[NA] Head Admin [EU] Pleb Admin, Bronto

[Jona]

All this talk about star wars video games, who's got Battlefront 2???? I do and I'm liking it way better than the first "next-gen" attempt.

It's all the Star Wars's so far and it's amazing. You can go from one level playing Roger Roger, to the next being part of the Resistance chasing ice foxes on a salt planet (WTF Riann).

Yeah but is it as good as the OG battlefront games? No, no it isn't. Therefore it musn't be played!


...being a stubborn fanboy has saved me countless shekels over the years.

[Bronto]

It's not as good indeed but it's still pretty good. I've been having a lot of fun on it playing galactic multiplayer and I enjoy some of the new features such as being about to fly a ship when you get enough points. I also enjoy the customizable weapon mods.

Overall, I'd give it a 10/10 when compare to the last one and about a 7/10 if you compare it to the originals. It's pretty good, so play it Jona and then give me your honest opinion.

[Bronto]

HESKEYTIME, did you see The Last Jedi? If so what was your overall impression, I know we can't go into much detail cause spoilers but what did you think?

Myself, I was pretty disappointed with the Luke story line and just thought it a bit absurd. I think Riann missed the entire point on that one and what a bullshit space thing that happened if you catch what I'm throwing.

[Bronto]

I felt exactly like you after my first viewing so maybe I need to watch it again. I was just disappointed and felt like they could've done so much more.

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The way that they used Luke in the beginning I was all for but at the end, I was let down. I guess I'm too basic and was expecting some badassery from the OG Luke Skywalker. Instead we got a cool new force power which worked but just didn't have the same impact for me that him actually saving the day would have. Also, the resistance was kind of a let down. You're in this massive world, the empire/imperials/whatever they are now, has tons of ships and people taking over everything, and that's it. The resistance is on like three ships and no one else wants to help them? What happened to the people from the Force Awakens and why is the resistance so small now. IDK, my son was talking pretty much the entire time so it's possible I missed a lot of stuff. Leia getting blown into space and then force rocket booting her way back to the mother ship was lame as hell. Should've just let her die and that would've solved that and been a huge, holy shit I can't believe that just happened moment for me.

One of the best scenes though was towards the end with the ship going into light speed and just royally fucking snokes star destroyer. That was bad ass. Last thing, that battle with Rey, Kylo, Snoke and his guards was wicked m8. I'm kind of sad though that they chopped Snoke in half. I wish they would've expanded more on his character rather than just showing he has force powers and now he's dead. weak writing in my opinion. I'll be interested to see what JJ does with the final film and hopefully he'll make an excellent end. Who knows though.

[Jona]

the unlikely Empire vs Clones and Empire vs Droids missions from the old ones

See, this right here is all the reason you need to play bf2 campaign.    In all seriousness though, the campaigns of the originals were definitely lackluster, but being able to play couch co-op while having full teams of bots was the shit back in the day. Undoubtedly the new ones have much more polished and refined campaigns, I just don't actually have a system to play them on, as I'm afraid my pc is at the end of its life cycle and I don't have a current gen console... yet.

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I saw it with my brother and was pretty disappointed.

The plot didn't seem to make a huge amount of sense, it felt a bit rushed hopping between scenes which didn't need to exist, almost the worst part was that some of the special effects looked awful which is really inexcusable when you have a budget like that and they can play off any other criticism as "oh it's just a spectacle, a special-effects movie". Certain significant plot-points and characters now can't be explored. One redeeming thing for me personally was that I loved everything about Luke's character in it.

The ending left me conflicted. When I first left the cinema I felt kinda let-down at the ending, but only because the film actually got a lot better on that final planet and there's a moment (I'm sure you know where) when everything suddenly becomes hype-as-hell and I thought we were about to have the 'Darth Vader corridor scene' from Rogue One, except against an entire army. And that would've had everyone leaving the cinema thinking 'holy shit'. But at the same time I kinda like what they did at the end there, just felt a little cheated of what could have been a 'that was the most badass thing I've ever seen' moment.

After seeing the film, opinion seemed hugely split with half the people I've spoken to loving it, half saying it's the worst one. I don't trust opinions from people I don't know online, I've seen plenty hate on it, but only for shitty reasons like "they didnt do X, Y or Z from the books!".

