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He's in a hospital bed and a heart monitor is beeping steadily away in the background, he's alive!

After coming our of TFA buzzing about Star Wars again we've been rewatching the series over the holidays and yesterday got to Revenge of The Sith and have to confess totally loved it. Phantom Menace is still a messy shambles (with one fantastic sequence where it gets it very right - the Darth Maul fight) and you have to struggle to overlook the terrible green screen effects and enjoy Attack of The Clones (although I did find the last chunk pretty exciting with the arena fight and the Clones and the whole Jedi council jumping into the fight, plus Dooku is great - there's a lot to like there).

Revenge of The Sith though, I enjoyed that wholeheartedly and almost without reservation. It's got a ton of great sequences and really feels like a Star Wars movie done right to me. Hadn't seen it since its release and all the negativity around the prequels had warped my memory of it a bit (me and my brother walked out of it at the time really happy with it if I remember correctly), so it was a real eye opener to go back to it and realize it's actually one of my favourite SW movies (probably sits around 3rd or 4th on my list). There are some clunky moments but overall it holds up great.

Made me wonder if people genuinely hate episode III or if it just gets swept up in the prequel negativity and dismissed out of hand?

Really enjoyed that trailer, hoping the film doesn't grate too much as Deadpool in any other medium has gotten on my nerves a tad.

Wasn't offended by the 'rape joke' as I'm not sure how stating that a female character is tough and strong-willed enough that any man who tries to make her do something she doesn't want to will regret it massively is somehow a bad thing.

I'm still on board, and like Ryan Reynolds so much I keep buying skincare products with his face on the posters in the hope that I'll eventually look like him.

I read an hilarious (not) comment which suggested that Rey [spoiler]shouldn't have been able to beat (a badly injured) Kylo Ren in a fight because 'women are naturally smaller and weaker' than men. This from a supposed fan of a movie franchise that has Yoda as a major character.[/spoiler]

That's the sort of thing a chap  from work is always coming out with.

Haven't heard that particular doozy, but have seen a lot of people complaining that [spoiler]Rey couldn't possibly hold her own in a lightsaber battle with Kylo given she has no training. For me that complaint misses the point of the Kylo Ren character completely and doesn't take into account what makes him interesting - the fact that he really isn't the ultimate badass that he projects himself as. Everything about him is insecure posturing, and watching the movie a second time I really appreciated how sloppy the battle actually is.

He's very injured and upset (he just killed his dad!) and Rey seems to be getting by purely on adrenaline. It's not a technical display of years of Jedi training, it's all emotion and fury, they're just swinging at each other. The tipping point is when Rey actually takes a moment to close her eyes and settle her thoughts, and that's how she gets the upper hand over Kylo's tantrum style. Nothing to do with skill with a lightsaber, everything to do with letting go of anger.[/spoiler]

It's a really nice touch and one those critics don't seem to be picking up on which is a shame. Really enjoyed my second viewing, found it somehow even more exciting than the first go round. Bea got me the 6 movie boxset for Xmas so looking forward to getting Star Wars-ed out my nut over the holidays.

Seeing as the movie has me wanting to devour as much Star Wars as I can, is anyone keeping up with the 'new' expanded universe? Is it just the Marvel comics or are there novels and whatnot too? I know Disney basically nuked everything as non-canon a while back and started fresh with it, curious what there is out there to get.

Absolutely loved it. Used to be an enormous SW fan but it's many years since I've felt a tingle in my schwartz for it, to the point that I didn't even bother watching any of the trailers, didn't look at any previews and had no intention of going out to see it for a couple of months once it had quietened down a bit, we ended up sort of going on a whim because a friend wanted to. Maybe that worked in its favor, because from the minute it got going I was totally lost in it and the SW fan of old woke up with quite a ferocity. The way it grabbed and moved me really took me by surprise because I didn't think that part of my inner child was still in there!

I didn't for example, expect to [spoiler]cry. I've spoilered that in case it's taken to allude to a big moment or shock in the film, but in actual fact it was during a quiet moment between Han and Leia when they're first on-screen together. I really had no idea how much part of me wanted to see those characters up there again, or how special that would feel.[/spoiler]

I do agree with some people that having the movie [spoiler]climax with a bombing run on a death star was sticking a bit too slavishly to the New Hope template[/spoiler] but that was only something that occurred to me shortly afterwards, at the time I was too busy enjoying the action. There did seem to be a list of beats they'd decided to hit to trigger the nostalgia.

