Robviously

Wilson is a real badass going after Gionta like that.

I miss the good old days when Ennis was out of the lineup with an injury.

Yes, seriously. The Bills wouldn't have even been able to land a guy like Rex Ryan before the Pegulas showed up. He's been a disappointment in his first year but his track record is still sound. And 7-9 isn't awful. The Bills are right where they've been since 2000 -- the middle of the pack in the NFL. And that's pretty much where they'll be until they have a franchise QB (regardless of who the coach is). And "How is this a disaster again?" applies to both teams taken together.

Hold them accountable for what? Being responsible for most of the good news in the area the last few years? The Sabres have the best young core they've had in 10+ years and a ton of potential. The Bills landed a highly coveted head coach last offseason and will probably finish with 7 wins in his first year. How is this a disaster again? I've also spent most of my life bracing for the Bills to move away and 2015 was the first time in 20 years where I didn't think about it. Should I be on my way to Valu Home Center to buy torches and pitchforks?

Well, a lot of stuff from the prequels doesn't make sense. Just from a storytelling standpoint, it's not super engaging that the prequels are about thousands of Jedi fighting two guys. And losing. How great are the Jedi if they outnumber the bad guys 1000 to 1 and struggle? Wouldn't that be proof that the Dark Side actually *is* stronger? The original movies were great because the good guys were always outnumbered and outgunned. Per Yoda (in ESB), the Dark Side is "the quick and easy path" (but NOT stronger). So you'd think tons of people would be tempted and go over -- especially if you're not super strong with the Force (i.e. it's the best way to amplify your power fast). And then the Jedi would have lots of dust-ups with mid-level Force-sensitives who tried to be more than that by going to the Dark Side. What should have been different about the prequels is that this time maybe the most powerful Jedi turned bad and wiped out everyone else. The "Always two there are" thing was also a missed opportunity. They sorta referenced how the Jedi are arrogant and complacent in that library scene in Episode II but they never returned to that idea. It would have been interesting if Palpatine defeated them by using their assumptions against them and had a lot of apprentices and help that they never saw coming.

If ever there was a game to play Foligno instead of Moulson, this is it.

Screw you!!!

I actually thought one of the smartest things they did with him is NOT give him a whole bunch of "You never loved me!" dialogue with Han in that scene. He doesn't seem to hate his parents in particular. He didn't seem very happy about killing his father. We still don't know WHY he ever went bad. And the next two movies have two huge tasks to take care of to make this pay off: 1. Explain why he ever turned to the Dark Side, and make it make sense. 2. Make him a character that can be redeemed somehow. Right now he's a new character who showed up and killed literally one of the most loved/popular movie characters of all-time. This is going to be pretty difficult. Hoss posted the theory that he's a double-agent above. I think that's far-fetched but it'd be cool if this whole thing started by him recognizing the threat from Snoke and deciding he could destroy it himself by "pretending" to turn to the Dark Side and then coming back. (He's the grandson of Anakin Skywalker, after all.) Of course, he's young and would have underestimated the Dark Side, finding himself turned for real. It'd make him sympathetic because he was trying to save everyone but ended up a monster because of it. And it's plausible because a young person would think they could do what their father or grandfather with ease (especially without understanding what really happened). Obi-Wan's best line in ROTJ (about Anakin) is "I thought I could teach him as well as Yoda. I was wrong." That implied backstory -- that Obi-Wan screwed up with Anakin by over-estimating his own abilities as a teacher -- is more interesting and has more depth than anything in the prequels. Lots of good stories have bad guys thinking they're doing the right thing or bad things happening because good guys think they're doing the right thing and make mistakes.

I'm still amazed by Bucky's 2001 article slamming Mario Lemieux for choking in a playoff series against the Sabres -- when it was only 3-2 Sabres. That ended well. And the part where Mario Lemieux acknowledged he was PO'ed about that article was a nice cherry on top. Maybe nothing is different if that article is never written, but why are you even giving the other team bulletin board material? Are you that desperate to feel relevant? Our local sports media is pretty terrible in general. Disagree with any of them on WGR or on Twitter and they completely spazz out. They all seem extremely sensitive about having their judgment questioned since they're no more qualified to watch sports and given an opinion than anyone else in the world.

