DuracellEnergizer

Post Praetorian said:

 Oh dear...that was unexpectedly swift..!

At least it wasn't Taylor Swift. 

I visited a cemetery today. Though it didn't have many graves, it's an old cemetery that hasn't been used in decades; the newest graves both date from 1975. Some of the plots don't have headstones anymore, and there are at least two babies buried there.

Now, I don't mean to sound morbid, but it was very peaceful there. Hell, it's more peaceful than my own miserable home. The visit was sort of spur of the moment, though, so I didn't really have the time to hang around and take it all in; I didn't even have a camera, so I couldn't take any photos.

Hopefully, I'll visit the place again (and with a camera next time).

Voss Caltrez said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Voss Caltrez said:

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear.

Umm, I'm pretty sure Shaw spoke with his natural accent in the movie. 

 But Shaw didn't speak as Vader for the vast majority of the original trilogy. You get used to James Earl Jones' voice, and nothing about it sounds soft and/or British.

I can distinctly hear Jones speaking with a Mid-Atlantic accent when he does Vader.

Normally, I'd agree. Since it's Jennifer Lopez, though, all I can say is "You should have gone with a bucket of pig's blood."

dclarkg said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

ratpack1961 said:

Kylo Ren is boring design wise.  Another male villian.  I wanted Ventress or anything different then what we've seen before.

I agree. Hopefully, Kylo won't be the only darksider to show up in this trilogy.

Don't forget Uber and the rule of two
'' Always two there are....no more...no less. A master and an apprentice.''

So yeah, at least two

Fuck the Rule of Two and fuck the Sith. Make Ren a simple darksider and leave that PT garbage in the PT.

Voss Caltrez said:

I didn't even get the reference to chariots for the pod-racers. I just didn't like the design. They didn't seem like something that would be in the SW universe.

No offense, but that doesn't make a lick of sense. The podracers are basically just souped-up landspeeders.

ratpack1961 said:

Kylo Ren is boring design wise.  Another male villian.  I wanted Ventress or anything different then what we've seen before.

I agree. Hopefully, Kylo won't be the only darksider to show up in this trilogy.

^Yes, they were indeed impressive. It would have been so awesome to have seen them side-by-side with IG-88 type droids instead of those stupid "roger roger" robots.

Why oh why haven't I watched Hudson Hawk yet?

DuracellEnergizer said:

I'm currently reading The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley, and I've finished the first two books and am currently on the third.

Han Solo at Stars' End wasn't all that engaging, though it picked up enough at the end to make it worthwhile, while Han Solo's Revenge was the complete opposite -- the story engaged me at first, but it floundered and fell flat at the end.

Overall, they're decent stories with decent characterization, and they succeed at making the SW Universe feel larger by taking place in regions beyond the Empire. But unless Han Solo and the Lost Legacy proves to be a truly excellent story that makes up for the shortcomings of its predecessors, I won't be keeping my copy of the book.

I thought I'd return to this post and give a conclusion to it.

After giving the book a several-month-long break to focus on other books, I picked it back up and resumed reading Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. The first few chapters were shaping up to be a good read, but then something went wrong in the seventh or eighth chapter; too much started happening all at once, I became lost in the plot, I tried to continue, but by the nineth chapter I just threw up my arms, said to hell with it, and quit reading right there on the spot.

To sum things up, I really wanted to like The Han Solo Adventures more than I did, but they were just alright, nothing spectacular, and since I have limited shelf space, I'm weeding my copy of the book to free up space for other books.

Now, as to the other books I've read/tried to read:

This is my second Star Trek novel, and I'm happy to say that unlike Spock Must Die!, I actually liked this story. The Romulans are probably the most interesting ST race after the Vulcans to me, so it was nice to get some insight into their language and culture -- especially insight that wasn't tainted by TNG's crappy interpretation of the race. I also enjoyed that Diane Duane included some very alien aliens among the Enterprise's crew.

On a somewhat more disappointing note, the story was kind of convoluted and hard to follow. Maybe it's just that I read the novel intermittently while riding on the bus, but it felt like someone took a rough draft of a novel -- a rough draft with good characterization and a decent plot, mind you -- and published it without bothering to edit out the extraneous details or improve the pace.

Coming to a conclusion, I'll say that it was a nice read, but I don't know if I really want to hang onto my copy. I suppose I will -- at least until I get a chance to read more of Ms. Duane's Romulan-focused novels and see if it's worth hanging onto for the "full story".

I've never bothered reading the X-Wing novels before, but I've heard plenty of good things about them. Couple that with the fact that I loved I, Jedi (also written by Stackpole) and found the X-Wing comics decent, I felt it was about time I checked this series out.

