CayceG

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The Israelis just hit the airport in Aleppo, Syria again.

Sure, why not. Israel has too many bombs for how small Gaza is, I guess. 

This is all so stupid.

2 hours ago, Jason said:

I can, in fact, name eight. One might describe them as crusades. 

I hope the ex-girlfriend whose D+ account I have a password for doesn't cancel because of this!

35 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I do want to point out that these locations are well within the internationally-recognized pre-1967 borders of Israel and are therefore NOT settlements in the manner as those in the West Bank.

My mistake. but the logistical realities of Hamas' forces allow for them to act in the settlements. That would matter if Hamas cared to make choices between combatants and non-combatants (which they clearly do not). 

I don't know. It really doesn't matter what I think is justified or what lines each side crosses. 

24 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

Not based on current actions, brutalizing non combatants, women and children, that description Wade referred to earlier for instance. Despite Israeli policy there’s a clear distinction here, until soldiers get let off the leash in the coming days that is.

Today's attack didn't happen in a vacuum. There is a military response option available to even an insurgent force like Hamas to fight back against settlements and other things Israel's government has done. There's also an argument to be made (that I do not agree with) that the civilians in these border settlements are not innocent since they are willingly taking part in the apartheid government's policies. But none of that makes it worth killing random people in their houses and parading their bodies through the streets. Hamas had a choice. This is what they chose. Likewise, Israel has a choice. Given their track record, I'm confident they'll also choose foolishly.

What a fucked situation. 

If Russia invading Ukraine is a war with a clear Good and Bad side, Israel vs. Palestine is a war you can accurately "bothsides."

2 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

If it was me i'd just recommend saturation bombing of the city, IDF would never step foot in the city, until it was a smoking heap just to make sure they got them all, but i'm old school warfare, none of this hearts and minds BS.

Your Likud party membership card is in the mail!

No one can say this was unprovoked given Israel's actions on the temple mount and in the settlements. 

Both sides are not equivalent here, but Hamas is not innocent of atrocities, as today shows. The reason for combat operations being understandable (or even justified) does not negate the heinous actions of targeting civilians. 

I didn't want to do it, but my brother did. So I'm in. 

This is a horrific data breach...

I am definitely intrigued as well. Even despite...

I don't care to use that high horse circle jerk of a "website" if only the most irritating motherfuckers from Twitter that I ostensibly agree with are the only ones there. 

As someone without a skeet account, if people want to post them, I'm gonna need an image of the post. 

Honestly, my thought is that Ray Stevenson is the only part of this that was perfect for live action. Everything else would have translated so much better if it was a cartoon (basically, Rebels Season 5). The action works much better when there's more separation from real life. So I can agree that things always felt "off."

I enjoyed that. 

Vaxxed?????

I don't think this gets resolved next week. I think it's setup for the Filoni movie or a 2nd season. 

Solid ep. It sets up the finale and we got some good emotional beats between Sabine and Ezra. Also, the lightsaber/force combat was brief but very exciting. Ezra is easily one of my favorite Jedi characters (behind Kanan and Ahsoka). 

Also, Dave Filoni can't write a courtroom procedural to save his life. Opener was clunkier than a CIS Battle Droid.

That said...

1 hour ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

That a pillow behind the Admiral? 

Weekend at Vitya's. 

Look who we have here on the newest Roundtable meeting!

Below Shoigu... is Black Sea Fleet Admiral Sokolov. I guess they weren't having staff meetings in the HQ after all. 

It's really neat that the world looked at this genocide and just decided "meh, we don't care."

Also, I don't know when this change happened, but Google lists the name of Stepanakert under its Azeri name "Khankendi."

The Russian Black Sea Fleet sure is taking it on the chin in this land war. 

Slow and steady. 

26 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Ahsoka was never a terribly interesting character to me. I understand her appeal but she just wasn’t interesting for me. But I honestly don’t see how anybody could be interested in Dawson’s absolutely one note portrayal of her in everything she’s been in. Just so completely one note and boring.

 

I also agree with the criticism that people who haven’t seen the cartoons will be completely lost. And as somebody who loved the old EU Thrawn I really liked his intro in this show. But yeah that would be totally underwhelming for people who haven’t heard the name.

 

But I think every other aspect of this show is top notch and I’m enjoying it on the whole. 

Ahsoka is indeed suffering from the Book of Boba Fett problem in that she is the least interesting character in her own show. This is Rebels Season 5 and Ahsoka was a side character in like 1.5 seasons of Rebels. 

Yeah. 

I can definitely imagine myself sitting down with my dad--who loves Star Wars, but has never watched the cartoons--and him going "now who is this again?"

And that sucks, man. 

I adore this because I'm DEEP in it. I had a whole pandemic to binge Clone Wars and Rebels. That's not how my dad spent two years. That's not how a ton of nominal Star Wars fans that got brought in by Mandalorian being adventure of the week engages with Star Wars. 

To fully appreciate the entire depth of Ahsoka the show, you have to have watched an 8 year old Disney cartoon series. 

The Marvelization of Star Wars is both the best thing for fans like me and the worst thing for the fandom overall. 

Thrawn himself as a character comes across as fine. The voice is perfect. The character is approaching 70 years old anyway, so he's gonna look kinda dumpy.

There are two problems with it though, and I think this is where people are disliking the look of the character. 

One is that The Volume's limitations are on full display. This looks like dogshit:

There's literally a bright white dividing line in the back that separates the real people in the foreground from the digital backing shot. This is not done well. Matte paintings from the original trilogy look better. 

The second is that the gravitas of the character relies on foreknowledge of the character from Rebels (or expectations from the EU books). If that isn't something people are familiar with and this is a viewer's first reveal of Thrawn, then this comes off as underwhelming.