who have been arguing for this, sit back, because you need to hear what I have to say. Everyone comfortable? Got your fingers poised over the keys, ready to ragequit? Okay, here it goes:

You’re now officially too old for Star Wars. There. I said it.

When Rick and Morty Don’t Get the Star Wars Movie They Want

So, by now, you’ve seen the latest Internet dust-up. No, it’s not over health care, or the massive tax break for the rich, or the ongoing cockroach cluster that is the American Media sex scandal, or the fact that Disney is now an Intellectual Property Monopoly unto itself. It’s not about food, or oil, or governmental overreach, or Russia, or corporate culture run amok.

It’s about Star Wars.

Luke looks a little dark in this poster.
I wonder what they could have been
trying to convey with that?

Yeah, you heard me, Star Wars. The 8^th chapter in the seemingly interminable saga of the Skywalker Dysfunctional Family, the 9^th movie in 40 years. And we’re not done with it. That is, most of us aren’t done. We’re waiting patiently for Episode 9, when the trilogy of trilogies is complete. We’re even going to sit through a Han Solo movie that no one asked for, while we wait.

But some of you—and let’s be clear about this: it’s a vocal minority, and we know that now, don’t we?—some of you feel as though you didn’t get something you were promised. And what exactly was that, hmmm? You were promised a movie that advanced a storyline that has been in motion—glacial, inexorable motion—since 1977. And you got it, in spades. Two-and-a-half hours’ worth of space fights, lightsabers, starships, and obligatory ancillary merchandise out the wazoo. So has it always been, and so shall it ever be.

So, what’s your problem?

Ben Shapiro’s Laundry List of complaints—many of which fall into the round file alongside stuff like “You wouldn’t hear the explosions in space, duh!” but it also includes a jab at the "Social Justice Warrior" message in the movie, as well. And this bit of incisive journalism about the unanswered questions plot holes in the movie, and, as writer/artist Jamal Igle notes, none of which are plot holes.  Gerry Conway’s political repositioning of the movie certainly accounted for some of the uproar. Apparently, Star Wars should never be about something, unless that something is friendships and space ships and laser swords. Darren Yohan went the opposite way and justified everychoice made in the movie.

The Teaser Poster. That red and white
color scheme that ran through the
posters? That was intentional. I
wonder what they could have been
trying to convey with that?

So, there was, once again, a gulf of difference between the fans and the critics. But was there? My evidence is anecdotal, largely empirical, and wouldn’t hold up in court, but since I own a movie theater that is playing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I have the luxury of asking my audience—passionate Star Wars fans, the lot of them—what they thought. Here’s their general consensus:

Most of them found one thing to not like, or question, or say, “I’d rather they...”. But then they hasten to add, “But I loved it. It was fantastic!” Now, this certainly may be partially due to the glow of having just seen the movie, but I’ve got repeat customers in week two who are only liking it more as they come out of the theater.

This isn’t all fans, of course. Many folks I know didn’t like the movie, for what I’d consider to be articulate, concrete, and specific reasons. A few of them are even mad about it. After all, for some of us, this would be considered yet another disappointment, after (just to pull one out of a hat) Episode I: the Phantom Menace.

For one fan, though, it was too much to bear. He started a petition on Change.org to get enough signatures so that Disney would strike the movie from the Star Wars canon. As of this writing, it has over 59,000 signatures and counting.

I am not joking. I wish I was.

Novelist and screenwriter Chris Cargill fairly Mjolnir-ed the nail on the head thusly on Twitter:

C. Robert Cargill‏ @Massawyrm Dec 20
There has been a gawdawful Holiday Special, two unwatchable Ewok feature films, three reviled special editions, three despised prequels, a complete embarrassment of a feature length animated Clone Wars movie... ...but Episode VIII is where you draw the line canonically? Huh.

