Throughout history, very few things have effected pop culture and impacted it to the extent as Star Wars. It’s a timeless classic that never ceases to stop amazing and inspiring generation after generation, and I’d be lying if I said I felt any differently about it. It’s something people not only share a love for, but a strong, deep-rooted passion like no other, and I’m no different. If we really want to get personal, the prequels were some of the first movies I ever watched as a kid, and while some may think that was a poor choice in the series to start off with, I’m still nostalgic for them and personally really like Attack of the Clones. Have a problem with that? Yes? Well, too bad, we don’t have time to debate that. Either way, it was certainly a surprise to many when the rights to Star Wars was sold to Disney, and they immediately announced that a new trilogy along with some spin-off movies would be in production, starting with Star Wars (7): The Force Awakens, which holds a place as one of the highest grossing opening nights in cinema history. The following year, we got Rogue One, which took place between Revenge of the Sith (3) and the original film, A New Hope (4). That being said, I think everyone was hyped for what was to come next since it featured Mark Hamill, the guy who was Luke in the original trilogy, a lot more prominently than his brief seven-second appearance. Although, with a title like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it may not end well. With that in mind, here’s not only my thoughts on The Last Jedi, but because it’s the holiday season, I thought I’d throw in a review of Battlefront II since it’s the season of giving and I’ve REALLY been waiting for a good opportunity to talk about this one.

This movie… Oh man, I have no idea where to begin with this movie. I suppose I’d like to start with the fact that this film has the late Carrie Fisher reprising her role as Leia for the last time, and what a way to finish her career. To preface my thoughts on this entry in the Star Wars saga, it left be absolutely speechless. I have genuinely not been that engaged with a movie in years, and its two-and-a-half-hour run-time is a testament to this.

The movie picks up right where The Force Awakens leaves off; Finn is alive, but recovering from his injuries, Poe and BB-8 are with Leia, aiding in the Resistance’s flight from what’s left of The First Order, Rae and Chewbacca located Luke, seeking answers, and Kylo Ren is after what remains of the Rebellion with a score to settle. Oh, and Han Solo is still dead. I know, I’m still a little sad about it, too. Caught up? Good. Now, back to it. I’m not going to go too in-depth because there’s a lot of huge details that are sprinkled throughout the film that give away quite a bit.

First off, the fleet and The First Order. While the Resistance is slightly ahead of them, they’re running out of fuel and pilots due to Supreme Leader Snoke’s troops (The First Order) constantly gaining on them, losing more and more troops every time. Meanwhile, Rae confronts Luke about her past as well as her connection with The Force. That being said, Luke is reluctant to train her because, as he said, “I’ve seen this raw strength only once before, it didn’t scare me enough then, it does now…”. This is all while Rae is using The Force to talk to Kylo Ren and discuss morality, what Luke’s hiding, and her place in all of this. But, after command changes on the Resistances main ship, Poe is under the impression that there’s a mutiny brewing, so he, BB-8 and a now conscience Finn decide to team up with a maintenance worker in a desperate attempt to locate a code-breaker and infiltrate Snoke’s ship that’s right behind them in order to get away from The First Order.

Here’s the part where I admit that the film has some issues. As much as I hate to do it, I can’t help but to point out flaws in a Star Wars movie. First of all, some scenes felt kind of pointless, *cough cough* Canto Bight (the casino planet) *cough cough*. As we were slowly getting pulled into the interesting scenes with Luke and Rae, this part of the film would keep coming back to pull us away. To that, I have to agree, but at least the unnecessary scenes weren’t bad in terms of quality. The next issue I have to pose, is how cliche what Rose says to Finn during a scene at the end of the film. I’m not going to spoil what, because it could give some stuff away, but it’s just too groan-inducing to not leave out. There’s other smaller issues I could draw attention to, but I don’t want to give stuff away, and I find it painful to critique a Star Wars movie. Oh, aside from a scene near the beginning with Leia, that was flat-out ridiculous, pretty out of nowhere, and never explained or talked about after it happens. Moving on.

