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No, it would have been glorious... Thanks, I know the way out...

All I ask for is a Rumble ‘91 style painting/poster for the women’s Rumble. I would pay up to and including $20 for one.

The box office concern feels a bit overblown, to me. Part of the second weekend box office drop is that Christmas fell on a Monday this year, so the movie made over 30 million on a day that doesn't count towards that measurement. It's still projected to hit 800 million today, and hasn't opened in China yet. It still won't come close to TFA's 2 billion, but has already blown past Justice League (650 million), will pass Rogue One, and probably fall around 1.2 or 1.3 billion. (And hell, it might be worth noting that Empire made significantly less than A New Hope as well. Like 550 million compared to 775, I think.) Ultimately, I think this is primarily a case of a vocal minority of angry fans trying to claim victory where they have none. The same thing happened with the new EU novels, which all sold massively well, and TFA itself. (Seriously. Remember people claiming some "anti-pc/sjw" boycott worked?) It's basically toxic fandom 101.

Funnies:

Rian Johnson gave Luke Skywalker the opportunity to be in Star Wars. OK.

Salvador Guerrero IV was 47 years old

He Force projected himself across the galaxy and fooled even the strongest Force user present. THAT IS bad-ass. I read spoilers before watching it, and I was expecting more "weirdness" from Luke than we got. Hyperbole is clouding a lot of people's judgements on the issue. Rey/Ben are Reform Jedi, and Luke is their Martin Lukether.

It seems like Hamill's, and seemingly many fans, understanding of the character was frozen in time in 1983. Feeling linked to a character is one thing, but assuming a character would not evolve in 35 years is something else. Did Hamill and the upset fans really expect the same heroic Luke Skywalker from over three decades ago to show up and wreck shit on the Empire again? Like he'd just take the lightsaber from Rey and say, "fuck yeah let's roll!" This new film's portrayal is far more realistic, and adult, and I think a lot of people can't deal with that.

David Milch once gave a great quote (naturally) on the subject of actors’ opinions on “their” characters. It was something like: ”As soon as you say ‘My character...’ you don’t have to finish that sentence: you’re wrong.”

I think he's more known as Cock Knocker, myself.

You know I wasn’t super high on this movie but the backlash is making me like it more.

From a Doylist reading: Since the original trilogy was tactically kinda sorta Space WWII—fighting Space Nazis, battleships and aircraft carriers, the downfall of increasingly giant cannon as dominant—I imagine there wouldn’t have been an appetite for the good guys going kamikaze. Watsonian: The Rebels—and this is true of the Resistance now too—have far fewer ships, so sacrificing one on purpose makes little sense. Finally, it only worked in this instance because Hux—who is very bad at this—foolishly didn’t spare a round to blow the thing up before Holdo could turn. And in general, it’s best not to spend too much time at the intersection of tech and tactics, otherwise we have to question why nobody has hyperspace capable missiles, or even droid piloted hyperspace kamikaze ships. The answer, I think, is because that would make combat super boring. Beam weapons allow for shields which allows for range to matter which gives us claustrophobic Space Navy fights, that don’t really hold up to scrutiny, but are cool as hell. And it’s always best to err on the side of cool as hell.

You can tell from the poster alone that Glover is gonna jack that movie from Taylor Kitsch 2.0.

A ridiculous number of empty seats for tonight's Canada game. Checked ticketmaster for the outdoor game, the cheapest seat in the building is 55 dollars American. Because that's a fair price to sit in the upper deck to watch hockey outdoors in that dumpy stadium on December 29.

Yeah. I hadn't even watched the trailer when I posted that, just going off memory of that movie being on cable. I mean, my God, how do you even pitch a remake of "Kidnapping by Gaslighting, the romcom"?

It's like Boss Hogg and Elmer Fudd had a love child and he grew up to be a pro wrestler.

Nobody here remembers the epic Thoruf Marius vs Big Brody Hoofer feud, as chronicled by Bryan and Vinny? I, for one, need more promos to include "I'M SICK OF THIS SHIT" and more "No God Damn Rules" matches.

Maybe among certain niche communities, but I don't think that would pass a hypothetical "man on the street" test. That is, anyone invested enough in nerd culture to remember that B:TAS existed, and know that he voiced The Joker in it, surely knows who played Luke Skywalker. On the other hand, I'd wager there are literally millions of people who only know him as Luke--the main character in some of the post popular movies and pop culture landmarks ever--and couldn't name a single voice actor, no matter how accomplished. It's just not the sort of thing that gets you mainstream famous. To be clear, he has had a great career, even if Star Wars never happened. And it's to his credit that his Joker voice is independently famous, and not just "Hey, that's Mark Hamill!" But he doesn't get the same publicity for it without the cognitive dissonance of Luke Skywalker doing that deranged voice. Anyway, I'm not suggesting he owes Rian Johnson some grave debt. TLJ needed Luke, and he was great in the role. I think he was honest about how the creative process works, and that got blown up into "Luke Skywalker hates the movie too you guys! Our cause is just!" He did stoke that a little, because he's kind of a troll. But now, having seen the movie and the vitriol, he probably feels a tad guilty. And I'm inclined to believe that he thinks its a great movie if he says he does, and that he's not been coerced.

