Dobber

Whoops, sorry about that fella’s wrong thread. Meant to put that in the General TV thread. My bad. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Just watched the first 2 episodes of The Peripheral. I really like it and am looking forward to next weeks episode. First 2 are out today on Amazon with new episodes every Friday.

7 hours ago, Big s said:

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I didn’t really like that either, but after thinking about what was said it kinda makes sense. They know it’s the only way to survive, so just a crown would be susceptible to corruption, just as Sauron planned or at least as they believe he planned. Two objects would only lead to arguments and three rings would allow for arbitration. They may be believing that they are avoiding Sauron’s plan, but don’t realize his plan to create a master ring

 

 

Chris

I overall enjoyed the show. And look forward to the next season. I hope the budget isn’t cut too much as the visuals and soundtrack are the shows strong points. To loose them would definitely hurt the show unless the story will be smoothed out a bit and the focus narrowed.

Chris

Ahh Wade I’ll never forget his face…

😜

Chris

Another fantastic episode for me! One thing I hope the show decides to do is make Storm Troopers more menacing. It’s one of my biggest gripes about the saga that storm troopers from Return of the Jedi on are just Jokes. I would’ve preferred regular imperial troopers like what we saw in this episode or also in Solo, be the main force of the imperial army and Storm Troopers be more of an elite force…as they sort of came off at the start of ANH and as Ben suggested in that movie..and then again in Empire during the Hoth attack. So far this show has shied away from showing them and with the gradual increase in threats, first it was a corporate security force alluding to imperials being a worse threat, then to Imperial “regulars” again alluding to a harsher force (Storm Troopers) plus the added maturity and serious tone of the show perhaps Stormies will be shown as a scary threat when the show up.

Chris

I’m really looking forward to today’s episode. 
 

Chris

1 hour ago, Mog said:

I have this sneaking suspicion the Disney suits left the Andor folks to their own devices, while they put all their attention on Obi-Wan.

That seems right to me looking at the results. Plus pretty sure we did hear about KK being more involved with Obi-Wan. Wouldn’t be surprised if she figured it was a more  visible product and wanted more credit/input. 
 

Chris

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be frank, that's more a symptom of the underlying problem.

The problem in Star Trek: Picard is that not that we're seeing a lot of new starship classes.  After all, Starfleet had a rough time in the 2370s and the deficiencies in the many older classes of ship leftover from the late 23rd century were thrown into sharp relief in the Klingon War in 2372, the Borg invasion in 2373, and the Dominion War from 2373-2375.  The actual problem is more that what we're seeing here in the season three trailer is needless replacements for ships that were still practically new.

Destroying the Enterprise was shocking the first time it happened in Star Trek III: the Search for Spock, but it'd already lost practically all of its sting when the Enterprise-D ended her extremely brief service life jobbing in a match against an obsolete Klingon Bird-of-Prey.  It deteriorated to a meme when First Contact was incredibly blase about self-destructing a brand-new Enterprise-E.  Learning that the Enterprise-E didn't even make to 30 years in service and there's already a new Enterprise-F is just the very definition of anticlimax.  That's made worse by the fact that Picard's final season is set on the Titan-A. 

There was NO REASON to replace the USS Titan design already being used in Lower Decks.  NONE.  It was incredibly well-received by the fans and the Titan would only have about twenty years of service under her belt at the time of Picard's final season.  Starfleet ships are designed to last for a century or more.  Riker's USS Titan somehow got blown up very shortly after being launched but somehow also acquitted itself so well that a new ship with a registry suffix was commissioned in her honor.  That's a thing reserved for Starfleet's most celebrated, most accomplished starships.  So instead of the gorgeous USS Titan design fans waited a literal decade to see onscreen, we have this fugly kitbash that looks a good century older than it allegedly is.

 

Nah, we saw a BUNCH of Inquiry-class ships in the first season.

An entire fleet, in fact.  But it was such a lulzily awful scene because of bad writing and terrible CG that left the low-poly, low-detail "fleet" looking like exactly what it was: blatantly copy-pasting one ship model and texture fifty times.