Buuuuuuuut, my mate persuaded me to watch it again and I gotta say I liked it a lot more a second time. Some things I thought of as plot-holes are actually addressed in the movie (though still dumb), there's still one I consider to be quite jarring though. A 2nd time round, I was 100% sold on the ending, that's the way it had to go man, to say any more on the subject we'd need to 'spoiler' everything we write. There was still stuff that irked me, like some of the effects aren't amazing the casino planet doesn't achieve anything, kills the pacing, doesn't have a very Star Warsy aesthetic, and I believe it's stuff like this that makes it the longest Star Wars movie.

...Fuckit, I'm going in. Spoilers on the ready. Don't read if you haven't seen the film. I mean it.

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Luke's not some all-knowing all-wise demi-god and I like that. I believe his trick at the end where he's projecting himself rather than actually being there might have become one of my favourite Star Wars things. Because he's appearing to them as Luke Skywalker 'The Legend', he looks slimmer, his hair is darker. He talks big like he's there to hunt down Kylo Ren and just put him down like a dog, but that would be betraying his character from the original films, the guy who went to such pains to redeem Vader wouldn't do that shit. He's actually just there to stall for time, to get under Kylo Ren's skin.

What I also like about it is that it's a force power we've never seen before (imo the prequels lacked imagination, every Jedi only ever did stuff we saw Luke do in the originals). But considering that it's Luke Skywalker the most powerful Jedi, he's on the original planet where the Jedi-order started, and the effort of what he did killed him, I'm willing to accept he can do some badass shit. (also on a 2nd viewing, it's really subtle but you can clearly see on her face the moment Leia works out Luke's not actually there).

Special effects. Amongst some shots early in the film and CGI abomination aliens than look like they belong in the prequels, Yoda was what convinced me I was just having a bad dream. In the first shot of his face, he looks beyond awful. Like something out of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' where animation and live action 'seamlessly' interact xD. But once he started moving in his puppet-way it actually worked really well imo.

For overall pacing I have some suspicions. They announced when episode 7 came out that they were refilming parts of 8 because people liked Finn and Rey more than they expected, so they wanted to give them more to do. I suspect this is why the Casino planet exists, because it doesn't progress the plot in any way. Finn's new love interest (this'll get people on this forum good and mad) only exists because it was going to be Finn and Poe but they didn't want 2 guys without any named female characters. I suspect in an earlier draft of the script that planet didn't exist, there wasn't some random tracker that can track ships through hyperspace (which even Snoke didn't know about? - plothole), and instead they were being chased because a traitor onboard was revealing their location (hence why admiral woman doesn't tell anyone her actually pretty-good plan). Film could've and should've been better (and shorter).

Agree with just about 99% of this. Very well-written and knowledgeable arguments. 10/10 review young lad. Just to tackle this part here:

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also on a 2nd viewing, it's really subtle but you can clearly see on her face the moment Leia works out Luke's not actually there

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See, at that part I couldn't really tell without a doubt that she had the look of "oh, you're not really here" on her face or what. Was kinda an ambiguous look imo, but I guess that lets us project what we want it to mean, which is fine. Obviously it would make sense for his sister and fellow strong force user to know he isn't actually present, especially when she should notice that he is-but-isn't touching her. Also, you'll notice that during this whole scene, Luke doesn't interact with anything. When he's battling Kylo, he doesn't make red footprints on the conveniently white-and-red salt-dirt, while everyone who is actually there does. His movement have no sound (as far as I could tell), and he obviously doesn't come into direct contact with anyone other than Leia (or anything other than the ground). My only question, then, is how the hell did he make those dice? They were solid enough for Leia to hold, and then later, after Luke's death, for Kylo to pick up before they disappeared. And they made a metallic "clinking noise." Explain, ILM!

...yeah that's it for my nit-picking on that particular scene, lol.

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One of the best scenes though was towards the end with the ship going into light speed and just royally fucking snokes star destroyer. That was bad ass. Last thing, that battle with Rey, Kylo, Snoke and his guards was wicked m8. I'm kind of sad though that they chopped Snoke in half. I wish they would've expanded more on his character rather than just showing he has force powers and now he's dead. weak writing in my opinion. I'll be interested to see what JJ does with the final film and hopefully he'll make an excellent end. Who knows though.

