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Andy Meakin (5 KP) rated Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) in Movies
Jan 8, 2018
Great visuals let down by meandering story
For those who are unaware, The Jast Jedi is the latest instalment in the core Star Wars series, and picks up from where Force Awakens left off. Rey (played by the decidedly average Daisy Ridley) is on an island with Mark Hamill (playing himself it seems as the mannerisms of the character bore no similarity to the one we saw in Episodes 4, 5 and 6). Chewbacca is also there, but you wouldn’t really tell aside from a few “comedy” moments with the creatures of the island shoehorned in to seemingly ignore the trauma of losing his blood-oath life companion in the last film (Han Solo….keep up people) and instead have him there to just growl at “The Most Annoying and Unnecessary Additions To Film Since Jar Jar”™ from time to time. Whilst there she seeks to recruit Mark to aid Carrie Fisher’s rebellion (again…something not quite right about the character, and another who seems to have gotten over a traumatic murder of a loved one….by a loved one…quite rapidly) and also train her up in the way of the Super-Jedi (seriously, the powers are far beyond anything we have come to know from Jedi before).
Meanwhile Finn wakes up so he can perform comedy pratfalls a lot, Poe has become a one-man-army who could possibly defeat the whole Empire if Carrie would just stop demoting him, and BB8 seems to have more internal mechanical abilities than Cyborg in the DC comics. Remember how much the paring of Rey and Finn worked in the previous film? Yeah, that’s not here. How about Poe and Finn…that bromance? Nope. Okay…what about….ah forget it.
So, on the flip-side Kylo Ren (Adam Driver who I genuinely don’t get the obsession some folk have with) is acting all emo at how Supreme Leader Snoke is seemingly in love with General Hux (Domhall Gleeson, who acts like he’s in a Carry On film). Snoke is no longer a huge hologram, but is now a physical entity in the film, played (rather excellently I must add) by CGI mo-cap legend Andy Serkis. Strange that a CGI character feels more real than any of the rest of the cast, but hey-ho. With his mighty fleet, Snoke leads the battle to wipe the last remnants of the Rebellion….
The film opens with a spectacular space battle, and certainly doesn’t skimp on set-pieces throughout, with land and space being covered in glory. But story wise there isn’t much going on, even though Rian Johnson clearly thinks there is. Not really a spoiler, but when the Rebel fleet are on the run, trying to stay out of reach of the First Order craft, you do wonder why a few of the first order fleet didn’t just jump to a short hyperdrive to pen the Rebels in, rather than just following behind like sheep. That minor niggle is the smallest of the film’s story problems.
The issue seems to be that many moments have been engineered purely to pull the rug out from under the fan-theorists, rather than being included to actually serve the story on offer. None of the reveals are particularly clever, and one moment in particular resonated in the same manner the “Martha!” moment did in Batman v Superman, so poorly presented that it was almost hilarious in the reveal. Shoehorn in a few cameos, and contrived scene set ups and the whole thing feels like it is trying to pack two films into one, and in order to do so decided to cut out all the bits that make sense to make room for ‘action…fights….explosions…and…..’
…PORGS! Damn those things to Hades! Absolutely unnecessary, irritating, and jarring enough when on screen to make you stop actually caring about the action going on. They are used at the most inopportune moments in a poor attempt to generate laughs! I’ve seen people argue that, “Star Wars is for kids, so of course some things would be childish!” A poor excuse, and it’s the same one George Lucas used for Jar Jar Binks. Still feel it’s a good excuse? They are a marketing ploy to sell cuddly merchandise, and they are awful!
It’s not entirely bad, though. As mentioned the action and effects work is stunning, and there are some marvellous visual feasts on offer. The score is, as expected from music maestro John Williams, enchanting, thrilling, and with plenty of echoes of previous themes morphed into the mix. It’s just that, overall, this feels less like part of the Star Wars series, and more like a fan-fiction. It’s a shame as Rian Johnson has a strong pedigree with Brick and Looper, and hearing he has been granted a new trilogy of films of his own design was exciting news. After this, however, all I can say is that I’m glad JJ Abrams is coming back for the final part – maybe the magic will return with him.
