#HanSoloShotAndGreedyDidn'tShootAtAll

#YouCannotQuarantineThePalpatine

You’re a gun nut and a fan girl of all things shooty, right Mirocu my lad? Watch the Mandalorian. I’ll disintegrate you if you don’t

‘Rocu is not a fan of new things so your suggestion will go unheeded.

THIS CALLS FOR A DISINTEGRATION

How about you m, Feline Man, you watched the ManDelorean yet or should I disintegrate you as well

Oh, dear. Being disintegrated would most certainly clash with my whole going-to-work thing I got on Monday. Then again, Khajiit has a point:

You must be brainwashed into loving the Mouse’s new entries to the Star Wars Universe

I’ll see to it that it will happen

Maclunky!

I meant Greedo of course, not Greedy

As incompetent as they are portrayed in the shows, I must admit that I absolutely love the new canon Inquisitors. Something about their aesthetic just... draws me in.

I only saw a little bit of them in the first season of Rebels (I didn’t see past that season). They seemed kinda “meh” to me. Like half assed Dark Jedi. Honestly I’m probably just a bit fatigued of the Empire era Star Wars stuff. I want to see the Mandalorian Wars and the rise of Revan become canon. On second thought, Disney’s track record with Star Wars is spotty so, maybe it’s best they just keep milking the Empire and post Empire era stuff.

“Half-assed Dark Jedi” is exactly what they’re meant to be and quite possibly one of the reasons I find them so intriguing. They’re not a bunch of in-your-face antagonists teeming with dark power, they’re essentially tools meant to be wielded by the Sith; the true lords of the Dark Side.

What can I say? I always did have a fascination with villains of lesser, B-caliber tier.

I don't mind the Inquisitors. I like them too. They provide a good mid-level threat for the characters. Someone more dangerous than stormtroopers or Tie Fighters, but less than Darth Vader. They were originally created in the Star Wars roleplaying game for that very purpose. They were an opponent you could throw at the players (who probably had at least one force user in the party), and give them a challenge. Without pitting them against a Dark Lord Of The Sith.

In other news, I just finished watching the latest episode of the Mandalorian. Lots of good stuff this time. The Mandalorian with No Name and Baby Yoda (Ba-da?) hide out in a back water world. They finally meet Gina Carano! Yay! She plays Cara Dune, and former Rebel commando who has turned mercenary with the advent of peace in the galaxy. They team up as the story turns into the Seven Two Samurai. It seems a band of orcs are raiding a local village. Orcs with an AT-ST. Well, you know what happens next. It was a fun take on an old and familiar plot (one which I have shameless stolen as well, so I am not throwing any shade).

Interesting thing is they actually directly address the Mandalorian with No Name's habit, or non-habit, of taking off his helmet. When asked about it, he says that if he ever takes it off (and shows his face to others), he can never put it back on again. Basically he gets kicked out of the Mando club.

Okay, that sounds, utterly moronic. Also an odd choice, as the Mandalorians from the Clone Wars and Rebels tv shows had no qualms about taking their helmets off. Those have always been canon. So are is John Favreau just changing history here? I dunno. I do like the whole shtick of him having his helmet on all the time. It is fun. Judge Dredd was the same, and it worked for him, just like it works for the Mandalorian With No Name. But the rationale given is... weak.

We also saw another bounty hunter with a tracking fob this episode, hunting Ba-da. I am guessing that these things are made of Hand-Wavium, since they magically point you to any person the writer wants them to. I get it though. It eliminates the need for any kind of detective work or searching. This way it puts the hero or villain exactly where the action is. Not very conducive to the suspension of disbelief however.

Maybe that whole ‘take off my helmet thing’ was implemented *after* their so called Great Purge? I find that it would make sense if it was, since it’s implied that the Mandalorians are now a scattered people in hiding, relying on secrecy instead of overwhelming numbers to survive. Maybe the Empire humiliated them in some way? Melted down their iconic helmets? Evil empires do that kind of thing a lot to break the spirit of a conquered warrior culture, after all.

Now I haven’t watched the 7 Samurai, but the premise is so classic I immediately recognized it for what it is and that demonic looking AT-ST made me think of that Namiran insect-kaiju you had going on in Seven!

The episode as a whole is a solid 8.5/10 from me; the length is what subtracts from it tbh. If they can extend episodes length from under 40 minutes to an hour in the next season, it’ll be awesome!

