Awesome And Excessive, Rogue One Mission Briefing Trading Cards Split My Standards!

The Good: Good overview of the time period in the Star Wars universe, Some cool autograph signers, Cool Rogue One teases
The Bad: Ridiculous numbers of parallel cards, Insane rarities on a wide variety of cards, A weird card choices, Sticker autograph card style.
The Basics: Leading up to the cinematic release of Rogue One, Topps produced the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards which are interesting-enough, but absolutely impossible to collect.


Every now and then, I encounter a product that forces me to re-evaluate how I rate various products. Sometimes, there is a film where I find myself literally caught between a 2/10 and an 8/10, usually when something that is nauseatingly horrific, but I have to acknowledge that it is done well. With trading cards, I find myself occasionally trapped because "collectibility" is one of the standards by which I rate a trading card set. In recent times, many trading card sets have become prohibitive to even attempt to collect the set. Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards from Topps are one such set. Given that there are at least 184 unique - 1/1 cards - not counting the printing plates (!) the Rogue One Mission Briefing are impossible to collect. Literally, the moment any two collectors actually committed to trying to collect this set, it became absolutely impossible to make a true, complete master set of the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards.

That said, when I started opening packs, boxes and cases of Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards, I found there was actually quite a bit to like about the card set. Outside the weird volume of hard-to-assemble parallel sets, the content in the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading card set is actually pretty cool. The Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards blend key Star Wars prequel events with animated series moments with the highlights - usually concerned with the first and second Death Stars - of the original Star Wars Trilogy . . . with teases of Rogue One.

Basics/Set Composition

Topps has begun to be an active part of building hype for the new Star Wars movies by creating transitional trading card sets that connect the new works to the classic Star Wars films. Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards are one such set and it does its best to capitalize on the connections between classic Star Wars works and Rogue One.

The Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards are dominated by a retro cardboard cardstock for the bulk of the cards. Chase cards like the sticker cards, autograph cards, foil cards and printing plates have a different sheen and feel to their fronts, but most of the trading cards in the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards have a retro cardboard look and feel, which goes back to the original Topps Star Wars trading card releases from the late 1970s. While all of the common cards (and most of the chase) are formatted in one orientation (landscape), the text on the back of the cards is (unfortunately) oriented the same way as the text on the front. As a result, when one flips a page in the binder, they must rotate the binder around in order to read the backs. This is not very friendly to those who want to sit and read the cards.

The Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards could be compiled to make a single, true master set of 1583 trading cards. Most of the cards in the true master set would be chase parallel cards and the set is prohibitive to collect because of some of the odds of ever finding the rarest cards, which were truly unique 1/1 individually numbered parallel cards. Boxes of the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards contain only twenty-four packs of eight cards each. Topps, Inc. only guaranteed two “hits” per box. In my experience, that meant that each box had a patch card and then an autograph, sketch or printing plate card; there were three boxes in my case that had parallel cards that were part of the individually-numbered sets.

Common Cards

The Rogue One Mission Briefing common set is an interesting concept that loses a little bit of focus near its end. The 110 card set focuses in a general way on the elements that went into the creation and destruction of the Death Star. The first 68 of 110 cards transition from the Star Wars prequel films to events in A New Hope that focus on the Death Star. Cards 69 through 78 do a fast gloss-over of The Empire Strikes Back and the destruction of the second Death Star in Return Of The Jedi before going into character cards. The common set ends with ten cards focusing on events and characters from Rogue One.

The common card set is generally well-written, though some of the cards are weird stretches that seem designed entirely to sell the rest of the set. Chief among these are cards in the character portion of the common set like card 90 - John D. Branon (Red Four). Topps managed to track down the random actor who appeared for a few frames in A New Hope who played the Red Four X-Wing pilot. The actor is Jack Klaff, who actually was credited in A New Hope, which was his first film, who had perhaps thirty seconds of screentime (including where he was in the background). Card 90 fleshes out the briefly-seen character with a full backstory, arguably to build enthusiasm for an autograph card where one's first instinct upon seeing it would be to wonder "Who is this?!" The nine-card mural, with a final card showing what the mural is supposed to look like assembled, help infuse the Rogue One Mission Briefing common card set with actual material from Rogue One.

As for the images, the Rogue One Mission Briefing, most of the shots are from the films and the animated television shows, no promotional shots. Interestingly, astute fans of the Star Wars films will recognize the ten shots from the final cards in the common set all from the trailer from Rogue One. These are hardly ambitious images from Rogue One, but they are the shots that Topps had in advance of the film's release.

Chase Cards

The Rogue One Mission Briefing cards are loaded with bonus cards. The bonus cards range from various levels of parallel cards to basic chase cards like Death Star, Heroes, Villains, and Rogue One character cards, as well as higher level chase cards like patch, autograph, and printing plate cards. There are 1473 chase cards in the Rogue One Mission Briefing set, with only ten that are not found in the packs and boxes of the cards.

Most packs of Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards contain two parallel cards, though there are six different parallel sets. The six parallel sets replicate the common card set with different border colors. The common set has a retro look to it, with a red border around the big image of the card's subject. The parallel cards replace the red border with "Death Star Black," green, or blue borders. For the three rarer sets, the red border is replaced with a sickly blue-gray (the backs are individually numbered out of 100), gold - which actually looks orange and is individually numbered out of 50 - and orange, which are unique 1/1 parallel cards. There is nothing particularly special about these parallel cards, save their collectibility, though the black parallel cards actually look pretty awesome. It's funny that they are the most common of the parallel cards.

There are a number of fairly common bonus cards - whose sets take about three boxes to complete - in the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards. Found one in every eight packs are Rogue One foil cards, Heroes Of The Rebel Alliance, and Villains Of The Galactic Empire cards. A little more common are the Rogue One comic strip cards and Death Star cards; found two per box are Darth Vader Continuity cards and the sticker cards. Only the Death Star cards are in landscape format, like the common cards; the rest are all in portrait orientation. Rather wisely, the Heroes and Villains chase sets do not bother with real text on the back; fans already know who these characters are. The sticker cards feature mediocre artwork of characters in sepia tones on a blue background and decent artwork of the various ships from Rogue One. The Death Star cards are neat in that they include some weird, obscure shots of various interiors of the Death Star, while the character foils do a decent job of blending the promotional images of Rogue One characters with generic foil backgrounds. The only real issues I found with the basic chase cards are that some of the Darth Vader continuity cards and Darth Vader-themed character cards are virtually identical, with one having to look at the back of the card to determine which card they are looking at!

One per box of the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards is one of nine Rogue One Montage cards. The Montage cards are a truly nice replicated artwork card of the new characters from Rogue One. These include very cool artwork cards of Jyn Erso, Director Krennic and some of the distinctive Rebels from Rogue One.