Better than the prequels, including Rogue One, but the weaker of the rest, The Last Jedi is overlong for no real reason, and not as sharp as it wants to be. All gloss and style, but with very little substance.
Meanwhile Finn wakes up so he can perform comedy pratfalls a lot, Poe has become a one-man-army who could possibly defeat the whole Empire if Carrie would just stop demoting him, and BB8 seems to have more internal mechanical abilities than Cyborg in the DC comics. Remember how much the paring of Rey and Finn worked in the previous film? Yeah, that’s not here. How about Poe and Finn…that bromance? Nope. Okay…what about….ah forget it.
So, on the flip-side Kylo Ren (Adam Driver who I genuinely don’t get the obsession some folk have with) is acting all emo at how Supreme Leader Snoke is seemingly in love with General Hux (Domhall Gleeson, who acts like he’s in a Carry On film). Snoke is no longer a huge hologram, but is now a physical entity in the film, played (rather excellently I must add) by CGI mo-cap legend Andy Serkis. Strange that a CGI character feels more real than any of the rest of the cast, but hey-ho. With his mighty fleet, Snoke leads the battle to wipe the last remnants of the Rebellion….
The film opens with a spectacular space battle, and certainly doesn’t skimp on set-pieces throughout, with land and space being covered in glory. But story wise there isn’t much going on, even though Rian Johnson clearly thinks there is. Not really a spoiler, but when the Rebel fleet are on the run, trying to stay out of reach of the First Order craft, you do wonder why a few of the first order fleet didn’t just jump to a short hyperdrive to pen the Rebels in, rather than just following behind like sheep. That minor niggle is the smallest of the film’s story problems.
The issue seems to be that many moments have been engineered purely to pull the rug out from under the fan-theorists, rather than being included to actually serve the story on offer. None of the reveals are particularly clever, and one moment in particular resonated in the same manner the “Martha!” moment did in Batman v Superman, so poorly presented that it was almost hilarious in the reveal. Shoehorn in a few cameos, and contrived scene set ups and the whole thing feels like it is trying to pack two films into one, and in order to do so decided to cut out all the bits that make sense to make room for ‘action…fights….explosions…and…..’
…PORGS! Damn those things to Hades! Absolutely unnecessary, irritating, and jarring enough when on screen to make you stop actually caring about the action going on. They are used at the most inopportune moments in a poor attempt to generate laughs! I’ve seen people argue that, “Star Wars is for kids, so of course some things would be childish!” A poor excuse, and it’s the same one George Lucas used for Jar Jar Binks. Still feel it’s a good excuse? They are a marketing ploy to sell cuddly merchandise, and they are awful!
It’s not entirely bad, though. As mentioned the action and effects work is stunning, and there are some marvellous visual feasts on offer. The score is, as expected from music maestro John Williams, enchanting, thrilling, and with plenty of echoes of previous themes morphed into the mix. It’s just that, overall, this feels less like part of the Star Wars series, and more like a fan-fiction. It’s a shame as Rian Johnson has a strong pedigree with Brick and Looper, and hearing he has been granted a new trilogy of films of his own design was exciting news. After this, however, all I can say is that I’m glad JJ Abrams is coming back for the final part – maybe the magic will return with him.
Better than the prequels, including Rogue One, but the weaker of the rest, The Last Jedi is overlong for no real reason, and not as sharp as it wants to be. All gloss and style, but with very little substance.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Disney Villainous in Tabletop Games
Jan 6, 2020
I am a sucker for a great theme. Or themes that turn the game around. Such is the case with Disney Villainous. Not often does a game allow you to play AS the bad guys against the good guys. That premise is interesting to me, and as I saw this release last year, I just knew I had to have it. Now that I have played it several times, with and without the first expansion, what do I have to say about it? Read on.