Maybe the E-E was pretty banged up from Nemesis and the Dominion war and she was prematurely “aging”. That the ships of that time period, like we both said, had a rough go of it one way or another and would require near complete rebuilds to be at 100% again. So Star Fleet  just decided to scrap many of them. 
The Titan, though, I completely agree with. They should have just used a different name. Stargazer, Defiant, and Excelsior didn’t even warrant registry Carryover. What did the Titan do for that honor?  We know Enterprise and Voyager have that honor. Any other ships we know of?

Chris

So I am of a mixed mind regarding the ships. My thought are that I agree with Thom in that I LOVE the ships especially Federation Starships. I’m not sure why but they have just resonated with me since childhood, likely due to my love of the Enterprise. So I do look forward to new designs and ship classes. That being said I also agree with the constant new type of ship being shown that any impact to a loss or any class consistency/ success seems to be lost.  The Miranda and Excelsior classes and their offshoots seem to be extremely successful and maybe to a lesser extent the Akira class but now we never really see any thing but new new new. Like every class is just a one off ship design…all of this is likely due to computer modeling instead of having to build physical models. So productions can just go wild. 
In universe explanations could be:

a) Space and the Federation is extremely vast and a variety of ship classes and types is more viable for all the different types of need

b) The Federation is just off of 2 major conflicts, the Klingon War and then the Dominion War, so they need to rebuild their massive losses and that’s why there are so many new classes. Not just from shear attrition but also the surviving vessels may just be beat down so much that they are better off mothballed, and also lessons learned from those conflicts.

c) Maybe different Federation member worlds build ships to Federation spec, but with their own species design ethos to them so you get familiar Federation looks bit in different ways.

just my thoughts

Chris

Are the overall events of ST Online considered canon?

Chris

21 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

If they can make a Star Wars drama that is this good, why not explore other genres? Comedy, horror, thriller, what have you. Andor proves it doesn’t all have to be space opera or action.

6 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Caught up on Andor last night and I'm really enjoying the series overall, bit of a slow burn, but it's fairly competent and well written, it looks better then Obi-Wan, which is insane he's a major legacy character, and it's got heart. We're being given reasons to feel for these people, and hate the Empire, they're doing a solid job of pushing why the Rebellion was so important, and why so many were willing to sacrifice so much for it. 

Count me as another person who is thoroughly enjoying this show, from sets and location visuals, acting, story, to even the music. I agree why oh why was Obi-wan so cheesy looking and sounding, got what lame music that series had. Such a waste.

Chris

I like Ashoka and all but they are going to over do it with her if they are not careful. She doesn’t need to be in everything. 

I’d love to have a case for my LEGO Titanic but the thing is HUGE. Don’t really have a good place to display it so it’s just on my work table in my basement where I built it still. 
On a different note, I was able to get the UCS Razorcrest this morning. So that will be my project over my Christmas Vacation. Titanic was last year.  Star Destroyer the year before. Kind of a fun tradition now I look forward to. 
 

Chris

4 hours ago, technoblue said:

I got caught up with episode 6 today. Very cool, although I do have questions/nitpicks...

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So Arondir hides the magic sword/key in the tavern under a loose brick. How did Theo know it was there? More importantly, did the Grumpy Tavern Guy know too? When was the switcheroo made with the hatchet? Was it after 'Lord Father' the fallen elf got the broken sword back? That timeline of events was confusing to me and, since it results in a big bang at the end of the episode, I wish it all gelled some more.

The Numenor cavalry gives a good nod to the Riders of Rohan (from the third age) I think and I am enjoying all the character moments, even with the faults that are built up for dramatic effect. The pacing is still something of a roller coaster for me, though. Earlier, we got to see things trundled out in a casual manner over five episodes. Now we have what seems like a time jump with the Numenor cavalry teleporting from their landing site into the valley. Man, I can feel the whiplash. 

Yeah, Halbrand is looking more sus this episode.

