There are various patterns in free shed plans offerings for other DIY woodworking projects like a birdhouse. Selecting the right birdhouse plan depends on the kind of bird you want to lure in the yard. The free shed plan I’m thinking of includes a roof of course, walls and the base. The measurement varies depending on the birds’ species.
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After identifying the type of bird that tends to nest around your area, you can start to build the birdhouse.
One of the commonly used wood for this construction is cedar because there is no need for the wood to be treated or painted. The ideal thickness for the wood is around two inches for proper protection against the elements.
Make sure to drill the right size for the birdhouse entrance hole. The size is determined by the size of the birds you want to attract. Drilling a larger hole than necessary runs the risk of attract some bigger types if birds that may attack or scare off the smaller birds.
Avoid putting a perch on the birdhouse. A perch will just invite some predators like cats or snakes, aside from the larger birds of course. A predator guard can be added at the bottom of the pole if the birdhouse is mounted on it.
Allow for small holes on the floor area of the birdhouse for proper ventilation as well as drainage. A slanted roof is recommended to avoid water accumulation during the rainy season.
Keeping the birdhouse design simple is likely to be much more appreciated by your future tenants than any fancy and stylish birdhouse plans, even if they are from free shed plans. Just be sure to build it using the right size of home for the birds and they are sure to feel safe and secure especially when raising their young.
Absolutely WONDERFUL. I’ll be praising the whole movie tbh, but the pacing was great. It was a great balance of action mixed with story without falling through on the story like the PT and without the lack of fast-paced action of the OT. It had its chuckle-humor moments. It had its feelsy moments (although, for me, the one that has everyone didn’t have me because I called everything that happened - more on that in the plot section). It had everything.
I’ll say this. My favorite Star Wars movie overall was Revenge of the Sith, and The Force Awakens blew that out of the water overall, especially with pacing.
Soundtrack (5/5)
I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write this, and John Williams can do no wrong by me. The whole theme of TFA is Old Meets New. You hear the iconic Binary Sunset/The Force Theme (Luke’s famous scene during Tatooine’s sunsets in ANH, if you need reference) in some of the scenes. I cried every time I heard it. I cry every time I hear it. It’s literally my ringtone. You hear A LOT of the new soundtrack with bits of older tracks mixed in. And that’s just what TFA is all about. New built upon Old, existing together, perfectly. (People who expected J.J. Abrams to fuck up the movie because he’s not George Lucas… say that to the 4-star soundtrack, the $50mil in presale tickets, and the current $130mil it had domestically on opening day.)
It’s great. The soundtrack is just amazing. I love John Williams’ work so much. He’s a composing genius.
Characters (4.5/5)
Poe Dameron: AWESOME. I thought I would hate Poe since I’ve never cared too much for Oscar Isaac. He definitely won me over with this performance. Self-assured but not too cocky Resistance pilot. He’s like… so chill and great. Like, he’s Anakin as a pilot without Anakin’s supreme arrogance. It’s such a breath of fresh air. His interactions are great, too, but more on that in chemistry.
Finn: Technically, we first see Finn as FN-2187, but whatever. I love him. I’m so glad he’s not the Jedi of the story. So glad the trailers were meant to throw us off as to who the Jedi of the movie is. Anyway, Finn’s awesome. He goes through redemption without even really going through it. His defecting from the First Order is handled wonderfully and his joining of the Resistance is done without the whole “we should be wary of a spy in our midst” plot. People trust him immediately. Why? Because he doesn’t belong to the First Order. He’s too empathetic, too caring for the fate of others. And it’s easy to see that just by looking at him for a few seconds. That’s what makes him a great alliance-switch character without going through some drastic plot movement that fucks everything up.
Captain Phasma: She has a bigger part in Episode VIII, and I’m fine with that. She was promoted and advertised as such a badass, but I’m glad she didn’t get like some big villain role. Too many big villain roles in there already.
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo: The whole entire reason I gave characters a 4.5 out of 5 is because of my disappointment for him. I would’ve taken off more, but I feel like the other characters just did so well that they make up for his lack of oomph in the second half of the movie.