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Yep, the spaceship-spearing-an-entire-fleet-at-lightspeed was indeed perhaps the coolest visual in the entire series. And I'm still pondering why, exactly they killed off Snoke,
without even a single snippet of background info on the guy. Where'd he come from? How was he a force user during the Empire's reign? How is he a force-user that isn't jedi or sith? Why does he hate Luke? Why do Leia, Han and Luke blame him for Kylo's turn to the dark side (it implies they knew of him and knew he was a threat prior to his happening)? If they answered just one of those question's it would have been enough. Instead we got absolutely nothing, not even any hints. I get that just like they killed off Han and Luke, they're paving the way for the new generation, and letting Kylo fill the role of big-bad. Still a terrible decision nonetheless. Cut out a scene or two from the plethora of useless scenes in this movie and devote an extra 5 minutes to the throne room scene where he explains to Rey just who he is. Or have Kylo tell her during one of their force-skype calls. Or have Luke explain it to her. We can only hope JJ somehow remedies the situation. It just kinda feels like in ep7 JJ was setting up a big reveal or two, be it Rey's parentage, Snoke's backstory...
 anything. Instead, Rian came in and gave us not one single answer to any of that, and for Rey's parents he gave us something that made sense, but still felt like a cop-out.

It also kinda ruins the whole "galaxy-wide conflict" effect that Star Wars usually has going for it by shrinking the entire Resistance down to however many people can fit onto the Millenium Falcon. Seriously, that's all that is left of the Resistance? I know that the First Order blew up 5 or so planets in ep7, but that's still a smaller task force than the few rebels that took part in Rogue One. Undoubtedly ep9 will have a time skip of a couple years, and the inspiring Luke did will have recruited hundreds if not thousands of soldiers to their cause, but still. It's kinda ridiculous that the First Order somehow rules the entire galaxy mere days after ep7 ended, and meanwhile the Resistance (despite winning the battle in ep7) is reduced to almost nothing.

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Leia in space... Conceptually good, but looked bad on the screen.

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Yeah, that part was definitely cool because it shows that Leia can do useful shit as well (did she also blow up the door with a good ole force push after she woke up and took control of the ship back from Poe?), however it was for sure poorly executed. I think part of the reason why it looked so goofy is because it showed her reaching out and floating towards the ship like she's superman or something, i.e. she expends no effort and gracefully floats down. Woulda been much cooler if we see her forcefully drag the ship to her or something to that effect, as we never really see jedi/sith use the force on themselves, other than to do acrobatics, super-high jumps or super fast running (looking at you, qui gon and obiwan in ep1).

[Bronto]

Jona and HESKEYTIME (anyone really as long as you've seen the movie) maybe you can help me gain some clarification on these points.

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Jona you hit the nail on the head with the Leia scene. I assumed she used the force to pull herself towards the ship rather than some wonky ass space flight. Also, I totally agree with Snoke. Like what the fuck Riann. He had so much good shit that JJ set up for him to knock down and he just didn't do it. I really hope that JJ is like fuck all this bullshit and gives us a killer movie. I really liked the Force Awakens even though it was kind of corny and basically A New Hope, but it was still entertaining as fuck and left me with a lot of good questions. This movie left me with a lot of what the fuck questions. We're in agreeance with what the fuck happened between the movies? What the fuck happened to both sides in this conflict? We get a little blip that the First Order is just raping the galaxy but what the fuck happened to the Resistance? They had like 100 X-wings in the Force Awakens and an entire fleet left their base at the end of that movie. What the fuck is up with Rey's parents and let's only devote one line in the entire fucking movie to it? What the fuck is up Snoke and if he's so powerful who the fuck is he? What the fuck would Luke want to murder someone in their sleep for? He sensed the good in his dad and was like, nope fuck ben solo, he's 100% evil and I don't care if he's my nephew he's gonna eat green plasma from this ol' saber of mine. I think the bottom line is, I must watch it again without kids so I can pay attention to the entire thing.

[Jona]

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Force Awakens left me with a lot of good questions. This movie left me with a lot of what the fuck questions.

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Precisely. That is the main reason why I too, consider ep7 to be a better movie, despite being so much of a rehashing of ep4. Anyways, to try and answer some of your questions...

Here is how ep7 started, taken straight from the opening crawl:

With the support of the
REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE.

And here is the beginning of the opening crawl of ep8, which seemingly takes place just days after ep7:

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having decimated the peaceful
Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke
now deploys the merciless
legions to seize military
control of the galaxy.

Only General Leia Organa's
band of RESISTANCE fighters
stand against the rising
tyranny

So sure, we saw that in ep7 the First Order blew up a few planets... but was that really the ENTIRE Republic, something which spans an entire galaxy? Remember in ep8 when they hunkered down in the salt base that they tried radioing their allies for help. So which is it? Do they have allies left (albeit they don't send help regardless), or are they truly on their own against the First Order? Definitely a bit of a plot hole here. Da fuck happened in just a couple days between movies? Who knows... Are we supposed to assume that all the fighters the Resistance had blew up in the opening battle and the few remaining ones were later decimated when Kylo and co. bombed their hangar? Seems awfully bad if that is the case and they put all their remaining eggs in one basket.