Now, I want to talk a little bit about the guy who started this whole thing, Henry Walsh. After the story went viral, and he started getting death threats (because, see, that’s what happens when stories go viral—they explode and their spores get all over everyone and this trigger mutations and that’s how you get more trolls, get it?), he rolled back his statement. Here’s the quote from the newsweek article: 

"Hey guys I need to be honest here," Walsh wrote on Tuesday. "I put this petition up because I was upset and I was on strong pain medication."  Walsh, who is from Avondale Estates, Georgia, explained that he was recently in a car accident, and was "frustrated and medicated" when he created the campaign. "It was a bad idea at the time and I feel that we are pooling our efforts in not a healthy direction." 

Walsh recommended everyone who signed his petition (46,394 people and counting) check out other, more pressing issues on Change.org. "I couldn't get the help on GoFundMe to help pay for my surgery, and yet *this* gets this kind of attention," he wrote. 

Then, in a second update on Wednesday, Walsh announced he would update the petition every day to highlight a new cause, starting with A Force For Change, a fundraising effort by Star Wars fans, currently raising money for Unicef Kid Power and Starlight Children's Foundation. 

Walsh added that he still really hates The Last Jedi.

In a follow up article, on a website closer to home, he added to the story:

 Walsh said he tried to rein it in, telling people to devote their energies to helping someone who needed it and reminding them of the petition’s humorous intentions. That made things even worse. 

“The people supporting the petition decided I was a sell out and Disney had bought me off,” he said. “I wish Disney had bought me off. I could use the money." 

Walsh has had a tough year. An accident left him wheelchair bound and he moved to Avondale Estates to find treatment for his condition and get back on his feet. He said when he saw the movie – the longest “Star Wars” film ever made – he was in physical pain due to sitting up the whole time. 

After the film, he was venting online when someone suggested he write the petition as Professor Walsh, a persona he used when he wrote for the “Star Wars” fan site, “Ask a Jedi.”

“I was hired to be controversial, so we created the Professor Walsh persona, which is like if you take me and ratchet me up to 11,” he said. “Professor Walsh was always highly critical and aggressive in a critique.” 

He said when he created the petition, “At the time I was really frustrated with the film. It was, ‘Hey, let’s do this. It will be great. We’ll get 20 or 30 people and it’s gonna be a laugh and that’s it.'” 

But not everyone got the joke, he said. 

“Funny thing about ideas on the internet,” he said. “It seems, not everyone realizes things aren’t supposed to be super serious.”

But, see, here’s where Henry Walsh got it wrong, so very wrong. He knew exactly what this would do. I am not unsympathetic to his situation, okay? As one of the people on www.askajedi.com, he was an authority on Star Wars, especially the Expanded Universe...you remember, all of that stuff that was the first thing to go when Walt Disney bought George Lucas’ hot mess? That stuff. So, this guy, who was a big deal, a decent writer as far as fan-scholars go, and someone who had all of the answers, suddenly had no answers.

Then he got hit (literally and figuratively) with a couple of tragedies; things that would have thrown any of us into a real funk. And he didn’t have any (or enough, or the right kind of) insurance to cover the cost of his surgeries. So he started a GoFundMe campaign, and it didn’t exactly light the world on fire. But he never thought to go back to his old stomping grounds and say, “Hey, all of you Jedi fanatics, I need a little help, here.” He could have done so easily, even though the site no longer seems to be regularly updated, I’m positive this kid is online in other Star Wars forums. He could have asked for what he needed, and I’ll bet you some Star Wars fans who GET it would very likely have gladly dropped a donation to help him get a brace so he could have mobility back. Because that’s what a Star Wars fan would do, as the hundreds of non-profit Star Wars charity groups across the country would tell you.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he decided to pull a Rick and Morty and pitch a hissy fit about the Szechuan Sauce. 

Now I’m not going to aim this directly at Henry, because again, I am sympathetic to his medical condition, and the effects of pain killers, and also I understand about stupid lapses in judgment on the Internet. Also, I appreciate his efforts to back off of his original stance and highlight other groups that need help and support on gofundme and change.org.