Let me start with this. The trailers make Ren out to be AWESOME. Ruthless. Brutal. Evil. He is the new Vader. The new Sith Lord to fear.
The truth? He’s as unstable as his homemade crackly lightsaber. Ren was amazing in the first half of the film. Using Force Stasis (ha, an EU term for all of you non-EUers) on that blaster beam? Using Force Stasis, period? I love it. Using Force Choke and transitioning into physically choking that officer? AWESOME. I saw inspirations of Vader’s rage in him just destroying that ship console with his lightsaber (”NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” in ROTS). His rage is probably the only characteristic of him that I like. The Sith are seen as chaotic and unpredictable by the Jedi. Ren is definitely chaotic and unpredictable, but he’s got his wires crossed. It’s unrefined anger inside of him. He uses it, but he uses it like an untrained person uses a gun: just firing it around until it hits something.
What ruined it then? Many things. The first was when he took off his helmet and had the interrogation scene with Rey. She sensed his fear. He let his emotions get out of control instead of calmly dealing with his inability to probe Rey’s mind with the Force. He was afraid. Sith are not afraid. Sith use their fear and turn it into anger and hatred. He just stood there fucking confused and afraid of why and how she was resisting his efforts. Ren isn’t a Sith. (Obviously, not yet, because Snoke was all “he’s ready to complete his training”. Yeah, fucking guy’s a sham.) Even though the Sith are more free with their emotions, they still control them. If you let fear run abound, that’s as bad for a Jedi as it is for a Sith, no matter how they use their emotions (repressing vs. unleashing them).
The second? Han’s death. My problem wasn’t Han’s death, but the fact that just… the execution of it. Ren is obviously weak in this movie. He’s not a full-fledged, brutal, ruthless Sith. He can’t strike down his father without indirect, unknowing help from his own damn father. He’s not heartless. (Vader wasn’t even heartless, but it sure as hell seemed that way up until he saved Luke in ROTJ, okay. Vader gave a good heartless act. Ren does not. I think it just stopped after his mask went off. Rey’s resistance shook him, and he wasn’t okay after that for the rest of the movie.) A true Sith (I say this from the criticism point of someone who would rather join the Sith over the Jedi - and has tested chaotic evil under honest answers, if that helps put it into perspective) would have struck Han down. Brutally. Without mercy, without hesitation. Without “There’s something I know I should do but I don’t know if I can” bullshit. They’re clearly leading to some sort of “Ren was affected by his father’s death and that will eventually start him on a path back to the light” (That’s certainly a good percentage of fan speculation), and I’m not for it at all. Fuck white manpain. Fuck this whiny fanboy’s “I’m struggling with light, Grandfather” lamentations. He is a weakling, and he’s probably going to go through some stupid redemption shit. I HATE redemption arcs. Vader already had one. You’re only allowed one per franchise, in my opinion. Let Ren die. But, no, Rey’s probably gonna chase after him, trying to save his soul for the greater good. Just fucking kill him at the end of Episode IX.
General Hux: He’s cute. I liked him. That’s really most of it.
Rey: FAVORITE CHARACTER. SO GLAD SHE’S THE JEDI. I FUCKING LOVE REY. She is definitely a Skywalker. Not a Solo twin. Get that theory out of your head right now. Anakin’s lightsaber called to her. Powerfully. She yanked it out of Ren’s force grasp. Like, c’mon. Ren comes from the weaker line of Skywalkers. Leia refused to become a Jedi, so her Force Sensitivity is minimum at best. Ren has one non-Force Sensitive parent (although, fan theory says Han could’ve totally been and I agree but anyway) and one minimally-Force Sensitive parent. He’s strong, but Rey is obviously stronger. Leia’s strong, but Luke’s obviously stronger. See the pattern? Besides, if Han and Leia had another kid, they would’ve said something. And there’s no reason to see Rey a bajillion times and not say a thing to her about it. Like “oh, yeah, btw, we left you on Jakku, sorry.”