Now that the film side of this review is out of the way, onto the part where I surprisingly praise a developer studio that I despise quite a lot, EA. Back in 2015, EA decided to revive a long-gone game series held in high regard by many, clutching onto the nostalgic memories of many such as me. This series dear to many is none other than Star Wars Battlefront. The Battlefront games have one goal in mind: to immerse the player in the famous fights that define the series and every battle beyond on both land and in space. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious from the title alone. What made these games so great were the tight controls, the compellingly engaging gameplay, the variety in character class and weaponry, the many locales and famous areas from the movies to fight it out in, there’s honestly so much about it that defined the games and made them classics in the eyes of fans. That being said, when EA brought it back, they botched it and left out 70% of what made the game so good in the first place, and the original didn’t even need online multiplayer to be good. Galactic Conquest, Instant Action, the proverbial laundry list of playable hero and villain characters, it was gone and we were left with a soulless Battlefield wannabe that failed to be a Star Wars Battlefront game and proved itself and more of your average first-person-shooter with a shiny Star Wars skin.

With that out of the way, fast-forward to November of 2017 when EA released the second of its try at the Battlefront series, and I was genuinely surprised to find out how good it is. Galactic Conquest may be gone along with Instant Action, but in terms of an apology to fans of the original games, it holds quite well and proves that they heard most of our complaints. Something else I want to mention is how visually stunning the game is. It’s easily one of the most graphically pleasing games of the year. While I ran mine on a normal PS4, gameplay on the PS4 Pro is quite the sight and doesn’t fail to drop my attention every time.

Now we arrive at the part that I was REALLY captivated by: the gameplay. It’s the same exact lovely control scheme that fans of the games would come to know and even offers either a first-person or third-person perspective that the games are known for. That being said, the perspective isn’t everything. In terms of how everything controls, it’s the perfect combination of fluent and stable. The extra abilities you can equip are back in the form of Star Cards which either swap out one item in your inventory (weapon, grenade, and special item/action) or make one of them stronger. However, I’m not even going to touch the subject of micro-transactions since I’m sure you don’t want to read two more paragraphs of me ranting about how people are beating a dead horse by complaining about how they were playing a prominent role at first but were then removed.

On the topic of similarities and defining characteristics of each player’s weaponry, we move onto one of the welcomed back parts of the original games: the various classes. From the start of a match, you’re given the option to use one of four different classes: Assault which uses a blaster rifle and can use a special pistol with the punch of a shotgun as their special item, there’s the Heavy class which gives the player a Gatling gun and the ability to give the player a big shield while they dish out some devastating damage, Specialist which is for snipers and allows the added ability to temporarily disappear from enemy radars, and my personal favorite, the Officer class which leaves the player with a pistol, the ability to grant nearby troops a health and damage bonus, and your wits. As you advance in performance in a match of multiplayer, you gain points which can be used to access better troops like a really strong version of the Heavy class but with more defense and a stronger weapon, and a jetpack-wearing character with a combination of a sniper and an assault rifle. The same could also be said for the vehicles that work on the same basis, but require quite a bit of points except for a couple ships to allow for an even chance in aerial combat. But, what would a Star Wars game be without iconic characters from the movies? While Battlefront II doesn’t offer as many as the original two games, we certainly have a nice selection to choose from. When you earn enough points in a match, one person on your team may control a hero or villain to fight for your team. Once they fall, someone else can pick the character so it’s not a one-time-use situation.

On the subject of characters, we’re introduced to Iden Versio, a new character who is the leader of an elite team of Imperial troops known as Inferno Squadron. You may be wondering how they brought this brand new character out of the blue with no backstory, but she does, in fact. In the campaign. Don’t try adjusting your monitors, you read that right, this game features a campaign. It’s decent in terms of content and length, it features a story that isn’t that bad, focusing on their realization that fighting for the Empire may have been a lost cause after the second Death Star was destroyed.

While I find their lack of Galactic Conquest and Instant Action game-modes disturbing, it’s generally a really good game, I’d go as far as to call great. It’s a love-letter to Star Wars fans, it’s not Battlefield, and it comes quite a lot closer to being a Battlefront game than the first new installment EA gave us. I suppose you could say that The Force is strong with this one.