Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens - The good, the bad and the ugly

Spoilers, obviously.

The Force Awakens has now been out for a week, breaking all kinds of records and capturing everyone's attention in the lead-up to Christmas, as though the Skywalkers have replaced the line of David.

After walking out of the cinema, it took me a while to figure out what I thought of the film. It was good, but in such a way that it felt like it could've been better if some fundamental changes had been made to the design of the film. Here are the good, the bad and ugly choices made in the making of Star Wars Episode VII.

Good

Poe Dameron: Despite the silly name (is he a ghost?), Poe is the best character in the entire film. A spectacularly talented fighter pilot, he puts his life on the line to take on the New Order time and again. He's cool under pressure, he knows exactly what he's doing, and we only see enough of him to know his characterisation is spot on. The total hand wave of his escape from Jakku when he reappears in the last third of the film feels justified, because he's just that kind of guy. 

Mixing and matching the roles from A New Hope: Rey, Finn and Poe are the Luke, Han and Leia of the new trilogy. But which one is which? Rey is the strong-willed female (Leia), who intrinsically knows everything about her ship (Han) that is the new talent in the Force upon whom events centre (Luke). Poe is a leader of the rebellion who needs to be rescued (Leia), by nature a bit of a playful scoundrel and has world experience (Han), who leads the attack on the Death Star Planet (Luke). Finn is the guy just wants to run away from everything (Han), who ends up being thrust into a central role in the rebellion (Luke), and I'm sure he has some similarity with Leia that hasn't come to mind - perhaps they were struggling a bit with it by this point. Overall, though, it's an impressive use of characters within the mould of A New Hope that they chose to use.

Han Solo: Second only to Poe in terms of best performances. When he arrives, it's unexpected (even though we knew he was coming at some point), and it's just he hasn't changed...other than that he's got old. He's still the same character, but full of the wisdom, experience, and regret that only age brings. Nothing throughout the film feels out of place with how you would expect an old Han Solo to be. 

Interaction between the new characters: Really well done, although from memory Poe only interacts with Finn, but that's okay because it's the best relationship of the lot. Rae and Finn both know absolutely nothing about the world they've rushed into, so in some ways it's not surprising that they become besties so quickly, even though it still felt forced (for reasons I'll explain later), the 'it' being the speed of that friendship, not the friendship itself. It was also refreshing to see what is clearly a budding romance begin without the two characters not liking each other. They have some misunderstandings, but only in the way you would expect given their backgrounds, and they get cleared quickly. How convenient, too, that young Ms Skywalker (as she so obviously is) will end up with a man with no last name, thus ensuring the name 'Skywalker' will continue on to another generation.

Killing off Han: There was no conceivable way all of the old three could make it through the new trilogy - not with the way this story has been set up. Using his death as the clear symbol of Kylo Ren's fall is classic storytelling. It's sad to see him go - especially this early, as I would've done it in VIII - but it was the right call. Luke or Leia dying would feel like a step too far, but Han? He's a scoundrel, it's natural for him to die first, and for him to do it by being the least like a scoundrel ever seen in the Star Wars films felt even better. 

Industrial Light and Magic: We're back to proper effects, which aren't going to age within a matter of years after the release of the film and don't exist in every nook and cranny imaginable. The graphical quality of the film speaks for itself. Just watch it and marvel.

Bad

Sticking to A New Hope like glue: This was the wrong choice. The intention seems clear: prove that the new Star Wars will be faithful to the original trilogy, and not flop like the prequels. Unfortunately they decided that the right way to do this was to copy literally every single piece of IV and use it in a slightly different way. Put the important map into a droid and sent it away, find it on a desert planet where the main character lives, have them encounter a wise old man who had disappeared for years, run into the rebellion, use what they've learnt to blow up a Death Planet which has successfully had its first test run, have the old mentor die at the hands of the evil man he turns out to be close to, have the main character successfully use the Force before getting away. Ta da! It would've been far better to do something different with the good characters they created.

Finn knows too much: If this guy, who as a character I generally like, was trained to be a Stormtrooper from birth/a young age, why does he seem so much like you and me? How he can he be so aware of things that the average person is aware of? How can he recognise right and wrong so easily? How can he play the role of comic relief so well in a way that is completely different to how the clone troopers have played it in other Star Wars media (that of being completely clueless of anything beyond fighting)? This is really noticeable in Finn, but it's actually true of everyone...

Why is everyone so human: This may seems like an odd complaint, but hear me out. I do not mean that it's a bad thing for them to be human in comparison to the prequels, because in those the characters were all robotic thanks to terrible decisions of direction (read: green screen everything). What I mean is that Star Wars is a space opera. It is not a realistic drama. I am meant to sympathise with the good guys and dislike the bad guys, like in a pantomime. The better the performances, the easier it is to do this, which is why it was so hard in the prequels. Even the complexity of good and evil (like a bad guy being good at heart) is meant to be relatively simple, ala Anakin coming back to the Light at the end. TFA ditched this in favour of complex, realistic, meant-to-be-relatable drama, and I don't like it at all. We see Kylo Ren struggling with the call of the light side. We see Finn explaining his feelings. We see everyone look like they're going to cry more than once. Why? This is meant to be a pantomime! What happened to the space opera?

