Of Star Wars and Skyrim
I just realized that I have yet to write a blog post about what may very well be the most culturally significant announcement of this year. Nevermind that its only January. Legendary, TV/Movie director and creative genius JJ Abrams will be directing Star Wars Episode VII!! I found it hard to believe that they would be making another Star Wars movie, much less they would have the brains to pick a great director who absolutely gets the nerd culture that he’ll eventually be catering to. I don’t know that I could have picked a better person to take this on! I think we’ve all given up on George Lucas at this point anyway, so we’re all glad to have someone we respect in the driver’s seat.
JJ Abrams is the brilliant mind behind Super 8, Star Trek (the new movie), Alias, Lost, and a bunch of other awesome stuff. He and Joss Whedon can basically do no wrong, and when they do, we forgive quickly. JJ is a self professed Star Wars fan who loves the stories, the universe, the characters, everything. I feel like the guy probably took Star Trek thinking that he wouldn’t ever do Star Wars so you might as well do the next best thing. Either way, Star Trek ended up being fantastic, and the sequel looks like it will be incredible also. I hope he goes in a different direction with Star Wars though. There is so much to explore after the fall of the Empire. You have a war-torn galaxy that, despite the Emperor being gone, will definitely have a power struggle over everything that the Empire had claimed. Tons of stuff can be told in that time period of that galaxy far, far away. I’m really anxious to see what all he leaves in tact, and also how he puts his own spin on things. I’m down with whatever he wants to do, because I think he actually respects the universe more than Lucas himself.
I’m so pumped for 2015!!
Also, I am back addicted to Skyrim again. The incredibly well done game by the folks at Bethesda has managed to stick around and be enjoyable for well over a year after its release. The funny thing is that despite there being 3 add-ons available to expand the game, I haven’t bought a single one yet! I’m still playing Vanilla Skyrim! I really want to check them all out, but I feel like I should at least explore the majority of the world they handed us way back in November of 2011. This game was such a refreshing experience after playing Oblivion. I didn’t hate Oblivion, but I didn’t love it either. This one is a masterpiece. I don’t have a lot of gripes and the gripes I have are ones I can live with…obviously.
I’m actually just really pumped about The Elder Scrolls Online. I know I can’t stay on an MMO for more than a little while without finding myself bored, but I think TESO might have something worth checking out. The freedom of The Elder Scrolls will be brought to the MMO world, which is really enticing for me. You get to decide how you want to play AS you play. You don’t get shoe-horned into a class when you aren’t sure if you really like it or not. You just roll a character and do your thing. I LOVE that! They released a trailer, which I’ve posted below, that really shows the tone of what they are going for. The only thing I’m apprehensive about is that they have tied 3 races to one of 3 alignments. So if your friend wants to play as one thing, and you want to play as another, you have to make sure they are in the same alliance. I may be wrong about that, but that’s the way I’ve seen it pitched so far. I don’t really care what I have to play as long as I get to play with my buddies. Maybe in the open world you’ll be free to play with whoever and the 3 alliances only really come into play in PvP. I don’t know. But I’m super excited about it! YAY!