Disney Villainous (“Villainous” from here on) is a card game that pits players against each other in a race to complete individualized objectives to win the game. Players are in direct competition with each other and have devices to employ to spoil the plans of their competitors. Can Maleficent place out curses on all the lands in her realm before Hades can have three Titans storm on Mount Olympus? Can Prince John attain 20 power before either of them win the game? Such is Villainous.
DISCLAIMER: This game has a few standalone expansions now, with more on the way I’m sure. We are using components from the base game as well as the first expansion, “Wicked to the Core,” for this review. Should we decide to review the expansions as standalone games, we will link to the new material here. Furthermore, I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, each player will choose a big bad to play. Each character comes equipped with a colored pawn, a realm board with four locations, a deck of cards with matching pawn colored backs, a Fate deck with white back, and a playbook with tips on how to play that character. Also give every player a reference card that details the actions available. Shuffle each deck separately, give the starting player zero power from the cauldron, the second player one power, the third player two power, etc. Each player draws a hand of four colored back cards. Begin the game with the pawns on the leftmost location on the realm board and you are now ready to play.
Play works thusly: move your pawn to any unlocked location, complete any or all actions available at the location, draw your hand back up to four, next player. You MUST move on your turn, unless a card allows you to stay at your current location on your next turn. Once moved, the location will either show two or four options for actions. These could include play a card, activate a card, discard a card, gain power tokens, move an item or ally, move a Hero card, vanquish a Hero, or play cards from an opponent’s Fate deck. Some actions are self-explanatory (gain power tokens, et al), but some require further explanation.
Some cards will have an activation symbol displayed on them. This means that a pawn has to have been moved to a location with an activate card symbol, and the player must pay to activate the card for its special abilities. Easy. Moving an item, ally, or Hero typically means physically moving the cards from one location to another adjacent location. This is important for some villains’ objectives: cards need to enter play in one location but travel to another as part of the win condition. When a villain moves to a location with the Fate symbol, they will choose an opponent, look at the top two cards of their Fate deck, and choose one card to play and one card to discard. These are especially devious and can greatly hinder the player’s progress. In addition, when a Fate card resides on a realm board it covers the top symbols of a location, thus nullifying the player’s ability to use these symbols on future turns. Using the vanquish symbol requires a Hero to have been played on your board, and having enough strength in allies and items to meet or overcome the Hero’s strength. Heroes and any allies/items used in the fight are then all discarded to the appropriate discard piles.
Play continues in this manner until one player has achieved their victory condition.
Components. I have good and bad news. Good news first. The components are absolutely fabulous! Those pawns. SOOOO good. Each is a somewhat abstracted figure of the villain, but with some concrete callbacks and recognizable features. They are just so dang fun to handle and play with. I think the cards are good quality, but I forgot what they feel like outside of the sleeves I put mine in. The board components are great, the cauldron is flimsy, unnecessary, and unwieldy when putting back in the box, especially if you have one or more expansions. I have not found a decent way to put everything back in one box, so I am resigned to having both boxes with me every time I want to play. That’s the bad. I also have put all my sleeved cards into plastic deck boxes in the main game box along with the cauldron. Everything else gets put in the expansion box. I hope a better storage solution is on the horizon along with future expansions…
So as you can see from our rating graphic on top that we are spread out on this one. I love it, but I don’t see it ever breaching my Top 10 list. It does have a tendency to overstay its welcome with all the Fate cards making it more and more difficult to win the game. Once a player seems to be near winning every other player gangs up, or seems to when I have played. I get that it may come off as a negative, and the play length as well, but it’s all part of villains out-villaining each other. While Josh rated it as a three and may not ever willingly ask to play it, I have it at a five because I think it’s a great game with a wonderful theme, amazing components, and tons of expandability. With that, we at Purple Phoenix Games give Disney Villainous a boding 16 / 24. If you are a big Disney fan, can live with the Take That, and want something that looks incredible on the table, pick it up.