What even is the Force: Seriously, what is it? Perhaps we never hear a proper explanation of it because the only characters who talk about it with any kind of knowledge are two non-Force users, but if you're coming into this film with no knowledge of the Force, you aren't going to come out much wiser. It seems to kind of help the way you fight, but not especially so, as we see two people use the Skywalker lightsabre with no Force knowledge whatsoever, and they don't die immediately - or at all. The Force has always been deliberately vague in a folk religion, mystical kind of way, but in TFA it was basically about closing your eyes and feeling better. Also, watching a guy thrust his hand out near someone's face for minutes on end is not thrilling viewing, please find a better way to symbolise what Ren is doing.

Rey is a Mary Sue: I want to like this character, but I can't, and I don't want to use the phrase 'Mary Sue', but what other way is there to describe this kind of character? Everything about her is perfect, including her one character flaw ('I want to go home'), which isn't really a character flaw at all, and which she gets over fairly quickly anyway. Pretty lady, very skilled hand-to-hand fighter, knows everything about spaceships and mechanics, everyone likes her, she picks up the whole Force powers thing basically straight away (though this can at least be hand-waved as 'she stole it from Kylo Ren') and everyone will drop everything for her wellbeing. Unlike Luke Skywalker, who, despite his circumstances, is an entirely believable head-in-the-clouds innocent figure, Rey (Skywalker) is an entirely unbelievable worldly figure who manages to hold on to only the most frustrating part of innocence (I can run away and it'll be fine). She even has a British accent, which strikes me as the kind of thing done to make a character seem different for no reason whatsoever. Remember, this is a pantomime made in the US, only evil characters should have British accents.

Ugly

Phasma: What a pointless character. How much of this character was not designed for monetary purposes? She is neither a strong female character (as obviously she was designed to be) nor a cool Boba Fett type (as she talks too much and is annoying in a way the Fetts aren't). I hope we never see her again (but we will).


The way they killed off Han: Could this have been any more excruciating? We knew this was coming. The hints were everywhere, and the moment Han saw Kylo is was over. He walked onto that bridge sealing his own fate. So why did it take so long? It would have been a far more memorable seen had it been over nice and quickly, without seeing Han slowly die and fall off the bridge, and everyone slowly react. The symbolism of 'this is the moment' would've come through more clearly too. This wasn't the first time that a moment was missed either - it only becomes apparent after his death that Leia's request to bring Kylo (Ben) home was what would lead to his death, because it was the only reason he confronted his son at all.

The ending: Who thought this was a good idea? In this case, following the Episode IV script closer would've resulted in something better. For example, a funeral for Han Solo, and then finish with an award ceremony for the fighters who blew up the planet, with a final cut shot of Luke Skywalker staring out over the waters from his island, zooming out to reveal his location, then cut to credits. Instead of this ending, which wraps things up and provides a tiny tease for the next film, we got something that felt rushed and haphazard, with an awkward pacing and an odd leap in the story. In particular, the final minute (which felt like five), which consisted of Rey holding Luke's lightsabre out to him while camera kept on panning around them, was genuinely excruciating and added nothing to the story. All we needed, if indeed we really needed to see the Jedi Master at all, was a quick shot to see that he was old, alone and isolated. Making this sequence so long added nothing to the film, and actually detracted from the events that had happened just prior. It would've been much better to spend more time on the death of quite possibly the most beloved character in the series, seeing how the other characters dealt with it in the aftermath, along with where the group headed from there.


Don't get me wrong, The Force Awakens is not a bad film. But it isn't great either. There is always the sense that this is a fanfiction brought to life just lurking in the background. Perhaps this is unsurprising, as I have no doubt most of the cast and crew are fans of the series, especially of the original trilogy. But the fact that this film is as good as it is ultimately results in a feeling of genuine disappointment, as there are simply too many significant issues in the film that prevent it from being great. This is not a film that I envision too many people ranking as their favourite Star Wars in twenty years from now, and that is a shame.

The future of West Indies cricket

There will be a lot of speculation over the coming day over the future of the West Indies. Some of this will be legitimate, pointing out long-standing difficulties that the joint cricket team has had over the past two decades. Others will be more short-sighted, and will probably disappear should the West Indies vaguely improve over the next two Tests.

It is clear that the Windies will not win this series. It is also clear that they will struggle to win. The biggest alarm bell about their performance in Hobart is that wasn't unexpected. Given the past five years of movement from the team, which has only consisted of going from bad to worse, for this once great group of nations to go from losing to a Cricket Australia XI, full of rookie players, by an innings, to losing to the Australian Test team by an innings feels almost like an improvement in and of itself – not because of their own performance, but because of the leap in quality of opposition.

This very much appears to be the worst team to tour Australia since Zimbabwe came in 2003, and we all know how far they've gone since then.

The biggest problem facing the West Indies is not talent. There is just as much potential within the peoples of the Caribbean now as it was during their heyday thirty years ago. The problem is disunity. Remember, the Windies are a group of nations. These are all independent, proud countries with their own different histories. They first came together for cricket in order to give the touring Commonwealth nations some competition, and no-one ever really thought to disband them.

By the time World Series Cricket came around, they were becoming unified not by their relationship to each other, but to that of the other nations they were up against. The West Indies cricket team was a way of getting back at the old colonial powers. It was a way for these nations to prove themselves. This was stated numerous times as being one the key factors in their unification and subsequent dominance of world cricket.