Anyway, Rey is so amazing. I’ve seen articles comment on how she’s all for girl power and she represents girl power in the film. And I agree. Padme and Leia were both opportunities to be feminist women-empowering icons in their respective trilogies, and they did well. But with one movie, Rey just did so much better. She stole the whole entire movie, from being the poor scavenger-survivor to an incidental ace pilot to a Jedi with awakened Force powers she didn’t even know she had. I loved the little moments “Stop holding my hand!” to her big lightsaber duel.
And what I loved the most? Her reluctant hero personality. She’s not Anakin. She’s not Luke. She’s the new protagonist of a new story, and that’s clear. She doesn’t want to leave her desert world. She doesn’t want any part of the Resistance vs. First Order conflict. She just wants to wait for whoever left her life to come back to Jakku. It’s the narrative saying “Yeah… Rey’s similar to Luke and Anakin, but she’s different.” She is so different. And I’m hoping she’s more powerful, too.
Supreme Leader Snoke: Don’t really care for him. Everyone seems to think he’s Darth Plagueis, but I don’t care if he is (Plagueis, is by the way, dead according to ROTS canon, so I don’t like fan theories that people we have confirmed as dead have been resurrected - that’s a thing for Supernatural to beat over the head, not Star Wars). He’s obviously here to take the place of Palpatine/Sidious a la the OT, being the mysterious, looming evil force behind the trilogy’s main antagonist (which would be Ren and the First Order), so there’s that. I never really liked Sidious, anyway, so I don’t care for Snoke. I always care more for the main antagonist than his in-the-shadows master, okay.
Maz Kanata: Nice character. I love hearing Lupita’s voice. Mmmmm. Honestly, great way to introduce Anakin’s lightsaber into the story without having the characters randomly fly to Bespin to find it. I’m curious as to how it got into her hands, but yeah. She’s interesting. Kinda like a Yoda character.
BB-8: Dude. Everyone loves BB-8. He’s so freaking cute. SO CUTE.
Did I forget anyone… idk.
Chemistry (5/5)
Everything just fell in place, despite my irritation at someone’s (coughRencough) characterization and my expectations of that characterization. The characters worked perfectly together, whether they were friends or enemies. I initially thought the Han + Finn & Rey dynamic would be weird because it all happened so fast, but it was great. The Old and the New came together so nicely.
Plot (4/5)
HAN HAD TO DIE. Not because of Harrison Ford always wanting out (he did, in fact, want Han to die in ROTJ, but imo, I’m glad that never came to reality because it would’ve stolen Luke’s thunder). But because someone had to die. And that someone had to be Han. Some people say he didn’t die a true Han Solo death, but I loved that he didn’t. It’s the evolution of his character. The smuggler we met in the OT who was ready to skedaddle the moment he got his pay is gone. He’s not the rough-around-the-edges wild cowboy who only sticks his head in when it benefits him. “Better her than me” is what Han said when Luke was saying that they should rescue Leia from the Imperials because, to him, she was just a stranger then. He didn’t care for her. He only agreed to save her when the subject of money and reward came up. But, ST Han… cares for people. Cares for Rey and helps rescue her even though he hasn’t known her for long. Cares for his family. Loves his family. He loves his son. He trusts his son. Goddamn, I called the end of that scene the moment Ren walked into the same area as Han and Chewie. I knew that Han was gonna be all “alright, gonna go talk to him NOW”. And I knew that Ren wasn’t going to give in to the light side that easily. ST Han trusted the bonds of family too much, and that’s actually a great progress from OT Han who doesn’t really trust anyone. ST Han has matured; he believes in people. He believes in the Force. In darkness and light. He doesn’t just live in a world of greed anymore.
Han Solo died a hero’s death, just like Harrison Ford had wanted in ROTJ. It wasn’t a fighting-action-explosions hero’s death, but it was still brave and heroic. He looked the darkness in his son in the eye and gave it all of his trust because he truly believed that it would make a difference. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. But he made a brave sacrifice. He could’ve just stayed hidden. The hero’s death was in his choice to stare the dark side in the face and stand up to it in the name of goodness. There doesn’t have to be action to make Han’s death heroic. It was perfect. (A bit contradictory with what I said in my blurb on Ren’s character, but this is how I feel about Han’s part in the scene. I’m more positive on Han’s part than Ren’s part.)
