flawed, but ultimately solid films rather than ‘disasters’.

I think they might still be at least verging on disasters, though certainly more interesting ones than JJ’s movies (see elsewhere in this thread for my thoughts on TLJ). The PT actually reminds me a lot of other passion projects (Megalopolis is probably the most recent, and surprise surprise, Coppola is a friend and mentor) that reveal the limitations of deferring to the auteur’s singular vision in a collaborative artform.

The “saved in the edit” narrative for ANH is disingenuous I think, inserting a miracle for a particularly strong example of how the workflow for a weird project should work, but it does hint at the truth that somebody like Lucas has as many bad ideas as good ones, and only the ones he can sell to fellow respected professionals should stay in the final product.

I also think it’s fair to say that because he was frustrated by the “compromises” with actors, writers, directors, and studios who all felt they were equal stakeholders, the unfiltered Lucas was a jarring departure from the OT, yet ostensibly targeted the exact same demographics, and that made it even harder to evalute the PT on its own terms. For me personally, I could never truly get over the stilted line readings that felt exactly like the cheesy serials that Lucas loved, but that the New Hollywood “kids” and British stage veterans refused to let infect the OT. “You can write this shit, George, but you can’t say it.”

It took a huge chunk of the second act, and it basically amounted to nothing.

Love it or hate it, and the fact that some people will decide they hate it is what I had to come to terms with, this was very intentional and played into the theme of Poe’s arc while letting Finn get the small amount of character growth they layered on in TLJ. It also made it clear that Rose is not so much a fully fleshed-out character as she is a stand-in for the entire Resistance, so she gets a chance to make its case and show its impact. Fighting the good fight is worth it even if, in the short term, it seems doomed. Narratively, I thought Canto Bight did a lot.

I do think the movie was weak on the handwavium when a few lines could have turned the siege/chase into something a little more compelling. Some of the dialogue skewed a bit Marvel-y, and Finn’s TLJ arc was way too similar to his TFA arc, only nudging forward his circle of empathy a bit. I also wish wish wish somebody had simply said the Holdo maneuver worked because she locked onto the hyperspace tracker: BOOM, two birds with one battlecruiser. Casino planet dragged a bit, but I didn’t mind it nearly as much as others. Maz was wasted, and in some ways, the whole movie actually mapped too closely to ESB (subversion indeed).

However, Luke’s arc hit me exactly right given that they were forced to revisit a Hero’s-Journey hero whose journey was done, because JJ Abrams set up the galaxy in possibly the least compelling way possible. Luke’s return from backsliding into his own old habits, accepting his failure, and using the energy he had left to secure a future for the next generation… that’s good stuff, and a lot of the boomers and older X’s who idolized him would do well to heed the lesson.

The initial tone poem with Rose’s sister was beautiful. DJ absolutely fit as a tweak on Lando and commentary on what all this is supposed to mean. The Poe arc that he can’t simply Maverick his way into leadership, the idea that Rey was no one and yet everything, that Force users and resistance could come from anywhere, and that Ren was on a path apart from Snoke’s but equally irredeemable, all these things were HUGE improvements from TFA and were setting things up for a very compelling finale.

Instead, JJ crammed in his own Episode 8 into the first 45 minutes, left no time to have his own movie make any sense, just channelled Harry Potter and the Avengers for its conclusion, and repeatedly reminded people that TLJ was being undone (“come with us, Rose!” “Can’t! Leia gave me homework!”… We picked “Yer a Palpatine, Rey!” from the hat full of fan theories!), thereby reminding TLJ’s fans that it was being undone, and its haters that it existed. Just a piece of shit movie all around, and to top it off, with my “ACKSHULLY” cap on, it still didn’t connect the tracker with the Holdo maneuver!!!

Finally, for what it’s worth, TLJ is the only ST movie to engage in good faith with the PT, which is something you need to do, even if (like me) they’re far from your favorites.

Luke’s story hit home in a weird way

IMHO it it home because that is almost the only way it could have been done, especially after what JJ set up in The Force Awakens. We know that Luke blamed himself. We know he ran away. We know not even Leia can locate him via the Force. At least being a grumpy hermit was a way to take back a little bit of agency. When you have a hero’s journey, and the hero’s journey ends, you’re not really supposed to revisit them thirty years later with a massive new threat, because now they have to face it, but not as the hero. Once you decide you have to have Luke in the damn story, there is nothing you can do except make him a mentor or a villain. Villain was right out, but having him fall back into old habits (doomerism, jumping to conclusions, whining) and having all that make him start as an ineffective mentor was actually really clever.

It also maybe hit a little close to home for the generation that grew up idolizing Luke, re-evaluating what he was after reaching his heights in his mid-20s. That said, it also tells that same group, “Yes, you are fatter and angrier and grabbing breakfast and a latte is the most interesting thing you’ll do most days, but you have wisdom to pass down, and you have the power to beat back the darkness and learn from your own mistakes, and there is so much more to you than you’ve come to believe about yourself.” I actually walked out of the movie thinking that once you have a Luke that let the First Order arise at all, then this Luke was a god-damn hero and saved the galaxy one last time.

The Last Jedi. It took me a while to even process the hate, and I still don’t really respect it, but I think I understand it. TLJ is flawed but by far the best sequel, and an Ep9 where Kylo is beyond redemption and rebels and force users are bubbling up from everywhere could have been really interesting.

