#but the story and dialogue are just lukewarm compared to last season

[haldenlith]

I’m going to ramble a bit more, out of extreme boredom.

I’m not going to say Season of the Lost was a “throwaway” season, because it definitely wasn’t. What I WILL say is that it felt weird, given that we knew pretty much exactly how it would end (with the tiny except of Osiris -- though we kinda still don’t know if Osiris is okay, honestly). In that season, we were all Cassandra.

I’m referencing the Cassandra Effect, by the way, that’s used a lot in theatre and shit, in which the audience knows what’s going to happen, but the actual characters don’t.

It was kind of hamstrung by that fact. I have no fuckin’ clue how one would do that differently, because there’s no way you build up to Witch Queen otherwise, honestly. It still just felt very lukewarm. The most notable items were the things dealing with Crow and Uldren (Crow getting his memories, Uldren’s logs with Ager’s Sceptre). Outside of that, it was just a slow rinse-repeat of “go grab a Techeun and charge a battery for a ritual we know will go awry.” Savathun’s chats were a nice flavor touch.

... Though, getting to hear Ikora put Mara in her place was pretty damn nice.

I don’t know, I just wanted to spit out my thoughts. I mean, comparing Lost to Risen, even though Risen was shorter, it had more punch and interest to it (even in the dialogue during the Battlegrounds) than Lost did. (This isn’t me hating on Season of the Lost, by the way. It was still a fun season, mechanically. I just feel the story was a little “meh” thanks to the very existence and knowledge of WQ.)

This is all, of course, ignoring the absolute debacle of the final week. I still do not understand what happened there, and whose idea it was to leave it for literally the last week without even TESTING it, because they clearly did not. I smell crunch development tactics, and I don’t like it. I hope Bungie doesn’t do that “crunch culture” bullshit. Good devs and teams deserve better.

#haldie rambles #destiny 2 #luckily I don't think we'll have that issue going into Lightfall #given that it'll be completely uncharted territory for our misfit band of heroes #which now includes an empress

[aion-rsa]

Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8 Review – The Rescue

https://ift.tt/3r8bVxu

This Star Wars: The Mandalorian review contains spoilers.

The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8

The core of The Mandalorian has always been the connection between Din Djarin and Grogu. After the first live-action Star Wars TV offering proved in its first season that a story about a faceless Mandalorian could have so much heart (something I hope remains true in the many upcoming shows), that connection became even more vital to the storytelling in the second outing. Instead of the twisted family relationships between the Skywalkers, Din and Grogu were a found family dream, propelling the Child into households everywhere. Unfortunately, at the end of season two, Din and the Child’s heartfelt connection doesn’t quite feel as central as it should.

This isn’t the smartest show in the streaming world, but it is still one of the most fun. Din finds the location of Moff Gideon and the captured baby with the help of Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, Bo-Katan Kryze, and her lieutenant Koska Reeves. Their two-pronged rescue mission goes surprisingly well, the squad of Mandalorians and Din himself taking out stormtroopers, dark troopers, and finally, Moff Gideon. But when Din delivers Gideon alive to his allies, it’s clear this is only less than half of the former ISB agent’s plan.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Gideon tries to turn Din and Bo-Katan against one another, using his knowledge of Mandalorian tradition to initiate a fight. To truly gain the throne, he says, Bo-Katan has to win the darksaber from Din in battle. It’s both a keen portrayal of the nature of power (someone always must be humbled, especially according to an Imperial who thinks of all of the good guys as “savages”) and a classic manipulative villain. Although Gideon’s plan is clear, it doesn’t work. Eucatastrophe appears in the form of Luke Skywalker, who in the best Jedi fashion, breaks all the rules to save the day.

Din’s hard choices — whether to give Grogu to the Jedi, whether to let Bo-Katan kill Moff Gideon, what happens now that she has to, by tradition, take the darksaber from him by force — take a back seat. Instead, the energy of the final minutes is sapped by a cool but uncanny Luke, Mark Hamill’s welcome presence digitally de-aged far enough that he sometimes looks like his sketchy Battlefront avatar. That game keeps ahold of its medal as the best inter-trilogy appearance of Luke, too. Where his dialogue in the game emphasizes his kindness, on the show he’s first a warrior and then a plot device, interchangeable with the general concept of a Jedi.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Not to say I don’t want to see more Luke, but that bit of fan service sprinkled this episode with sugar when I wanted more substance. Frankly, I didn’t find the CGI appearance too off-putting on its own, although it’s even worse when Luke turns away from the camera toward the end. Luke’s voice doesn’t sound the same anymore, and his eyes don’t have the same spark. I wonder if it would have been better or worse to have cast fan favorite Sebastian Stan or another look-alike. The ambiguity itself speaks volumes.