On the topic of Rey's parents, I get that they're trying to sell the message that "you don't need to be born special, anyone can be a hero," but come on, if that's the case at least have someone deliver the line with some authority. Don't have Kylo forcibly blurt it out when he's already noticeably grasping at straws, trying to convince Rey to join him (and willing to say anything to sway her). Had Rey discovered it herself in that weird (and utterly useless) cave scene, or had Luke told her at some point, it'd be set in stone that yes, she is a nobody. But as it stands, I wouldn't be TOO surprised if JJ just ignores that and in ep9 we learn shes Obiwan's granddaughter or some shit. Obviously it would spit in the face of whoever tried to make ep8 about this "anyone can be a hero" theme, but it isn't entirely impossible, I suppose. Granted, I think we're definitely supposed to just assume her parents are nobodies, and leave it at that.

Once again, no one knows about Snoke, definitely some hella sloppy writing if they don't even answer some of the questions surrounding him in the next movie. Maybe we can get a sith-esque version of the force ghost ability where he basically haunts Kylo throughout ep9... could be cool, and will hopefully allow for some meaningful dialogue about his past.

And lastly, I'm guessing that they were trying to illustrate that even the "legendary hero" Luke could make mistakes. Granted, "accidentally wanting to kill your nephew" is one hell of a "mistake," my guess is they were trying to show that while Rey is imperfect, so is Luke. That, and after all he is the son of Vader, so perhaps he's got some suppressed hatred/anger/dark side stuff in him. Still, kinda weird to have the paragon of virtue have a momentary lapse of judgement leading to him almost killing Kylo.

Also something neither of you have discussed quite yet... what do you think about that admiral (holdo, was it?) saying "godspeed" to Leia and co.? For me, it took me right out of the movie as soon as she said it, rofl. Definitely kinda weird to have any mention of god/gods in Star Wars, even if it wasn't necessarily meant in any religious sense. These people believe in an all powerful force, or seemingly don't believe in anything supernatural at all... shouldn't they call it Forcespeed or something? 

[Jona]

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Tbh I liked the cock-tease over Rey's parents xD everyone and their mum thought they were so clever with their "OMG she's Luke's daughter!!!!" theories. It's not a surprise or a plot twist if everyone expects it.

Because Star Wars has such a tiny cast of characters the only person who's alive, who's name we know, that would possibly make any sense, would be Luke or some random guy we've never seen before. So I'm glad they took this route. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams planned this from the start.

But Snoke pissed me off. I get the argument "nobody knew who the fuck The Emperor was or how he rose to power when Return of the Jedi first came out", but back then we knew nothing about the years before A New Hope whilst we know about The Empire existing before this new trilogy and Snoke really doesn't fit into it.

And from a story point of view they're now in the unfortunate position where they have to make a big final movie but they've already killed the main antagonist. Of the 2 remaining 'baddies' one was turned into the brunt of every joke in the movie (we gots to talk about General Hux, they just made him comic relief in this), and the other was shown to be conflicted way too early imo. We're going into the final film where the ultimate villain hasn't been shown to be that smart or powerful so far and could conceivably 'turn good' at any second, that's not satisfying.

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Yeah, the fact that there was no twist with her parentage was more of a twist than anything else they could have cooked up, for sure. Still not too sure how I feel with the only confirmation of that coming from Kylo, though. If that was the stance they intended to take the whole time, then freaking sell the idea to the audience. Don't have some blubbering nervous angsty lil nerd practically stutter its delivery.

Even as a kid (before the prequels were made), the Emperor was acceptable because he ruled the entire galaxy, so of course it only made sense he was powerful. Not only that,
 but he was Vader's master, and we know how powerful Vader is first hand. Seeing how Snoke came crawling out of the woodworking in between eps 6 and 7, that definitely needs some splaining, since as you said, he doesn't fit into the ep4-6 era at all.

Also yeah... I'm still wondering just what exactly their plan is with the villains. As you said, we know Hux is made to look like nothing more than the jester of the First Order. He seeming has no actual command skills, and causes more trouble for the First Order than he does the Resistance. So with the big bad dead, his general proven to be an imbecile,
 that leaves only Kylo, seeing how they Boba Fett-ed new new-age Boba Fett (apparently if you're only known due to wearing 'cool' armor you're doomed to have an ambiguous fate resulting in your assumed death due to falling down a pit, be it firey or spikey). And we've all seen that Kylo isn't exactly fit to lead, so what is gonna happen in ep9, exactly? The Resistance grows in size due to Luke's sacrifice, and the First Order ends up collapsing in upon itself due to poor leadership and management? It seems like ep9 is gonna have an awful lot of material to cover if there is to be a believable conflict against a larger Resistance, with Kylo and/or Hux magically being competent leaders.