This next part is aimed at the 59,000 and counting Star Wars fans who signed that ridiculous petition: just who the hell do you think you are, anyway?

I’ve spoken before about fans taking ownership of the Star Wars movies, but there’s a big difference between a director monkeying around with a film and changing fundamental characters and endings, years after we all decided we liked them just fine the way they were, and a group of fans who are acting like middle management at a dog food company, rejecting a commercial proposal because it doesn’t hit the right notes for them. “Yeah, no, we were thinking of something just like the old Chuck Wagon ads, but not exactly that, but basically that, even though they are old and we’ve all seen them before. We’re going to need you to take this back and rework it. We don’t quite know what we want; we’ll let you know when we see it.”

Um, that’s not how this works, y’all. I can’t believe I’m defending Walt Disney, Inc,. here, but this is exactly the movie they wanted to put out. I’m sorry that two full years of rampant speculation and countless hours—no, make that weeks—spent on the Interwebs, explaining the reasons for your theory as to who Rey’s parents were in detail—with frames from the film, to back it all up—all of the arguments, friendly and otherwise, about Kylo Ren, Snope, The First Order, all of it—well, I’m sorry that none of that fan-activity amounted to diddly-squat. You weren’t, in fact, the first person to figure it out. No one figured it out. The slate has been wiped clean. The Etch-a-Sketch has been turned over and shaken. Too bad, so sad.

And if that’s why you’re so pissed—that none of your guesses were correct—then you’ve got the same pants to get happy in, Rick and Morty, because you have clearly and completely missed the point of Star Wars, watching movies, and I daresay, interacting with people.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

By the time I was a teenager, in the 1980s, I was used to being lied to by authority figures. My first political scandal I remember was Watergate, and “I am not a crook!” hung in the American Lexicon for at least twenty years or so. Two fingers up, jowls shaking, say that phrase, and people go “NIXON!” So, between Saturday Night Live, Mad Magazine (I was too young for National Lampoon—good thing, too, or I would have been insufferable), a slew of post-modern films designed to challenge accepted narratives, The Iran-Contra scandal, “Read My Lips: NO NEW TAXES!” and oh, GOD, what else? I stopped trusting adults as soon as I hit puberty and never looked back.

This did include—and moreover should have included—Lucas’ plans to make six more Star Wars movies. We should have stopped after Return of the Jedi. I see that, now. I didn’t believe Lucas when he said he was done. Well, I did at the time, but when the re-mastered digitally-enhanced Special Editions were released for the 25^th anniversary, I began to think maybe he was going back on his end of the bargain. And boy, did he!

Most of ya’ll weren’t around to see the reactions from Generation X. We were just like you, if we can be perfectly honest about it. We were pissed. Pissed about all of it. Especially The Phantom Menace. I’m sure most of you have seen “the Fandom Edit” version, where some enterprising young pirate cut all of the Jar Jar Binks scenes out of the movie. And can you blame him? We weren’t over Greedo shooting first—that was still being hotly debated—and now here comes this new Star Wars, for a new generation (Lucas mentioned his kids several times in the interviews before the world “turned against him” and he shut himself off from the fans).

But it blew over. The second Prequel (the one I like to call “the apology”) was at least watchable, if not enjoyable. And that last one—well, see, we knew how the story was going to turn out, so there was zero suspense, zero tension, and zero surprise, unless you count Mace Windu getting killed, or Darth Annie slaughtering all of the young Jedi children like he killed all of the Tusken Raiders who kidnapped his mother in the previous film. But whatever. We had to come to grips with the notion that Star Wars was not "ours" anymore, because there were eager dads showing the movie to their kids, hooking them on Darth Maul, lightsaber fights, the toys, the collectibles, all of it. Lots of dads got to vaguely relive their wonder years with their kids in tow.