Also one per box are manufactured patch cards, which make up a thirteen card set. The patches are cute and some feature really neat ideas, like the MP-5 of Krennic. Instead of the standard Imperial symbol (which is the subject of Krennic's MP-8 patch card), the patch in the MP-5 card features the Death Star with Darth Vader superimposed on it. It might look vaguely like a Dalek, but it is pretty cool. There are three different individually-numbered parallel patch cards and, mercifully, the most rare of these is x/10 (featuring a red stripe on the front). The patch cards are pretty neat, though the parallels of the patch cards do appear to be exceptionally rare (I did not pull a single one).

As is frequent in all modern movie-themed trading card sets, the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards include autograph cards. There are 74 autograph cards spread between the classic Star Wars Trilogy, the Star Wars Requel films, and the animated The Clone Wars television show and Star Wars Rebels. The autographs are the incredibly unpopular format of autograph “card” where the signer signed a pearlescent white sticker and Topps slapped that sticker on a trading card. The Mission Briefing set was sold on its inclusion of the Original Trilogy’s Big Three – Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill, in addition to significant supporting actors like Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker and Billy Dee Williams. There are a number of autographs that are poised to explode in value like Jason Isaacs (now that he has been cast in the new Star Trek television show), but the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards also have a bunch of filler autographs, like David Ankrum (Wedge Antilles's redubed vocal actor), Jack Klaff, Rusty Goffe (who played a Jawa), and Megan Udall - whose only IMDB credit is The Phantom Menace, whose role she arguably got as one of Anakin Skywalker's childhood friends was because she was being dragged around the Tunisia locations because her mother was the Unit nurse there!

There are four levels of autograph parallel cards that mimic the common parallel cards, though all are individually numbered. The borders on the autograph cards are bright green. The parallel cards feature the autographed stickers slapped on cards where the bright green borders are replaced with Death Star Black (and individually numbered out of 50 on the back), Blue (25), "Gold" (I swear, they look orange!, x/10) and orange (I can only imagine how these might be differentiated from the "gold" outside the number on the back - 1/1) borders. The death star black autograph cards all look amazing.

For insane collectors who want high-level chase cards, there are two dual autograph cards (each numbered our of 3), two triple autograph cards (also numbered out of 3) and one quad-autograph booklet, of which there are only two copies. Having only seen photos of the multiple autographs, they are far more rare than they are extraordinary. The quad autograph booklet is sold on its inclusion of Mark Hamill's signature alongside three other X-Wing pilots. Topps has found the formula of including killer signatures with unremarkable signers unsuccessful with some of their other products, like the Firefly: The Verse trading cards (reviewed here!) and Alien Anthology cards and one has to figure Star Wars trading card collectors have enough to chase without something quite this insane. I would argue that the best of these high-level multiple autographs is the Carrie Fisher and Caroline Blakiston (Mon Mothma from Return Of The Jedi) dual autograph card. It is the most sensible of the multi-autographs considering Topps could not release a Carrie Fisher/Ingvild Deila (Leia's body model in Rogue One, which was kept as a pretty well-guarded secret before the release of the film) for the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading card set.

The Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards include sketch cards from 33 different artists. In the case I cracked, I pulled only a single sketch card and Roy Cover's sketch was one of the nicest I've seen. Ingrid Hardy did some beautiful sketches for the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards, as did Chris Meeks. I was a little surprised by how little variation there were in some of Rob Teranishi's sketch cards, but most of the sketches for the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards were a decent chase card!

For the four people who want to chase everything but the 1/1 parallel common and autograph cards, there are 263 printing plate cards (four different colors - black, cyan, yellow and magenta) that were used to produce the cards in the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading card sets. The printing plates were used to make the common cards, sticker cards, character foil, comic strip, Darth Vader continuity, Heroes and Villains, Rogue One Montage cards and Death Star cards. The 74 autograph cards also have printing plates included in the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading card set and to the credit of Topps, they slapped an autographed sticker on each one, so one gets an autographed printing plate card, which is pretty cool.

Here is where the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards left me truly divided; were it not for the insane parallel numbers and the multi-autographs, the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards actually impressed me with the bonus cards. I liked the more common chase cards, especially for a set working to transition between the existing works and Rogue One with its limited available footage at the time the set was produced.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Outside the boxes and packs, there was a set of ten promotional cards, which were originally made available at the New York City Comic Con. The set was, mercifully, made available to fans through Topps's website and is now available surprisingly commonly in the secondary market.

Overall

So. The Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards left me very divided in my opinion and I decided to make a split decision on the rating. When I consider the content of the set, I found myself liking the set a lot more than I expected - even with the weird biographies of pilots who were seen only for a few fractions of a second on-screen or some of the obscure signers. When I considered the collectibility of the set, I very much did not like the Rogue One Mission Briefing set. I found myself unable to reconcile myself to this set. So, I decided to give two ratings for the set, one for people who might like to collect, generally, one of each of the cards versus how the set would look to try to collect a master set (i.e. all of the parallels). For those who want a fun exploration of the elements that made Rogue One a viable standalone film, the Rogue One Mission Briefing trading cards are fun and cool. For those attempting to complete a trading card set, the Rogue One Mission Briefing are a dog to collect!

This set culls images exclusively from the Star Wars Saga, reviewed here, The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and some early images and artwork from Rogue One (reviewed here)!

This is a set of trading cards I sell in my online store (new inventory being added daily!). Please visit and purchase from the current inventory of them at: Rogue One Mission Briefing Trading Card Inventory!

For other trading card collections based upon the films, please check out my reviews of:
2016 James Bond Classics
The Mortal Instruments Trading Cards
2014 Star Trek Movie cards

7/10 (Substance)
.5/10 (Factoring collectibility)

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L .Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nice Improvement, Annoying Glitches: Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass Is Still Worth It!

The Good: Cool new game styles, (Mostly) Impressive graphics, Amazing variability in the multiplayer mode
The Bad: Some terrible glitches, Lack of a narrative, Some sloppy character renditions (Chewbacca!)
The Basics: Star Wars: Battlefront gets more complex and fun to play with the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass which expands the character, map and weapon base beyond the original game!


Not very long ago, I finally got around to reviewing Star Wars: Battlefront (that review is here!) and as I am preparing to commit 2017 to an entirely different immersive video game, it makes some sense for me to review the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Since DICE and EA began expanding Star Wars: Battlefront with the Season Pass's four expansions early in 2016, I have been avidly gaming my way up the Star Wars: Battlefront ladder. I never thought that I would be a gamer who would put in thousands of hours on a single video game, but the stats section of Star Wars: Battlefront does not (presumably) lie! Much of my time on Star Wars: Battlefront for the past six months has been spent on the maps and special new games from the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass expansions.