Luke’s presence is clearly a case of Jedi ex machina, but I was so delighted to see him that I can’t present that as an entirely bad thing. (There’s even a bit of “we called it” pleasure in there.) But as elsewhere in the episode, the build-up goes on a bit too long compared to the payoff. Luke’s dialogue is sparse and lacks emotion. As usual, the music does a lot of work here, diverting from the Star Wars method of leitmotif to give Luke a new, mystical and melancholic introduction.

Even the long-awaited fight between Moff Gideon and Din wass more setup than payoff. Surely some of the time spent reminding us the beskar steel was strong, crafting a meticulous order of operations for how tough various types of metals and glass are, could have been traded for a more dramatic setting than a single hallway. The darksaber fight was cool, with the blade setting the wall on fire and Din using some impressive footwork, but the combat didn’t travel, didn’t tell its own story with acts and beats the way the best Star Wars duels do.

I’m also torn on the fight scenes with the infiltration team. More often than not I ended up wondering whether the cool stunts were going to get the good guys killed, their eagerness to get up close and punch seemingly unnecessary and unsafe when the stormtroopers have blasters. But at the same time, it was great fun to see a team succeed with such competence, the good guys well matched with the bad. It was especially exciting because it’s a team of almost all Mandalorians and all women, armored and weighty. Moments like Cara Dune’s gun jamming reminds us Star Wars is a janky universe, its heroes subject to inconveniences as well as epic stakes.

Read more

TV

Star Wars Fans React to The Mandalorian Season 2 Finale

By Kirsten Howard

TV

How The Mandalorian Captures the Spirit of the Star Wars Prequel Era

By Megan Crouse

Like last episode, the relationship between Din and the Child drives the titular Mandalorian’s every action. His love for the baby is the whole reason he puts himself in so much danger, goes to such physically taxing lengths. But they don’t actually interact very much in the end. Even the baby plaintively reaching for Din while handcuffed doesn’t reach the tear-jerking emotions of the scene where Din laughs just seeing Grogu responding to his name. The emotional connection between the two has been well established already, but this is the finale: it shouldn’t coast on the good will from the rest of the season but should make the connection even stronger so it can twist the knife even further later. The very beginning promised some neat characterization between the good guys. There’s a lot to say about the relationship between Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians. The scene where she and Boba meet is delightfully prickly, everyone willing to fight at the drop of a hat. Bo-Katan dismisses Boba as a clone. Boba, perhaps comforted by Din’s quick acceptance , resents her self-proclaimed right to the contested throne. Koska being so willing to fight on her leader’s behalf gave some great heat to the scene. I love the idea that the two groups have such a deep fissure between them since it illustrates exactly what Bo-Katan is trying to unite, how hard that will be, and why not all Mandalorians might agree with her. It’s also just fun, a sort of Chekhov’s gun of that many people in Mandalorian armor being in the same dingy room together.

There was plenty to love in this episode. I gasped out loud when Moff Gideon nearly shot himself, winced when it looked like the dark trooper would smash Din’s helmet in, and felt that old, old love for Star Wars when it became clear the X-wing held no ordinary pilot. Seeing Luke in the flesh was a delight despite the flaws, reminding me of how much I love the central fantasy of Return of the Jedi: a super-powered nice person can save the day on both strength and kindness. Bo-Katan, Fennec, and Cara were wonderfully cool and central, too. Din showing Grogu his face was touching and long-awaited.

But Din letting the Jedi — any Jedi, but especially one he doesn’t know — walk away with the baby feels wrong. Maybe next season, we’ll see a repeat of the show’s beginning: Din having second thoughts and going to retrieve his son again. The tease at the end of the episode suggests a lot more Boba Fett in season three, a not unwelcome prospect due to Temuera Morrison’s good performance and one that might have made filming during the pandemic more feasible. But I’m left lukewarm about this episode. Even as it wowed with individual moments, the arc of “The Rescue” overall drifted too far from Din and Grogu. Surely some of the time devoted to build-up, shiny plot threads, and cameos could have been traded for a little more time with the iconic duo.