And we made a kind of peace with this new trilogy. We had to, for one simple reason: the franchise wasn't ours to monkey around with. It belonged to Lucas, and he made that abundantly clear when he decided to release the Special Editions with all of their nonsense. He did it even as he had growing contempt for his fans. There's a lot of spite in the prequels, an almost "because I said so!" vibe. Daddy was mad at us. And for a while, we were mad at him right back.

But then we shrugged and said, “yeah, well, I’m just not going to buy them when the come out.,” or “I’ll own them, for the set, but I’ll never watch them.” Whatever it was you did or said to get you over the hump. The six movies, such as they were, represented a complete arc. The birth, life, transformation and redemption of Darth Vader. It was not what we were promised. But if you stepped back and looked at it as a complete thing, it held up as someone’s vision, if not the original idea. And if you’ll notice, that’s where Lucas stopped. 

There's your Must-Have Christmas
item for 2017. See? Star Wars will
never really let you down. And now,
neither will Walt Disney, Inc. 

Then Lucas sold it all to Disney for two billion dollars and laughed all the way to the bank. And who can blame him? I’m sue he was sick to death about hearing how he invented the modern blockbuster and doomed the planet to an early extinction event at the same time. How Star Wars revolutionized an industry and inspired a generation and the prequels were the worst thing to happen to filmmaking since Howard the Duck.

So, this new Disney-backed trilogy is announced, and since everyone didn’t like the prequels, let’s get the original gang back together. Only, you didn’t like that, because it was too much like the other one. So, now, the new one comes out, and it completely upsets the apple carts, and you’re crying like four-year-old with a scraped knee. Unbelievable.

There is nothing in this movie that is any dumber, any more illogical, any less make-sense-able, any stretching of the imagination to the breaking point that is in ANY of the other Star Wars movies. Leia’s little floating stunt? You didn’t like that? Midi-Chlorians, asshole. In fact, that should be the counter for everything you don’t like about The Last Jedi, from Porgs on down. Midi-freaking-chlorians. Give me strength.

This reminds me of something from the Simpsons:

Close enough, right?

Writer and Director Rian Johnson has given us all a gift. He took all of the stuff that didn’t make sense, that you didn’t like, that you spent months of your life trying to work out in your head so that it made sense, and he swept the table clean. There are no more Legos on the board, now. And what he replaced it with really set some of you off. If your explanation for why you're so mad includes the word "agenda," then you're a nickel-plated imbecile. 

There was a comedian, Greg Davis, in the 1980s, who had a character he called “the Punk Rock Magician,” and it was a silly gag, really. He put on a fake mohawk and held up things like a rubber chicken with a nail in its heads and say, in an affected cockney accent, Iss an eelooosion!” and when people laughed, he’d yell, “Fuck Yew!” More than once in the routine, he’s grab the mic, lean out across it like Johnny Rotten, and say, “I’m fewlin’ you an’ you don’ like it!” Boy, do you NOT like it. But that’s okay. You’ll settle in, just as we did. And are doing. After all, this isn’t the first time we’ve been lied to. We’re Generation X. Our zeitgeist is held together with half-truths, lies, and fabrications of all kinds. Welcome to adulthood, y’all.

Episode 9, the last one, in two years’ time, will finally, after 43 years, put an end to Lucas’s nine-movie odyssey. Ambitious in 1977 to the point of ridicule, but now a completely doable thing. And we are going to watch that movie with fresh eyes, and no idea what’s coming. No more Luke, Leia, and Han. I hope Chewie takes the droids and flies into the sun. Let’s just end this thing. It’s gone on for too long. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited for the movie. I want to see it end. I think the world that Lucas created still has life in it. And I want to see new movies set in that world. Whether we go back a thousand years to the Old Republic and find out how the Jedi and the Sith separated, or whether we go forward from the remnants of Episode 9 (I hope it’s the former), I’m looking forward to new characters and new stories that don't take forty-three years and three generations to wrap up. But first, we have to clear this embarrassing clunker of a promise—a stack of lies and deceptions—out of the way so there will be an end to it all and you can let go of it. That’s what youfans want, even if you’re going to hate it so much that you’ll only watch it three times, instead of your usual five.