Despite my daily gameplay on Star Wars: Battlefront, I still do not consider myself a professional game player. This is very much a layman's review of Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. For the purposes of this review, it is worth noting that I play using a Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and because the Season Pass is entirely composed of expansions to the online multiplayer portion of Star Wars: Battlefront, in order to play the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass, one playing the game on a Playstation 4 requires a subscription to the Playstation Network.

Basics

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a video game expansion, much like the Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Season Pass (reviewed here!) that is downloadable content (DLC). The four expansions that make up the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are entirely part of the online multiplayer version of the game. Like the basic game, the Season Pass expansions are set in the Star Wars Universe and allow the player to play as Rebel soldiers, Imperial soldiers and heroes (or villains) from the classic Star Wars Saga and Rogue One. The four expansions for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are The Outer Rim (Jabba's Palace on Tatooine and Sullust), Bespin (various portions of Cloud City), Death Star, and Rogue One: Scarif.

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a first-person shooter video game, both for ground-based forces and fighter vehicles. The expansions in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass continue to not have gore; shot adversaries simply fall, there is no carnage in the game.

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass allows the player to play as a common soldier or as one of the heroes of the Star Wars Saga for most of the styles of game within the broader game. The Season Pass allows players to progress from the previous cap up to a Player Level of 100, which unlocks for players new skins for their soldier appearance. The Season Pass also introduced new characters to the hero and villains lineup of character. By Rogue One: Scarif, players have the ability to play Nein Nunb (much cooler than one might guess!), Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, and Jyn Erso on the hero side or Greedo, Dengar, Bossk (incredibly cool!) and Director Krennic on the Imperial side.

The Season Pass introduced a new mechanic for delivering weapons and Star Cards to players in the form of Hutt Contracts. Hutt Contracts are specific goals that a player must complete to unlock the new weapons or tools they pay into the contract for. New firearms include things like an incredibly powerful targeting rifle that can deliver a lethal shot at a great distance (and finally has a scope that older players like myself can see characters who are far away!) but has a fairly long reload time to a six-shooter to a new blaster rifle that delivers a shot almost like buckshot! One of the other cool weapons is a blaster pistol with a night vision scope, which allows players to see any adversary, including Imperial characters wearing black who hide in the shadows on Sullust!

The Star Card weapons and tools added to the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass include dioxis grenades (a poison gas cloud that damages and kills anyone within its radius until it dissipates!), a scatter gun (which allows players to fire through personal shields), light grenades, and laser trip mines! DICE shot its wad early on the Season Pass as the Dioxis Grenade and Scatter Gun seem to be the most consistently useful weapons to come out of the Season Pass and weapons like the Stinger Pistol, which is such a minor inconvenience as a weapon and so underused by players that I was shocked last week when I was, in a weakened state, actually killed by someone playing with one!

Gameplay for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is essentially done by equipping a player with a firearm and three Star Card weapons/tools and then going into one of the maps to run around and shoot. Each of the four expansions from the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass creates a new style of gameplay for the multiplayer mode from Star Wars: Battlefront. While the expansions continue to utilize familiar game modes - Blast, Heroes Vs. Villains, Walker Assault, Cargo, Droid Run, Fighter Squadron, Drop Zone, Turning Point and Supremacy - the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass creates the new play styles: Extraction, Sabotage, Battle Station, and Infiltration. In fact, the only style of gameplay from the original Star Wars: Battlefront that was not added into the Season Pass was Hero Hunt.

For The Outer Rim Expansion, DICE created Extraction. All of The Outer Rim expansion maps were ground-based and Extraction is available on all of the new maps for The Outer Rim! Extraction finds the Rebels trying to get a whole palate of cargo from one end of the map to the other. Rebel forces must set the palate in motion and guard it from the start point, through two checkpoints to a final point where a Rebel ship comes to take the team to safety. The Imperial players must work to stop the Rebels and deactivate the palate to prevent the Rebels from getting to the final checkpoint. At the beginning and first checkpoint, hero tokens appear for the Rebel players; at the first and second checkpoints, villain tokens appear for the Imperial characters. Originally, the Extraction games had specific hero characters who players were transformed into when they activated the tokens, but with the release of the Rogue One: Scarif expansion, Extraction characters were changed into any of the heroes/villains, which makes for even more diversity in the game.

Sabotage is a two-phase game style that was introduced for the Bespin Expansion of the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Bespin had one airborn map that allowed players to play Fighter Squadron among the clouds, but the new game - Sabotage - was a ground-based game. In Sabotage, Rebel players must activate explosives on three Tibana Gas generators, scattered around the map. When the explosives are activated, there is a countdown and after a minute, the explosives explode. During the first phase, Rebels have four hero tokens that pop up around the map to allow Rebels to use greater firepower to defend the explosive points (or overtake them if the Imperial players actually play a decent defense!). If the Rebels are successful in destroying all three gas generators within the allotted time, the second phase begins. During the second phase, the Rebels must fall back to an extraction point to wait for a Rebel transport to come and get them off-world. The extraction point is like a control point in Supremacy or Turning Point and Rebels must maintain a dominant presence within it to win the game. Imperials - who are granted four villain tokens in this phase - must penetrate and gain supremacy over the extraction point before the time runs out.

For the Death Star expansion in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass introduced Battle Station, a three-point game that alternated between ship-based combat and "ground based" (it's inside the Death Star) combat. Rebel players first must launch an assault on a defensive Star Destroyer (which is only vulnerable intermittently, much like the AT-ATs during Walker Assault), while Imperial players must try to destroy the Rebels and their Y-Wing bombers before they can blow up the defensive points on the Star Destroyer. When the Imperial players fail, Battle Station moves into a second phase, aboard the Death Star. On the Death Star, Rebel players must go from one end of the map to the deepest point, where R2-D2 is being restrained. Rebel players must then activate R2-D2 (who becomes a playable character to the player who liberates him!) and bring him to an extraction point (which is a simple "cross the finish line" style goal, as opposed to a control point that must be held). Throughout the Death Star interior are hero tokens which may be picked up by Rebel or Imperial players and can vastly change the outcome of the game. If the Imperials successfully defend R2-D2 and keep him from getting to the extraction point, they win and the game ends. If the Rebels manage to keep activating R2-D2 and get him across the finish line, the Battle Station game enters the Trench Run phase. In the final phase of Battle Station, Rebels try to fly through a prescribed series of checkpoints to a final point from which they may launch a proton torpedo that destroys the Death Star. Imperial teams that prevent the Rebels from getting to the final checkpoint and destroy the Death Star win, while Rebel teams that blow up the Death Star win.