So, what happened? Well, they did it. They proved themselves on the world stage, bashed around the colonial powers and dominated cricket for years. Like all successful kingdoms and powers, they got lazy. They didn't prepare themselves for the years ahead, and seemed to presume that their dominance would just carry on.

Part of the problem, to be fair, was that much of their dominance was built on top of things outside of their control. The county championship was undoubtedly the biggest factor in getting their players to move beyond 'potential' and into greatness. As the strength of county cricket fell away during the 1990s, and the amount of West Indians entering county cricket dropped, the Caribbean domestic league was unable to take its place. Domestic cricket is not cheap to organise for the WICB, as it involves flying players to whole other countries. This, along with the region's lack of wealth, did not leave much room creating a strong domestic competition, creating a vicious cycle as the their intentional performances began to fall away, and as old greats retired. By the 2000s, the beginning of the end had come. Only in the last five years, though, has this become abundantly clear.

Today, the WICB is totally disunited, with poor domestic structures (in every way imaginable), players who aren't interested in playing for a team that isn't their own nation, players who aren't willing to give up T20 wealth for the sake of a collective group of nations, and international structures that give them no assistance other than keeping them treading water above the Associates (many of whom could beat them on a good day).

Soon, the West Indies will be no more. This seems inevitable. The question is simply whether it will happen by action, or by default. The former involves their performances collapsing to such a point that the ICC will have no choice but to prevent them from playing Test cricket, as they did with Zimbabwe, which will almost inevitably spill over into the breaking apart of the WICB. The latter will happen if cricket becomes an Olympic sport. There can be no West Indies team in the Olympics. Each nation within the WICB will be forced to compete on their own – if they can qualify at all. Should the international results continue to head south, it would not be that surprising if the collective boards decide to make this a permanent state of affairs.

The question then is what happens to these teams within the ICC. How strong would they be? Would they only be on Associate level?

It is difficult to imagine any of the individual nations within the Windward or Leeward Islands being able to put together a team that would satisfy the current ICC requirements for a full member nation, so the question is essentially being asked of four nations: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana. Here's how these teams may look at full strength if they were going to play tomorrow.

Barbados

Kraigg Braithwaite

Dwayne Smith

Jonathon Carter

Shane Dowrich

Carlos Braithwaite

Shai Hope+

Jason Holder

Ashley Nurse

Kemar Roach

Sulieman Benn

Fidel Edwards

Guyana

Rajendra Chandrika

Assad Fudadin

Leon Johnson

Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Vishaul Singh

Narsingh Deonarine

Chris Barnwell

Anthony Bramble+

Steven Jacobs

Veersammy Permaul

Devendra Bishoo

Jamaica

Chris Gayle

Kirk Edwards

Jermaine Blackwood

Marlon Samuels

Andre Russell

Carlton Baugh

Chadwick Walton+

David Bernard

Jerome Taylor

Nikita Miller

Sheldon Cottrell

Trinidad and Tobago

Kyle Hope

Lendl Simmons

Darren Bravo

Jason Mohammed

Dwayne Bravo

Yannick Ottley

Denesh Ramdin+

Rayad Emrit

Imran Khan

Ravi Rampaul

Shannon Gabriel

Each of these teams has its own strengths and weaknesses. Jamaica is essentially a Test team, with a relatively strong batting line-up, though the bowling is unimpressive. Barbados is at the opposite end of the spectrum, with good bowlers along with more all-rounders, though the weakness of their batting leaves them looking more like a top Associate nation. Trinidad and Tobago is full of experience, both at international and domestic level, but lacks top order batting and significant fast bowling, making them seem like a truly pieced together Associate team. But that is nothing compared to Guyana, whose pace bowling options are essentially non-existent, with their three frontline bowlers being spinners (albeit with the variety of off, leg and left arm orthodox spin).

These teams are at least capable. The question is whether playing for their own nation will spur them on to greater things, playing with more pride and showing more on the field than they have in their careers so far. Furthermore, will this properly spur on the next generation, knowing that they will play for their own countries? If so, then this is something worth doing. Let us hope the cricket boards of these nations are prepared for the inevitable.

They see a red ball and they want it painted pink

The first ever day/night Test match was a roaring success.

This was, at least, the opinion of Cricket Australia (as if they would ever say otherwise) and the media (who know which side their bread is buttered on). It was also the opinion of the players...until it wasn't. 

After the Test match all the players were using words that sounded like a ringing endorsement of the concept. They may well have been only that - a ringing endorsement of the concept. 

Then, a few days ago, David Warner and Nathan Lyon began sounding less than enthusiastic. 

And now, the results have come in from the players who played in the Test match, and it turns out the majority of players actually don't think it worked very well at all. 

What gives?

All eyes are, of course, on Cricket Australia, who were absolutely dead-set on having the match happen, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the lack of evidence that it worked in the Sheffield Shield, regardless of the opinions of the players who had already used it.

Their reasoning appears simple: it will work well enough for people not to complain too much while it's happening, and crowds will flock as it is such a novelty. Often, the introduction of day/night one day cricket was used as proof of the game evolving and that there was nothing wrong with Test cricket doing likewise.

Unfortunately, as long as the ball doesn't work in an already widely existing form of the game, any such format should not reasonably be supported. This is why the actions of Cricket Australia should draw such ire. Channel Nine, which gained enormous ratings gains from the match, was naturally not interested in putting forward such criticism. Cricinfo, which is more or less independent, became particularly excited for the format as it approached - but it was more likely a mix of genuine belief it would/did work and a realisation there wasn't that much point in fighting this battle when there are bigger fish to fry in world cricket right now. The general public doesn't follow cricket that closely, and is unlikely to notice anything significant, other than the game finishing a lot quicker than the last two, and may even see that as a positive given how awful the first two matches were.