From the Vanity Fair photo shoot.
Still gets me every time. 

Maybe at the end of all of this, we can apply a little perspective and think that maybe, just maybe, this whole shebang was little more than a sleight-of-hand trick that we watched so much we figured out how it was done. We keep wanting the magic, but we can see how the trick works. We can’t have it both ways.

Here’s the final link. It’s the only one that really matters. It’s Henry Walsh’s GoFundMe page. If you can spare anything, please help him out. As a fellow Star Wars fan. Regardless of whether or not he liked Episode 8. Let’s be the people that Ben Kenobi and Yoda would have approved of. Do what you can, if you can do anything. No hate. Just love. Positive messages only. https://www.gofundme.com/help-me-get-a-prosthetic-brace

Don't Tell ME What to Think About the New Star Wars Trailer...

J.J. Abrams dropped a 90 second bombshell on everyone today when he released a teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens in select theaters and also online, where the world suddenly ground to a screeching halt. Without even checking, I am confident that the Internet responded as it always does: DeviantArt users are even now painting Milennium Falcons with My Little Pony art stenciled on the side and slapping them on T-shirts; 4Chan users have drawn penises on the droid; Buzzfeed is currently compiling a list of 27 reasons why the Ewoks are still better than Wookies (and over one-third of the reasons will involve the word 'cute'); Reddit users have made gifs out of the images and leavened them into the other pop culture memes making the rounds this week, which means Dr. Who is flying the Falcon, now, as is Bill Cosby; and of course, the Geek-Universe-Blog Sites all have dutifully posted links to the trailer, along with some commentary.

They look like the cool aunt and uncle
now, don't they? I dig the beard.

I haven't read any of the other commentary, and I don't have to. I'm 45 years old. I was 7 when I saw Star Wars for the first time in the theater. I'm a card-carrying member of Generation X, you dig? I make the commentary about Star Wars movies. Not the twenty something who grew up watching Episode I. Not the thirty-something whose first Star Wars movie was Return of the Jedi. This franchise belongs to me as much as it belongs to George Lucas. I made him what he was. I propped him up, swallowed his Kool-Aid, and made him a billionaire. And I promise you this: me and my people have spent more time thinking about Star Wars than any of the blog sites currently operating, with the notable exception of The Nerdist and RevolutionSF, which are both run by fellow forty-something GenXers.

All of that was simply to tell you that I have a very different perspective on this. I've been a vocal and outspoken critic of the franchise over the years, especially with regards to the prequels. Despite all that, I took the news that Lucas sold his creation to Disney very hard. I knew it meant that we would get three more movies, because Disney doesn't leave any money on the table, ever. But I wondered and worried that what we got would be a watered down feel-good family friendly mess.

J.J. Abrams as director restored some of my confidence, as well as the recruitment of the old stars, now in the role of sending the youngsters out to do battle and have adventures. Smart. Very smart. And it's in keeping with what I thought the next trilogy should be.  And sure, we've gotten some teases along the way (no offense, but if you were worried that the Millennium Falcon wasn't going to make an appearance in the movie, you know nothing about Disney, merchandising, or modern movie promotion).

At first glance the teaser trailer appears to be just that; images, seemingly at random, with the only constant being a sense of movement. No pictures of the old-timers. Only these new guys. At the end, a familiar sight, but otherwise, what a bummer, right?

"Rogue Group? I've found them. Repeat. I've--oh, wait.
Wrong movie. Yeah, I need my line, please. Line?"

Not at all. What I found interesting was the number of shots in the trailer that seemed to evoke (and by that I mean, 'are lifted directly') from the original series. Whether it's the Speeder Bike chase sequence, or the Snowspeeder patrol looking for Luke and Han on Hoth, there's a real familiar feel to all of the shots. I suspect this is intentional and purposeful, to make us feel more comfortable.