Onward to the rest of the plot! Everything was great. Only problem is I was bored of the rehashing of the “Blow up the Death Star” storyline. I don’t mind Starkiller base because it’s badass as hell, but it was lacking that all it was there for was to blow up one star system and then get blown up by some pilots. Like both Death Stars had been. Third time wasn’t the charm. Plot loses a whole point for that.
Overall (5/5)
Despite my minor flaws that I found with the movie, they’re not enough for me to not see it as perfect. It’s my favorite Star Wars movie. And it’s about to break records when this weekend is over, okay. It’s gonna be the best movie of ALL TIME. And hopefully set records that nobody will be able to beat for a long time.
Spoilers all throughout, and I’m running off of my memory, which everyone knows is incredibly shitty. I don’t know what I had for lunch yesterday.
I’m splitting this up into five sections (but no guarantee that I won’t spin off into ten detours); all sections will be rated out of five stars:
Pacing
CGI
Plot
Chemistry
Overall
Before I start, though, for me, it’s pretty disheartening to genuinely like a movie when the rest of the world hates it. (It’s also pretty disheartening if the rest of the world gives it a 4% on RottenTomatoes.) If I could, I would gladly burn all of those bad reviews and kick them into the trash can because there’s no logical and reasonable argument besides “it sucks” and “I’m internalizing my sexism and racism and refusing to acknowledge that the movie is horrible simply because I hate a black Johnny Storm and a non-sexualized Sue Storm”. I mean, if everyone on social media would take the time to make arguments for themselves, I wouldn’t be so pissed off. But, I am. And I no longer trust the reliability of RottenTomatoes because it’s told me before that a movie was 90% and I thought that movie was decent at best.
Honestly, people would be eating this up if it were an MCU movie (Tumblr collectively hates Ant-Man, yet it has a 79% on RT, so there you go). There’s no arguing that. White boys on Facebook won’t shut up about how Fantastic Four needs to go back to Marvel because their heads are so far up Robert Downey Jr.’s ass.
The whole reason why F4 isn’t hitting the spot for MCU diehards is most likely because they want a Michael Bay-esque action film with ten thousand explosions and rampant sexism. Like, you know, the Avengers.
Anyway. Onto the show.
Pacing (3/5)
One critique of the movie - when people stop saying “it sucks” to pause and explain why - is the pacing. The beginning is too long and focused on pre-superpowers and the end is too short and rushed.
The thing about Fantastic Four is that it’s an origin story. It doesn’t rush straight in and spend five minutes giving sparse background before introducing the moment of superhero-powers. The first hour+ focuses solely on how the characters work together because, surprise, it’s an origin story. It’s just not the kind of origin story that people are used to from TASM or Captain America. Which is, you know, to be expected because it’s... not... MCU.
I personally liked that about the “drawn-out” beginning and the scenes where everyone was being a team. It made me want to know more about how the kids spent their time at Baxter when they weren’t working or, like, if they went bowling every now and then and someone had to teach Reed how to bowl because he almost dropped a ball on his own foot. That’s what a movie is supposed to do. It gets you interested into the characters so that you want to know more about them. Even though I wanted to look more into the characters’ backstories, I was really satisfied with what the movie gave me.
So, imo, I was very fond of how long a buildup it was until the four got their powers. I was sitting next to my dad in the cinema, and at one point, he did lean over to comment that it took too long, but I mean, it’s a personal preference. I’m the kind of person who likes to delay a story climax as long as possible, which might not be the best thing to do in writing, whether it’s for a book or a movie, but that’s what I like.
However, I agree wholeheartedly with the opinion that the ending was too rushed. The F4′s battle vs. Doom was, overall, too brief. But, then again, I’ll also argue that it’s an origin story, so there’s meant to be more focus on the beginning rather than the end. Weak argument, but meh.
