Same here

Can you mod weapons in Battlefront? Or upgrade them?

I don't think so, there's star cards that can be upgraded (which does jack[beep]) but as far as weapons go no you can't mod them or upgrade them.

Oh ok, gotcha

So this new Battlefront that is coming out. Is it DLC for the one that came out a while ago or is it a new one?

It's a new one lol

Will you have to have played the others to "get it"?

TBH, I am not glad to see losing the clear white hat / black hat morality. I like the Empire being the White Male Supremacists who are enslaving the entire galaxy and laying waste to entire worlds as they rape them of their natural resources. While the Rebel Alliance are the clear cut good guys out to stop them and return freedom and justice. Give me the Illinois Nazis In Space vs. the Blues Brothers any day.

That is what made Star Wars what it is today. If you look back and watch the original movies, there was nothing really special about them. The acting was not extraordinary. The stories are very simple (and often have some big plot holes). Even the whole genre of science fiction was nothing new or groundbreaking. The only thing truly remarkable about them was the special effects, where were beyond cutting edge at the time. ILM literally invented sfx all over again with those movies. But special effects do not make a movie good.

But they came at a time Post Vietnam, Post Civil Rights Movement, after America endured so much civil and moral upheaval, that no one wanted movies of complex morality or shades of gray. That is why the big movies in the early 70s were disaster flicks. Earthquake, Towering Inferno, the Airport movies, Jaws, etc... They were always Man vs Nature, where there was not question of good or evil. Just people trying to survive against all odds.

Then Star Wars burst on the scene with a very simple good vs. evil story. It was exactly what the country needed to escape the failed wars and race riots and assassinations and crooked politicians and social upheaval of the recent past. It let us forget the ugly issues of reality, and slip back into the joy of a world where right and wrong were simple choices. Even now, 40 years later, the real world is not a simple place. Star Wars provides a nice safe haven for a few hours to escape the ugly reality of terrorism and genocide and travel to a world where the good guys actually can win.

I am afraid that if Star Wars loses that foundation, that what makes the whole franchise special will erode as well. Then it will be just one of many sci fi franchises.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 16 2017, 06:14 PM

Well put! This one guesses he prefers things to be a bit more realistic. The universe is not "black and white" and sometimes the good guys have to make hard choices when no better solutions are presented. Doesn't really make Khajiit think any less of them. For what it's worth though, Khajiit suspects that Rey and Finn will remain clear, basically good characters while Snoke and Kylo will be their clear antithesis (until perhaps Kylo has a change of heart). Or maybe Khajiit is wrong and Rey and/or Finn turn bad. In any case, this one believes that there will still be clear good vs. evil themes going on in Star Wars. Just perhaps a little salt mixing with the pepper!

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Apr 16 2017, 05:38 PM

I agree that the heroes ought not to be cardboard cutouts of Paladinhood *insert heroic pose and gleaming smile here*. After I wrote that I was thinking of Rogue One. I liked how the Rebellion was portrayed there, especially Cassian. I think he was the best, most interesting and multi-layered character in the film. His most heroic moment literally comes when he chooses not to kill someone. But that is also what I meant above when I said good and evil were a clear choice in the classic Star Wars films. Cassian knew that killing Galen Erso was not going to stop the Death Star from being built, or prevent anyone from being killed by it. It was just a spiteful order given by a mean-spirited spymaster who wanted his pound of flesh. So instead Cassian defied his orders and did what he knew was right - spare a man's life. The fact that actually rescuing/kidnapping/extracting Galen and taking him back to the Rebellion could have given them a tremendous advantage in fighting the Death Star also makes it the smart choice, as well as the moral one. (That is one of Rogue Ones plot holes. Killing Galen Erso is just plain dumb. It would be like the US killing Werner Von Braun after the V2 rockets went into service. Much better to get your hands on him and make him build Saturn V rockets to go to the Moon, not to mention ICBMs to kill Russians.)

I liked that the rebels in Rogue One were portrayed as real people, not paragons of virtue. Realism aside, it gives us real people watching these movies a sense of hope in our lives. If a spy and assassin like Cassian can still do the right thing and find redemption, then so can we. So the more grey to the protagonists the better I think. Take Han Solo. He was a drug smuggler working for the equivalent of the Cartel! Or even Luke Skywalker. He was just an ordinary farm boy who wanted to fly planes. As he said to 3PO in the beginning of A New Hope - "I hate the Empire, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's all so far away from here." There is the apathy and cynicism of everyday life. This kind of thing makes the protagonists people that we can relate to.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 16 2017, 08:42 PM

And on the flipside of that, Khajiit thinks it would be nice if not every bad guy was a straight up villain. This one thought TFA did a decent job of trying to make us feel for Kylo a bit with the struggles he was going through. Khajiit suspects he will be even more hardline Darkside in the next installment though.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Apr 16 2017, 09:32 PM

TBH, I was very underwhelmed with Kylo Ren. He was just a whiny twit. I like my villains be menacing and villainous.

That is not to say they I like villains to be one-dimensional, which is the problem so many stories have (yes, I am looking at you Marvel Cinematic Universe). The thing to remember about people who are evil, is they all are absolutely convinced that they are the good guys. Whether it is Hitler, or Stalin, or Bin Laden, or John Wayne Gacy, they all knew right down in the deepest cores of their beings that everything they did was right and just.

That is the way to write good villains. Show them as being real people, with beliefs that either push them into atrocious acts, or in the very least excuse those acts. Vader is a good villain because he is absolutely convinced that killing everything in his path will bring Order to the galaxy. He makes a desert and calls it peace.