Wha-?!!

It’s also not the first time a Star Wars production “borrowed” the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven plotline either. Just saying, but as much as I like that plotline, I hope it doesn’t become overused.

Uleni, get thee to Akira Kurosawa at once! Seriously, Seven Samurai is a classic. It is long though, about 3.5 hours. So it is best to treat it like a tv show, and watch about an hour a day, rather than trying to do it all in one sitting. The beginning is a little slow too, as it is all about introducing the seven protagonists. But there are good characterizations in there, and a ton of gritty reality.

You could also look for the anime, Samurai Seven. It tells the same story, but with robots and mecha in addition to the samurai.

It is such a foundational story that as Khajiit pointed out, it can be easily overused. The Clone Wars did an episode of it where Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka teamed up with a group of bounty hunters to fight off Weequay pirates led by Hondo. Of course I did it. The Magnificent Seven movies did it. There are probably hundreds of adaptations. In this case, I guess they did change it up a little in that it was only the Magnificent Two.

I don't think we will be seeing any episodes over 40 minutes. I read one theory that the reason for the short episodes is the cost. This show costs a mint to make each episode as it is, because they want all the effects to look good. Trying to do a standard hour long episode would probably be prohibitively expensive. HBO cancelled Rome simply because it cost too much after all.

But now that we are on episode 4, I think they also keep it shorter because a longer episode would probably require more thinking on the part of the writers. Seriously, while this show is fun, it is basically just one shoot out after another. There is almost nothing else, like character development, character arcs, or much in the way of plotting at all. The tracking fobs are an example. They magically point you to anyone in the galaxy. So you don't have to pay off informants, sift through reams of new stories and read between the lines, listen to rumors in the cantinas, trace down hundreds of false leads, or otherwise actually have to think or even act. Why waste even 30 seconds on a montage of a bounty hunter doing all these things when instead they could just wave a magic wand around and bam, start shooting?

Seriously, it is a fun show, I enjoy watching it. But it does not have much depth.

I talked my GF into watching Seven Samurai back in January or February. I had seen half a dozen times already but she never had. We watched the whole thing in one evening. She loved it! She was particularly fond of Toshiro Mifune’s character, Kikuchiyo, but then, Toshiro Mifune is/was awesome so that’s very understandable!

Kikuchiyo steals the entire show! Mifune just chews the scenery with him. I used to call him the Monkey Boy, because of how ridiculous he acted. Kurosawa told him to be that way, because he wanted him to be a counterpoint to the other samurai, who were all stoic and disciplined and honorable.

Indeed!

Just got this bad boy:

I think he’s got a little captain in him

Bahahahaha!! That’s good stuff! I bet Vader is a whiny drunk.

Well---Rise of MaRei Suewalker comes out this week. I'm still going to wait for the reviews and see if its worth my time.

I just saw Rise of Skywalker. It was good. It was fun, in a way a Star Wars movie has not been since A New Hope. Most of it is a macguffin hunt. Which is not a bad thing, a lot of movies are. In this case the macguffin hunt provides an opportunity to do more with revealing Rey's background, and her relationship with Kylo Ren.

I don't want to get too spoilery. But some high points are:

Yes, Palpatine is back. He's kind of still half-dead though. I made a prediction a few months back when the first Palpy rumors began flying that his endgame was for Rey to kill him, and then his spirit would possess her body, and he would become Empress Reypatine. Well, close...

A lot of the movie is spent trying to fix the things Rian Johnson broke.

Rey's parents were not just some junk dealers.

Luke actually gets some redemption here for being such a coward in TLJ (hiding out on his island and doing nothing while the First Order rose), at least his force ghost does. And granted, Yoda and Ben hid out like cowards after the Fall of the Republic too. It's a jedi tradition that if you fail once, you go into hiding for the rest of your life and wait for the next generation's chosen one to fix your failures.

Lando makes a few small appearances. He does not play a big role, but it is nice seeing Billy Dee back.

The Knights of Ren are finally in a movie. They are not in a whole lot though. They are not force users. But they do provide an interesting fight near the end, like Snoke's Praetorian Guard did in TLJ.

