1 hour ago, Alan Noir said:

Adds little to nothing really overall

Most succinct summary of the movie right there, folks.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

Most succinct summary of the movie right there, folks.

I didn't hate the movie, just felt indifferent.

On 1/6/2020 at 3:18 AM, Yodhrin said:

Would it not be better to teach your daughter that it's better to look for deeper qualities in characters and stories to connect with rather than feeding the IMO bizarre modern trend of reinforcing the "I can only identify with people who share the same arbitrary arrangement of superficial physical characteristics that I have" thing?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you probably possess a set of demographics that has aligned with the demographics of most of the heroic, main or protagonist characters you've ever seen in media. Because it's really only people who have always seen their demographics as the default that have a problem with people who have different demographics getting the spotlight occasionally.

*Reads thread and see's where it's about to go.*

"I've got a bad feeling about this".

7 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

People who say representation in media doesn't matter are like people who say cake doesn't matter: usually they've already had a couple slices.

On 1/6/2020 at 12:18 PM, Yodhrin said:

Would it not be better to teach your daughter that it's better to look for deeper qualities in characters and stories to connect with rather than feeding the IMO bizarre modern trend of reinforcing the "I can only identify with people who share the same arbitrary arrangement of superficial physical characteristics that I have" thing? More representation, done organically, is a good thing certainly, but the idea people will or should struggle to enjoy things that don't have a given number of people who look like the viewer isn't a good thing to my mind.

Couldn't you say the same thing to those who find it strange to be seeing more diversity?

On 1/6/2020 at 7:39 AM, TauntaunScout said:

I try but this is an example of where theory can diverge wildly from daily living. She's 4. She sorts everything into strict categories. It's either buy her ST female Star Wars figures and encourage that interest, or see her dive ever deeper into the realm of pink sparkly princesses. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to track down a set of Fashion Plates that didn't look like we were giving her anorexia in a box, but that's another subject.

It's really hard to appreciate how much young children are analyzing the world around them to see how they fit into until you watch it happen in real time. You can tell them they can be anything as much as you want, but its a Herculean effort if society is constantly telling them otherwise. The first time they really latch onto a character and you have to explain "they don't make a toy of that one" is heartbreaking. You can actively watch them hear "this isn't something for you" and its just.... infuriating.

51 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

It's really hard to appreciate how much young children are analyzing the world around them to see how they fit into until you watch it happen in real time.

Pretty much. As adults, we can't see the societal influences like we can't see the air. I'm a stay at home dad and my wife works. My kids should be as far from brainwashed into the stereotypes as it gets, right? Wrong. My daughter started proudly showing off her knowledge of which things were for boys and girls as soon as she could form complex enough sentences to do so. My favorite was when she unilaterally declared that "Unicorns are girls and wildebeest are boys."

My son on the other hand rejects these things as BS, not because he's immune to societal influence, but because like all children, he wants to do what the older kids are doing. The most common experience of an older kid for him, is his sister. This begins a war between them, where my daughter tries to hoard all the coolest things as being "for girls" and handing him whatever she doesn't want and saying it's "for boys". He retaliates with the fury of a frustrated two-year-old.

4 hours ago, Sharkbelly said:

Couldn't you say the same thing to those who find it strange to be seeing more diversity?

I don't think @Yodhrin is one of them and I don't want him to feel like people are piling onto him. I just don't think he gets where the theory diverges from the practice in this matter. In a perfect world he's right. But we do not live in a perfect world and never will. I've only got a couple short years where my kids are this rough age. This is not a hill I'm willing to make a stand on: anyone can talk till they're blue in the face, it's not gonna get a toddler to change their mind about which stuff they like. I mean this is an age bracket where sometimes you have to leave a restaurant because your child won't stop screaming over their straw getting bent or something.

I talk to her about this stuff to her all the time. She can sometimes be talked into agreeing with me. Doesn't stop her from running around pretending that she's Captain Phasma and emphatically NOT Darth Vader.

On 1/3/2020 at 9:58 AM, Kirjath08 said:

The only type of Star Wars fan I don't usually understand is the one who needs a personal canon.

I have a personal canon because if nothing else, the sheer volume of Star Wars activity I engage in requires culling it down. There's too much for me to possibly include it all. Once upon a time, it was pretty much accepted that because it was impossible to actually collect ALL Star Wars merchandise due to sheer volume of it, you were freed from trying to do so. Similarly nowadays, there's so much Star Wars source material, it's impossible for me to follow all of it. So I don't even try. I paint miniature armies and recently built a rebel trooper uniform, those are time intensive ways to engage in Star Wars. Since a lot of my Star Wars engagement revolves around hobbies and collecting, there's way too much for me to bother including the source material I don't like.

Besides. For sake of maintaining some sort of internal consistency in our RPG's and minis games, there were quite a lot of us who have been in the habit of rejecting some of the available source materials since even before the prequels were released. If you tried to include all the old comics and stuff, the universe would have immediately collapsed under its own weight as far back as 1987 when the very first RPG launched. George was licensing stuff out, then contradicting it with feature films, back in the 70's and 80's. We didn't use the phrase "canon" back then. We'd just say things like "Well sure, but we're not using that type of droid in our game" or whatever.

Since this is a forum for a miniature wargame, you're liable to find a lot of us here, who are used to having a "personal canon". If anything I blame Disney for creating a specifically stated and sorted out division between "Canon" and "Legends". At the end of the day it's all a legend. People get so caught up, they seem to forget this is fiction.

59 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I have a personal canon because if nothing else, the sheer volume of Star Wars activity I engage in requires culling it down.

Totally read this as “personnel cannon” at first. Figured your opponents just brought a lot of Trooper minis.

….Kanonenfutter…. feed the canons...they are hunger...