Also the whole thing about [spoiler]Rey being Kylo's sister - that was my reading for most of the movie and was really confused that it didn't turn out to be a reveal. It seems like everything is set up for that to be the case - her having the force, the moments between them, her moment with Leia after Han's death - I just sort of took it as read that she was Han and Leia's other kid. I still think it might turn out to be the case. It would make sense for them to both have been abandoned as children, which would explain Kylo's serious father/son issues, and in her vision when she's abandoned as a child I thought she was actually holding the hand of the adult Kylo, which might have been my eyes playing tricks, but I took that to represent that the two of them were abandoned together.[/spoiler]

Anyway, awesome, will go again.

We're probably not going to make it along until mid/late January annoyingly, but are going to use the time to re-watch the oldies in preparation. I'm very into seeing it though so hoping I can avoid spoilers for that long, although it seems very unlikely which makes me a bit sad!

It's on Virgin Media but locked off to my package (I'm guessing I'd need to upgrade to the full telly pack for it, which I'm not doing for one show). They can get my money when the blu-rays come out, which I'll definitely be buying because I'm loving it.

Only just got round to Episode 3 and it was fantastic, thought the design of the demon in particular was brilliantly well done.

Being board game fans, and having a lot of friends who are also board game fans, we got some games as wedding gifts so got lots of new stuff to play!

Got an X Wing starter set (which I've played once at a friend'sbut will be really nice to try it some more and to maybe combine for a bigger battle), Pandemic, Dixit and Zombicide. Haven't tried Pandemic or Dixit yet but have had a couple of solo runs on a Zombicide mission to learn the rules. Very cool, and one of those games that's quite brutally difficult too. There are a couple of rules that are mad enough to feel quite unfair (there doesn't seem to be a maximum number of zombies that can be squeezed into a room/zone so that gets a bit mad, and the whole thing of splitting and duplicating zombies every time there are two equidistant routes to a survivor means the spawning gets really out of control) but I'd imagine it's amazingly satisfying to actually beat a mission. Maybe someday!

Trailer doesn't come off very well, felt very bland and cheap to me. Not something I expected, I loved First Class and Days (the 'new' trilogy is easily proving my favourite) so got every reason to expect to love this too. For a first impression though it really doesn't grab me at all.

Finally saw Def Leppard last night! The first band I ever loved (been into them since I was about 5 or something, so 30 years-ish?!) so it was a bit special and very exciting indeed.

It was a co-headliner with Whitesnake, but Scotrail totally screwed me on my commute so we only caught about 5 minutes of them.

Eli Roth and a couple of his mates hit upon the idea of taking some, frankly, stunning Russian super models to Chile for a couple of months and trying to shag them while pretending to make an earthquake disaster movie.

I believe he married the lead actress shortly afterwards, so must have been a successful trip.

Still haven't got round to Hunger Games: Mockingjay parts 1 or 2, despite really liking the first two, main reason being I just didn't like the third book anywhere near as much as the first two so can't find the motivation.

As for The Guest, surprised to see it criticised for taking itself too seriously, I felt it was well aware it was a fun romp and thought the humour camed through strongly throughout.

Had a long flight earlier in the week (on me honeymoon!) so on the in-flight entertainment watched Fantastic Four. Thought it was quite dull and lacking in zing, but nowhere near as bad as reports suggested. Until the mid point at least, where another film seems to have been tacked onto it. The fight scene is ludicrous too, they really haven't thought of any meaningful ways for the powers to be used.

Went on the Doctor Doom ride at Universal yesterday which was way more exciting.

Also on the flight watched Spy, which had a couple of very decent laughs and a whole lot of that quite awkward ad libbing where you sense the script didn't include the jokes so the cast had to try and find some. The good laughs were indeed good laughs though. Was quite surprised to see the C word censored on the flight version, considering it was age restricted and a great deal of other swearing was intact.

Starz had taken the unusual step of announcing it had been renewed for a second season before it even aired, wonder if that still stands?

If that's true about the viewing figures being disappointing, then that makes me very sad indeed.

PC specs - http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-pc-minimum-and-recommended-pc-specs-conf/1100-6431267/