For the release of Rogue One, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass included new maps of Scarif from Rogue One and a new game style: Infiltration. Infiltration, interestingly enough, is based upon the original ending to Rogue One, which had Jyn Erso and other Rebels physically running the Death Star Plans to a ship that got them off of Scarif! Infiltration is another three-phase game that only progresses when the Rebels complete each of their missions, while Imperial players attempt to block them from accomplishing their goals. Infiltration opens with the Rebels attempting to get a U-Wing troop carrier through the planet shield surrounding Scarif. Rebel players randomly are chosen to be a U-Wing and when the first few attempts with one U-Wing fails, Rebels get multiple U-Wings at a time making the attempt. Once a U-Wing gets to the shield point, the second phase begins. On the ground of Scarif, Rebels must plant explosives on one of two grounded cargo ships for a distraction. Rebel players who manage to activate the explosive and keep it active through a successful detonation win the round and progress to the final phase. The final phase of Infiltration is extraction where Rebel players start in a common point where the Death Star Plans are being held and three players may pick up the plans and attempt to run them across the map to an extraction point. When a player carrying the plans is killed, the plans remain where they fall for a set amount of time, which gives other Rebel players the chance to pick up the plans and continue the run. If the time runs out on the plans, they return to the phase's start point. Imperial players that prevent a carrier from crossing the extraction point line win, whereas a Rebel player with the plans that runs to the waiting U-Wing on the ground will win the Infiltration game.

Story

There is no cohesive narrative to the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. Sabotage, Battle Station and Infiltration have phases, but there is no actual narrative to them, just progress points that must be reached to enter the team into the next phase.

Game Progression

Just as the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass lacks a coherent narrative, there is no real progression to the game. Players begin at the same point in each round and the games end at generally solid points (like the destruction of the AT-ATs, timing out as one defends the control points or getting R2-D2 to a Death Star hanger).

Effects

The graphics for the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass are generally incredible. I played Star Wars: Battlefront on the Playstation 4 connected to a Sony Bravia HD (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded immaculate. . . for the elements that were so created. The detailing on the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass maps is absolutely incredible. From costuming aspects - there are scratches in the gloss on the Stormtrooper helmets! - to character expressions, Star Wars: Battlefront's Season Pass expansions looks amazing. Players are very easily distracted by running around shooting and preventing themselves from being killed, but DICE clearly worked to make the worlds of Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass look and feel real.

While most of the characters move with lifelike realism in the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass. The notable exception on Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is Chewbacca. Chewbacca's fur looks matted and pixelated and terrible. It is amazing that DICE got Bossk (who had virtually no screentime) and Dengar (who is voiced on the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass by Simon Pegg!) to look and sound amazing, but they could not nail Chewbacca!

Replayability

Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass has generally impressive replayability based on the fact that each game has different players, different potential weapon and goal combinations and no coherent narrative. This game is exceptionally easy to jump back into at any point.

Unfortunately, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is painfully glitchy in points. For example, it took me two games of Infiltration to recognize that Rebel players may easily get through the first phase by simply taking the U-Wing straight up for two bursts of the speed burst at the start point. From that point, the enemy TIE fighters cannot possibly catch the U-Wing before it gets to the shield point because they lack the speed or positioning on the map to interact with the U-Wing! This is a pretty obvious flaw that makes it impossible for a seasoned Rebel team to actually lose the first round and be blocked from progressing!

Even more problematic is the Lando Calrissian flaw. One of Lando's special attacks is a Power Burst. Some players (possibly cheaters who have downloaded something, if the message boards are to be believed!) play the Power Burst constantly (with no recharge time and no diminishing of the firepower), which makes Lando invincible. I've played against people who play using this exploitative problem and have been at the opposite end of a map, playing The Emperor or Bossk and shot once at the outset of a game by Lando and killed! I've played Lando and cannot activate the Power Burst in a similar way, so it's a known flaw or cheat point that seriously undermines the game.

Outside the glitches, the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass games are eminently replayable. In fact, since any hero can be played now in Extraction, I have enjoyed going back and playing it with all of its new permutations of heroes and villains!

Overall

The Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass is a decent investment for those who truly love the expanded Star Wars Universe and are comfortable with the gaming style of Star Wars: Battlefront. As a casual gamer, I certainly enjoyed the content of the Season Pass far more than I enjoyed trying to learn other video games while I was hooked on Star Wars: Battlefront!

Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass utilizes settings and characters primarily from:
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return Of The Jedi
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Angry Birds Star Wars
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

7/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Almost Subversive, The Lego Movie Hedges Its Bets!

The Good: Good voice cast, Themes, Good plot progression
The Bad: Overstates itself, “Twist” guts the adult aspects, Predictable
The Basics: The Lego Movie has a strong start, but becomes unfortunately obvious and thematically heavy-handed.


There are only a handful of films from 2014 that I am still looking forward to seeing. Near the top of the list was The Lego Movie and so, as the new year gets under way and my wife and I have more date nights, it was one of our first choices to pick up and watch. The Lego Movie initially lives up to its promise of being a smart, thematically-subversive film intended far more for adults than the obvious children’s audience. With its impressive voice cast, most of whom are familiar to adults as opposed to children, The Lego Movie is a fun film.

In fact, the real issues with The Lego Movie come from overstating itself. In the last fifteen minutes of the film, there is a twist that nails the themes home in such a way that The Lego Movie pretty much mortgages its own themes and cleverness. While The Lego Movie makes allusions to things like The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) and has some generally adult themes on the nature of capitalism and social order, it plays a number of its jokes over and over again, making it a tougher sell than it should have been.

Emmet is an ordinary worker in the Lego block world that is surprisingly mundane. He is a construction worker who follows all the rules and has a very regular schedule. President Business runs both the government and the big business in the world and the citizens are thrilled when he announces the forthcoming Taco Tuesday. As Emmet is leaving his construction site, he sees a mysterious stranger, Wyldstyle, who is sifting through the rubble for something. Emmet wakes up with a device – the Piece Of Resistance - stuck to his back, in the custody of Bad Cop. Emmet is rescued by Wyldstyle, who takes him to Vitruvius.

Vitruvius explains that Emmet is The Special, a man of prophecy. It is his destiny to bring the Piece Of Resistance to Lord Business’s Kragle weapon and stop the villain from unleashing his weapon upon the many Lego realms. Pursued by Bad Cop’s forces (after President Business removes his “Good Cop” alter-ego), Emmet, Wyldstyle, and Vitruvius try to escape using their imaginations to reorganize their vehicles. Rescued by Batman, the heroes head to Cloud Cuckooland where all of the disparate Master Builders are meeting to plan how to get the Piece Of Resistance to the Kragle. But Bad Cop’s forces break things up and soon the heroes are fleeing once again. While Emmet slowly learns how to live up to his potential, Lord Business begins to reveal his maniacal plans!

For a film that is basically an advertisement for every property Warner Brothers is affiliated with (the DC Comics universe, Harry Potter, LEGO The Lord Of The Rings), The Lego Movie does a decent job of attacking corporate mechanisms. Lord Business utterly screws over his most loyal lieutenant and that plays well throughout the film.

