Ronnie

I miss those Nokia days with all the various designs. Nowadays it's just who can make the biggest screen in your pocket

No contest for me really. I thought it might grow on me, but if anything it's even more hideous a year and a half later. The layer of dust doesn't help mind.

So it is!! Must admit it's fun to have the marketing show off some of the things in the series again like in the Ep 7 and 8 days. That anticipation of I wonder what the new thing is all about etc is fun.

Fair enough. Personally I quite enjoy a baddie redemption arc, but yeah, I can understand we've had a lot of it, not just in films and tv series either... But yeah I think it's pretty likely here, so maybe brace yourself Marketing ramping up now, a new look at that cute little droid thing. and an incredibly phallic rock

Wow, how shameless can you get. Hopefully with the prize money they can hire artists to maybe build some original assets.

You have more guts than I do, I wasn't going anywhere near the replies! As for Reva, from the trailer you get the sense she knows Obi Wan so maybe has some history with him.

Celebration store exclusives: https://www.starwarscelebration.com/en-us/merchandise.html?fbclid=IwAR2ocdpySYMw0ZLWhDo7epU8_2lLnYeV9kYgsSO0-9GQCclQ9CC81xtrqt8 There goes the entirety of my savings For starters I'm gonna need that Carson Teva pin. Have a look in the next week or so @Julius if there's anything you'd like

Hmmmm, might skip this one

Since Rangers of the New Republic got cancelled (?) it makes sense to fill the void with something else. Not saying that this rumoured series will be in any way similar story wise, but if they're building a big crossover thing it makes sense to have more than just Mando, Boba and Ahsoka. God I wish they were still making the Rangers show But yeah I'll take either era really, but the Mandoverse could be more beneficial in the short term, then once the publishing of the main High Republic novels is finished with then there's a more fleshed out sandbox for shows to play in.

Good read from VF, Diego Luna comes across well. Rosario Dawson comes across as incredibly non-trustworthy from an NDA pov! And I'm almost certain the rumours about Grammar Rodeo were saying it was set in the High Republic, but the article article seems to suggest it's in the same New Republic timeline as Mando etc. Maybe we'll find out in a little over a week

I'm not one for remembering many of the more subtle musical themes, but this one sticks out. The way the film ended with it booming was great. A month or so after seeing the film in the cinema I picked up a pirated copy on VHS (?) in some random market in Notting Hill on VHS, and I remember the first thing I did was fast forward to the asteroid chase. Wow, well I know what I'm reading over lunch! That sounds really interesting. Amazing photography too of course.

As someone who's not really a fan of 50+ hour turn based RPGs, Child of Light's shorter campaign was a breath of fresh air for me. Loved it.

I think it makes too much sense to ignore really, this crossover event thing must be a film surely? I suppose it could be a special Disney+ only 2 hour thing, but you have to figure they want their own Avengers type thing. I'm curious how much more there is that hasn't been announced yet. Especially on the Disney side of things. I'm trying to go in with low expectations, we know of plenty of things already announced and most haven't even started production yet (Acolyte, Lando, Droid Story) so not sure how much more there could be really. Andor next for sure. I'm really curious about the release schedule, unless they double up you can't even fit Kenobi, Bad Batch and Andor all in 2022, let alone Mando S3. That was so weird and awkward

Yeah they're definitely not hanging about with storylines. I read a rumour that S3 would be the final season though, which would be really surprising. I expect a Mando film down the line though regardless. Ah ok fair enough! There's gaps between the panels' scheduling so that would make sense. I'm really not fussed about watching any episodes as part of the crowd to be honest. If it happens cool, it'll be a fun experience, but I'd be just as happy to watch from the comfort of my own home. Lucasfilm/Disney seem to be very keen on spacing out the announcements and trailers, probably rightly so tbh. They focus on one show at a time, then when it finishes, talk about the next thing. But then again Celebration is different so if there's any time for a big news drop with lots of stuff, it's there. I think with Kenobi out the following day, their marketing for it will pretty much be done with, so they can put out other trailers in close proximity maybe. For sure, Celebration is the game's moment to shine, but it's absence on the panel schedule suggests it just isn't ready. I suppose EA could drop a teaser trailer online and make a Twitter announcement while Celebration is on? Yeah, leak culture is really annoying, and frankly pretty childish. All done for internet points. Re: the subtitle, it would have been so much cooler to see it pop up at the end of the trailer, but no, Jeff Grubb needed people to pay attention to him. Like you say, updates on something a ways off is fine, but what's the point of leaking the subtitle two weeks before it potentially debuts. On a separate note, I've got some swag to hand out at the convention, apparently that's a thing lol

The whole discussion on this page is about cherry picking and discussing in-house, first party game development. Anyway, I'll leave it there.

Because that's literally what my point is about. The discussion was about Xbox Game Studios, and I brought up Playstation Studios as a point of comparison, saying this:

Substantially different? The messaging is practically identical, almost word for word at times. What is weird though is that two sentences from the non-official translation don't seem to exist anywhere on the official one. Probably edited out? They do call it a summary after all.

Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo and Destruction All Stars aren't PlayStation Studios? After God of War, The Last of Us, Days Gone, Horizon, Infamous, Ghost of Tsushima and Uncharted ... I think we're set in that regard Throw in a third Spider-Man game in five years, another openworld superhero game in Wolverine and yeah... Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed/loved most of those games, but I don't think it's controversial to suggest that PS Studios play things pretty safe these days. Both in terms of genre, and the actual gameplay within the games themselves.

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