Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;873880Well thats contradictory. Your saying it overshadows the EU, but then Im not expected to see it be in any form better then the pretty gosh darn low Standards of the EU as well.

Well I would give 7 a pass for being just a movie, but it wasn't just trying to be enjoyable. It had way too many callbacks on old films, too much repetition and too much "Oh my god, its Harrison Ford!" for me to respect it in any way as a standalone product.

Wait now I'm having trouble taking your complaints serious on a few of these points.

1. "It had to many callbacks on old films" - It's a serial(number 7 to boot) and the start of a new trilogy within the serial. By nature it is going to call back to the other movies.

2. "Oh my god, its Harrison Ford!"ism - He was one of the stars of the original trilogy and is reprising his role in the movie. His story comes to an end in the movie(at least it would sure seem so). How is a serial continuing the story of one of it's principal characters a problem?

Lastly, why do you take such issue with people who enjoyed the movie?
Is it simply because you didn't?

Im not saying you said that. I want to understand why you did.

I never feel happy with "I just like ___ More". I always want the Y's. Maybe if I understood your perspective I would enjoy the film more.

There is a logic for callbacks, but the visuals of the film where not callbacks as much as rebooted repeats.

There is a difference from "Oh hey, Anakin destroys the ship thing like Luke did in ANH" (Not Saying Episode 1 is any flipping good), and
"Oh hey look, another fucking deathstar, attacked by X wings, and defended by Tie Fighters, with a Trench run." Not Even Y wings. They where not in ANH

Nothing new in the slightest and creatively not just bankrupt, but in debt for 5 billion dollars.

My point was that as a "New Film" it was engaging in Fanwankery because it could not stand on its own two feet. Its dependant on old imagery to make people like it and its banking on NOSTALGIA rather then its own merits.

Quote from: CRKrueger;873781Jesus Wept, play with some humans instead of robots.

Humans?  The same ones that are giving men like Donald Trump hope that he can actually win the presidency?  The same one's who panicked at 'Obamacare' because of 'Death Panels' that a bunch of scheming idiots promoted after deciding that their own idea was 'evil' because the other side thought it was good enough for them to push it?  (The healthcare changes were a Republican idea, first.)

THOSE humans?  What planet do you come from where humans are reasonable and thoughtful?  And are they accepting immigrants, cuz I wanna live there.


...I love my crew, but sometimes, I think Robots would work out better.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;873895My point was that as a "New Film" it was engaging in Fanwankery because it could not stand on its own two feet. Its dependant on old imagery to make people like it and its banking on NOSTALGIA rather then its own merits.

My kids liked TFA more than any other SW movie (and I kinda agree with them). My kids like BB-8 more than R2-D2. The movie most certainly stands on it's own. They had, up to that point, never seen another SW movie. So nostalgia didn't factor into it.

The requirements for a movie are completely different than the requirements of the EU. It seems EU fans are expecting the new movies to be some sort of simulation of life in the post-RotJ galaxy, which the EU sort of was. It's been 30 years since there was a good SW movie, EP7 needed to re-establish the look and feel of the old movies in a clear way. That's why you only have X-Wings and TIE-Fighters and not some new designs. To let the audience know that this isn't a prequel-sequel.

Back to the original point, there's plenty more you can do with the TFA setup that you couldn't do with the OT setup because the FO and the Republic each have their own friendly territory and neither possess overwhelming military power. Now, this is true of the EU as well. So EU fans won't really see any advantage for a canon EP7 gaves versus an EU-based game.

I guess this wasn't the place to yell about the merit of SW 7.

Rant below:

Spoiler

Regardless I hate the film, and I have a deep distaste for how its brilliant marketing brainwashed people.

And I will say. Its 7/10 standalone. Which is why I find it aggravating that the movie doesn't want to standalone. It reminds me its a sequel. And as a sequel its Karate Kid Part III, The Little Mermaid II, or any other slew of disney sequels.

But because the marketing was goddam brilliant everything loves it.

But whatever. SW 7 is a place Im just not interested in setting anything in. It has exactly 0 new interesting ideas to play off of.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;873943But whatever. SW 7 is a place Im just not interested in setting anything in. It has exactly 0 new interesting ideas to play off of.

As a pure movie, built on story, pacing, structure it blows episode 4 clear out of the water.  It's better acted, the characters are more interesting and it just flows better.

As a Star Wars film, it banks mostly as you, Bahnshee, said on pure nostalgia and it should have been a reboot of the original story, because that's what J.J. Abrams proved that's all he can do.

As source material for a game, there's nothing there.  Literally zero content to mine.  Because like all movies, it's about the characters, not the setting.

It doesn't fire up the imagination, because we already had stuff since 1977.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;873943And I will say. Its 7/10 standalone. Which is why I find it aggravating that the movie doesn't want to standalone. It reminds me its a sequel. And as a sequel its Karate Kid Part III, The Little Mermaid II, or any other slew of disney sequels.

The movie I find that matches TFA most in terms of it's goals is Days of Future Past. That movie exists solely to reset the X-men movie universe in order to undo the previous crappy movies. And it does so in an entertaining way.

The goals of TFA are as follow:
1-Wrap up the OT characters' stories
2-Introduce the new character
3-Reset the galaxy such that the Bad Guys/Empire (or its equivalent) are more powerful than the Heroes/Republic.

You may not like the fact that the bad guys are just the reskinned Empire, but that was a necessity based on the time between this movie and the OT and the prequels being between the two.

