Most of the live-action scenes look like they were shot for the SyFy channel. The narration is dumb and schlocky. The villains are tropey and over the top. The main character is more bland than toast without butter.

Somehow this still struck a chord in me despite it’s very clear failings. I think something about Pandora is so magical. And the message is more relevant than ever. Wish I could have seen this in theaters, but it does put a fire under me to get out and see the second in theaters before it leaves.

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Quite fun. Story’s alright but mostly sits backseat to the gameplay. I grew up on the Jedi Knight games so it felt really good to get back to that type of Star Wars game. Nothing is quite as satisfying as force pushing a bunch of Storm Troopers off a ledge. 😌

I do think some of the criticism around level design makes sense. I thought it was mostly really great but there were a few repetitive moments in backtracking and such. I know they wanted it to feel like a cross between Dark Souls and Metroid, but I don’t know that the Metroidvania type level design lends itself as well to this kind of blockbuster storytelling. I’d rather they took an Uncharted 4 approach but 🤷‍♂️ we’ll see where the next one goes!

Really spectacular. A perfect game for this stormy weather. The voice acting and sound design really elevates it to an impressive narrative, but the core loop is just purely addicting. I saw one review compare it to Sudoku which is surprisingly accurate. Like Clue meets Sudoku. I will forever remember the jingle that plays when you guess three fates correctly.

Galaxy’s Edge + rain = maximum atmosphere. 📷

Watched on Thursday December 29, 2022.

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The annual Christmas Eve rewatch. :) I think this is probably my favorite Spielberg film so it feels fitting to watch it after The Fabelmans. Which has actually given it some interesting juxtaposition – esp. with the deteriorating family.

Random thoughts:
 - Every time I watch this I think that maybe, just maybe, this time Brenda won’t snitch and she and Frank will run off and be a super con couple together.
- The casting in this is so good. Leo is really believable as Walken’s son. He brings that in his performance as well – aside from the accent, there are some tics that are very subtle but very accurate to Christopher Walken.
- “What‘s she gonna be? A shoe salesman at a centipede farm?”
- “Frank… you’re not a Lutheran?”
- Throughout the year, if Anna and I are talking and someone who’s named Frank comes up in convo, I have like this muscle memory impulse to say “Frahnk. Frahnk. Hahd you pass the bah in Lwisiana Frahnk.”

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Hope everyone has a nice Christmas Eve. :)