Ronnie

Obviously they're not releasing identical games, but I do think their AAA output plays things extremely safe a lot of the time. Not only are most of their blockbusters quite samey mechanically but they don't seem to push the genre forward much, it's often times just highly polished perfecting of a well worn formula. Maybe it was more noticeable because I went from Ghost of Tsushima to Horizon Forbidden West in short order, both perfect examples of that. But yeah, Returnal is a fair example of something different from them.

Great idea. There's definitely a market for a news/feature/interview type series on Disney+ like the old SW Show. Something people can tune into every couple of weeks or whatever. Be interesting to see what's discussed about Mando in the Showcase vs the deeper dive on Saturday. Especially as there's also another hour long panel of behind the scenes on the show straight after! Lots of Mando content, rightly so tbh. It's tricky (and dangerous) to speculate what the storyline for S3 could be, but what the Armorer suggested about repenting in the mines of Moria below Mandalore sounds about right. At some point they're going to have to introduce Thrawn though for that crossover event. Maybe this is the moment? Then again that could be a fair few years off. Couldn't tell you what they did for Rebels though as I shamefully wasn't a fan back then, but the Bad Batch panel is only an hour, so I think one episode is more likely? I'm really excited for S2 regardless. Didn't realise they were screening Ep 2. But nah, I'll give those a miss. I've watched most of TCW though I still haven't actually watched the very last arc. It's on my todo list but I'd rather do it in the comfort of my own home than surrounded by whooping Yanks! I'll check it out!! Sounds really interesting. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the music side of things so maybe this will help a bit. Gotta keep people subscribed long term I suppose! It's pretty poor if the content was already released in the past though! The closing ceremony could be a good shout? Tbh I don't think it'll appear at all, I think the game is behind schedule a bit and people are now saying it's a 2023 release, so yeah as brilliant as the original game was, it was a buggy mess at launch so let them take their time. I think Jeff Grubb suggested it was next-gen only though, so if that's true, that's good news at least. I was pretty tempted by the VIP pass tbh, extortionate of course, but guaranteed access to every panel? That would have been brilliant. Tbf though, the livestream will be perfectly fine too. I'm probably going to be catching up on it back in my hotel room each night haha. Tough one. I guess the Showcase, even if I'm not as hyped for Kenobi as the majority are (still v excited obv). More excited for Andor, I reckon that's going to surprise a lot of people. The thing is I'm going to have to tune into the Showcase live anyway so probably easier to be in the room than catch it on a monitor somewhere or watch it on my phone Turns out you can try and reserve a spot at 9am each morning for all the other panels, but that's first come first serve, so we'll see how that goes! Not long now!

For the record, I haven't played any of the three games I mentioned, but they all reviewed extremely well and the outlets I was tuned into were all talking about how they were GOTY contenders, Psychonauts and Forza Horizon 5 in particular. I think the latter even won IGN's vote. And I totally agree that pacing wise it's obviously really poor, I'm definitely not excusing going an entire year without a first party game, it's shocking, but I feel that no credit was being given to three quality titles released very recently. But yeah, spacing out the releases might have helped. Maybe Forza could have been pushed. I'd forgotten about that, thanks for the reminder! And fair enough about how Insomniac are good with release dates! I've just gotten used to literally every single big game being pushed these days, it's almost laughable. I'm not complaining by the way, games being rushed to market broken is far worse. I just roll my eyes at release dates being pretty meaningless. And yeah fair enough about XGS having a lot more to prove compared to PlayStation Studios. Although tbh the latter's extremely-safe and cookie cutter third person action games are starting to get a little boring if I'm honest, for me at least. And it's one of my favourite genres! I was hoping Horizon might do something different and push the genre forward, but nope. And what's on the horizon for PS5 first party? Another third person action game in God of War (but the first was fantastic so can't complain), and then a couple more, with added (overdone?) superhero flavour. I guess it'll be a few years yet before this gen really takes off, for both Xbox and Sony. Oh and btw my earlier post wasn't directed at/arguing with your previous post specifically @Julius, in case it needed clarifying.