Well, the novel started out on a high note: the characters were written well enough -- especially the Imperial ones. However, once I got to the passages focused on dogfights and other forms of fighter-flying, my eyes started to glaze over. One of the reasons I avoided reading these books in the first place was because I was afraid I'd find descriptions of fighter pilots flying their snubfighters boring. Well, it looks like my fears were justified; if the book wasn't centred on character interactions on the ground (or in a starship large enough to stand and walk around in), I was bored.

As you can probably suspect, I quit reading, stopping almost halfway through. Perhaps the later novels in the series prove more engrossing, but I guess I'll never know, will I? *sad sigh*

Finally! A book I managed to read all the way through! Of course, it being a rather thin book written for kids, that's no big surprise, is it?

Well, Bunnicula is an alright book for children, but reading it as an adult, I can't help but find it meh. That's rather sad, though, as I enjoyed the Bunnicula series when I was a kid. Now I'm hesitant to read the sequels in fear of having a similar reaction to them, that my warm childhood memories of the series will be spoiled.

As for what I'm currently reading:

This is my first nuEU novel, and aside from a brief-but-needless mention of clone troopers and an accompanying allusion to Order 66, I'm enjoying it so far. Hopefully it'll end on a good note and I'll have finally read something from the nuEU which doesn't suck.

Even though you haven't been here a whole month, even though I haven't interacted with you much, I'll miss you, too*.

*JFTR, I'm not being sarcastic. 

Danfun128 said:

There will be no leagueofbunnies account, or anything similar

Capitalist lies.

You should follow the rules set out by the admins

Anti-Bolshevik nonsense.

Your individuality is what makes you a survivor

Counter-Marxist hullabaloo.

The hive mind of Team_Ender is not immortal

Bizarro Leninist yakety-yak.

Try not to turn every discussion into fodder for war

War fosters technological advancement and weeds the genetically inadequate from the peoples' pool.

This war began in Off-Topic

This war began when the first aristocrat came up with the concept of "private property".

The Borg were defeated

Mother Borgania lives! Mother Borgania lives still!

TV's Frink said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

camroncamera said:

TV's Frink said:

 I'm not seeing much Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40-watt range.

 Fixed.

You can't do that on television.

 Fixed.

WRONG RESPONSE!

Mondess122 said:

Searching for perfect logic in a time travel film? Good luck with that. :P

I'd say adding parallel timelines into the mix often works wonders, but Frink wouldn't like that. 

Ryan McAvoy said:

If other things in the PT had the same echoes of real world stuff it would have been better IMO (e.g. Han was a cowboy).

But wasn't Padme a brothel madam?

darth_ender said:

Gaston, the artist formerly known as darth_ender, is a poopy-face!

No one self-deprecates like Gaston! 

darth_ender said:

JEDIT: We suppose in private correspondence we may be known by such pet names.  darth_ender claims Gaston!  But he will not post anymore.

We call dibs on Frank AKA Francine AKA Mother Shabubu. 

I'd say "Sieg heil", but my intent in saying it would probably get misconstrued.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hal 9000 said:

I'm far from a comic aficionado, but I'm less than thrilled about the character and story developments with the sum of the new Marvel stuff. (To be fair, I hadn't read much of anything prior, and was hoping for something substantial and carefully-thought-out, in light of the "canon/legends" announcement that framed it.) It all feels so unlikely and forced, with no real connecting tissue with the films they are supposedly bridging. I think I'll have to treat the new EU the way I did with the old one: major adult novels are head canon, and most of anything else isn't.

If there's anything the Big Two have taught us (the Big Two being DC & Marvel, of course), it's that if you leave the same loons in charge of the loony bin, you're going to keep getting the same type of lunacy regardless of whatever new paint job they've applied to the exterior.

The same people who oversaw the EU prior to the Great EU Purge are exactly the same people who are overseeing the nuEU. They didn't care about quality control then, they don't care about it now.

I fully expect the nuEU to become as much a quagmire of crap as the old within ten years, maybe less. Hell, they'll probably re-canonize garbage like TOR just to add shit frosting to the turd cake.

Voss Caltrez said:

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear.

Umm, I'm pretty sure Shaw spoke with his natural accent in the movie. 

Voss Caltrez said:

Purple should never been introduced into the Jedi's lightsabers.

Urge to BOO! rising ... 

I submit myself to the teachings of team_ender! Take my body -- it is ready!

I have a particularily strong dislike for the lack of visual continuity between the OT & PT.

Now, I'm not talking about the shiny-vs-used-universe thing or even how technology in the PT looks more advanced than technology in the OT; I'm talking about how things which appear in both trilogies -- Obi-Wan and Anakin's lightsabers, the Tantive IV, Vader's armour, etc. --  don't match up on a visual level.

^Sounds just like typical Marvel. I am so glad I chose to completely disregard the ongoing series.