IlyaP

Sunk cost fallacy, after a fashion.

I personally loved the Aftermath books, which felt like Wending was doing an impersonation of Neal Stephenson circa Cryptonomicon, so you'll hear no harsh words out of my mouth for those lively books, but I know they didn't work for everyone. (My wife also got me the first Aftermath book as an anniversary present a few years before we got married, so I have strong personal feelings about them for that alone.)

I'd watch that. Hell, I watched the first season and enjoyed it, bugs and warts and all. Loving the music, which has consistently been the strongest part of the show. Hopefully Bear McCreary returns for season 2.

It's magnificently bad. https://gizmodo.com/crystal-star-really-is-the-worst-star-wars-book-ever-1788426849

And then there's poor ole Vonda McIntyre. *shudder*

Angsty and egotistical maniac with anger management issues isn't promoted, gets used by British guy to bring sword wizards to near extinction.

The old hermit does eventually do just that, but clearly the how of going from Point A to Point B is a point of contention. Whereas I found the whole hermit idea to be completely baffling from the get-go. Luke suffers numerous psychological trauma in the old EU books and still bounces back, but one little thing goes to pot and suddenly it's "where be mah cave?" Oh for goodness sake, really? And why is everyone so sad in these sequels?! Why is Han Solo sad? Why is Ben sad? JEEZUS MURPHY WHY DID YOU MAKE INDIANA JONES SAD TOO?! (If you can't tell, I am not a fan of anything after the original 3 movies, which is where I wish we'd stopped.)

A part of me still wonders how much better Trevorow's Episode X: The Duel of the Fates, would have been, in comparison to the narrative clusterfuck we ultimately got.

A reminder: he was forced to play with the decisions set up by Abrams in The Force Awakens. I sat there with my friends going "Luke is a hermit? What?" So let's all at least remember - Abrams and screenwriter Michael Arndt set up that particular story, and forced it on Johnson. (I'm not a fan of any of the sequel movies, but if we're going to assign blame, I'm not letting Abrams and Arndt get away without any blame.)

Pretty much this. The only thing I did upon installation was run the Fixt patch, which adds some minor QoL improvements. Otherwise, it was an easy game to get right back into. There's no hand-holding, so you can muck around and kinda just do what you want - though bear in mind a clock is ticking inside the game world. The pressure of that clock can lead to some fun and interesting playstyle choices and decisions. And the wonderful ambient music by Mark Morgan is also absolutely stunning and worth experiencing.

Galacticus? Right out the door?! Jeezus, they really don't want to start small with this movie, do they?

I've not seen the show yet (waiting for it to be done so I can do it in one or two sittings), but it sounds a bit like season 4 of Babylon 5, in that it's just in Hyper Go Mode with no fat whatsoever.

There is no justice.

Was just about to ask that myself. There's still the moorlock massacre, the phalanx, the legacy virus/Stryfe*, Onslaught, etc. So much material out there that can be mined still. So. Much. * That's right. Strife with a y. Comics!

It's a two hour movie and I'm a slow reader, so a two hour movie beats reading a writer whose prose does absolutely nothing for me and goes on and on for hundreds of pages. I don't even know what that means. Presumably some character from one of the novels he just spawned in the last five minutes?