The Lego Movie utilizes an incredibly talented voice cast. Led by Chris Pratt as Emmet, The Lego Movie has fun vocal performances from Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, Charlie Day and Will Arnett. Each member of the cast is expert at emoting using only their voice talents and whatever problems exist with the film, the cast and their line deliveries are not at fault.

The Lego Movie looks good and has moments of charm, but it plunges into average territory as it progresses and takes a safe, albeit somewhat surprising, route. The departure from the main narrative beats home the themes the film was building to and it undermines the imagination and style of the film. The result is that The Lego Movie is good, but far from flawless.

For other works with Chris Pratt, please visit my reviews of:
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Her
Movie 43
The Five-Year Engagement
Moneyball
Bride Wars
Wanted
Strangers With Candy

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Concept Set That Can Really Beef Up Your Deck Enhanced Cloud City Satisfies!

| | | The Good: Easy-to-play, Collectible value, Images, Concepts
The Bad: Still has a load of recycled cards!
The Basics: Arguably the first truly worthwhile deluxe draft deck product from Decipher, Enhanced Cloud City does more than simply recycle crap for the fans!.


When a company tries something new, it is always interesting to me to see how the fans of that company’s product will take the change. With so many companies, especially food companies, new products are simply a way to prevent the company from stagnating in a market because having a single successful product is hard to continue marketing to the people who already like it. This is why we have eight flavors of Doritos on the shelves at any given time, but only the regular and cool ranch flavors endure – Frito Lay had a good idea, made a good product, but because they can’t count on people to remember to buy Doritos or Cool Ranch Doritos each time they go out, they keep churning out crap that fails. With gaming cards, the strategy was slightly different. Decipher, the premiere gaming card company after Wizards Of The Coast during the huge boom of CCGs in the late 1990s, sought to clear their warehouses. To that end, they just repackaged their packs of cards with a few inexpensive-to-make premiums to lure fans into paying for (mostly) what they already owned (which, comparatively, is like when Doritos added lenticular cards to their packs of chips and Pepsi made limited edition cans with Star Wars characters on them for the Special Edition releases of the films!). They called the re-releases “deluxe draft decks” and the first one, Enhanced Premiere (reviewed here!), did not really take off in the marketplace. Enhanced Cloud City was part of their "deluxe draft deck" scheme and it did what Decipher needed it to do; it blew out old product with the promise of twelve new cards. The unique aspects of Enhanced Cloud City have remained popular to this day.

To be sure, Enhanced Cloud City is not just "Cloud City" (reviewed here!): it includes packs from that set, but was essentially the twelve unique cards found in one of four Deluxe Draft Packs.

Basics/Set Composition

The Star Wars Customizable Card Game Enhanced Cloud City set was not a true expansion and was the second of the "Enhanced" sets Decipher did. The Enhanced "Cloud City" set is a 12 card set focusing on characters, ships, weapons and scenarios presented in The Empire Strikes Back, as well as concepts implied in the heroic and criminal elements of the Star Wars universe. This set is centered on the events on Cloud City where Lando and Chewbacca work to flee Bespin and bounty hunters ruthlessly hunt Han Solo. The set consists of 5 Light Side and 7 Dark Side cards which are all premium cards.

The 12 card set features 4 Characters with weapons (Droids, Rebels and Aliens who make up the primary characters for playing with and come already armed and ready to do battle, like Chewie With Blaster Rifle and IG-88 With Riot Gun), 3 Characters with ships (Primary characters already in their space vehicles for the instant ability to do battles along the spaceline, like Boba Fett In Slave I or Lando In Millennium Falcon), 1 Effect (long-term changes to gameplay, in this case Vader’s quest to Crush The Rebellion), 2 Epic Effects (Changes to the situations which allow for movement during the game, like Lando Calrissian asserting that he runs a "Quiet Mining Colony / Independent Operation"), 1 Interrupt (cards that make instant changes to keep gameplay fresh, in this case “Any Methods Necessary”), and 1 Ship (cards representing space transport, like the Z-95 Bespin Defense Fighter). This set is heavily balanced to the Dark Side and finally offers a new, powerful rogue Dark Side characters for players to play with.

The deluxe draft pack comes with four packs of Cloud City cards and one special packet of three of the exclusive enhanced cards. Thus, in order to collect the full set, one has to buy four draft boxes to get all of the exclusive cards.

Playability

At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The starting purpose of the game is to drain your opponent of Force without depleting your own Force and to survive the trip around the Star Wars Universe with whatever your player throws at you. The basic idea is to assemble a sixty card deck (for beginners), lay out the board (spaceline) and play against an opponent. In laying out the board, players get the power from the Force they need to play other cards.

Locations form the board for the game and almost all of them have an indicator which puts into play Light Side and Dark Side Force points, which the player may then tap into to "buy" characters, ships, weapons and tactical cards to thwart their opponent. Events represent the obstacles that opponents can use to make the game more than just a basic search and kill game. The rulebook clearly defines what each deck must possess in terms of numbers of the card types. But basically, one starts by laying out a board, assembling a starship and its crew and traveling along the planets and through space to either crush the Empire or put down the Rebellion.

This is a very complex customizable card game, but it represents a level of gaming sophistication designed to appeal to younger adults and actually challenge them, which is a decent idea given the thematic complexity of the Star Wars universe. The problem, of course, is that most people who would be most stimulated by this game do not have the time or effort/interest to learn to play it. As a result, the late-teens that basically run the CCG players world seem to have had mixed impressions about this game.

The twelve cards in Enhanced Cloud City are not enough to actually play the game with, though they may enhance one's game quite nicely.

Rules/Rule Changes

There is no rulebook in this set of cards. Instead, one has to get a revised rulebook from the Special Edition set (reviewed here!). In this set, there are no new card types or rules.

Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of Star Wars will appreciate the image quality and concept cards based upon The Empire Strikes Back and the expanded Star Wars universe in Cloud City, especially because this fleshes out the popular bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe very well and adds a lot of menace to the Light Side player's experience. Most fans geeked out over having another Boba Fett and getting an armed Chewie, but for my money, they are not the best cards in the Enhanced Cloud City selection.

For a highlight, I go with IG-88 With Riot Gun. IG-88 is a powerful droid and his armor makes him resistant to a number of attacks while his native weapon makes him a cool killer. With an armor of 5 this IG-88 is strong and while it deploys for 5 Force, it is worth it as its riot gun targets for free. Unlike many of the droids, IG-88 With Riot Gun is immune to both Restraining Bolt and Purchase, so it cannot be taken out of the game that easily! The picture is cool and a concept shot, not one which appeared in The Empire Strikes Back.

Collectibility

The Enhanced Cloud City set has good collectability. Because it was only released in one printing (though later some of the cards were made into Reflections foils), the Enhanced Cloud City set is one of the sets which was rare enough to retain its value, so most collectors are likely to be pleased with it.