They really should bring the Star Wars Show back now that things are starting to ramp up again since TROS and Mando S3. Kristen Baver is a good host too. Mando S3 seems the most likely in that Mando+ panel, I think that opening showcase will have too many eyes on it to cut away for attendance-footage only. The opening episode of Bad Batch S2 would be cool but American audiences frighten me a bit in terms of watching things on a big screen. They need a bit of British reserved-ness I think Tricky thing to juggle logistically really because you say your goodbyes for the purposes of the stream, and then have to tell everyone to stop standing up/leaving when the cameras cut out haha. And rest assured if there is exclusive footage I will 100% wave it in your face about how amazing it was to see it and how you missed out Before giving my full thoughts of course. I knew you'd like that AOTC music one! The schedule is a funny one because up until a week ago that Friday morning slot was strangely empty, which is weird given those first 11am panels of the day are the big ones. I wonder if it was supposed to be for Fallen Order/Lucasfilm Games but something changed at the last minute. Maybe Respawn weren't ready in time or something. For me I'm probably not going to go too crazy panel wise, and I won't get my hopes up about getting into any of the 11am ones. It's randomly drawn, and they're opening the lottery up any day now, so please keep your fingers crossed. If I get into just one of the Showcase, Mando+ or Bad Batch S2 I'll be happy. Other ones I'm keen on are the non-fiction publishing one, the Doug Chiang one definitely, Anthony Daniels and behind the scenes of Mando, so hopefully manage two or three of those at least. Then there's some smaller non LFL ones that sound fun: "The Secret Miniatures of the Star Wars Prequels", "The Art of Star Wars Poster Collecting: ‘70s to Modern" and "How to Build a Droid" I'm not much of an autograph hunter but I did just book a ticket to get one from Greg Grunberg. Now I just need to decide whether to have him sign a print or my Snap Wexley bobblehead lol. Was tempted to have Taylor Gray sign my Art of Rebels book but I probably shouldn't splurge all my savings on this trip. More than I already have that is.

No surprise, but still nice to have confirmation, livestream confirmed! https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-celebration-live-2022?fbclid=IwAR0UJB5bqB2Ad8uf6-bG0FbJv0UeJKaTNrNJyp5LiggeyMYRzfR-Nrk-e10 Big fan of Andi and Anthony, the latter's been doing Star Wars reacts with Tim Gettys et al on Kinda Funny.

Halo Infinite? Psychonauts 2? Forza Horizon 5? Those are three GOTY contenders in the last nine months. It sucks that Starfield is being delayed, but every big game is delayed, it was always going to happen. It's obviously not ideal for 2022, but their primary focus, Game Pass, will still continue to be an incredible offering. What do Playstation have? God of War Ragnarok (IF it makes this year, big if) and then absolutely nothing dated beyond that. Only things announced are Spider-Man 2 for 2023 (in other words probably 2024) and Wolverine (god knows). In the last nine months: Horizon Forbidden West and the shitshow that is GT7. It's an industry-wide issue.

Funny, we were just talking about the lightsaber fights of the various trilogies. Whilst I've said I'm not a fan of excessive choreography I trust them to do a great job here and as we've talked about @Julius it makes sense for where the characters are in their lives. Spoiler-ing this next image of Obi Wan with his lightsaber out just in case: More news: Looking forward to hopefully getting a clearer picture of the big screen slate of films in a couple of weeks. There's a ton of projects floating around! Not news, just thought this was a cool comparison, all lovely posters. The first two in particular, but I appreciate the Boba Fett one giving us a different colour palette to the usual amber/teal/red/blue tones that are pretty ubiquitous in action film posters these days

I figured it was only a matter of time before being told my post was unworthy of being posted. We await the official translation...

Interesting quote from Furukawa about the challenge of releasing a new gen of hardware: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-says-the-transition-to-its-next-console-is-a-major-concern-for-us/

Apart from the lack of megaton announcements at the start or end, that was probably one of the best Indie Showcases they've put out, at least for my personal taste. I pretty much wanted almost every game shown. Also, like the main Directs, they've perfected the format of these, fast paced but still finds time to put a face to the dev studios. Gunbrella looks amazing. Definitely picking up Wildfrost, Silt, Cult of the Lamb and Elec Head too. The latter really reminded me of GMTK Mark Brown's first game he's currently developing!