I'm hesitating to say with certainty that big bang is Mount Doom, but I guess it could be.  In the canon mythology, Mount Doom has been around since the first age. Melkor/Morgoth created the volcano. If this is that volcano, Amazon could be adding to their alternate timeline again. In Tolkien's written work, Sauron's one ring was forged earlier in the second age before he used Mount Doom to signal his attack on Gondor. This happens thousands of years later in the second age. In the show, even with some of the non-canon happenings, it still feels early for these events. I mean, we haven't even seen Isildur's brother on screen, Numenor is still above sea level, and Gondor isn't a place on the map. If it is another volcano, I guess this could have been a test Sauron put in place to see if he could still tempt men to his side. In that case, it looks like the test was a complete success. 

 

To answer a couple of you questions. Adar gave the hilt to the Grumpy Tavern guy right when the Numenorians show up. He walked outside and summoned him and told him he had a task for him.

Like you said, Amazon is playing fast and lose with Middle Earth History so I look at Mt Doom being formed now as a sort of Echo of Calabrimbor making his forge with the Dwarves so Sauron is making his own with the Volcano. Setting up the infrastructure to creat the Rings of Power if you will.

Chris

Question, what time are things usually put on sale on The Lego site? I’d like to get the new UCS Razorcrest and it goes on sale for VIP tomorrow. But does that mean midnight tonight or some other time like Bandai’s preorder madness?

Chris

1 hour ago, Duke Togo said:

I know this show isn’t working completely for some of you, but the more I see of it the more I love it. This show has the best writing for anything Star Wars-related since Empire.

Was talking with a guy at work who is a little older than me who grew up with the OT like I did. He’s of a similar mind as I am: Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie since the OT and Andor is just more of that, but even better.

I’m in agreement thus far…but as Azrael said….Disney does have time to screw up. I’m hoping it won’t as I’m really liking this more “mature” Star Wars.

Chris

1 hour ago, Big s said:

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When the fallen elf talks about how he basically did the deed, and when Halbrand is referred to as the true king of the south land, it seems to pretty much cement the theory that he is Sauron. But it does also feel a bit too obvious. I’m leaning 75% for him ,20% the meteor man and 5% one of those weirdo’s looking for meteor man

 

I edited my original spoiler to explain myself a little better, bit you seemed to have understood me. 😎

Chris

After the snooze fest from last week this weeks episode is back with a vengeance!

Chris

I think of this as Star Wars’ version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 

Oh God….THE SPIN! One of the most infamous acts in Star Wars history now. I had nearly forgotten it. Lol

Chris

I’m quite liking this series so far. The look the sound everything. This latest episode really made me feel the tension the fledgling rebellion was under with the Mon Mothma scenes. Something I never really got before.  As corny as this sounds it feals like Star Wars for adults. Nothing wrong with the more adventurous stories that have come before…after all as many love to point out GL has often said Star Wars is for kids….so it is nice to see a more mature story….at least thus far.

Chris

I get that EVENTS are the same because it is what LOTR is, but Jackson’s movies had their own look and took liberties with his interpretation as well. For example. Isildur didn’t defeat Sauron. His Father and the Elvin King did and they died in the process. Isildur just cut the ring from Sauron’s hand.

20 hours ago, Thom said:

Yes and no. If you are expecting the show to follow Tolkien's canon on Middle Earth, you're going to end up being confused. As I understand it, Amazon only has licensing for 'bits'n'pieces' of Middle Earth-verse, so it is best to take this as a fan-fiction version of the history before the Hobbit. Which would explain the condensing of much of the timeline, from hundreds of years to only a few and a mix/match approach using the events of the First and Second Ages. And since this is supposed to be leading up to Jackson's movies, I assume she will be meeting up with Celeborn at some point.

As to mithril, that I don't know. I never heard it being as any more than a unique metal, though I am liking the yarn they are starting to spin with it.

Are you sure about this show leading up to Jackson’s movies? I could’ve swore I heard this has nothing to do with Jackson’s films and is it’s own thing.

Chris

Well I stand corrected then. 🙂

Chris