Overview

Despite the fact that to get the exclusive cards, one is saddled with extra packs of "Cloud City" cards, the Enhanced Cloud City cards are a surprisingly good investment and fun to play with, making it an enduring winner for Star Wars fans, card collectors and the Star Wars CCG players.

This set culls material from The Empire Strikes Back, which is reviewed here!

This set was preceded by Death Star II (reviewed here!) and followed by the Star Wars CCG expansion "Tatooine," reviewed here!

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store! For my current inventory, please visit the Star Wars CCG Category!

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Two Directors Create A Series That Becomes The Best Cinematic Example Of The Law Of Diminishing Returns: The Batman Anthology

The Good: The first two films are good, Val Kilmer is decent, Great DVD/Blu-Ray bonus features!
The Bad: Joel Schumacher’s works, Repetitive plots, Series inconsistencies, Even the good films have not agd particularly well
The Basics: With no consisted story or direction, the Batman movies of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher make for an unfortunately inconsistent series that gets worse with each installment after a point.


With the recent end of the Dark Knight Trilogy (reviewed here!), the cinematic Batman franchise is once again in limbo. That is a state not entirely unfamiliar to Warner Bros., who owns the rights to the franchise and is the studio that produces all of the films based on DC Comics properties. With the abrupt end of the Batman movies of the 1990s, the franchise had to regroup and reboot. Before the powerful, thematically complex and decidedly adult The Dark Knight Trilogy, there were the Batman films of 1989 – 1997, now encapsulated in a boxed set known as Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is an incredible example of what happens when a surprise hit becomes a lucrative cash cow for a studio and that cow is milked too frequently and too hard. It is also a prime example of what happens to a franchise when the creative teams behind the camera and the talent in front of the camera are not kept consistent (in The Dark Knight Trilogy only one performer was recast!) and the vision by the later forces working on the series is clearly an attempt to capitalize on the formula as opposed to build upon the story and prior successes. The result is that Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is a film series that starts intriguing, rises well, and then steadily declines until its abrupt and painful crash.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 consists of the films:
Batman
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
and Batman & Robin. The first two are directed by Tim Burton, the latter two by Joel Schumacher and three different actors play Bruce Wayne/Batman over the course of the four films!

In Batman, a young Bruce Wayne witnesses his father and mother being killed by a mysterious assassin. As an adult, Bruce Wayne manages the giant company left to him by his father by day and at night, he takes up armor and a cape to dispense vigilante justice on the streets of Gotham City. As the press pushes the police to admit that the Batman exists, a local gangster is smoked during a robbery of a chemical factory that goes horribly wrong. However, when Batman accidentally lets the gangster fall into a vat of chemicals, the man is not killed, but rather transformed into a psychopathic killer. Waging a battle with chemical weapons, the Joker menaces Gotham City and threatens to undo all the good Batman is working for.

Batman Returns happens around Christmastime a short time later. Gotham City is hit with a crime wave from a gang of thugs who use old circus equipment. While Batman keeps them in check, he is not prepared for the city to have to deal with more threats. Those threats come in the form of a mysterious man, Oswald Cobblepot, who literally rises out of the sewers to save an abducted baby and a catburgler who seems bent on wreaking vengeance at night to make up for her unsatisfying daytime life (and the fact that her boss tried to kill her). While Bruce Wayne fends off a corporate attack from his rival, Max Shreck, he finds romance with Selena Kyle and it slowly begins to dawn on him that she is the same person as the mysterious Catwoman he fights at night. When Shreck uses Cobblepot as a pawn to take the mayor’s office, the fallout creates a villain who wants to kill all the firstborn of Gotham City.

Joel Schumacher took over behind the camera and Val Kilmer took on the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever. In that, a demented former-District Attorney, Harvey Dent, begins a reign of terror and violence (focused on bank robberies) as the villainous Two-Face. Bruce Wayne’s problems are multiplied, though, when one of his employees creates a device that can drain the brains of the citizens of Gotham City and unlock all the secrets the people there have. As Batman squares off against Two-Face and the Riddler, he is aided by a forensic psychologist and a young acrobat who lost his parents and wants to fight crime as well . . . Robin.

George Clooney’s only outing in the cape and cowl comes in Batman & Robin where Batman and Robin are assisted by Alfred’s neice, who takes up the alter ego of Batgirl. The pair could use her help as they are bickering over how to take down the formidable Mr. Freeze and they fall under the love spell-style charms of Poison Ivy and her thug, Bane.

To his credit, Tim Burton’s two outings – in addition to being appropriately weird (as one expects from Tim Burton’s works) – have larger themes. Batman explores crime and the nature of justice vs. the pitfalls of revenge and Batman Returns has a great deal about empowering women and the snares of political corruption. Unfortunately, by the time Batman Forever comes up, the writers and director are working for big action, flamboyant villains, and star power, as opposed to trying to create films of substance. This is not to say that Tim Burton got everything right in his two films. While the miniatures look great, even by today’s standards, Batman is surprisingly slow and the focus on the Joker is far less compelling in-context of Batman’s story than it is as a stand-alone film.

That said, it is almost inarguable that Tim Burton helped effectively usher in the youth culture mindset of the 1990s with Batman and then the even more violent Batman Returns. The two films created a nihilistic sense of the world; crime ran rampant and the victories were more ambiguous than celebratory and the hero uses many of the same methods as the villains, just with nobler purpose.

Val Kilmer was not a bad choice to replace Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne and Batman and he had the physical presence to pull off the dual roles more plausibly than Keaton, who played the part of Bruce Wayne as more goofy than gallant. Kilmer, however, was saddled with a particularly weak script with Batman Forever and a film that was intended to be a Jim Carrey vehicle and ended up disappointing on so many fronts. Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever also prioritized casting (the entire series has pretty impressive guest cast members from the major – Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger – to the supporting players who flesh out surprisingly minor roles – Kim Bassinger, Robert Wuhl, Christopher Walken, Drew Barrymore, John Glover, Vivica A. Fox) over fidelity to the series thus far. To wit, in Batman, Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams and in Batman Forever he is recast with Tommy Lee Jones. It takes a lot more than an acid bath from a mobster to make Billy Dee Williams into Tommy Lee Jones!

The epitome of Schumacher’s obsession with star power and spectacle over substance is in Batman & Robin. There, Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as Mr. Freeze, a character written with a thin backstory surrounding his attempts to cure his wife (who is in suspended animation), but is executed as a character constructed almost entirely of catchphrases. To wit, his big monologue from the film’s trailer, where he introduces himself as a threat to Gotham City appears in the film’s middle, after he is incarcerated, when he introduces himself to two people (his jailers) who know exactly who he is! It is this type of stupidity that shook the series and almost gutted this franchise.