All aboard the hype train

As someone who thought the middle six or so episodes of Picard S2 were mind-blowing-ly awful, boring, badly written, terribly paced and relying on cheap nostalgic drops to rope some people in... the last two episodes were actually quite good I thought. At times excellent even. It's glaringly obvious though that this was a 3 or 4 parter at most, but CBS/Paramount told the writers to string it out to 10 eps.

Oh god

Good news about Metroid selling 3 million, great game fully deserved.

And that chair is probably as far away from a practical place as possible, but the temp's not paid enough to give it more thought

*squints to try and catch any clues* ... nope, that's literally just an empty stage Cool news though, exciting.

It's excellent, easily my favourite MCU show (though tbh the bar isn't massively high there). Feels like it's its own thing rather than inter-connected, which is a breath of fresh air imo.

I get the impression it's pointless trying to suggest rationality and common sense, or even just being a grown up.

It's funny my nephew, who was 10 at the time, seemed to be a little disappointed by how short it was. Kids these days eh. Guess it kind of shows it's hard to please everyone, as if it needed saying. But yeah I certainly noticed him changing lightsaber stances to match Qui-Gon's, didn't pick up on the move Maul used at the time though. I have zero doubt that a lot of thought and meaning went into the duel, and you've definitely made me see bits of it in a different light and well as a lot of good thoughts on Kenobi. I guess the issue for me is I just didn't connect with the majority of the prequel characters at all, so any scene involving them happened with one hand tied behind their back. Whereas I love the sequel characters so if there are any story shortcomings they're easier to shrug off because I love watching any scene they're in. Certainly agree there It's the old Harrison Ford quote about how you can write this stuff George but you can't say it, which unfortunately, I know I go on about it a lot, also seems to apply to the Mando-verse. Maybe clunky dialogue is just a Star Wars thing lol. I chuckle at that bit every time, but yeah not sure what they were trying to do. Their chemistry in that film is a lot of fun to watch I guess I don't really look too deep into it. I think it might be more of a comment on Finn's goofiness than Rey's supposed fragility (she was seen not needing Finn's help moments before). That scene in Endgame was one of the cringiest bits of cinema I think I've ever seen. Awful. Mando chapter 16 did it perfectly. Cara Dune, Bo Katan, Sasha Banks and Fennec Shand all kicking ass on the cruiser. It was subtle and yet noticeable at the same time. I imagine they'll release expanded versions in future? Isn't that how these things work? Thanks but sadly not on there either. Thinking about it, it probably makes sense that it's missing as from what I remember it's pretty much a carbon copy of the track from The Force Awakens, so maybe that's why. I get chills watching the ships leave Ajan Kloss as it plays though. You should definitely give the soundtrack another listen though, maybe after your re-watch. It does some really nice things with Rey's theme towards the end. Same with the Force theme and the bit on the Death Star wreckage too. Looking forward to your rewatch when it does happen, be interesting to hear your thoughts after some time has passed. I find a lot of SW content a bit of time always helps, once you've shed expectation. A few Mando eps didn't land for me at first, but then after a bit of time I began to love them.

As a quick aside to lighten the mood, just spotted the below, the most ResetEra thread I've ever seen