Why do we need to feel comforted? Because for the first time since 1977, none of us have the faintest idea of how this will play out. This is something that didn't happen with the prequels. In fact, the problem with the prequels was that there was no way Lucas could make a Clone Wars saga that matched what the first generation Star Wars fans had cooked up in their imaginations over the course of 25 years. Unfair? Probably. But Lucas made exactly the movie he wanted to make, with zero apologies and quite a bit of derision. This pushed me and others like me away. And speaking of Lucas...

This droid literally encapsulates the fusion of the first
trilogy (Astromech head) and the second trilogy (rolling
droid bottom). Designed to appeal to everyone.

This is his creation (some would say "collection of other people's intellectual properties he cunningly appropriated") after all. And he shepherded six films through. This being the first Star Wars that won't have his name and fingerprints all over it, there's a real need to soothe some savage beasts right now. How better to do that than to show a collection of scenes that look like they are straight out of the George Lucas playbook?

It's a smart trailer, and make no mistake about it. Finished shots, the obligatory lightsaber gag, a flash of something familiar (but not necessarily integral to the story) and pictures of the newcomers. No hint of story, aside from some things we can guess. This is more than just a teaser. This is the teaser that brings two generations of Star Wars fans together for the first time since Episode I opened. We, together, will get to experience Episode VII with no pre-conceived notions, no expectations, and no baggage. Just pure fun and excitement.  This is as it should be.

Hi. My name is Mark. And I'm a Star Wars Fan.

Raiders of the Lost Ark Made Me This Way...

Over the years, I've tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to folks just how important and influential a film Raiders of the Lost Ark was for me. It dropped into my wheelhouse as I was turning the corner on adolescence, at a time when there was no Internet, no Netflix, no YouTube, none of that crap. If you wanted to know more about any given subject, you had to read about it. In books, or magazines--Thank God for Starlog!

As a 12 year old male, Raiders forever altered my course in ways that I've noted over the years, but until you sit down and start trying to backtrack your influences, you don't realize what a tangled mess it all is. I specifically and deliberately stopped when I got to large topics--either existing interests, or newly discovered interests, as they each lead to other branching charts. That's how I was back then (okay, still am)...when I get interested in something, I want to know everything! So, in the case of Raiders, specifically, I watched the television special about the stuntmen who worked on the film, and I read every interview I could find with Spielberg, Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan. I read the novelization. I collected magazines, bubble gum cards--anything I could get my hands on that had behind-the-scenes information that I could use to decode the formula of how someone could come up with a modern-day whip wielding archeologist who fought Nazis and played with monkeys. You can see how that would appeal to just about anyone, right?

And don't get me started on the my film theory that Raiders is the first post-modern film--a movie about a type of movie, rather than the movie as genre unto itself. I submit to you that because we had Raiders of the Lost Ark, we also got Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, and now Django Unchained. I'll go into it later, one of these days, when I have the time. But it's a great theory and it explains why the first film is so very different from the three sequels, and how that happened.

For decades, I've tried to explain it to people, and they would just nod, politely, and reply, "Well, MY favorite movie is blah-blah-blah." No, you don't GET it, I've thought more about this film and its antecedents and influences than I have any other film including Star Wars.  It's not my favorite movie because, well, I just like it, and stuff. It's a part of my creative DNA in ways that still resonate with me to this day.

Because of RotLA, I created "The Blue Menace Mysteries" courtesy of the Violet Crown Radio Players.  Sam Bowen from Clockwork Storybook owes SO MUCH to Indiana Jones. Every 1930s pulp-era Role-Playing Game session I ever ran was informed by the way Lawrence Kasdan chose to write the screenplay to RotLA.

I made this flowchart so you could really see and understand. It's not my fault I'm like this. Raiders of the Lost Ark made me this way...

Here's the chart at full size. Enjoy! The Chart, Full Sized