This leaves only the members of the public who are keenly interested in this great sport and its future to argue against the work of CA, which are almost entirely drawn from the AFL. And really, given the latter's last few years, who would want to copy that? Corruption, uninteresting results, constant rule changes, questionable administration with no watchdog and a focus on promoting the game instead of producing a good game. This cannot be cricket's long term future. It will only kill the game.

Europe's shifting status quo

Something's happening in Europe.

Sure, there's been discontent bubbling for years. There always seemed to be some group, somewhere, unhappy about something, but it has always appeared to be a minority concerned about a minor issue, and they have disappeared in time. Over the past year, though, it's become clear that the collective grievances of the European nations' inhabitants are reaching boiling point.

The first obvious sign was the European Parliament elections. Traditionally these have been a way for people to register their unhappiness with major parties at a level where the voters know it doesn't truly matter too much. But when Eurosceptic parties come first in these elections, as they did in a number of countries in 2014 (most notably in the United Kingdom), something is clearly different.

Now, the lid is off. The refugee crisis, the mixed messages from governments, the inability to absorb the latest waves of migrants and, above all, the all too real threat of terrorism have combined to create a Eurosceptic surge like never before. It isn't particularly focussed, and the beneficiaries greatly vary in ideology from country to country, but all of them have a significant bone to pick with the European Union and its associated people and policies.

Eurosceptics are rapidly rising up the polls. You can see for yourself at the excellent European polling aggregator Electograph. The most significant move in the opposite direction from this new norm is Finland, where the Eurosceptic Finns Party have dropped 6% since the most recent election. The most likely reason for this is their involvement in the governing coalition. Elsewhere, this has not been the case. Netherlands? Eurosceptic Party for Freedom is topping the polls. Sweden? Eurosceptic Swedish Democrats topping the polls. Germany? Eurosceptic Alternative for Deutschland is eating into the CDU/CSU numbers. France? Eurosceptic Front National pulling ahead. Italy? Direct democracy Eurosceptic 5-Star Movement are still as popular as ever, while Lega Nord has succesfully moved into the national sphere with its southern sister party. Poland? Eurosceptics won a general election two weeks ago. Portugal? Eurosceptics are part of a coalition government. These are not coincidental.

The shifting status quo is not that European leaders will continue to pursue the policies that they have been for the past two decades. The emerging status quo is that this will be done in direct opposition to an expanding number of people. As the borders shut one by one across Europe, it does not appear that this unhappiness will go away.

Cricket Australia XI - almost a good idea

Cricket Australia's decision to relegate the domestic one day tournament to little more than a pre-season competition has had some upsides. Getting domestic cricket back on free-to-air is one, but the idea with the most potential is that it creates space for more teams to enter the competition. Because all the teams are in the same city for a few weeks, the travel costs are lessened, and every team can play games every few days. Because CA wants to have each team play six games, rather than five, in previous seasons each team would have to play another twice instead of once. In light of this, 2015 saw a seventh team introduced: the Cricket Australia XI.

You would expect such a team to be a best-of-the-rest squad, a group of players which didn't quite make it into their respective state teams for the tournament but are still good enough to get a spot. Along with these players you could also throw in a few young tyros, so they can gain some experience from players who have been around the traps, and so they can put their talents in front of selectors and the watching public. 

Unfortunately, this is not what happened. Just as the reserves competition was wrecked by turning it into the 'Futures League' and promoting young players before they were ready, so it was with the CA XI, which consisted only of players aged 23 and under who did not make their state squads. To be fair, some players that didn't end up playing were only pushed out of their state squads because of the cancelled tour of Bangladesh, but there is hardly a shortage of potential veterans and fringe players who could have been called up, in a similar vein to the old Unicorns team that once played in the English domestic competition. This change also strengthened the CA XI squad, as some good young players (such as Marcus Harris and Jimmy Peirson) were dropped from their state squads and could still qualify for the youth team. But really, this is how the teams should've been in the first place, as cramming in a tour of Bangladesh just before the home summer felt like it was done out of obligation than desire.

The changes also weren't enough. As it was, the CA XI were absolutely demolished, winning only one match (by a mere three runs) against Tasmania on a low, slow surface. This was following the biggest ever defeats in terms of runs, and then in terms of balls remaining, which happened against New South Wales and Victoria respectively. Their remaining opponents also remained mostly untroubled, leaving the CA XI with a rather lopsided results card, and few encouraging signs for their players, while leaving us spectators wondering what the point of it all was.

This was, like with the Futures League, the brainchild of Greg Chappell, whose obsession with youth is putting actual development and stability of the game at risk. It would actually do a world of good if state players were put up against players of experience and quality who were pushing for their spots and just missed out - so they can be reminded of the standards required - and for those select few young players to gain as much experience as they can in the abbreviated tournament. Imagine throwing Ben Rohrer, David Hussey, Jon Wells, Josh Lalor, Fawad Ahmed and Nathan Hauritz into the squad. Would it make them world-beaters? By no means. But would they be more competitive? Absolutely.