Performances in the Batman movies in this set are generally good. Michael Keaton is an intriguing Bruce Wayne and he pulled off the action sequences for Batman better than most might have suspected. Jack Nicholson performed opposite him in Batman with a flamboyancy and menace that worked beautifully to define the character of the Joker. Danny DeVito gives one of his most underrated performances as Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin) and Michelle Pfeiffer and Keaton had great on-screen chemistry in Batman Returns. While Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell did fine as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, George Clooney seemed unusually stiff when he took up the mantle in Batman & Robbin. The less said about Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the better.

On DVD and Blu-Ray, the Batman Anthology is chock full of goodies. There are extensive featurettes on the production of the films, from concept designs through casting and the bonus features provide a wealth of insight into how moviemaking was done, especially at the birth of CG effects. Fans of Batman may want to champion the whole series, but given how most people will only watch bonus featurettes once, the full Batman Anthology is hardly worth investing in. Tim Burton’s works might be worth picking up, but Joel Schumacher’s outings oscillate between the disappointing and the outright insulting.

For other live-action DC superhero works, please check out my reviews of:
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Watchmen
Superman Returns
Catwoman
Batman & Robin
Supergirl
Superman
Wonder Woman

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Underneath A Lumpy Cloak, There Is An Awesome Figure With The Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) Figure!

The Good: Wonderful coloring detail, Good accessories, Amazing articulation
The Bad: Cloaks are bulky and look ridiculous.
The Basics: The Vintage Collection Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) takes a deleted Return Of The Jedi scene and gives another rendition of Lando that is worth picking up.


It has been a VERY long time since I had every figure in a toy line to review, but with the Star Wars Vintage Collection “Sandstorm” Wave, I actually got in all five figures! With only two left to review, it’s pretty nice to feel like the blog might be incredibly useful to consumers on this one! The penultimate figure in the line is actually one of the best: the Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) figure!

For those unfamiliar with the Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian, that is not terribly surprising as he was part of one of the deleted scenes from Return Of The Jedi (reviewed here!) that was only restored in the deleted scenes for the Blu-Ray release of the Star Wars Saga. The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is Lando Calrissian after he and the other Rebels have destroyed Jabba’s Sail Barge. En route to the Millennium Falcon, the heroes get caught up in a sandstorm. So, Lando is bundled up in robes over his skiff guard outfit in order to be protected from the wind and dirt.

The 4" Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is an entirely new sculpting of Lando Calrissian in his skiff guard outfit!

Basics

The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian figure stands 3 5/8" tall to the top of his cloaked head. He is a mixture of soft plastic elements – the descending part of his leather armor and the holster on his right hip - and cloth components for his Sandstorm cloak.

This toy is an amazing sculpt, looking just like Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian in Return Of The Jedi. As a result, this Lando features his leather armor with the chest piece, shoulder pads and gauntlets along with the wrapped ties that come out from his boots. The figure is exceptionally detailed on the molding front, with every buckle and rivet featured on the toy. Even the facial sculpt and back of the figure have pretty exceptional detailing. Unfortunately, Hasbro made such an impressive figure and then covered it with an awkward cloth poncho and an even uglier soft plastic cloak that makes it look like the figure has been under a heavy mud drip.

What left me slightly unimpressed about this figure is how the coloring details do not match the character. This truly is just a Skiff Guard Lando figure with additional cloaks. As a result, the Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian does not have a dirty face and does not look like he is at all weathered. Outside the uniformed skin tones, the figure looks well-colored, with aspects like the copper or brass ring on his belt being meticulously detailed. Most of the coloring details for the character are hidden beneath the cloak, which is a monotonal tan piece of fabric that looks bulky and ridiculous on him. Also, his pants are remarkably clean and intact for a Lando who wrestled on the sand with the Sarlaacc creature!

Accessories

The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is one of the most accented Lando Calrissian figures ever to hit the market. As such, he comes with six accessories: a plastic hood, Skiff Guard helmet, Tatooine blaster, communicator, a vibro ax and goggles. The hood is a tan plastic molded accessory that is 3 5/8” tall. Intended to look like a wrap around Lando’s head, it is unfortunately not the same color as the poncho Lando comes wearing! Moreover, without the poncho on, the hood looks even more ridiculous, though it looks pretty incongruous on him as it is!

The Skiff Guard helmet is only able to go on the figure without the added hood portion on and it is as clean as the rest of the figure. It fits perfectly atop Lando’s head and has a slightly thicker chinstrap than earlier versions. Even so, the helmet looks great on him and has impressive coloring details like the teeth on the jaw guard.

The Tatooine blaster is similarly well-molded for this figure. The 3/4” gun is gunmetal color and perfectly molded to fit in the holster on Lando’s right hip. It also fits perfectly in Lando’s right hand.

The communicator is a tiny, thin, 1/2” plastic box that fits ideally in his left hand. This accessory is unique to the figure and has pretty amazing levels of surface detailing, from the buttons to the display. The back side of the communicator is detailed with the red light that appears in the deleted scene!

The goggles are 1/2” wide and slide perfectly over the figure’s eyes. They are black with clear lenses and they allow the figure to look very much like he did in the deleted scene!

Finally, the Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) figure features a vibro ax. The 3 1/2” staff features a blade and electro shock capacitor at one end and a blunt end under a control dial. Colored copper and steel silver, the vibro ax fits in either or both of Lando’s hands and matches the shockingly “clean” look of the rest of the figure.

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and the Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is good in that regard. First, the figure has great balance. Flatfooted, the Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is absolutely solid, and because of the lower half articulation of the figure, he has decent posing options. The holes in the bottom of his feet allow him to stand tall on any number of playsets in outlandish poses or sit fairly well.

The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian holds up exceptionally well in the articulation department. It has hinged ball and socket joints at the ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders, as well as a ball and socket joint which allows a great range of motion for the head. The wrists, waist and groin socket all have simple swivel joints that provide the figure with more than enough posing options to make the figure worthwhile!

Collectibility

The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is part of the Vintage Collection line that was released in 2012 and it remains one of the harder ones to find at the moment. The Sandstorm Outfit Lando Calrissian is Vintage Collection figure VC89 and given how there doesn’t appear to be anything else Hasbro could possibly do with a Skiff Guard Lando figure, this seems to be the ultimate sculpt. Despite being fairly well available now, this seems like a very safe bet as an investment figure at this time.

Overview

The Lando Calrissian (Sandstorm Outfit) action figure might be the best skiff Guard Lando, covered up with ridiculous elements. I recommend purchasing this version, stripping it of its cloaks and using it as the ultimate Skiff Guard Lando. Note to Hasbro: You’re done with this character/costume; move along!

For other Vintage Collection figures of characters from Return Of The Jedi, please check out my reviews of:
VC22 Admiral Ackbar
VC65 TIE Fighter Pilot
VC88 Princess Leia (Sandstorm Outfit)
VC90 Colonel Cracken
VC91 Rebel Pilot (Mon Calamari)

9/10

For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Starting The Modern Batman Cinematic Saga Off Well, Batman Still Ages Poorly.