The post Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 8 Review – The Rescue appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3aldGBy

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[kokomiin]

I completed bl3 yesterday and wanted to talk about it, but i figured it would be best just to talk about the things I had problems with in the last like 10 hours of the game rather than outlining everything I did like cause that’s pretty much just 90% of the game

not sure where to start, I guess I will begin with right after the pain and terror boss when tannis says the calypsos are preparing to open the great vault so you go straight to launching an attack on them. at this point I felt like the last arc of the game had come too soon, not because I hadn’t already done loads of things in the game but more to do with how characters and things had been fleshed out. 

tina, brick and mordecai for example had great buildups to their introductions but after that they only had one sidequest each and were not very involved in the main story like you would have expected since they had been hyped up a lot. compared to BL2 it felt to me like there was a big lack in the team aspect toward the end, they felt weirdly separated from lilith and the crimson raiders for like no reason. I also felt this lack of team aspect with rhys and lorelai, wainwright and clay. their designated parts of the story were great and I really enjoyed their sidequests, but after their parts are done they are not very involved with the main story anymore. the focus is too strong on just lilith and tannis (and ava too i guess but she was not fleshed out really beyond the diary mission imo) and it just felt lonely at the end.

by the time I was on nekrotafeyo I had kind of accepted this and just wanted to get to the ending, the gameplay and bosses staying fun throughout helped and so did the dialogue between characters (tannis x typhon otp) so it wasn’t really a bad experience just disappointing for me on the story half. I felt like the focus on siren stuff and all the new things they made up was way too much, I liked tannis as a siren but the introduction of just any siren being able to pass on powers to someone that far in their life after they die felt lame to me. In tannis’ case you can maybe argue that it was some aot-esque “paths” thing where she was destined to be a siren so she could charge the keys and help stop the calypsos, but I felt very lukewarm about ava. if they are really making her the next leader of the crimson raiders she better have some interesting character development in some dlc or something before the next game comes out.

personally I think the story could have been improved by using more plot elements from the previous games because there is still a lot of stuff left unanswered/not really addressed. I am glad at least that there was a payoff to zarpedon’s motive in the presequel, when it turned out the reason she was trying to destroy the moon was because it was the vault key that would destroy pandora and turn the calypsos into gods. that was a cool moment. however I am confused about what lilith actually did to elpis, I at first thought she teleported it away like the did to sanctuary in 2, but the wikipedia plot description says she left the firehawk symbol branded on the moon..? is it just encased in a fire forcefield or something?

there are some other things I remember thinking about yesterday but have forgotten now. but in conclusion, I am definitely going to get the season pass because I want more story content... and they also better write 4′s story more balanced with the characters.

#dess #bl3 spoilers #long and pointless rambling

[friendsgwssanalysis]

S2E11: “The One with the Lesbian Wedding”

Season 2, episode 11, “The One with the Lesbian Wedding,” opens with Ross talking with his ex-wife, Carol, and her partner Susan. (Backstory here: Carol left Ross for Susan after discovering she was a lesbian.) They reveal that they are planning a wedding, which Ross has a strong reaction to. He returns to the apartment of Monica and Rachel (two of the other “friends”) to process what he’s heard. Monica, Ross’s sister, consoles him on the fact that his former partner is getting remarried. This remarriage is presented as the primary concern--it’s something of a secondary blow, though a humorous/ironic one, that it’s going to be a lesbian wedding. The attempted humor here is driven home by both dialogue and subtextual cues. A laugh track plays when Carol and Susan reveal that they’re getting married, just thirty seconds into the episode; Ross immediately responds with an “I pronounce you man and wife” joke (the joke being that this quintessential nuptial phrase doesn’t “work” with this relationship); we then cut to the cheery opening sequence, whose montage includes a clip where Ross kisses Joey (both heterosexual male characters) on New Year’s Eve, just to underscore the fact that same-sex kissing is a joke.

On the couches of her apartment, Monica helps Ross understand why it is important to Carol and Susan to get married, comparing it to a straight wedding and saying that they deserve to show everyone their love in the same way that straight people do (2:44). The gay jokes mostly calm down until the final scene when the friends actually attend the wedding. Here, we see that Monica’s pep talk was even more effective for Ross than we might have thought--he ends up walking his ex-wife down the aisle after her family drops out of attending at the last minute. Joey and Chandler, two straight male roommates and the buddy-comedic relief to this charged scene, mingle among the crowd at the wedding (presumably all lesbians) and bemoan the fact that they can’t find dates. Joey laments, “I feel like Superman without my powers” (17:47). Chandler at first jokes to a short-haired white woman, “I shouldn’t even bother preparing a [pickup] line, should I?” (21:00) before circling back to her later in the evening with a desperate, “Penis, schmenis, we’re all people!” (21:50). 