This is not the only potential solution, either, if CA was willing to look beyond our shores. There are two Associate nations, one of which is particularly nearby, who have One Day International status. They don't get to play many games, and could do with some experience. Why not have them join in the tournament? Papua New Guinea already plays in the SACA Premier League, which finished before the Matador Cup begins, so transport is hardly a massive issue, while their First Class competition only begun after the final. Hong Kong is even more cricket starved and, although further away, would be a worthwhile addition. It may also be worth considering an ACT/Country NSW team, at least for the Cup, to account for the disparity of talent coming out of that state. Having said that, doing such a thing could give other states the belief they can relax their standards, knowing they will remain unpunished off the field because the best performing state has been split in two.

In any case, all of these are better alternatives than what we were given. The one day competition is already somewhat of an afterthought for Cricket Australia, but that does not mean it deserves to be treated with such a poorly thought out idea.

Thoughts on the Star Wars Battlefront 'beta' (it's actually a demo)

EA, owners of the rights to every Star Wars video game for the foreseeable future, decided that with Episode VII coming out, it was time to reintroduce of the most loved games in the franchise after a decade long absence.

Star Wars: Battlefront had a 'beta' come out this week. This is one of those obvious misuses of the word 'beta', as the game is only a month away from being sold in stores, and the lack of bugs and other features typical of a real beta mean that this is actually what we once called a demo.

Naturally, there has been a wave of excitement for the return of what was an excellent shooter. But, with DICE (the makers of Battlefield) creating the game, with the Frostbite engine, there were also questions over whether this would be a re-skinned Battlefield, rather than a Battlefront game. The release of the demo has ended any doubts about this. Unfortunately, it has ended them by confirming that it feels nothing like a Battlefront game, instead presenting a Battlefield with some of the complexities stripped away. The end result is not impressive.

First, the modes. You would think, given this will be the first impression of the game for many of those who are most interested in buying it, that EA would make sure that the modes they select for playing are fun and satisfactory. Instead, they've picked three modes that feel like a fun-vacuum, sucking out any temporary enjoyment you feel through mindless, frustrating and repetitive gameplay.

There is one single-player mode included. It is called Survival, and it's a typical take on horde mode. The aim is to survive six waves of enemies, increasing in number and difficulty, on a Tatooine map. Unfortunately, it is not very well thought through. You will not be able to find the randomly spawning enemies before they find you, and they will all find you at once. The size and design of the map makes everything feel empty, so when all your enemies suddenly appear without any indication of being nearby (as they don't make a sound, aren't easy to spot and don't appear on the mini-map) you can quickly feel surrounded. 

Fortunately, despite the AI's unerring accuracy, they aren't very strong. Four different soldiers could be shooting and hitting you, and yet you can just sprint away with health left, wait for it to magically restore, and then pick them off one by one. Two shots will finish most of them other than the 'shock troopers', who seem to have about fifteen times the health of the regular troops. This is repeated five times across the six waves, with the sole exception being the third wave, in which there is only one enemy: an AT-ST. Defeating a vehicle in this mode will take much, much longer than it takes to defeat the troops, as you are not naturally equipped with useful against it. The grenade launcher will generally land at its feet, and doesn't do much anyway, and the ion shots are limited and also don't do a great deal.

There is one way to defeat them quickly (an AT-ST also appears in wave six) - an orbital strike - but this only appears in random pick-ups, and you may not get it at all in either wave. Thus, most of the time you spend on the map will be running around, hiding from the vehicle in a spot where you can hit it, but it can't hit you. This is not fun.

The random pick-ups come from escape pods which crash in the AT-ST waves, that you must capture and defend from the enemy. This mechanic makes the basis of the next mode, a multiplayer mode called Drop Zone. Teams of eight fight over escape pods on the Sullust map, with the first team to five winning, or if ten minutes have elapsed, the team with the most pods. It is quite rare that the matches will take the full ten minutes to complete, as one side tends to dominate proceedings. This is due to the random nature of both spawn points and, more importantly, the pods themselves. 

Unlike in Survival, you will die very quickly and a lot in this mode. The pods are captured very quickly (though not as quickly as it takes to die), and then take about a minute to be 'defended', after which a point is gained. But you don't need to be near the pod to defend it. In fact, if you know your way around the map it's easier to find a hiding spot and shoot at the enemy as they sprint towards the pod. Because the winning team will have more people alive, they will find it easier to get to the next pod (which will often spawn nearer to them anyway, from my experience), capture it quickly and repeat the cycle. There is actually very little incentive to be a team player. You only need one person to do the quick capture. This leaves the remaining seven to wander around the map as they please, pretending it's a deathmatch. 

Having only sixteen players particularly changes the style of play. Often there is little in the way of firefights, which have always been the main appeal of Battlefront. Instead, the design of the map leads to long-range sniping attempts, regardless of the weapon used. Should two people get up close and personal, the accuracy of the shots seems to be random, and chances are the winner will be whoever remembers there is a melee button. And once you die (which, as mentioned, will happen quickly and often once the shooting starts), it will take a long time to get back to a position where you can have an impact, whereupon you will again die.