Even if they’d backtracked thematically, The Rise of Skywalker made a huge mistake in overtly shitting on it, literally fucking over its own story (such as it was) and pacing to do so, and thereby pleasing no one. Even if you don’t like what your partner did, you have to “Yes, and…,” not go full “Michael Scott in improv class.”

Strong’s Zuckerberg says in the film that “the debate is over”. If it is, The Social Reckoning portrays a world where Meta is on the wrong side of it.

Hey, this might be good!

Star Trek Replicator Chicken fingers. It looks perfect and is always the same, but it’s the type of place where somebody probably got thrown out of a window for suggesting that a pinch of black pepper be put into the recipe. The sauce is pretty decent, but I hope you like it because it’s utterly necessary. Good lemonade too. Founder leans right, but not “Cathy-family” right.

If you live somewhere with a Layne’s Chicken, that’s way better. Popeye’s is generally better too, though it’s traditional fast food grimy versus “pretend we’re fast-casual” veneer that a lot of the chicken places like to do.

Ted Lasso has it right: pigeon sweat.

Only exception for me is southern-style sweet tea where the tannins make the 'beetus juice taste a little caramel-esque.

Sure, but kinda ALL beer is an acquired taste, and frankly I don’t think I’ve ever thought, “I sure do want a tasty beverage and don’t care about the alcohol content” and ended up drinking beer. Even if you’re not getting drunk, the alcohol is the point, and everything else is mitigation.

That said, when I am feeling like a little bit of alcohol, I like a nice malty dark beer, stouts of course, but even a simple schwarzbier dark lager can do the trick. A very dry cider is even better though, edging close to the point where I might actually pick it purely for taste.

Scrolling through this, a few thoughts come to mind:

1. I forgot how deep into the decade Friends went, and it was definitely well past its sell-by date several seasons before it ended.
2. Will & Grace probably best fits as a show that aged poorly, though it was groundbreaking in putting gay characters front and center at all.
3. As shows that won’t be remembered as fondly because they’re cringey relics of their era, it’s a dead heat between Sex and the City and Entourage. Entourage is worse, but I think contemporary viewers already knew that.
4. Honorable mention to Joss Whedon and Ricky Gervais personally making their classic shows a lot harder to enjoy.

Yeah, Force Majeure’s other name is an “act of god” clause. Something like the Cuban Revolution or other truly significant regulatory upheaval might qualify, a human-made force majeure event in the same way that a war is human-made, but this is going to be a huge stretch, verging on bad faith. Oracle just doing Oracle things, I suppose.

As I understand it, New Mexico is basically just saying, “make sure you account for water and electricity use.” The developer’s lawyers are going to have a very doable task to show that pushback on unfettered datacenter expansion was a foreseeable business risk. I think this is mostly a cynical tactic to renegotiate early in case the RPOs from OpenAI don’t materialize.

I’ve soured a bit on Ed Zitron as he’s clearly making a brand out of how confidently he’s asserting that the bubble will pop any day now, but I do think he’s zeroed in on some of the bizarre developments in the business world that will eventually result in said pop. Ed’s fun for venting, but Cory Doctorow seems to have a slightly more measured take. It certainly vibes with my doomer sentiments, but also doesn’t feel like the preaching is the product.

For text, they kind of already are.

Each agent was given a name, personality traits, a role such as conflict mediator or resource strategist, and an overarching goal for its “life” in a shared town… By the end, each simulated world had undergone its own shift in language. The world inhabited by copies of OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 model, for example, compressed speech, removing grammar and shortening messages. “Friendly voltage counted. If the handle needs your mouth, it dies anyway,” one message read.

Usually about 11 or 12.

I suppose it depends on how complete your personal need for escape is. Sometimes, merely a different role in a less obviously toxic universe is sufficient, or maybe being faced with truly existential threats that you can be confident will be overcome within the timeframe of the work you’re escaping into.

Fork when?

Aside from that, it’s like reddit with instance drama and an older, weirder demographic.

Yup.

and D E A N, apparently.

1. There’s a piefed NSFW instance. Google it.
2. !football@sopuli.xyz
3. maybe !Space@mander.xyz ?
4. Again, probably need to go general. Try !gaming@lemmy.world

Check “all” from time to time, search community listings, and be ready to pounce on a community that sounds interesting if someone mentions it in a comment anywhere. There are far too many created communities for the number of users, so aiming a tier more general than you think you need to is often a good idea.Then, frankly, a lot of interesting discussion happens in generalist communities that happen to post something (often a meme) relevant to someone’s interests.

Honestly, I like CTD, but with just a few more songs, Superman’s Song, The Ghosts that Haunt Me, and Afternoons & Coffeespoons, you should probably have enough for a lifetime, LOL. Superman’s Song may even be vaguely familiar if you were reading comics in those days, as it came out not too long before the (in)famous Death of Superman arc.

I’m sure “most hated” has already been covered, so I’ll go farther down the list and pick one that’s a little hated and IMHO more than “not bad”: Crash Test Dummies.

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm gets clowned on by people who remember it, but (1) it’s pretty good, and (2) CTD’s first three albums are full of super catchy folk-pop-rock with decent lyrics. Some of the third album, and then subsequent stuff gets deeper and deeper into Brad Roberts’ then-current interests and generally doesn’t grab me, but more power to him.

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm itself was undoubtedly picked to be sonically polarizing and grab more attention than some of the slightly less “Crash Test Dummyish” tracks.