I'll be annoyed if Deslauriers has to fight again tonight. He threw a legal hit (shoulder to shoulder!) where the Caps player got clipped in the face with his stick as they both fell to the ice. The Caps got upset so they sent someone to fight him. Deslauriers beat him up so now the Caps are even more upset. At some point you had to wonder why the Caps are getting so mad about an opposing player doing normal hockey things. What would they do if Deslauriers pulled an Ovechkin and hit someone from behind to throw them head-first into the boards? Also, this would be a great time for literally any other Sabre to drop the gloves. This feels like shades of Drew Stafford's "We have other guys for that." If the Caps try to start something with Deslauriers, it'd be great if someone else if one of our other guys decided to punch someone in the head about it.

Oh, I must have started reading his stuff right after that. He's been a pathetic hack for as long as I can remember.

Don't tell me what to do.

1. I like this idea. Or, even if he's not Plagueis, he needs to be someone who was around long before the events of the original trilogy (and if that's true, why not make him someone they mentioned in the prequels?). It'd give him some gravitas. He looks like he's a bazillion years old so it'd work. I've heard a lot of people say they didn't like his "look" in the movie (he looked like the main Orc in the Hobbit movies) and I agree with that too. It'd be cool if they did a Wizard of Oz and he didn't end up looking exactly like he portrayed himself in this one. 2. This makes sense but I still hope that's not where they're going with this. 3. Again, I think you're right but I hope you're not. I also don't think it makes a ton of sense for how Rey was portrayed either. Someone dropped her off on Jakku when she was ~6 years old or so and it looks like she's fending for herself completely when we meet her. Luke Skywalker had a foster family and a Jedi Master a few miles away keeping an eye on him growing up. If Rey is the new "New Hope", she'd be too important to just drop off alone like that, right? 4. Totally agree. I think they played it as safe as they possibly could here because they had to after the prequels were 0 for 3. If this one sucked, SW would be dead and Disney didn't spend $4B to let that happen. Still wish they'd played it less safe, though, as the movie was at its best when they did their own thing. 4a. Also definitely looking forward to Rian Johnson as the director of VIII and the guy sketching out the story for VIII and IX. I think he's the one best suited to take the series in some new places.

I'd rather have that 1st round pick return.

Easily the best of the bunch, if only because it gets funnier as it goes on and on.

Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I've seen "No report has been filed at this time" on Twitter a couple times. I understand what "no charges at this time" means but what does "No report" mean? What has to be filed or done to start this investigation? And how does the report fit in?

Maybe, but we also see her left on Jakku as a kid and she insists on going back because "her family is coming back." My guess is that her "family" will either be Luke (ugh) or that Luke is the one who hid her there or something (maybe with Max Von Sydow keeping an eye on her for him?).

It's not clear to me whether she's been there or not, but she definitely knows where Luke is -- even if she doesn't know she knows. Kylo sees it in her head too but doesn't know what he's seeing. (I think he thinks it's a symbol for how isolated and alone she is. That's how I interpreted that line when he said it during the scene.) That's easily one of the best scenes in the movie, both for the character interaction and the visions that are very important and also not interpreted correctly. (Note to George Lucas: there are no special effects in this scene!) Anyways, she's connected to Luke, hopefully because they've met and NOT because they're related. Also, I sorta think all the visions she gets when she picks up the Skywalker lightsaber help her do some big things with the Force very quickly. Like it zapped a bunch of memories/messages into her head from Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Luke and that gave her the idea for Jedi mind tricks and stuff like that. That makes her fight with Kylo more plausible to me.

I hope no one else is related in the next two movies. The Force is this energy that binds the entire universe together but, for whatever reason, it tends to stick to just a few families? It's a better story if Rey is just "no one" (like her monologue in the last preview) and she just happens to be the best hope for her generation. She obviously got at least some training (probably from Luke, since she knew where he was) and she was left on Jakku for a reason. That's more than enough backstory. She doesn't have to be Luke's daughter or whatever. (At that point, they will just be getting lazy with these characters.)