Lest we forget: Eddie Guerrero is his father-in-law. Sounds like this was a hell of a match.

The Barrrr!

Happy Rusev Day!!!

Why are we taking the word of Kylo Ren? He's obviously pretty upset at that moment, I wouldn't put it past him that he lied about that to try and turn Rey by manipulating her emotions.

Honestly, the notion that TLJ dropped TFA’s mysteries is weird to me. 1) “Who is Snoke?!?!?” is almost entirely fan driven, insofar as TFA just presents him as this ready made archetype everyone in the film accepts as part of the status quo—so they don’t really discuss or wonder about him. There needs to be a “congratulations, you baited yourself” meme for fandom reactions like this. And I get it! I love lore dives, watched tons of garbage YouTube theory videos, etc. But I think it’s unfair to pretend TFA really asked anyone to respond that way. 2) Rey’s parents got a reveal. If it’s not the one you wanted, fine, but pretending it’s not a valid narrative choice is disingenuous. The lightsaber called out because she’s special on her own, not because of who her parents are. Blood isn’t destiny. That’s basically the entire point.

Apple's uncle chimes in.

The best metaphor is Kylo losing to Rey because of a damaged limb.

I'm all in for Neil Magny winning that fight

Johnson isn’t the one to thank. Abrams set it up that way, but are you really not going to do Star Wars 7-9 without featuring Hamill heavily? Really? Dubious all around.

"World WIDE you say?" "Yeah, that's fresh blood!" "It's for safe." and good lord the PD just saying "POLICE" and both cars just saying POLICE... EDIT: And Breeze muttering "let's skip town" under his breath

Cena would be back in three months. I'm bummed about Dean's injury. Who thought the Shield reunion would be so snakebitten?

Apparently, Chavo deleted the tweet. Smart move.

quit holding other posters down

Why not just put the title on Roode? Wouldn't that have been best?

Rusev and Lana are the best WWE couple since Randy and Liz. They may even beat out Randy and Liz because Rusev probably doesn't lock Lana in the locker room because he's paranoid about the boys lusting over his woman.

One thing that I love about the Bucks (I am hot and cold on their matches) is that they do not take themselves terribly seriously. I love that it ends in the much-derided multi-man drop kick.

And then you have no capital ship.

Now is this a legit timeline or is this like Michael Cole saying Braun Strowman could be out for weeks or even months only for him to return later that night?!

I think a lot of the criticism falls into two camps, with some overlap as well. There are the people who dislike how Johnson blew off the two big mysteries (Snoke's origin, Rey's parents) left from TFA, and those who dislike Luke's characterization. Me, I find mysteries, especially of the JJ Abrams "anything you can think of will be better than the eventual payoff" to be tiresome gimmicks. Give me a good story and I'll like that better than any contrived "big reveal." I really enjoyed Rey's parents being nobodies and I definitely liked not knowing Snoke's backstory. Mistakenly thinking we need badass characters explained away is how we ended up with episodes 1-3. I really don't need to see young Snoke's dislike for sand, thanks. Luke not being heroic is fine. He's a Jedi, but he's human. He thought he could train Jedi and he failed spectacularly. That's awesome. The same people who bitch about Rey being a "Mary Sue" (go fuck yourselves) are bitching because Luke isn't a Larry Sue. I like TFA and this movie, for different reasons. TFA played it safe and, after the prequels, we needed that. This film subverted tropes and set up something new. We needed that, too

A day late but Merry (belated) Christmas to everybody. Hope you got a lot of cool stuff and had a grand ol' time.

More Dirty Player:

It's possible to do both...

Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to my weird internet home and family.

My six year old's powers of secrecy are legendary. Here's the hint she gave me for my Christmas gift (which I actually knew about, because I had to place the Amazon order). "It's from Chicago, it has to do with Football, and it's a chair!"

To quote my lawyer: "It is so clear they have no queer folks on that graphic design team, otherwise someone would have mentioned the subtextual implications of calling someone a "top" in conjunction with that fist imagery. "

Not how you get in to the Fave Five, Jasper.

It's that time of year to bump this thread again and this seems a fitting place to start...