Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker may have not been perfect..

SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

The “Skywalker Saga” for Star Wars may be over but the universe is not.

J.J. Abrams did not have a lack of vision but the position he was placed in was quite difficult to retcon.

2019 was an exciting year for Disney and Lucasfilms. Star Wars Episode 9 capped the “Skywalker Saga”. The Mandalorian has “Baby Yoda” and enough “Space Cowboy/Space Opera” to entertain folks at large. We touched on what the name “Skywalker” could mean before.

It was 18 seconds of “Face your dark side” and the rest of the movie was just corrections to TLJ.

Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker was not perfect. In fact, after Johnson and Kennedy wrote the story into a corner. J.J. Abrams did as well as he could with what he had. Without spoiling more than you’ve probably already heard we can safely say “Thank goodness it’s over”.

Much better than how she was a “character” in TLJ.

The Last Jedi was entertaining if you turned your brain off. Because of the forced humor and propagandist character “Center Staging” was tacky at best and abominable at it’s worst. Rose, who could have had a more complex character development was shoehorned as a love interest in that one but they pulled her into being a “side” or “background” character in ROTS while still giving her some respect.

He actually played quite the mothering role and wasn’t just tossed into the “comic relief” to the benefit of the film.

The characters of Finn and Poe got further fleshing out and to be perfectly honest made the movie better for it. Their interaction with Leia was not as ideal as we’d hope but she’d been put as the episodes “Jedi Master” and included in this film was an explanation behind her force ability.

Remember when he was balk-talking Holdo? Well, in this episode he actually had to take the helm.

The writing wasn’t horrible, it was a series of retconns, which had to be cobbled together by almost a dozen plot-lines all converging into a single point. Because of this regular film-goers were entertained but fans weren’t.

“Master Leia” was Carrie Fisher’s last role and we felt it.

Much of the film was carried by “Flashbacks”, “Memories”, and “Ghosts that have enough power to actually be combatants and have an effect on the mortal realm but exist purely to provide exposition and direction” which act as a driving force behind the characters rather than their own agency.

Yep.

When ghosts, the phantom emperor, and sad memories are all that drive the plot there is little more to it than simple “Space Opera”. The fact that they cut George Lucas out of the process and didn’t invite him to the Premier speaks volumes. J.J. “Star Trek’ed” Episode 9 and saved it for general audiences.

Even Lando was able to give a hand….

However, fans of the extended universe while given nods were not too happy. The long-story-short if you were to Summarize it was “The Old Guard is gone and a new generation is here to stay” oh and “All the Sith Worshipping Cultists are killed with rocks”.

-Written by R.A.G. Rankin, Author of Eon Legacy

PewDiePie steps back from Social Media…

The Face of Youtube for a long time.
Youtuber Felix “PiewDiePie”Kjellberg made an announcement last week on twitter over “taking a break” and stepping back from the platform.

December 2019 was an interesting month. Felix decided to bow out of twitter over the lukewarm virtue signaling and that’s understandable. In addition he’s decided to also take a break from Youtube the beginning of 2020.

Kicking boasting and social engineering on his way out.

While most people would place blame on a singular person or event he went into a lecture over philosophy and Eudaimonia. We included the video so you could see what it’s all about.

Pewds reports on the reporting of his reporting on reporting of his departure. Wait, what?

Felix has said, as per the second video provided, that he would like to explore other possible venues and see what he can accomplish outside of the platform. This break “may just be 5 days” or “something longer” and he doesn’t “want people’s sympathy”.

Awesome, Pewds, you do you man. You’re a great entertainer and we all look forward to see where it all leads!

Which is better: World of Warcraft Classic or Retail?

Veteran MMORPGer weighs in on what’s best in (WoW) life…

My son, a 16 year old, walked behind me and peered at my screen for a good 10 minutes. Being around a gamer-dad since his first breath he was awestruck at “how old and clunky WoW looks”. He’s seen me play Eve, City of Heroes and Villains, a dozen other MMOs and Then, I told him the horrible truth:

It’s World of Warcraft Classic on the official Blizzard server!

-Me, to my son on how ancient the game looks.

He was disgusted but I knew why. We built his Ryzen gaming rig a year ago. Because he runs around with a 5th gen i5 when he plays games at his friends house on a laptop I gifted him and the Ryzen at home he gets in plenty of Overwatch and more current games but the rustic and “clunk” of Classic WoW was a shock to his system (puny human) but can play on 8 year old hardware.

Due to this shock between the spit-shine and polish of Shadowlands my son was vehemently against “Classic”. However, I am not. I was playing FF XI before he could speak. Therefor, I was ready and the grind-crawl to 60 was well on it’s way!

We all know what the Vulpera look like. Don’t pretend you don’t.

However, before my astute clone headed off I showed him my latest “Shadowlands” alt after using my /played of 6 days and 9 hours on my level 42 Mage. A Vulpera Rogue over on “Retail” with only 1 day at level 89. Sputtering followed, a shake of his head and then an embarrassing dab. With that he ran to the kitchen for a slice of pizza.

However, the pizza was inconsequential to the bigger picture. 62+ hours or more won’t get you to level 60 in Classic. An insane time-sink and grind worthy of angst for years to come back in the day have returned. With it, nostalgia, and the community.

So which is better?

Over on the Retail servers they running BfA and Pre-installing Shadowlands we have an “Item Grind” existing as an all-time-consuming event to be decked out for the next expansion and upcoming Level Crunch.

A question asked by children, the unleveled, and the casual player. Truth be told you can run through Retail in a few weeks of casual and light play but Classic requires a whole other class of gamer. So we’ll make it easy for you:

Classic
If you like-
Slow Burns on Content
Min/Maxing Gear
1 Mount you grind hours to get
1 Main Toon/Character and 1 alt
Raids with Class Priority
Thirst for that Mage Water
Slow Professions
Scarce Auction House Market
Retail
If you like-
Running through Content
Shiny Collections
Tons of Mounts with fast gold
1 Main Toon/Character and many alts
Raid Finder
Fast Secondary Energy Regen
Streamlined Professions
Plentiful Auction House

Let it be said that Blizzard has done right by players offering both a nostalgic blast from the past and a modern gear grind. Due to the overall statistical yoyo-ing of subscriber count many “Quality of life” improvements have put into play.

Even PVP combat in Southshore and the instances feel genuine. So, if you don’t feel like buying the “Newest Expansion” you can always take a trip to the past with a current subscription! Here, have a free pet on us for the first 4 people who use this official Battlenet Link!

We will see you there! We’re on Proudmoore for the Alliance, Antonidas for the Horde and Classic you’ll find us everywhere!

-Loremaster Robert R.