Also, remember in ep7 Snoke said Kylo was part of the Knights of Ren? What ever happened to those guys? Were they supposed to be the red bodyguards that Rey and Kylo slaughtered? Or are they just another scrapped sub-plot? Maybe they'll make a comeback in ep9 and magically lead the First Order to newfound glory.

[Taser]

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Mang I still haven't seen this movie because I disliked The Force Awakens. Rogue One was decent though.

[Jona]

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Mang I still haven't seen this movie because I disliked The Force Awakens. Rogue One was decent though.

Fuck outa here you sloot.

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<3

[Taser]

Fuck outa here you sloot.

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<3

No u.

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<3

The weird thing is if you didn't like The Force Awakens you might actually like this one since it's so different.

Or you'll hate it even more.

Yeah a couple people have told me that too. Guess I'll find out whenever I see it. Then come back and check this chat out with all dese spoilers. I've already kinda heard a couple anyway but managed to keep them vague enough that I know there's a thing or two that happens with certain chars but not what they are. We'll see how that goes.

[Bronto]

No u.

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<3

Yeah a couple people have told me that too. Guess I'll find out whenever I see it. Then come back and check this chat out with all dese spoilers. I've already kinda heard a couple anyway but managed to keep them vague enough that I know there's a thing or two that happens with certain chars but not what they are. We'll see how that goes.

I'm in the position now where I should watch it again in total silence so I can appreciate it more and see if there is anything that I like that I may have not noticed the first time. Either way, it was a Star Wars movie and I love Star Wars so maybe I'm just being hypercritical since Disney now owns it. I don't want Disney to Disneyfy it, next thing you know we'll have characters singing and shit while they duel!

[njames89]

Fell asleep during a newer hope force awakens. Haven't felt the need to watch any of it since but I think I will get around to it one day.

[Bronto]

Yeah that came across wrong. What I mean was, I hope that Disney doesn't try to make it too kid friendly. I know their first three Disney Star Wars films have been pretty amazing and I think they are heading in the right direction, I just don't want them to lose sight of where they are going and start churning out shit just to capitalize on it. I'm really on the fence about Young Han Solo, a movie no one asked for or needed. I mean for fuck's sake, Harrison Ford was young in a New Hope. Now we've got an even younger Han Solo. Why? We don't need or want this? Should've made a stand alone Darth Maul movie instead. It would've been way better.

[Jona]

I don't want Disney to Disneyfy it, next thing you know we'll have characters singing and shit while they duel!

Imo they've already Disneyfied it, although it isn't necessarily as bad as it could be... yet. While SW always had cheesy dialogue we hadn't exactly had your mom jokes before, and sure SW always had fun action sequences it seems like with each new movie they're trying to constantly set the bar higher, sometimes at the cost of plot. Overall the new SW feel a lot like the Marvel movies, they pump em out once per year, and while they're fun to watch, you don't necessarily feel the need to ever see them more than the 1-2 times you've gone to see them in theaters.

I think the best way to identify someone who's just hating on Star Wars cos Disney or cos too popular/successful/mainstream is to ask them what they thought of Rogue One cos noone in their right mind wouldn't have enjoyed that.

Hmmm... well, you see... 

Not that I HATED Rogue One or anything, I just felt like it was severely overhyped. I can understand that a lot of the more casual SW fans would like it since its a cool war movie and all, I just felt like it dragged on for far too long, with characters that ultimately are rather uninteresting. The movie has quite a pacing problem where the first 2/3 or 3/4 are a super slow grind, and then finally at the end you get your big payoff. Don't get me wrong, the final act in that movie was probably the best from any modern SW movie, but the rest leading up to it was downright awful. Maybe that's the type of movie that you DON'T go back and see a second time, but I did and boy was it difficult to not fall asleep during the first 2/3 or so.

Also fuck the new Han Solo movie. I've never been more biased against a movie prior to its release, it's going to have to absolutely blow me away for me to ever say that it was anything more than a huge let down. Not only is it unnecessary in every sense of the word, but I feel like exploring Han Solo's back story is just going to detract from his character. He's the mysterious space rogue, leave some of that mystery intact, please. They could have made a dumb spin-off about anyone else's past and it would be less detrimental to the main story, imo.