11 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Besides. For sake of maintaining some sort of internal consistency in our RPG's and minis games, there were quite a lot of us who have been in the habit of rejecting some of the available source materials since even before the prequels were released. If you tried to include all the old comics and stuff, the universe would have immediately collapsed under its own weight as far back as 1987 when the very first RPG launched.

I do agree with this at least in principle. This weekend at our Prime event a much younger fan was talking about how apparently it was said that Palpatine was able to beat Mace's companions because when he screamed he severed their connection to the force or something.

I just looked at him and said, "You know, you're allowed to reject the stuff that sounds overtly stupid. Especially if it isn't backed up by anything else and ultimately has no bearing on the story. Ian McDermid isn't a great sword fighter, that's it. They didn't show the battle because it wouldn't have looked as cool."

7 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

I do agree with this at least in principle.

Let's not forget the original public face of Jabba the Hutt. They'll license anything as long as the check clears.

On ‎1‎/‎13‎/‎2020 at 1:15 PM, TauntaunScout said:

I have a personal canon because if nothing else, the sheer volume of Star Wars activity I engage in requires culling it down. There's too much for me to possibly include it all. Once upon a time, it was pretty much accepted that because it was impossible to actually collect ALL Star Wars merchandise due to sheer volume of it, you were freed from trying to do so. Similarly nowadays, there's so much Star Wars source material, it's impossible for me to follow all of it. So I don't even try. I paint miniature armies and recently built a rebel trooper uniform, those are time intensive ways to engage in Star Wars. Since a lot of my Star Wars engagement revolves around hobbies and collecting, there's way too much for me to bother including the source material I don't like.

Besides. For sake of maintaining some sort of internal consistency in our RPG's and minis games, there were quite a lot of us who have been in the habit of rejecting some of the available source materials since even before the prequels were released. If you tried to include all the old comics and stuff, the universe would have immediately collapsed under its own weight as far back as 1987 when the very first RPG launched. George was licensing stuff out, then contradicting it with feature films, back in the 70's and 80's. We didn't use the phrase "canon" back then. We'd just say things like "Well sure, but we're not using that type of droid in our game" or whatever.

Since this is a forum for a miniature wargame, you're liable to find a lot of us here, who are used to having a "personal canon". If anything I blame Disney for creating a specifically stated and sorted out division between "Canon" and "Legends". At the end of the day it's all a legend. People get so caught up, they seem to forget this is fiction.

This is the smartest way to deal with anything. Mainly, I've rejected Legions on account of one too many miniatures game, and imo ridiculous decisions about what gets released. Iden Verson, really? I like her as a character too, from the mostly horrible BFII game, however, her before about a ton of other movie based characters? No thanks, yet again, FFG, for your messed up priority system on what gets released.

Having said that heavy handed criticism, do I own some FFG Legion figures? Sure, because it's Star Wars. And pretty much, the good news is by not playing the game, I can truly care less about what is 'supposed to' be put together for a game. You play FFG Star Wars games by the rules, to win, anyway and from what I've seen, you end up with some definitely non-immersive, ludicrous compositions. But I can take miniatures and recreate scenes I want, with home brewed rules, and come up with a game with friends with something that way more looks like a recreation of what happened in the movies. That is, after all, what people did long before there was some 'standard' system of a miniature game for Star Wars.

In that regard, FFG has my approval. Put things out from the main MOVIES, that's what I personally want to see. And of course I know FFG is going to go on printing stuff from books, and CGI series, and whatever video game either just came out or came out about 25 years ago. They do a good enough job with what they come out with and I'll take that AT-ST any day, and gladly ignore Iden Verso.

Sorry Iden, I love you. In the BFII video game, and that's it.

21 minutes ago, KelRiever said:

This is the smartest way to deal with anything. Mainly, I've rejected Legions on account of one too many miniatures game, and imo ridiculous decisions about what gets released.

Pretty sure if you buy 3 core sets, Boba Fett, and the rebel Specialists box, you can more or less run all the scenarios from the old WEG book for less money that it cost back in the 90's, after inflation. Especially if you resort to buying them from online discounters. The only real substitution you'd have to make is to use a human Jedi instead of Wuhuhul in The Crystal Forest of Goratak . But the rebel comms specialist will make a perfectly serviceable Grindol Maal. Your HH-12 stormtroopers become Spacetroopers as per WEG's own suggestion. The squads of rebels could be painted as 20 Endor rebels, and two squads of 10 desert and snow troops so you can tell them apart to declare squads of mercenaries and bounty hunters. Maybe clump all of your Duros into those squads. The speeder bikes and AT-RT's would give you lots of room to expand into larger battles.

Yeah, it's a good time to be a SW miniatures enthusiast.

Kylo and The Oracle

The Art of The Rise of Skywalker

The Oracle

34 minutes ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Kylo and The Oracle

I wonder if that is Vaders fortress in the background at the top, since the wayfinder was found on Mustafar. Or is it simply a FO shuttle?

2 hours ago, Vode said:

I wonder if that is Vaders fortress in the background at the top, since the wayfinder was found on Mustafar. Or is it simply a FO shuttle?

I heard in the longer cut of the movie, you can see Vader’s castle in the background, so that’s probably it.

I can’t believe they cut so much exposition and world-building from the movie.

3 hours ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Kylo and The Oracle

There was an oracle? Guess I missed it.

More Concept Art

On 1/16/2020 at 5:13 AM, Vode said:

I wonder if that is Vaders fortress in the background at the top, since the wayfinder was found on Mustafar. Or is it simply a FO shuttle?

I think they were planning to have the remains of Vader’s castle.

A Trove of Concept Art

“I have been every voice, you have ever heard, inside your head.”

fan art by Wetta