"Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory... lasts forever."
The plan for this community is to bring in two other friends with different interests, and some shared background/worldview to discuss and learn about a myriad of topics. I figured I'd be the bigger nerd of the three of us but we'll see...
Star Wars! Where shall we begin, I have been a fan my entire life, I apparently tagged along to Return of the Jedi as a three year old, Star Wars action figures were a presence in the house my entire childhood thanks to my older brother, and I remember sneaking to use my dad's record player to play the sounds tracks. I remember going to buy the toys at a discount toy store, (and pool supply shop!), long after they had lost their luster. When the franchise picked up steam again, I was in line to read the books, collect the comics, trading cards, new action figures, model kits, figures, etc. I even had the Star Wars pogs. I had subscriptions to the magazines, lines up for the Special Editions on opening day, and I've seen every new film save for SOLO on opening night. Safe to say I was a fan.
I still have a fondness for Star Wars, but I just can't muster any enthusiasm for the new stuff Disney is putting out any more. It's poorly planned, poorly executed, and is overflowing with sanctimony. The Mandalorian is fine I guess, it finally got my kids into it after I'd tried so many times to watch the original trilogy and prequels with them. The Boba Fett show was bad, the Obi-Wan show was bad, I've since cancelled Disney+, so I have no idea about Andor. I do like some of the work Dave Filoni has done with the cartoons. Ahsoka has I think become my favorite character in the new universe.
When I was dating my wife, she scored some tickets to a showing of "The Clone Wars" from work. That movie, a 90 minute commercial for the new cartoon series was terrible. Ahsoka was the worst part. They have since done a great a great job developing that character and the others that she interacts with. The Clone Wars and Rebels series are both pretty good.
This leads us to this latest unwelcome news however.
I have never really understood the desire to get past the "Skywalker Saga", it should be a big enough universe that you can fit all kinds of new stuff, old republic stuff, and new republic stuff around the Skywalker stuff, revisiting periodically as needed. I am probably a contrarian in that I totally agreed with the decision to wipe out the old expanded universe. It was a mixed bag, and too much to ask to try and cram new movies into the mix while respecting the canon produced by hundreds of creators.
One day, I'll have to pull out the articles, because I'm pretty sure I have all of those old magazines in storage, about the expanded universe. I swear that George Lucas always had said that it was allowed until it got in the way, and he had the right to wipe it out and do what he wanted if he ever decided to make sequels. Obviously it was not George that made the sequels, but the same principal applied in my view. What I wanted to see was a clean slate, with various elements cherry picked for inclusion as it made sense. What we got was a mess of a third act, and a story group at Lucas Film that can't even keep it's new canon straight.
So I have no desire to revisit this era or of the sequel characters, and I'm not terribly interested interested in finding out what happens next. I have no interest in the High Republic stuff, though I've been accumulating a bunch of comic books that I'll likely never read. My grandchildren can use them to line a bird cage or sell them on ebay for pennies a pound.
Disney turned a 40 year obsession into something I have barely a passing interest in. Perhaps I should thank them?
Anyway, I'm sure once the gears start turning over here we'll talk about all of this stuff, these other two guys are dragging their feet a bit, hope to be up and running soon.
Welcome to the dumpster fire. We've planted the flag here as a base of operations in the ever changing landscape of social media outlets. Based on what I've seen so far Locals seems like a safe bet for now to avoid running afoul of the censorship overlords that seem to increasingly dominate our lives and the public discourse.
I'm Riggs, a recovering social media addict and political junkie. I've begrudgingly ventured back into the twitter cesspool as I prepare to launch youtube and rumble content, hopefully alongside two life long friends. We'll wade into minefields of politics, religion, pop culture, and the general hell scape that is Anno Domini 2022 and beyond.
Here's to hoping we find our footing and grow our community of like minded and perhaps not so like minded internet denizens before we are all turned into radioactive ash.
Cheers!
We are all big fans of the Indiana Jones franchise, as young boys we were treated to nazi's getting their faces melted, and dudes getting their still beating hearts ripped out of their chests. Our favorite middling college professor/grave robber is back in the summer of 2023... and I am hoping for Nuclear Armageddon before we have to see it.
We had our weekly episode of The Bitter End the other night, and one of the topics I want to touch on periodically is the ever changing Cannabis landscape in The United States. As children of the 80's we grew up with "Just Say No", D.A.R.E. and other programs, and then watched a bunch of contemporaries get into drugs anyway. It's never been anything I've been particularly interested in, but as someone fairly naïve about these sorts of things, I've been fascinated by the change in social mores over the last decade as states one by one move to decriminalize.
Is it still a left/right issue? Are pockets of the GOP stupid for not embracing an expansion of liberties? What went on at MJBizCon that was recently held in Las Vegas?
We discuss!
