November Anniversary Extravaganza!

Whoo, November has been a wild month. It turns out I have a full slate of Anniversary Reviews to do, and not enough time to do them all separately. So I decided to do a super-mega edition!

Note that this is not the thing I do with things that I can;t write about. This'll be longer than that. It'll just be condensed.

All Beings Are Created Equal

(Originally written for Jedi News)

I’ve always been the kind of guy who has been attracted to really interesting designs. As a child, my favorite Loony Tune was the Roadrunner not because I found him particularly funny, but because he looked so damn cool. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate character nuance and substance being as important if not more than style, though style does play a role. To bring it back to a Star Wars example, I appreciate Sebulba for the kind of character he is and what he represents, but he wouldn’t be my third favorite Saga character of all time were it not that I feel the Dug is probably the most utterly awesome design to come out of any of the films.

WW: Mists of Pandaria

Well, this has been a long time coming. My review of Mists of Pandaria

Clone Wars 5.09: A Necessary Bond

What's Hondo doing with Fett's ship?

Spoilers ahead

Simple Math

(Originally written for Jedi News. Look at the sweet new logo I have!)

A while ago, I read This Post on the blog "A Certain Point of View" calling for the abandonment of the term “Original Trilogy” because of its polarizing nature, and replace it with the phrase “4-6 Trilogy.” While I disagreed at first, I slowly came around. The writer makes a strong case that “Original” automatically elevates the first set of movies and goes a long way to keep the newer films from being considered classics in their own right (I feel referring to the newer films as simply “The Prequels” does the same amount of damage). However, the more I think about it, saying “4-6 Trilogy” and “1-3 Trilogy” doesn’t go nearly far enough in bridging the gap between the two (soon to be three) sets of films.

We need to abandon the term “trilogy” entirely when talking about Star Wars.

Clone Wars 5.08: Bound for Rescue

Isn't joining the Jedi order already like running away to join the circus?

Spoilers ahead

The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn

(Originally posted for Jedi News)

I had considered saving this topic for Valentine’s Day, but as it’s a major point that I somehow left off of my “Truth” post, I felt for completion’s sake I needed to go into it.

That’s right; I’m going to defend the romance between Anakin and Padmé explored primarily in “Attack of the Clones”.

Double Feature: Bond's Gonna Wreck It

When it rains it pours. I just saw two great movies this week, and now I'll give you my take on them:

Skyfall and Wreck-It Ralph

Minor Spoilers to follow (I'll try not to ruin too much)

WW: Old Republic Free To Play

Well, it's official. The Old Republic goes Free-to-Play this week.

And...I'm not going back just yet.

I don't mind putting some of my characters on the back burner, but no way I'm not playing my main character, a Sith Inquisitor named Binx.

Now, in order to sell their greatest strength, the story, they did not put level caps on the Free-To-Play accounts. What they did do was limit species. Human, Zabrak, and Cyborg.

Binx is Twi'lek.

I hate humans. My Zabrak Jedi Knight Simara is my co-main, so that wouldn't be too bad. I do have a Cyborg 2nd-tier (but she's a Bounty Hunter and if I could only choose one or two, I would prefer Force-Users).

I'll do more research, but it looks like I'm going to be wishing for those timecards after all.

UPDATE 11/16: So I logged in to check and I found that they would let me play Binx even as a Twi'Lek. I guess since she's my highest-level character she was grandfathered it, though if I ever wanted to make another Twi'Lek I'm sure I'd have to go through Subscription or Cartel Coins.

Oh yeah, I'm pissed I don't get Cartel Coins from all I've given them since launch, just because I couldn't re-subscribe in the month before the change. Plus, apparently my server was merged with another and I had to rename half my characters. Binx becoming Rajbinx wasn't so bad. The rest however...ugh. I might even restart my Consuler as a new race if I can ever scrape the coins enough to buy my slots back.

On the upside, if I do get some Cartel Coins, I can pretty much buy most of my conveniences back, plus Cathaur whenever they come out. So, for now, I'm sticking with the Old Republic, just not very often.

MM: Skylanders Grades Issue 3

Okeedoke, here are four more Skylanders to review. Yes, I did in fact get six, but two of them work exclusively with Skylanders Giants and since I only have Spyro's Adventure for the 3DS, we'll have to wait.

Once more, we're using Harry Potter O.W.L. grades here. Refer to my older posts to get what the letters mean.

Clone Wars 5.07: A Test of Strength

I remember every lightsaber I ever sold, Mr. Potter.

Spoilers Ahead

Why I Am A Star Wars Activist

(Originally written for Jedi News)

For a large part of my life, I have been a Star Wars fan. In the last two years, I have also become what I like to call a Star Wars Activist. What exactly is that? I’m dedicated to seeing all of Star Wars, on film at least, to be looked at as the classics they are.