Player numbers are not an issue in Walker Assault, another multiplayer offering and clearly something EA is fairly proud of. This is the mode they have been showing off for a number of months, in which the Empire is attacking Hoth with their AT-ATs, and the Rebels have to stop them. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem they've actually played the mode very much, because it is so imbalanced that it seems hard to believe they looked at it and thought that it would go smoothly. You would expect the Empire to have it slightly easier, given they have the walkers on their side, but the Rebels have absolutely nothing going for them. They have to do all the work, in capturing and defending satellites (in much the same way as escape pods), do this for long enough to get time to barrage the AT-ATs at the waypoint, and then do this twice more. They have to face not only the indestructible AT-ATs, but also the powerful AT-STs, TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors, with no heavy weapons other than random-pick ups. They can control X-Wings and A-Wings, but they're really only to stop the Empire's TIEs, and the tow cables only appear in the last phase, which is nearly impossible to get right, and therefore basically can't be used in one of the most well-known parts of the series. 

For the Rebels to win, it requires the entire team working together as one from the start, making sure they have as many turrets and pick-ups available at the right moment as possible, and making sure they aren't killed by Empire troops while doing all this. Basically, it's impossible. The Empire, on the other hand, can again just run around pretending it's a deathmatch. The soldiers only need to capture the satellites if the Rebels have already done it, which, as mentioned, is very quick and only takes one person. When the Empire recaptures them, they reset, which means one moment of madness can cost the Rebels minutes of satellite time, and therefore the match. The AT-ATs just plough on through, and for the most part the Rebels are helpless to stop them. The map design is also surprisingly awkward, with too many mountains creating long-distance chokepoints, and too much empty space that is presumably designed for flanking but ends up getting people lost. The Rebel base is far too easy to enter, and the random spawning is unhelpful in terms of showing the player precisely where they are positioned and where they have to go. The mass of players manages to feel like too many, because the spawns constantly cramp everyone into one third of the map based on where the walkers are, while also preventing firefights, due to the mountains and the speed of death.

There is a general lifelessness to this game that may be due to a number of different elements. The first problem is the maps. All three suffer from the same design choices. Horizontally, they are smaller than the old Battlefront maps, but they are more layered, with DICE aiming for realistic rocky mountains and hills, with small and large crevasses. What this actually does is prevent the mass firefights that Battlefront had, in which there were large sections of totally flat ground in which the two teams would have most of their players at the same time. The best strategy in this game, on the other hand, appears to be finding a good hiding spot and sniping from a distance with your weapon of choice. It doesn't really matter if you use one of the four blasters you're provided with or the unlockable rifles, as they all manage to hit from a distance regularly and with enough power to be worth it. The layered, distant maps (especially Sullust) make this a smart and easy choice.

The nature of sniping adds to the feeling that this game was designed for a first-person camera. When using third-person, which is my preference for Battlefront games and presumably the preference of most people, something feels off. Aiming seems wrong, and long distance shooting in particular becomes more random. In first-person, though, it's fairly simple. Third-person feels like an afterthought, which is galling given this is a series that was designed around a third-person view. EA promised a third-person camera, but in all their promotional material they've used a first-person view, and now we can see why. The game is designed for it, and the weapons seem to demonstrate this quite well. There are different stats for each blaster, but the differences are not readily apparent unless you really look for them. You would expect the colour and sound of the shots to be distinct for each weapon too, but there is no difference in colour (not even between teams!) and the sounds blend in with the background noise anyway.

The single most depressing part of this game, though, is a fundamental design choice which runs through every mode and every battle. It's the decision to focus on individual soldiers, rather than on the different teams. This is best exemplified by the choice to scrap classes, each of which had their own weapons and distinct design according to their roles, and replacing them with individual customisable soldiers. Imagine they had put a heavy class in the game. Suddenly, vehicles become easier to deal with for both sides. Or, if they had made a specific sniper class, that would free up the boot soldiers to have less sniper-esque weapons. But no, instead we get to choose between a number of samey weapons which function in more-or-less exactly the same way, across our many more-or-less similar soldiers with no specific role to play in the team. 

This individual focus is evident in other choices too. Unlimited ammo (especially for grenades) means there is no need for planning. Just keep tossing grenades from the high ground! Insta-heal means there's no incentive to enter an unwinnable situation in order to hurt opponents so your team can finish them off later. Instead, your opponents can just hide until their health restores from 10 to 100. Your death is entirely in vain, and, again, there is less need for planning in that you don't need to know where the nearest health-droid is before you enter a tough fight. Listing only kills, deaths and points for everyone afterwards makes every match feel like a deathmatch, and mostly rewards those who think along such lines due to the way points are distributed. Helping the team earns far less points than helping yourself. 

These things won't be changed in the final release, nor in any of the inevitable patches and expansions. These are clearly design choices that have been made for people who didn't play the original Battlefront games and people who aren't really into Star Wars. A weakened Battlefield with shiny skins and sounds will make EA a lot of money, but this game does not appear to be an actual Battlefront game. If they had decided to make a multiplayer Republic Commando, this game would make a lot more sense. As it is, it's ready to be profoundly disappointing.

The liberal Liberal cabinet of a liberal Liberal Prime Minister

Following the leadership change in the Liberal Party, new PM Malcolm Turnbull has also changed the look of cabinet.

Sometimes, it can be too easy to understate the importance of a leader in shaping the direction a party moves in when trying to compensate for the fact that too much attention is paid to the leader in other matters by the media (and, by extension, the public). Yet here we see how important the leader is in pushing their party in one direction or another. Abbott, a true conservative with a conservative cabinet, has been replaced by Turnbull, a true liberal with a liberal cabinet.