The Good: Moments of humor, Moments of action, Moments of performance, General character elements
The Bad: Not as intense as it ought to be for the character.
The Basics: While ambitious, fun and good, Batman did not age nearly as well as some of the other cinematic superhero films.


Last night, as part of our pre-Oscars celebration, my wife and I decided to order a pizza. Unwilling to break our diet for a random pizza and snacks, but unwilling to wait for the actual Oscars to begin, we decided to watch a movie neither of us had seen in years: Batman. I recall seeing Batman theatrically, but I remember having much more personal and enjoyable memories of seeing Batman Returns (reviewed here!). My wife and I have become so used to watching Heath Ledger’s performance of the Joker in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!), that we thought it would be enjoyable to watch Batman together and make an event out of watching the supposedly-great film right before watching the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Ultimately, we were glad we did; both of us were disappointed when The Artist won Best Picture.

But we were also not as taken with Batman as we expected to be. For sure, it is a cool, fun, all-around decent movie. But Batman is hardly flawless and there are some real detractions to the movie that once dazzled us. My wife, for example, found herself laughing at how cheesy many of the miniature shots and special effects were (though she still jumped when Vicki Vale opened the Joker’s gift box! She was preoccupied with the ridiculous sense of style, which it was hard to blame her about; the 1980s were not the most impressive from a fashion sense. But what I found interesting about watching Batman now was how it lacked a certain intensity that I have come to expect from both the film-franchise and the result of reading many graphic novels in which Bruce Wayne’s Batman is an integral character.

Gotham City is dark and plagued by crime, but the criminals in the city are running scared. Their fear and caution comes from the rumors that criminals are being stalked at night by a giant creature who may be a large bat creature. While they attribute supernatural qualities to him, he is a man with advanced technology – like body armor and grappling guns – who has the will to fight evildoers and an understanding of psychology to keep some on the streets to spread fear. The Gotham City police force and newly-elected District Attorney Harvey Dent officially deny the existence of Batman, though the police force is corrupted by officers on the mob’s payroll. One mobster, Jack Napier, is sleeping with the wife of the lead mobster and Grissom decides to have Jack snuffed out.

While hosting a charity event to raise money for Gotham City’s bicentennial celebration festival, billionaire Bruce Wayne, who is hounded by reporter Alexander Knox and photographer Vicki Vale, is alerted that the police commissioner has been called away. Converging at Axis Chemicals, the police corner Napier’s squad and in a desperate battle, Batman drops Napier into a vat of chemicals. The Joker is thus born. Sewn back together, his face twisted into a constant smile, Napier as the Joker begins cleaning up loose ends from his prior life, essentially taking control of the mob. As Bruce Wayne falls in love with Vicki Vale, the Joker begins a killing spree involving chemical tampering of health and beauty products. When the Joker discovers (and covets) Vicki Vale, Batman must stop the villain once and for all!

Batman is fun, there is no denying that. But Batman is also a lot more cluttered than I recall it being and by that I mean there are a lot of unnecessary elements in Batman that fill the movie up without adding anything truly significant. Perhaps I am just jaded; Gotham City is dirty, on the verge of bankrupt and under the fist of local mobs. But it has a vigilante, who is not excessively cruel and an engaged media and political machine that seems ot be making an effort. The whole festival plot seems thrown in as a plot point, as opposed to an actual organic event. Of course, it becomes the backdrop for the film’s climax, but it seems somehow more contrived than I remember it being as a kid.

What really stuck out for me about Batman, though, was how Bruce Wayne had a strange lack of intensity. I like Michael Keaton. I like Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman - Batman Returns is in my permanent collection and remains my favorite Christmas movie of all time (seriously!). But in Batman, he does not seem all that intense. Instead, Bruce Wayne is characterized as an absent-minded billionaire who is motivated by a strong sense of loss. In Batman, Michael Keaton captures the loss well when Bruce Wayne is shown mourning the anniversary of his parents’ murder. But there is a strange disconnect then with his ruthless efficiency in trying to clean up Gotham City’s streets. Perhaps that is part of the problem; while Batman is characterized as a vigilante, he does not seem ruthless. At several opportunities, Batman flees to keep his identity safe as opposed to actually stopping criminals. In other words, I think of Batman as something of an absolutist, almost like Rorschach from Watchmen (reviewed here!). This incarnation of Batman lacks the full intensity of the character. He is flighty as opposed to determined, cautious as opposed to confident and expresses loss and hurt more than Bruce Wayne ever seems to in the comic books. While that might make him a more human character, which I like in my movies, it makes his place as Batman a little more uncertain. In other words, this version of Bruce Wayne seems less like he would actually dress up and go out as a vigilante than the Christian Bale or Val Kilmer versions of Batman.

So, Batman ends up being a much more compelling story about the Joker. Jack Napier is smart, which works out nicely because it explains how – even in his demented Joker state – he could create the complicated killing mechanism that he does. He is played with great intensity by Jack Nicholson, who proves to be far more than thhe sum of the catch-phrase lines and make-up. In fact, the only problem with Nicholson’s execution of the Joker comes when he is playing Jack Napier. As Napier, Nicholson has the chance to show the character before the accident, before he was turned into anything inhuman. Unfortunately, Nicholson misses the opportunity. In scenes where Jack Napier and his mistress, Grissom’s wife (or girlfriend) Alicia, interact before the accident, Nicholson never seems passionate or happy. The viewer is compelled to believe that Napier will risk everything for one woman, but he never seems all that into her.

Outside that, Nicholson’s performance, like that of Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale), Robert Wuhl (Knox), Michael Gough (Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler) and Billy Dee Williams, who plays Harvey Dent with enough presence to figure that he was trying to set up the role for one of the sequels where he could play Dent as Two-Face. Obviously, that never materialized, but Williams has a memorable outing at Harvey Dent. The extras in Batman, though, do rob the film of any real consideration that Batman possesses perfect acting. There are unfortunate bit roles where the lesser-known actors seem especially lifeless or problematically unreal. Tracey Walter, who plays Bob the goon (there was even an action figure made of the character!), stood out for me as a guy who never seemed to be truly comfortable on camera in the movie.

On DVD, Batman comes in a two-disc edition with enough bonus features to thrill fans (and even address some of my issues with the movie!). While I kept considering Batman about a 7/10, the deluxe edition DVD set truly does give viewers enough to really fall in love with the experience of making the movie. With detailed looks at the minitatures and props, the DVD and Blu-Ray version of Batman is well worth watching, if not adding to one’s permanent collection.

For other live-action DC superhero films, please check out my reviews of:
Superman Returns
Batman Begins
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Catwoman

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for a complete list of films I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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