We learn that Leia actually did become a jedi, and her lightsaber is featured. The reason she decided not to ultimately follow the jedi path is also shown. It is kind of shoe-horned in, but there really was not much space there to do anything with. So a shoe-horn was necessary.

It wraps up with a nice ending, that takes us right back to the start of A New Hope.

JJ Abrams directed. So that means a lot of the movie is a copy of Return Of The Jedi. Like I said, Palpatine is back. There are some heavy parallels to the end of RoS and RotJ.

They did a lot with the whole weird force-bond between Rey and Kylo/Ben, one of the few things Rian Johnson did right. It plays a central part in the story.

We finally see force healing in a movie. I think it has been part of the EU for decades.

Luke's X-Wing (Red 5) is back!

Finn is force-sensitive.

Statement: Khajiit doesn’t think you need to put a “spoiler alert” on something for a 40 year old movie.

Au contraire; I absolutely needed to do that because it's funny

If you say so.


It sounds like a mess, tbh, but then again, Abrams had a lot of work to do to try and make some sense out of the weirdness that was The Last Jedi. Unless we get bored and decide to go to the theatre some time this week, I’ll probably just catch it when it’s out on streaming/BluRay.

I have watched many a youtube video where they talk about Star Wars comics and as far as I'm concerned they are way, WAY more canon than anything Disney s**t out. Those comics intrigue me and lure me in, wanting me to know more. The movies don't do any of that. In fact, if Disney has done anything it is to make me appreciate the prequels to the point where I would consider them canon alongside the original movies, if it wasn't for the midiclorians.


But I won't go into that once more

Lol the EU had so much good stuff in it. A shame Disney is choosing not to use any of it. Khajiit would love to see some of the Old Republic stuff!

I would love to see a movie where Thrawn's TIE Defender project is fleshed out for instance. I don't care about a watered down Vader copy in Kylo Ren or a watered down Luke copy in Rey who btw is flawless and don't require training (bah!).

I want to know more about well established characters and the things they do. Like Vader fighting the ninth assassin and the only stormtrooper who was taught by Vader to use a light saber. THAT is interesting AF!


(Yes, I'm a Vader fancrow )

Khajiit feels like you would probably like Rogue One.

Vader is cool, but this one is way more interested in the ancient Sith; those entombed in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban/Moriband, up through the Darth Bane era.

From what I've gathered, I would maybe like that one and The Mandalorian.


Yes, I remember a comic where Vader (sorry ) met and fought an ancient Sith. Very interesting premise. I understand many of them weren't exactly fond of lightsabers which in itself is an interesting thing. Then again, they are just tools. Anyone with real powers would regard them as mere complements, if that even. IMO obviously

Well lightsaber technology was in its infancy back then so they all came attached by a cord to a battery pack you’d where on your hip. That said, many ancient Dark Lords of the Sith preferred to feel a metal blade sundering flesh, muscle, and bone; tearing through their enemies bodies.

Sounds like they would approve of my recent katana purchase then


Love the TIE Defender btw, I must emphesize that. Even though I've only experienced it in Rebellion, its stats alone makes my beak water with glee

Personally, Khajiit was always fond of the TIE Interceptor.

That's a good one too! Fast, nimble and two extra laser cannons. The reason I like the Defender is the added shields and the ability to engage multiple targets at once. All in all I like them both with just a little bit more bias towards the Defender

The Empire put shields on a TIE model?!

Yes, to my knowledge the only TIE model to feature shields AND a hyperdrive. Maybe the EU has other models with that as well, I don't know. Made it expensive but both Thrawn and Vader liked it and Vader even backed Thrawn up in front of the Emperor.

Empy Palps probably just wanted to get back to his toys

It’s funny to Khajiit that the Empire enthusiastically bankrupted entire systems building Death Stars but couldn’t be bothered to make better frontline fighters a priority.

Exactly what Thrawn thought. He saw more tactical value with a convential, mobile fleet that could cover more systems at the same time instead of just one at a time like with the Death Star. Draining resources to build that thing instead of expanding the regular fleet, along with TIE Defenders, was a big waste to Thrawn.

Just going off his comments in ANH, it didn’t seem like Vader really liked the idea of the Death Star either. That said, Anakin was a fairly good general during the Clone Wars, so he would be a good judge of a things tactical value. We just didn’t get to see much of it in the films. The animated series highlighted it well though.