Yeah that was cool, I loved the sustained close up on her face, fully lit from the lightsabers flashing, as the force theme starts to play. The Praetorian guard fight in TLJ was excellent I thought too, though tbf that's not really saber on saber. Still a great set-piece as the room around them burns. Yeah absolutely, it's great stuff. And as an aside, i'd forgotten Luke had thrown his lightsaber away once before haha. Agree, that's my favourite one too, and I'll happily watch it (and TPM itself) plenty of times, but I do think that within the context of the film itself, that's a perfect example of 'I guess we duel now', and you have to pull yourself out of the film to understand its meaning, based on what we knows happens next, if that makes sense? Still a cool fight though. But equally, Maul's rematch with Kenobi in Rebels is perfect too, completely different, very short but it fits the story-telling. It definitely has a lot going on, and at the time I'm sure it must have looked absolutely incredible. I dunno, I just really struggle with that film so it's hard for me to have too much praise about it. The gif of the pair of them twirling their sabers keeps playing in my mind lol. But I know you love Ep 3 and that's awesome. That's fair enough, she could have been challenged more. Though her killing Kylo Ren and fleeing to Ahch-To for good was a bit of a failing. I wonder if they were wary of making her stumble because of the whole "female protagonist" thing, they didn't want to show her fail because it was a big deal at the time that a Star Wars lead was a woman etc. It's funny people go on about how TROS U-turned TLJ and while it does in some cases there's also a ton of connections. Luke's shock at how Rey "went straight to the dark" being one. It's good that you've put some time between re-watching them, I hope when you do rewatch them your appreciation goes up, even if you liked 7 and 8 well enough already. My appreciation for 9 has gone up tons. Ah right, I get what you mean now. Redemption is obviously a big part of Star Wars so you could see that coming a mile off, and rightly so, but yeah having him survive would have been cool, and different. It also would have potentially meant more Ben Solo in the future, which I'm all here for, every scene of his was great, brief as they were. 100%. I've been saying the same. Prequels had a great overall story, executed poorly. Sequels had a lacklustre overall story, executed really well. I'm not saying everything needs to be planned out ahead of time because you need some degree of creative freedom (Vader was never meant to be Luke's father in ANH, Leia was never meant to be Luke's sister in TESB), but I do think they've learned their lesson there, the hard way. The High Republic, whilst smaller in scale obviously, has been planned out from the beginning, they know exactly how the various major story beats will go through the three Phases. I'm very interested too, so please get your thoughts down. It'll be keen to hear if you think they work well together. People said TLJ U-turned TFA but I just don't see it. For me it developed the story, just as TESB developed ANH and introduced new things. Interesting! Here's mine, very different to yours haha. I toyed with putting Solo in the S rank, but that'd probably go a bit far. To be honest though for me the S and A ranked films are a hair's length away from each other. Also, even in thumbnail form, that TLJ poster is still stunning. Fantastic. Chills. Amazing music too, that's another trait of the sequel trailers, incredible music and beautiful arrangements of classic tracks. I will say the TFA trailer showed A LOT, whereas now they tend to keep a lot of things under wrap with the Disney+ shows so maybe that's why they don't really hit as hard. I remember they released a Mando season 2 recap trailer thing midway through the show's run during that Investor Day, and it showed spoilery footage from the first 6 episodes, and it was amazing. I hadn't seen those international trailers, so thanks for sharing! Man, I just want to watch TFA again now haha. I think it's the spoiler reasons I mentioned above, and also the smaller scale of the Disney+ shows probably = a more low key trailer. I did watch the very first Mando S2 trailer a ton though but that's much more quiet than the epic-ness of the sequel ones, which basically were just there to sell tickets. Everyone and their dog were going to tune into Mando S2 and definitely Kenobi, so they don't need to hit as hard and show much. For me, as a certified spaceship/space battle/pilot nerd it's all about Rogue Squadron. I hope that film is still on track, they doubled down a couple of weeks ago but we'll see. If Patty Jenkins can get the action like Rogue One or the TLJ dreadnought run, yes fucking please. I do think they need to come back with more of a bang though so Old Republic would make a lot more sense to return to cinemas with. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks. The TROS soundtrack seems to be missing a bit. One of my favourite bits from the film is when Poe and Finn rally the troops before the Falcon flies in one direction while the starfighters fly in the other, all to the incredible sound of March of the Resistance (top tier SW tune that, for me), but it's nowhere to be seen on the soundtrack, kind of weird. I quite liked Rey's line, it pushed the Jedi narrative forward instead of being stuck to what came before. What a strange coincidence though, you have to imagine it was done independently of Avengers. As someone who timed those opening 10 minutes down to the second, I agree Much as I enjoyed Gareth Edwards' direction a lot on that film, the choice to have location cards in the opening bits, and then not later on is really jarring to my OCD brain lol. There is definitely a tight, well paced film in there, but it needed a lot more time for editing and huge chunks to be removed (rescuing Chewie served no purpose), which unfortunately they didn't get. Covid struck a couple of months later, so maybe Disney is fine with getting what they did out the door when they did! I couldn't possibly add to that well said.