Disney Villainous (“Villainous” from here on) is a card game that pits players against each other in a race to complete individualized objectives to win the game. Players are in direct competition with each other and have devices to employ to spoil the plans of their competitors. Can Maleficent place out curses on all the lands in her realm before Hades can have three Titans storm on Mount Olympus? Can Prince John attain 20 power before either of them win the game? Such is Villainous.
DISCLAIMER: This game has a few standalone expansions now, with more on the way I’m sure. We are using components from the base game as well as the first expansion, “Wicked to the Core,” for this review. Should we decide to review the expansions as standalone games, we will link to the new material here. Furthermore, I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, each player will choose a big bad to play. Each character comes equipped with a colored pawn, a realm board with four locations, a deck of cards with matching pawn colored backs, a Fate deck with white back, and a playbook with tips on how to play that character. Also give every player a reference card that details the actions available. Shuffle each deck separately, give the starting player zero power from the cauldron, the second player one power, the third player two power, etc. Each player draws a hand of four colored back cards. Begin the game with the pawns on the leftmost location on the realm board and you are now ready to play.
Play works thusly: move your pawn to any unlocked location, complete any or all actions available at the location, draw your hand back up to four, next player. You MUST move on your turn, unless a card allows you to stay at your current location on your next turn. Once moved, the location will either show two or four options for actions. These could include play a card, activate a card, discard a card, gain power tokens, move an item or ally, move a Hero card, vanquish a Hero, or play cards from an opponent’s Fate deck. Some actions are self-explanatory (gain power tokens, et al), but some require further explanation.
Some cards will have an activation symbol displayed on them. This means that a pawn has to have been moved to a location with an activate card symbol, and the player must pay to activate the card for its special abilities. Easy. Moving an item, ally, or Hero typically means physically moving the cards from one location to another adjacent location. This is important for some villains’ objectives: cards need to enter play in one location but travel to another as part of the win condition. When a villain moves to a location with the Fate symbol, they will choose an opponent, look at the top two cards of their Fate deck, and choose one card to play and one card to discard. These are especially devious and can greatly hinder the player’s progress. In addition, when a Fate card resides on a realm board it covers the top symbols of a location, thus nullifying the player’s ability to use these symbols on future turns. Using the vanquish symbol requires a Hero to have been played on your board, and having enough strength in allies and items to meet or overcome the Hero’s strength. Heroes and any allies/items used in the fight are then all discarded to the appropriate discard piles.
Play continues in this manner until one player has achieved their victory condition.
Components. I have good and bad news. Good news first. The components are absolutely fabulous! Those pawns. SOOOO good. Each is a somewhat abstracted figure of the villain, but with some concrete callbacks and recognizable features. They are just so dang fun to handle and play with. I think the cards are good quality, but I forgot what they feel like outside of the sleeves I put mine in. The board components are great, the cauldron is flimsy, unnecessary, and unwieldy when putting back in the box, especially if you have one or more expansions. I have not found a decent way to put everything back in one box, so I am resigned to having both boxes with me every time I want to play. That’s the bad. I also have put all my sleeved cards into plastic deck boxes in the main game box along with the cauldron. Everything else gets put in the expansion box. I hope a better storage solution is on the horizon along with future expansions…
So as you can see from our rating graphic on top that we are spread out on this one. I love it, but I don’t see it ever breaching my Top 10 list. It does have a tendency to overstay its welcome with all the Fate cards making it more and more difficult to win the game. Once a player seems to be near winning every other player gangs up, or seems to when I have played. I get that it may come off as a negative, and the play length as well, but it’s all part of villains out-villaining each other. While Josh rated it as a three and may not ever willingly ask to play it, I have it at a five because I think it’s a great game with a wonderful theme, amazing components, and tons of expandability. With that, we at Purple Phoenix Games give Disney Villainous a boding 16 / 24. If you are a big Disney fan, can live with the Take That, and want something that looks incredible on the table, pick it up.