Not at all. I don't think we've ever seen a lightsaber fight like that in this series. In the original movies, Vader and Obi-Wan meet on the Death Star (and Obi-Wan sacrifices himself) and then Luke seeks out Vader to confront him in Empire and Jedi. (Note: I really don't care about the prequels and neither does J.J. Abrams apparently.) In this one, you have Kylo Ren (the most powerful person in the movie to this point) stalking the two protagonists through the forest which is vaguely horror movie-esque. Then you have a fight between Ren and a guy who isn't particularly strong with the Force (as far as we know) but *is* a highly-trained soldier, Fin. So that's something new. Then Rey picks up the lightsaber and she's even worse with it, taking haphazard swings to keep Kylo away from her. Eventually lets the Force take over (like Luke in Star Wars?) and is able to fight him off. So the dynamics of it were completely different from the old movies. Everyone is inexperienced and the good guys are just trying to get out of there. Plus, even if you include the prequels, I think all the old movies have some sort of Jedi Master in the other duels (Vader/Kenobi, Vader, Vader, Qui-Gon, Dooku, Everyone). The Starkiller base was a rehash of the first movie and it didn't even make sense the way they did it. The entire plan for attacking it hinged on sending three guys (a 70-year old man, a middle-aged Wookie, and an inexperienced soldier), none of whom are actually part of the Resistance, to disable the shield generator. In ROTJ, they at least sent a squad of commandos to Endor with the main characters. The bigger/badder Death Star is also just an afterthought. In SW, the Death Star sets all the events of the film into motion and the heroes spend the entire middle of the movie exploring and escaping it before blowing it up. In ROTJ, the second one is basically built by the Empire to lure the Rebels into a trap so that they can be destroyed (and so that the Emperor can turn Luke). So it's not the focus but it's part of a different plan/story. In this one, the bad guys are really, really, really focused on finding Luke Skywalker.....and, oh by the way, they're built the most powerful weapon the galaxy has ever seen. That's weird. I think blowing up an entire system to destroy the New Republic is a big plot point but we never get the exposition on what that means or how big/small the First Order and Resistance are apart from the Republic. They just glossed over everything to have a huge battle and a huge explosion at the end -- just like in SW and ROTJ, which I think is all they were going for. They could have just made the last 30 minutes a rescue mission for Rey. Maybe they figure out that she knows where Luke is and that's the "real" way to find him. (Which was true anyway -- when Kylo reads her mind he sees "an island in the ocean" but doesn't know what that means.) They didn't have to jam the giant Starkiller base in there and the huge "million to one" shot that blows it up. It would have worked just as well if they were just raiding a big First Order base. But, again, I think they just wanted to stick to the blueprint as much as possible for this one.

I edited the thread to warn about spoilers. Spoil away. I really liked it, although not as much as the originals. The first act was perfect. I thought the movie started to struggle when they started trying to smoosh all the old characters back into it. (The explanation for why Han is a smuggler again wasn't the greatest.) I also thought the newer, bigger Death Star that they introduced just to destroy it almost immediately felt really thrown together. I would have liked it better if they had done something simpler or something new there for that battle but, after the prequels, I understand why they wanted to follow the blueprint from the originals very closely. The part that sucks is that the movie was at its best when they tried new things (lightsaber fight in the forest, Rey's visions/voices from the Skywalker lightsaber, etc.).

Me too. Didn't click until I saw it today.

How much longer do we need to hide every thought inside Spoiler tags? You'd think a sane person who wanted to go in fresh would have the sense to not read this thread.

I see what you did there. This is actually the ultimate jersey foul. Anyone who gets a jersey who their own name on it is a dork.

I absolutely hate 3 on 3 OT. Yes, it makes it more likely a goal will be scored. It also makes it 0% likely that anything resembling good hockey will take place. 4 on 4 was exciting and still looked like NHL hockey. Why not just make OT 10 minutes of 4 on 4? Anyways, not my favorite game of all-time. Glad we got the point.