An important subplot to this episode is the appearance of Rachel’s mom, who arrives to visit Rachel and also let her know that she is thinking of leaving Rachel’s father. Rachel is thrilled at the opportunity to show off her New York apartment and barista career to her mom, as she knows both her parents were disappointed by her refusal to marry Barry (a wealthy, highly eligible former suitor of hers). But in fact, Rachel’s mom is so impressed with her life that she confesses she wishes she had her same independence and youth; she says, sadly, “You didn't marry your Barry, honey, but I married mine” (16:15). This subplot sets up a parallel with the lesbian wedding, suggesting that marriage for true love’s sake could never be wrong when compared to marriages of convenience.

All in all, this episode does not come across as explicitly condemning same-sex marriage; many consider it groundbreaking, as it was the first depiction of a lesbian wedding on television (“Here's The Carol And Susan Scene That Was Banned From Friends: News”). It is, however, something of an uncomfortable watch in 2020, as the characters have a very “grin and bear it” attitude toward actually attending the wedding (because it’s filled with lesbians!). Phoebe (a straight female member of the “friends”) ends up getting asked out for a drink by an unnamed butch (Lea DeLaria) and accepts, not realizing the romantic connotations; Rachel’s mom relishes in the sexual attention she’s being granted. The wedding scene itself is a nexus of lesbian stereotypes, especially whiteness (most everyone in the crowd is white), “frumpiness” (the characters are rather unfashionably attired, cutting a contrast to Rachel’s Ralph Lauren sensibilities), and promiscuity (the lesbians are so desperate/predatory that they resort to trying to pick up straight women!). Susan and Carol’s characters, too, are one-dimensional and are set up as plot punchlines to Ross’s love life, rather than fully fledged people. Friends does not really engage with intersectionality and appears to be attempting to “isolate its variables,” at least in this episode, by only focusing on sexuality (and gender, to a lesser extent) and never discussing race. Because the main cast is all white, this has the effect of portraying whiteness as an invisible, “default” race that does not need to be acknowledged nor examined. The characters are oblivious to the ways it impacts their lives. This holds true for the majority of the show, in fact, which does not feature a major Black role until the penultimate season (Munzenrieder). In this particular episode, all the speaking roles are white; some Black extras appear in the background of the coffee shop, one as a patron and one as a server, conveying the idea that New York’s residents of color are “scenery” at best and a lower, serving class at worst.

In a show that largely eschews discussion of social issues, I found Friends’s depiction of a lesbian wedding to be positive, in the mildest, most lukewarm sort of way. As mentioned previously, the parallels between the main wedding plot and that of Rachel’s mom’s divorce seem to highlight the importance of marrying for true love, rather than being cajoled into an unideal marriage by societal pressures. Rachel exemplifies this by choosing to leave Barry and remain independent; Carol and Susan do this by defying heteronormativity to get married; Rachel’s mom accepts her difficult separation from her husband, and bonds with her daughter in the process. I saw this particular episode of the show as reaching for a statement on women’s rights to self-determination (as well as a bland endorsement for same-sex marriage). For all its whiteness and other problems, Friends is at least perfectly balanced along binary gender lines, with three main male characters and three main female characters, and at least pretends to be equally interested in the lives of all six. The women are not really treated as a joke for the sake of the men, as the show hinges on the ensemble nature of the cast. Unfortunately, because everything must be couched in comedy (which often punches down, in this show), this episode stops shy of saying anything too bold on either marriage rights or women’s rights. Ripples, at the best; definitely not waves (especially considering the fact that the titular wedding scene itself was excised in many networks across the United States when it originally aired [Dommu]).

 Works Cited:

Dommu, Rose. “'Friends' Lesbian Wedding Was 'Blocked Out' by Certain Affiliaties.” OUT, Out Magazine, 7 Feb. 2019, www.out.com/popnography/2019/2/07/friends-lesbian-wedding-was-blocked-out-certain-affiliaties. 

“Here's The Carol And Susan Scene That Was Banned From Friends: News.” Comedy Central UK, The Paramount UK Partnership Trading, www.comedycentral.co.uk/news/heres-the-carol-and-susan-scene-that-was-banned-from-friends. 

Munzenrieder, Kyle. “'Friends' Co-Creator Struggles With the Show's Very White Legacy.” W Magazine, Bustle Digital Group, 8 June 2020, www.wmagazine.com/story/friends-co-creator-marta-kauffman-regrets-white-legacy-90s-sitcom/. 

"The One with the Lesbian Wedding." Friends: The Complete Second Season, written by Doty Abrams, directed by Thomas Schlamme, Warner Brothers, 1996.