Rayvin

This is true - and the alternative is quite possible, I concede. As I say, I'll give it the next film to 'correct' my assumptions on it I suppose.

I think they're going to run it close to the original canon, despite initial appearances. They have a very similar breakdown of characters. Then again, if they were, they'd not be making Ren so useless. I suspect you're right, and that Ren will be rescued given the amount of chatter the film had about bringing him back from the brink. Then he'll probably fall on his sword in some manner of noble way. Maybe the issue is me, maybe I just can't handle this cliched shit any more. I suppose I'll watch the next one and see if it continues in the vein I expect it to. If it does, I'll probably just not bother with the final one. This is why Rogue One is so important to me - It's literally the last hope for the series IMO. As a final note, interesting point about DC. Hadn't considered that ever, although I've always found Superman tedious in the extreme for much the same reasons I don't like Rei or Thor. The fact that his enemy is a businessman is something I'd never considered and is actually truly bizarre

Well ok - bad writing. I mean the writing was lazy anyway given that it was a redo of A New Hope, so I can accept the possibility that they may just have written it badly full stop. Moving on though, the new movie does look awesome, and I'm really looking forward to it. It looks much darker and hopefully will be much better written. The lead, I figured, was potentially going to be cast in a Han Solo kind of role - so that should hopefully make it compelling. I'm much more optimistic about this than the rest of the main trilogy. As for the main trilogy you're probably right. I just prefer my stories to have flawed good guys and an actual sense of progression. I mean, I think actually I tend to root for the bad guys, which is why my main issue with the new film wasn't Rei (despite how it may appear in this argument), it was Ren. He's just so outclassed that it makes the rest of his narrative almost irrelevant. He'll either turn good at the end or will become embroiled in a futile battle against an insurmountable foe. Which is just kind of a let down. If he turned Rei and she went dark, that'd be a much more compelling story. Not that Disney would ever let that happen.

I mean, come on. 1 - Luke and Rei are both fictional. 'It isn't her fault that she's better' is a bizarre thing to say. She is a written character. She was written a certain way for a reason. 2 - Loads of people moaned about the first film. I can't recall if pod-racing was amongst the complaints but I agree, a five year old winning pod racing is dumb. Not sure it's Mary Sueing but if it is then I happily accept that. Fortunately it wasn't a trilogy spanning plot point. They did overpower Anakin in the follow up films, but this came with massive personality failures to balance it. Also, the consensus was that these films were bad. They were railed at for being bad. My point here is that Disney have already blown their collective load on the final victory of the good guys. Rei is already better in the force than the bad guy. Who will go away and whine about it, probably come back in the second film with some means to get back at her without actually fighting her since he'd be annihilated if he did, before she eventually wipes the floor with him in the final film. Luke wasn't better with the force than the bad guys in his trilogy at any point. Therefore there was some 'threat'. 3 - You got me. I'm a misogynist. You can always tell when someone has a winning argument when lines like that come out. You realise your argument could have stood without that point, and we'd just be two people discussing the merits of the film? I think it's poorly written and I think it's written that way to pursue an agenda. I don't give a shit about the agenda, it just bothers me that it is poorly written, in my view, because of this.

Is...is that a joke?

I'm going to spoiler tag my whole response since I can't be bothered working out which bits are and are not spoilers. I would be saying the same stuff if she was a guy (concerning the film story at least). My cynicism suggests to me that the underlying reason for the Mary Sueing is to appeal to the Twitter/Tumblr crowd, but I actually care less about that than the fact that it's set a very low expectation for the entire trilogy.

Did Mr. Robot end up anywhere good? I'm about 5 episodes in but drifted a bit. Is it worth persevering with?

I have to say I thought it was gendered (probably because of the name), but if it isn't I'll happily call Thor a 'Mary Sue' from now on. It's more concise than calling him an invincible douchebag who is under no real threat at any point in the story and could resolve the whole thing, if he wanted to, in the first half an hour.

Luke wasn't omnipotent... he was androgynous I grant you (that was more Parky's area) but he sure as shit wasn't omnipotent. I really don't think they're comparable.

Another good post.

That's positive news, at least. I'm not 100% sure that the vote itself was the concern though. I think my concerns have always been more to do with actually leaving the EU. That said, clearly some people (and experts) thought we were in for a more significant downturn from the vote. That said CT, do you feel that you were better informed than the experts, or is this just incredibly fortunate?

Pre-planned flouncing, no less.

I know, it'll be devastating for them. I know how to make my point.

Well, my view was that I'd leave just after the election goes through to maximise the impact Truthfully, while I'm still a member I haven't abstained anyway since I could still vote at the last minute I guess. If nothing dramatic happens to ensure I vote one way or the other, I'll just leave the party when the deadline closes.

Don't worry, I'm abstaining over the Labour leadership vote.

Yeah true enough - merge into the Lib Dems I suppose...? I don't know in truth, it's just hard to imagine how they'll go on from here. They could sit out a few years and return, when Corbynism fails, but I don't think I'd ever vote for them again even with time to let this nonsense fade into memory. They might just give up I guess, and move on to other careers. Unlikely but you never know.

Hah! Fair point. For me though, I don't remember that stuff as it was 30 years ago, so all his politics is new to me

I think split. I think this whole thing has been a precursor for a split with the intent of signalling 'we tried our best' from old-new-labour. I cannot for one second imagine they're just going to fall back into line. As I said, centre left is on the brink.

Thanks for the heads up, sounds interesting. I find myself weirdly drawn to the 'behind the scenes at the library' one. Probably because my career has made me a book obsessive. Less drawn to the Bigg Market Toilets one...

Good grief... I mean, it totally maps to my understanding of how Hillary operates but even so, dismal to read. I think I read that the email stuff was going to be released the day before the election as well? I'm guessing that isn't going to do her any favours. What if he wins?

Well the shambles we've seen from Labour in the past six weeks I suppose is likely to have that effect. Labour are toast, and look unelectable from any vantage point now. The centre-left died (if it ever existed) in the referendum. I have to say though, looking around at the rampant leads far right parties have in the Netherlands and France, the rise of Golden Dawn in Greece and even the challenge to Merkel in Germany, it's not looking good for the left all over the shop. We may very well end up with a Tory party to the left of most of the rest of Europe.

That's way narrower than I thought though. Didn't Trump more or less torpedo his own campaign due to sustained blunders a few weeks back? I thought it was all a foregone conclusion.

Oh bloody hell, I thought you meant turn back to re-do the referendum - like they were now regretting it. I thought that was a bit weird actually, hence my curiosity. Turn it back to 30 years ago is so ridiculous I hadn't even considered it Some people truly are beyond saving.