It is hardy a mess. It is the opposite of a mess. It cleans up the mess



They use a lot of EU material. Thrawn, the TIE Defenders (which were not Thrawn's project in the EU), Mandalorians (in the movies the Fetts were just bounty hunters), and so on. They are just picking and choosing what and when they incorporate things.



I agree that Kylo Ren is a Darth Vader copy. Most of the Star Wars dark jedi are from the EU are. All most of the video games and novels really do is change around their appearance, and you get Darth Malak, and so on.

Likewise, Rey is uber powerful. But calling her flawless is ridiculous. She is just as flawless as Luke, and Obi-Wan, and Vader, and all the other male characters. Let's look at Luke: who blew up a super battle station, not using a targeting computer, was immediately placed in a fighter squadron with no military training whatsover, lead a flight group in said squadron, saved the princess, and otherwise blasted tie fighters out of the sky and mowed down legions of stormtroopers on the ground. All with the background skills of being a water farmer. Oh, and yes, he spent one minute with a bucket on his head with an old coot telling him to feel the force. That was Luke's training for A New Hope.

It is interesting that we never hear this about characters like Luke, or Captain America, or James Bond, or Dirty Harry, or Vin Diesel in every movie he has ever been in, or the Rock in every movie he has ever been in. The list of truly flawless and plainly fantasy wish-fulfillment male protagonists goes on and on for miles and decades. Yet that is not only perfectly fine, but normal and expected. That is the most telling fact of all.

Is Rey uber? Yes. The same as all jedi. Is that bad, only if it is bad that all jedi are bad

Lol, well you’ve seen it and Khajiit has not, so we’ll just have to take your word that it all wraps up nicely.

And for the record, this one has no issue with Rey. Khajiit does wish she had joined Kylo. That would’ve been interesting.



SubRosa - Gah! I hit the edit rather than Reply button to this post! There, fixed it.

Try it and see for yourself. It is a fun movie. It is not a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch. This is JJ Abrams we are talking about. But he can at least copy good movies and usually make something that is enjoyable, even if they are not original.

Disney has not done a good job in choosing writers for their projects. Nor in riding herd on the ones they do. Solo was a decent movie, but if they had hired Ron Howard from the start it would have been better, and cost a whole lot less. The fact that they had to bring him in and do tons of reshoots is proof that they are just giving these guys free reign to do whatever they want, no matter how it ruins everything else they have planned and built up for. Rian Johnson was a train wreck in that regard as well. RoS is very much a fix what he broke in TLJ. This is more proof that his movie was not the one Disney wanted. Rogue One was the best of the Disney Wars movies. But even its director - Gareth Edwards - has a spotty record in his other projects. His first Godzilla movie only had Godzilla in about 8 minutes of the film!

But then l look at Game of Thrones, and the disaster that turned out to be. So Disney is not alone in their choice of poor writing/directing talent. It seems to me they could hire folks like Ridley Scott and make some good films. I noticed that when they they did the Mandalorian, it was with Jon Favreau as the show runner, and Dave Filoni is one of the writers. People with proven track records. That show is likewise no cinematic masterpiece. But it is fun. I think they are starting to leverage some of the other Marvel movie people over into the Star Wars franchise now (Favreau did the Iron Man movies). They also kicked the Game of Thrones guys to the curb. So maybe things will change for the better.

And about Rey joining Kylo. Well... Watch RoS.

Ok ok! Khajiit definitely does plan to watch it at some point. May not pay theatre prices for it though, lol

I certainty cannot fault that. Nothing is really worth theater prices. I can't wait for movies to just go straight to streaming, and cut the movie theaters right out. It is just so much nicer to sit on the couch and watch movies.

Agreed, though I will say it is nice to go to the theatre every now and again. We used to go every Christmas if there was something on I wanted to see.

EU, Legends, whatever. In the comics I saw it most definitely was his project, backed up by Vader.

I am up to watching last week's Mandalorian, the prison break episode. It had some nice appearances. Clancy Brown is a guest star. I also noticed Dave Filoni making a cameo as an X-Wing pilot at the end. It turns out Matt Lanter was in it as well, as the New Republic soldier. He voiced Anakin in the Clone Wars tv show. I did not even recognize his voice, which was unusual for me. I did recognize the voice of Nymphadora from the Harry Potter movies, who guest stars as a Twi-lek.