One thing this movie does highlight is just what a mistake those prequels really were. Too much time has now passed to tell a convincing Han/Luke/Leia story.

All this being said, I'm not sure what your "standalone" complaint actually is. Han and Leia got just about as much intro as Obi-Wan or Vader did in Ep4.

Quote from: Old One Eye;872716Obviously aping Pearl Harbor.  Star Wars is chock full of WWII references.

This is the approach I would take.  Check this out:



The Galactic Concordance is the Treaty of Versailles.

I'd run the game set before Force Awakens and go for a lead up to war with covert actions route set in the Unknown Regions.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;873956All this being said, I'm not sure what your "standalone" complaint actually is. Han and Leia got just about as much intro as Obi-Wan or Vader did in Ep4.

I won't reply for him but I can tell you why I disliked it: for 90% of the scenes in the movie, I figured how they'd end simply by remembering how the equivalent scene in Ep IV ended.

There's reestablishing the line and giving nudges to the old fans, and then there's copy-pasting a whole movie. Ep VII is much closer to the latter than the former.

(Also, simply copying the same story pretending it's happening again 30 years later doesn't really work. Too many things stop making sense.)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;872574Nah. Don't forget, The Clone Wars and Rebels are still canon, so you've got a lot of stuff there.

Yep, and Rebels is pretty damn awesome.

Quote from: Montjoy;873818That's your opinion, which is fine of course.
I personally thought 99% of the EU was utter shit and was quite happy to see it flushed.

Hell Fucking Yes!  The EU novels were garbage. Absolute shit.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;873941The requirements for a movie are completely different than the requirements of the EU. It seems EU fans are expecting the new movies to be some sort of simulation of life in the post-RotJ galaxy, which the EU sort of was.

That's because, ironically, Fucking Nerds are some of the least capable people on earth at understanding how Myth works. They are autistically obsessed with technical details, canonicity, and knowledge of utterly pointless minutiae, while almost entirely incapable of getting all but the most blatant and brute kind of symbolism.

These were the people who spent the last 30 years running the Star Wars universe into the ground just like they spent the last 30 years running Star Trek into the ground.

Oh, and superhero comics.

God fuck them.

Quote from: danbuter;874196Yep, and Rebels is pretty damn awesome.

So very, very awesome - and to me it plays out exactly as my old RPG sessions did.

Here is my advice for running a successful post-Ep7 campaign (which hasn't changed since the 90s, btw):

1) Find a parallel thread to go chase.  Something the films don't really cover works best.  So perhaps your group works in 'procurement' for the Resistance.  Or maybe black ops.  Maybe you're guardians of the remnants of Luke's academy, assigned by the General herself to keep it safe.  Some sort of 'arm' that isn't necessarily vital and thus wasn't in the movies.

2) Never show the main characters.  Just don't do it.  Have them pass messages, like holograms, at most.  Don't let them start baiting Luke with discussions about the Tosche station and power converters.

3) Soak up as much as you can that's coming out of the new canon and weave it into the story.  (Or avoid it, so you don't wind up doing too many retcons.)

4) Let the players lead it from there.  In the Star Wars sandbox there's almost zero need to motivate a group.  There's just way too much to play with and explore.

Going back to the top, I feel like Rebels does almost all of this, except it leans pretty heavily on core characters.  Though this is more excusable since they have total plot control...

Quote from: mcbobbo;874305So very, very awesome - and to me it plays out exactly as my old RPG sessions did.

Here is my advice for running a successful post-Ep7 campaign (which hasn't changed since the 90s, btw):

1) Find a parallel thread to go chase.  Something the films don't really cover works best.  So perhaps your group works in 'procurement' for the Resistance.  Or maybe black ops.  Maybe you're guardians of the remnants of Luke's academy, assigned by the General herself to keep it safe.  Some sort of 'arm' that isn't necessarily vital and thus wasn't in the movies.

2) Never show the main characters.  Just don't do it.  Have them pass messages, like holograms, at most.  Don't let them start baiting Luke with discussions about the Tosche station and power converters.

3) Soak up as much as you can that's coming out of the new canon and weave it into the story.  (Or avoid it, so you don't wind up doing too many retcons.)

4) Let the players lead it from there.  In the Star Wars sandbox there's almost zero need to motivate a group.  There's just way too much to play with and explore.

Going back to the top, I feel like Rebels does almost all of this, except it leans pretty heavily on core characters.  Though this is more excusable since they have total plot control...

This, right here, is GOLD and it applies to ANY IP with a dense canon (like the Realms) as used in tabletop RPGs.

Quote from: NathanIW;873969This is the approach I would take.  Check this out:

(New Republic, Prime Order, Resistance)

The Galactic Concordance is the Treaty of Versailles.

I'd run the game set before Force Awakens and go for a lead up to war with covert actions route set in the Unknown Regions.

I would start about there too, since it contains so little Ep 7 content, most of which I find silly.

I'd also not call the "Prime Order" the "Prime Order", and I'd retain Corsuscant and what remains of the Empire as a an decaying but large thing, perhaps with a new, less aggressive name - an interesting place to go for a variety of corrupt settings - containing many worlds, any one of which could hold an entire interesting game.

And I'd not call the "Resistance" that either, since all they have to "Resist" is a splinter faction with a navy.

Then I'd freshly consider what people who are at least largely sane and intelligent might do, or not do. Hollowing out a planet to somehow make an impossible Starkiller Base is not on the table for way too many reasons. It might be a false rumor, though...