Oops sorry, you mentioned choreography and I immediately thought of the prequels for some reason. I guess the originals are more of a middle ground between the two, though again the training that Obi-Wan, Vader, Luke (?) had was greater than Rey and definitely Fin, if not Kylo Ren, so that would make sense. I love how Fin doesn't know what he's doing with the saber in TFA, it felt real, I love how Rey got knackered using it in TROS after climbing through the death star wreckage, again it felt real and relatable. Within the context of those films, I think that here and now style of story-telling worked. I'd probably try countering that by saying that just because one set of films does something, in this case tells a story based on lightsaber battles, doesn't mean another set of films has to. Not sure it's fair to compare them like that. The OT does things the ST doesn't and the ST does things the OT doesn't. My opinion again, but I also don't think Rey's arc is flat at all. She starts off in TFA desperately seeking to belong somewhere, be with someone, a family. "The belonging you seek is not behind you, but ahead" as Maz says. In TLJ, she seeks that belonging and connection with Kylo Ren until he turns on her and manipulates her saying that she has no one, she doesn't belong anywhere, then in TROS, her true upbringing comes to bear and she turns her back on what came behind her, and chooses found family instead, "be with me", Rey Skywalker etc, found family being one of the great staples of Star Wars story-telling. Also have to disagree Kylo doesn't go anywhere. Probably worth bearing in mind that his arc was probably impacted a fair bit by Carrie's passing, it's a miracle they managed to weave her in at all. The part where she becomes one with the force right after her son does in TROS brings a tear to my eye every time. Yeah that totally makes sense, it comes down to how much training they've all had too etc Hey I enjoyed the one in The Phantom Menace! I was very much entertained by it. It was the 5 hour long duel in ROTS that I found a bit silly and tedious. Much as I adore the sequel trilogy I definitely agree. It kind of reminds me of the MCU and how that took a while to really become watertight and top quality, same thing here. A bit of patience might have been smart, but obv you want to launch with a bang and TFA certainly delivered that at the time. Fair enough, I think people on either side of the argument about the sequels can agree there are some amazing moments in all three of them. Hell I put on The Last Jedi to watch a quick scene and suddenly an hour has passed. I will say I think the trailers for those films were masterfully made, all three of them. The Obi Wan trailer from today for instance doesn't even compare. Today's one was fine, and I'm sure the series itself will be good, but nothing will get my Star Wars heart racing more than 7 8 and 9 hype. Well, apart from Rebels tbf. I've actually really come around on TROS from subsequent rewatches. I never had a problem with the storyline, and it was always full of amazing moments, I just found the pacing, in the first half especially to be waaaay too much. But when you sit and watch individual moments I absolutely love it. From the moment where Han appears and Ben turns back to the light to the end, *chef's kiss*. The quiet moment where the camera is close up on Rey and Kylo and their force connection, and Rey giving the most subtle of nods is one of my fav Star Wars moments. Nice one that's a good way of looking at it. I'm sure the story will show a good reason for him to leave, maybe throw the inquisitors off the scent or something. Oh for sure. It's definitely not easy. I guess the reality is more a case of going in expecting a storyline, but also telling myself that it's ok when what actually happens on screen doesn't match those expectations. And I very much enjoy your analytical eye, especially with things like the sound design and soundtrack, aspects which I'm pretty clueless on. Sorry if I came across as overly argumentative, it's just fun to talk Star Wars!

The latest in a long, long, line of ultra cute Star Wars things?

Strongly disagree. I think the lack of excessive choreography was the whole point. Give me the purposeful, strength and stamina-based lightsaber fights of the sequel trilogy (TFA and TROS especially) any day over the excessively choreographed dancing of the prequels. The former felt real, especially given the characters' relative skill level, the latter just felt like a production. To me at least, because again, opinions and all that. For me it's more about shedding all expectation about how the story will go. The quality will almost certainly be up there so I try and open myself up to wherever the film-makers and show-runners want to take me storyline wise. Obviously it's a bit constrained here because we know how these characters end up in the future, but still. I've enjoyed the almost total media blackout of the Mando-verse (I suspect that was 100% down to Favreau), but it's also nice when they go more old school and release merch early and make people wonder how they'll end up being seen in the films etc. Since Disney took over they seem to have alternated between the two approaches as and when. Given the more predictable storyline here, maybe it makes sense to get merch out early. As for the trailer, cool! Doesn't show much but the look and tone seem to definitely be there. Nice poster too. And thanks for the tip re: the Skywalker Sound vid! I'll be getting getting some popcorn sorted later tonight and watching the TBOBF Disney Gallery episode Also, custom Xbox One's revealed, because obv:

The Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett out now! An hour of behind the scenes goodness