In the media, this has generally been reported using the misnomer of Turnbull's cabinet having 'moderates', a false political terms that equates liberalism with a middle ground.

Those who have entered the cabinet are, for the most part, renowned more for their economic liberalism than anything else. These types tend to stay quieter on which way they lean socially, though that says plenty about them in and of itself. Scott Morrison is one of the few promoted who is openly conservative, but he's simply moving up the ranks within cabinet rather than coming in from the outer ministry or the backbenches.

Compare also those entering (such as Kelly O'Dwyer, Michaelia Cash and Josh Frydenberg) to those exiting (such as Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz). The broad theme is clear: liberalism is good, conservatism is bad. The unique way the Liberal Party was brought about (as a merger of anti-socialist causes) has meant there has always been a delicate balancing act going on between the liberals and the conservatives. Malcolm Turnbull has made his intentions clear with his cabinet, although the given the party room is fairly equally split between the two he is unlikely to go for the jugular on issues conservatives are likely to revolt over (mostly being issues of society). Instead, he will probably focus on further liberalising the economy. 

Case in point: lowering weekend penalty rates. This issue was first brought up by the Productivity Commission in August, but such an issue seemed to be the kind of thing Abbott's government would rather leave alone, or at least to those who cared more about it (which essentially consisted of economic liberals). Now, with Turnbull in charge, penalty rates are now at the forefront of the agenda. Not only has the Prime Minister said that it would be brought before cabinet, but two of the aforementioned new ministers (Cash and Frydenberg) have spoken out in favour of it. 

From now until the election, we should expect this kind of policy focus. The economy is relatively safe ground, in that as long as it is doing well enough, the government can reap the electoral benefits. Social policy is far more likely to be contested, particularly amongst Liberal voters, and is therefore best avoided until the next term. Whether the people buy the message of economic reform, though, is another matter.

'We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row'

Of all the things that have been and will be said about the latest in our cycle of prime ministerial changes, it is this quote by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (get used to that) that defines what this is all about. 

Read it again.

'We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row.'

If you need to know how politicians treat their position, there it is. It is not about serving in office, as decided by the people; it is about 'winning power', about being in front at all times, regardless of what that means for the nation in the long term. It is about style over substance, even if that requires using the idea of substance as your style, as Turnbull seems eager to do. 

There is plenty more that can be said about this event. As I type, the Prime Minister has claimed that he is 'humbled' by his party's choice. This is hardly a shining example of humility. But, also occurring as I type, Turnbull is making clear that he desires a traditional Cabinet style of government. If he manages to balance the modern stylism with traditional Cabinet government, he will have done well.

But it is curious to claim that this was not about leadership style tonight, but instead about internal culture, after claiming only hours ago that the Australian people had pronounced judgement on the government...which is primarily, today, a matter of style.

'We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row.'

I suspect Turnbull will be hoping this quote disappears into the ether. He must demonstrate that his government is not purely guided by the polls, if he is truly about 'the future'.

Is online interaction any replacement for talking to someone face-to-face?

I am a fan of the internet.

This is hardly an outrageous opinion. Most people, certainly those who actively use the internet for activities such as this, would claim to be fans of the internet, and of the opportunities it provides. 

Of all the changes that the internet has brought to our day-to-day lives, none seem to me to be as important as that of the way it has changed human interaction with one another. For most of human history, the only way to regularly interact with someone was to do so face-to-face. Letters were written, but the expense of doing so meant generally only the wealthy and/or the important would write letters, and would do so rarely. If the letter was particularly important, such as that from one king to another, it would also be presented by a dignitary from the country of the writer. We also know from ancient letters, such as those found in the Biblical New Testament, that the writers of these personal letters did so essentially as a stop gap solution, as they all write how much they wish to see the people they are writing to face-to-face.

The first revolution in communication came with the telegram. In and of itself, the telegram wasn't necessarily doing anything new. It was really just carrying on from optical telegraph systems that had been appearing across Europe from the late 18th century onwards. But optical telegraphs were costly and hard to use, and therefore unlikely to be used by anyone outside of the government. The electric telegraph, on the other hand, was relatively cheap and extremely efficient. With the ability to cable under the ocean, messages could be sent vast distances very quickly indeed. But the telegram was never intended to convey long messages or aid conversation. The quickly developed standard was that of Morse code, which made it necessary to be as efficient as possible with the language used in each telegram - as did the price, which, while not expensive, was still costly enough that a long message would be better sent via letter.

Next was the telephone. While the telegram was a way of getting short messages across long distances quickly, the telephone was intended to be more personal. Unlike the telegram, it was based around voice. Speaking to another person is necessarily more intimate than reading off a sheet of paper, and the location of telephones (in the home) meant it was a device well-suited to personal conversation. But the effort of being in the place where the device is, at the right time for long enough to have a genuine conversation meant that talking over the phone would often be a concerted decision that was made because no other option was available. Most likely, it was a matter of distance, with the two people wanting to speak to each other being far enough away that talking face-to-face was not practical. In any case, talking over the phone is not the same as talking face-to-face. Humans use a great deal of body language - much of it so subtle we don't consciously recognise it - that cannot be picked up over the phone. We are, of course, capable of conveying extra meaning with just our voices if necessary, but it isn't the same. Personally, I dislike talking over the phone, I suspect for this very reason.