One of the many commenters on my post from this weekend asked me a simple question. Why? Why do I feel the need to beat my chest and blow the horn? Why am I so passionate about it?

Well, in this post I hope to tell you why. And the answer is far from simple.

More Star Wars to Tide You Over

Two things.

First off, while cleaning the basement, my dad found his ticket stub from our opening day viewing of The Phantom Menace. Since I lost mine, he let me keep it for posterity:

Ain't it a beaut? Ah, memories. Notice we bought them the night before. I was allowed to come to school late since this was an event of such cultural significance.

Also, I was talking with someone about "putting on my Star Wars Activist hat" and I was suddenly inspired to draw this:

Disney needs to put these in their theme parks ASAP.

Jedi News Update

Well, they're late on the new article, which means I'm late posting it here. I'll get it here as soon as I can, I promise. I don't blame them - yet - since I'm not the only new contributor and Episode VII speculation is heating up.

They did introduce me with the bio they asked me to write. I sent them one of my Halloween Anakin pictures. They did something interesting and kind of cool: They photoshopped out the Renoir painting and replaced it with the awesome Phantom Menace Poster.

The original:

The Special Edition (courtesy of Jedi News):



I WISH I had that poster. I'll keep you guys updated on the article proper.

Well, THAT Escalated Quickly.

If you're the kind of reader who pays attention to links, you may have noticed a new one amongst the ranks. After so many people spread my post "The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth About Star Wars", it caught the attention of one of the editors of Jedi News, a UK website that moniters news coming out of Lucasfilm and once in a while has some flavor articles. They asked me to work as a contributor.

I was so honored that I accepted, and my main Star Wars articles will appear there when inspiration strikes to write them. Now does this mean this blog is going down?

1. No, because I still have other non-Star Wars things I write about on a weekly basis, and those will still be here.

2. No, because my deal with Jedi News is that I can re-post my articles on this very site, provided I wait a day after it comes up on Jedi News and provide links. In fact, I don't know how this deal is going to go so you may very well see a "director's cut" on here from time to time. Plus, for the moment anyway, my Clone Wars episode reviews are exclusively on Nilbog's Storybook Land.

As much as I see this as a great opportunity to get my writing to a broader audience, part of me feels that I don't really deserve it. As much as I put my heart and soul into that piece, I was saying nothing new. Almost everything I said in that post are points that people like Lazypadawan, A New Hope, and Paul F. McDonald have been making for years. In fact, I credit them time and again and wholeheartedly for helping me find my voice as a Star Wars Activist (and what exactly is that? Read Jedi News this Thursday or Nilbog's Storybook Land on Friday! *COUGHSHAMELESSPLUGCOUGH*)

Basically what I'm saying here is that, as I take my first step into a hopefully larger world, I vow never to forget where I came from and who helped me get here. And this blog will remain open until either I die or Blogspot does (whichever comes first).

May the Force Be With You, Always.

P.S. Keep circulating the other article whenever you see hater propaganda!

MM: Skylanders Giants First Impression

Well, I did not expect to get this one, but...Skylanders Giants!

Clone Wars 5.06: The Gathering

Wicked. Cute.

Spoilers Ahead

Pumpkins Scream In The Dead Of Night...On Mustafar

Halloween has for a long time been my favorite holiday. An excuse to dress up, whether or not I go anywhere, and play a part, regardless if I've got any acting work.

I had a dilemma this year where, up until the last minute, I had no idea what I was going to be...

Meesa Your Humble Servant!

I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who spread yesterday's post. I am so honored that my little diatribe struck this much of a chord. If we can rally the saga lovers with this, awesome! If we can convert a few hateboys in the process, even better (though I won't be holding my breath).

The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth About Star Wars

This is it. This is my major post. This is everything. Anytime somebody posts anything anti-I, II, III, or anti-GL, or anti-Star Wars in general, I will simply reply with a link to this very post. I warn any longtime readers that I will repeat myself in this manifesto, but it's good to have all the information here.

Also, this post will be very very VERY long. However, if you really care about this subject, then you'll read the whole thing. A response of TL;DR will only show me that I have no reason to take you or your arguments seriously on this matter, since the hate machine has been on diatribes this long or longer for years and I'm merely now fighting back.

Haters, prepare to take the left-hand evacuation procedure as I lay some truthiness down upon thee.

November Anniversaries

Well, I have all my planned November reviews slated to be fell reviews.

But you know what? I'm skipping "Treasure Planet," which turns 10 this year. I saw it once on YouTube, and basically my review boils down to "A lot of good ideas lost in a short running time."

Star Wars Disneyfication - Take Two!

Well, this news has certainly taken most of my free brain processing time, so throw my previous post schedule right out the window (MOST will still come, just later than intended; Red Dragon I'll wait and talk about with its more famous film predecessor).

However, I have to hand it to the great folks at the SWPAS and "A Certain Point of View" for helping me to calm down and see reason.