CGI (4/5)
So far, I haven’t read any comments or reviews concerning the CGI too much. I’m also purposefully trying to stay away from reviews because I’ll probably cry if I think about people hating a movie (that I like) so much that they want to destroy it. Anyway, I liked the CGI, but it should be noted that I don’t have a problem with any CGI unless it’s glaring obvious that it’s CGI.
With that said, at some points, it was glaring obvious that CGI was being used. (Well, duh, the whole movie itself is CGI, but you know.)
I really loved Doom’s display of powers, both in Area 57 and during the boss/final battle. I’d already seen part of the Area 57 scene because of the trailer preview, but really, it was even better in cinema. Like, the Youtube video didn’t do it justice.
Plot (5/5)
Breaking news: Diehard comic fans are shouting everywhere. “Source material!!!” they scream.
It’s based mostly off of the Ultimates verse, anyway, so shove that up your ass.
I really prefer this F4′s plot, anyway, because the origin of powers is a lot more original. Like, four astronauts go into space and walk through a cosmic storm? How many space-related movies have we had in theaters the past year alone? Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian in a few months - I’m bored of just space voyage stuff already. Like, I love space, but I much more prefer how the powers originated from Planet Zero. Or, whatever they called it in the movie.
My only complaint about the plot is how Sue wasn’t involved in the acquisition of powers. Like, yeah, I do get that three drunk guys would’ve figured “ah, Sue would just yell at us and try to stop us” and yes, she probably would’ve and then given Johnny a mom speech, but still. Sue’s characterization in the film doesn’t make for her to be involved in Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Victor’s stupid expedition, yeah, I get that. It makes sense because someone needs to be in the computer room to initiate the manual override, and Sue needs a way to still be near the quantum gate to get her powers without approving of and going along with the expedition. I don’t particularly like it, but it makes sense, logically.
Chemistry (5/5)
My absolute favorite part of the film. Fuckboys complained that everyone except MBJ couldn’t act, and I’m just like “ok, but, bitch where?”
The whole focus of character dynamics in the movie is like the little things.
Sue and Johnny’s relationship is highlighted with Sue being all overprotective-mom to Johnny, and I really loved those moments that I caught of that.
After Dr. Storm brings Johnny to Baxter: “Were you DRAG RACING again?” Cue accusatory, scolding tone and mom look.
After Johnny calls Ben a thing, Sue smacks Johnny’s arm and gives him, once again, the mom look while Johnny’s just shrugging and acting offended about being the bad guy.
Also, when Sue walks in on Johnny at the computers, she says something like “it’s nice to see you again”/”it’s great having you around” or something, and it just breaks my heart because that implies that Sue’s either too busy and/or holed up in Baxter to see Johnny or that Johnny never visits Baxter and purposefully stays away from his dad and sister. I want more of these Storm sibling feels.
Sue and Johnny knowing Victor before:
In the scene with Dr. Storm introducing Reed to Victor, Victor just muttering “Is he going to make a speech?” as if he’s heard them before and Sue just confirms exasperatedly “He’s going to make a speech.”
Johnny greeting Victor as “Adolf”
Also calling him “Borat” when introducing him to Ben
Reed and Sue’s brief exchange after Victor calls her Susan: “Do you prefer Susan?” “No.”
I didn’t really care for the other character dynamics in the movie. Like, I liked them, but those were the highlights for me.
Some things I also liked about little character things:
Ben giving Reed the Swiss army knife
Johnny having a fire flower hanging on his rearview mirror
Sue’s phone case being blue
I enjoyed the characterizations overall, tbh. I even sympathized with Victor a bit, which I kinda saw coming, but it was a nice surprise.
Overall (4/5)
I wouldn’t say this was, like, an amazing movie. I still, so far, haven’t seen a superhero movie that fully felt like five stars to me. I probably won’t for a long time. Maybe never. But, of all the ones I’ve seen, this was good. I had a good amount of praise for it and moments I liked as well as a few criticisms to balance it out (whereas, for most MCU films, I only have criticisms and the only thing I ever like about them is the CGi and aesthetics). I’d probably see it again in theaters if I could, and I’ll probably buy every physical format of it when it comes out, even if I don’t have a Bluray player. I’ll keep it just because.