The mobile phone eliminated one of the difficulties with the telephone by ending the need for a person to be in the location of the phone. Now the phone could be with the person, wherever that may be. But the cost of these early phone, along with the bulkiness, meant that it was really only the rich (particularly businessmen) who could be bothered to get one. Once they slimmed down, gained a screen and were connected to the global satellite network, they gained a more important communications function: the SMS. This was essentially a new form of telegram, with the same advantage that the mobile already had over the landline phone. Anyone could send anyone else an instant telegram at a low cost, wherever they were. This necessarily reduced the importance required for messaging one another, and the naturally personal and discreet nature of using the mobile for messaging meant it became far easier to use the written form for conversation. But the character limits of texts also meant that any such conversation would be unlikely to be particularly enlightening, and would still probably only be a gap-filler during the time that friends do not see each other face-to-face.

It is the internet which has brought the greatest change to the way we communicate. The crux of basically everything to do with the internet is simple this: there are no limits. It is both an extension of existing society, and a new society in and of itself. It can be used for whatever purpose we choose to use it for. In the case of communication, there have been two paths which have now converged to form one all-encompassing communication method. The first path was that of the internet forum. These existed well before the world wide web came about, through the use of bulletin board systems as well as the massively influential usenet. These allowed individuals, who would often but not always use their real names, to post about subjects that interested them in particular. The ability to talk about specific topics, especially ones that would be obscure to the wider community, was naturally attractive, and allowed users to be able to explore their topic of choice as though they were discussing it at one of the old coffee houses in 17th century London, or a French salon in the 18th century. There was, though, a rather large barrier to entry in that you needed to have the technological know-how to operate a computer in such a way that you could access these forums, but if you were able to do this chances are you would be really interested in talking about your interests with others who share them. The introduction of the web allowed today's forums to displace the old boards, and with them came the rise of anonymity and the expansion of those who could use such forums. But forums still tend to build communities in much the same way, being designed, above all, around a point of interest. For many, the people they discuss topics with on these forums are people they would not otherwise have ever met.

The second path communication took on the internet was that of instant messaging. Unlike previous written forms, IM (as provided by MSN and AOL in particular) had no conceivable limits. It did require you to be in the right place, but once you were there (probably hidden away in a corner of a room) you could stay there for as long as you liked, in a place of relative quiet, able to 'talk' for as long as you pleased without much interruption. You could even express emotions via the use of emoticons :). It is not too surprising that children and teenagers were most likely to use such technologies, as a) they found it easiest to embrace new technology and b) it allowed them independence from their parents in an age where parents were becoming far less likely to allow their kids to stay outside for most of the day. Thus, where once kids would go to one person's home straight after school and spend most of the day there before walking to their own home in time for dinner, now they would be more likely to be picked up from school and go straight on to the computer, where they could spend hours in conversation with whoever they wished. Naturally, this meant that although conversation was theoretically without limits, you were unlikely to find particularly high-level conversation. While kids are always smarter than they are given credit for, they tend to prefer basic conversation until they're a bit older. Over time, the ability to instantly message has expanded, as internet speeds have become faster and hardware more capable. Now, we can choose precisely which method on instant communication we want: text, audio, or even audio-visual. But even today the latter two, especially audio-visual, rely on us being in one place. Generally, this is through the use of a web-cam, and if we are going to the effort of using such a device, it is for the same reasons people used the telephone: a long conversation that was not practical face-to-face.

But now, in the year AD 2015, we find that these two paths have managed to branch but together in that monolith we call Facebook. I can use any method of instant communication I want on there to converse with someone. Those who grew up with IM are now older, and are able to use the limitless method of conversation to its full extent if they so wish, with Facebook posts able to go into thousands of words. The only real limit is that we can choose who our 'friends' are, but once we do this, these people can see what we are doing whenever we share it. Thus, someone can come to 'know' us in a way never before possible, simply from our posting of photos, videos and stray thoughts onto our Facebook page. Once we 'know' them, we can personally converse with them in any method we wish, as quickly as we wish, for as long as we wish. This is extraordinary. We can spend far more time 'talking' with someone over the internet than we ever do in real life. It has, I suspect, therefore become very easy to fool ourselves into thinking that this is normal, and even moreso that it is no different to meeting in-person.

But we should not fool ourselves like this. It is not the same. There is something naturally different about face-to-face conversation. It has a flow to it. It comes to us in fits and spurts, taking some time to get into and then eventually fading. It is not naturally instantaneous in its beginning and end. We don't decide which emotion we are going to show through the use of one face. We don't even need to say anything to express what we are thinking, especially with others that know us well. There is something slightly unnerving about attempting to enter discussion with someone else in real life when you have spent time in conversation with them over the internet. The longer the conversation, the more unnerving. It is as though you have to unlearn your method of interacting online, while simultaneously telling yourself that this is the same person. Your mind does not naturally know this, after all - all it sees are words.

This is not to say that using the internet for discussion is necessarily bad. As stated, the internet is whatever we decide to use it for. That is has given the opportunity for people across the world to discuss topics of interest with each other is no bad thing, and I have personally made much use of it. But this may have also made it more difficult for me to approach real-life conversation in the same way. Internet conversation also lacks the sense of community that is gained from being with another person, or a group of people. It is entirely reliant on some form of discussion taking place. There is no way for people to simply silently enjoy each other's company - after all, they are not actually in each other's company. Deep down, I think we all recognise that this is true. But we don't seem that eager to do anything about it. 

Perhaps we should, before we forget what it feels like to be in community for good.