And don't forget to make them people. Real villains don't spend 24 hours a day brooding on a throne of skulls. For example, when he wasn't oppressing Europe, Hitler played with his dog and I am certain he loved Eva Braun. Gacy did charity work for kids. Showing Vader sipping pina colada's on Scarif's beach is not exactly what I am suggesting here. But OTOH one of things that made Loki a great villain in the first Thor movie is that he wanted to prove to his adopted father that he was good enough to be his son. He was willing to commit genocide to prove it. That is the kind of villain I like.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 16 2017, 10:34 PM

Gotcha! See, the thing is Star Wars appeals to a wide range of people, young and old. I totally see where you are coming from and I know many people agree. Star Wars, at its core, is also about the hero's journey.

All of the movies, all eight of them, from episode 1-8, and the spin-off and the series named Rebels, are about the Republic, the Jedi, the Rebellion/Resistance as the protagonists. And that's great, for those who enjoy it which I know is a wide range of people. And you mention the being the Empire being "White Male Supremacists who are enslaving the entire galaxy and laying waste to entire worlds as they rape them of their natural resources." That's what the frame and narrative the movies have set them out to be, and its largely based on the point of view of the people who are fighting against them.

The main story of Rebels itself is a group of heroes joining together as a crew to fight against the tyrannical and evil Empire to help save the galaxy. The original trilogy is just the same with heroes like Luke, Leia, Han and company. One thing comes to mind though, and that's Obi-Wan's quotes: "The truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view."

The opening crawl from Revenge of the Sith states: "There are heroes on both sides."

The fresh narrative for Battlefront II and Inferno Squad does honor the Star Wars legacy of a hero's journey, but the frame is set through the lens of an Imperial soldier. And that appeals to many people. Because at the end of the day one man's hero is another man's villain. I'm certain many of the japenese citizens felt the United States were the villains when they launched a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, claiming countless lives. And I'll stop right there as to not get into a political discussion, but again the Empire has its heroes, the Sith has its heroes. A hero can be defined by a person who, well, does heroic things.

The developers of the game basically set us in a path of a young woman born and raised in an Imperial world, schooled in knowledge of an Imperial utopia: order, security, peace. These ideals, deeply rooted into someone, is very difficult to destroy. So you have the perspective of those soldiers who whole-heartedly believe that the galaxy was saved by an Emperor, and a gang of evil fanatics/mages known as the Jedi where destroyed and the Clone Wars came to an end along with the seperatists. Then we have a group of people suddenly rise up to threaten what they perceive is good and just, and plan to throw a galaxy back into chaos and to restore a failed government that was ripe with corruption. The stormtroopers, in their eyes, believe the Rebels are terrorists and extremists, and they themselves to be the heroes to uphold law and order and are the hopes of a safer, more secure galaxy.

It is, in a way, "good vs evil", only because we are playing as one side. The Rebellion has heroes like Hera, Ezra, Sabine, Kanan Jarrus, Zeb, Jyn Erso, Luke and Leia Skywalker, etc and those are awesome stories to follow because they appeal to those who follow.

But the Empire has their heroes have different shifts in perspectives when we step into the shoes of those villains(from the hero's point of view). I probably sound like a broken record, but one of the makers of the game said:



tldr; Star Wars remains a great battle between good versus evil, and yet one man's evil is another man's good. I dare not quote Darth Vader about his point of view of the Jedi at the climax of Revenge of the Sith. The majority of fans sees the Empire as evil. Plenty of folks out there would be inclined to think otherwise, and that the rebellion are anarchists bent on upsetting the established order. The heroes are who we make them out to be.

And that is what I mean that the best villains are those who are convinced that what they are doing is right. Because from a certain point of view, genocide is a good thing. So is slavery, rape, etc... Ever since humans have been around, they have been finding excuses to justify their worst actions. Good villains don't just laugh maniacally and twirl their mustaches. They use logic and reason (and religion) to justify their actions. A good Star Wars villain will do the same.



This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 17 2017, 12:33 AM

This is something I've never understood, I'm not gonna lie.

Which part? That many fans see the Empire as evil or that some see the Empire as a good thing?

The latter.

I mean, just take a look at what happened to Alderaan, and why.

On a side note, Khajiit still wants to know how the hell they recovered Anakin's lightsaber, lol


Gotcha

In universe, I can see why people would support the Empire. But we the audience see the Empire's actions without bias, unless they're accusing the film itself of that bias, in which case what is the opinion of the Empire based on? The whole viewpoint just makes no sense to me.

As for the lightsaber, I'm not sure they ever explained how it was recovered in the books when it popped up, either

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: Apr 17 2017, 12:57 AM

This is a good point.

I figure that either it got caught in some kind of filter on Bespin, and eventually some maintenance worker came across it, perhaps years later.

Or more likely it fell off Cloud City entirely. It tumbled through the miles and miles of atmosphere (I think Bespin is a gas giant, so it's probably all atmosphere). Then some flying critter that lives in Bespin's skies ate it. It might be like a giant whale with a huge mouth that just scoops up all the hydrogen in its path. Then a hunter kills the whale, butchers it, and voila, lightsaber!

Either way, something as rare as a lightsaber would be worth a lot of money on the black market. So whoever found it probably sold it, and eventually it made its way into the hands of Mas Tequila.

Either way, the Force might be involved as well. Just like how the One Ring eventually wanted to be found. That lightsaber may have wanted to return to wreak more havoc in the lives of the Skywalker family. Seriously, I think that thing is cursed. Probably by the spirits of the younglings that Anakin murdered in the Jedi Temple. Anakin ended up with arms and legs chopped off, more machine than man, twisted and evil. Luke was lucky, and only lost a hand using it. I wonder what horrible thing is going to happen to Rey when she uses it in the next movie?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 17 2017, 02:05 AM