![]() Campsites are arranged around a single loop and have little to no shade or privacy due to the desert landscape.įirewood is available for purchase on-site, and showers are located 8 miles west of the campground at the Portal Store. There are also a few tent-only sites and one tent-only group site that can accommodate up to 15 guests. Lone Pine is especially popular for RV camping. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States, offering unparalleled views of the mountain and surrounding peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.Īn abundance of fishing and hiking opportunities can be found both in and around Lone Pine. It's hard to give a primitive camp a full 5-stars, but it probably deserves it for the scenery and low cost.Lone Pine Campground is located near the base of Mt. I got basic LTE on my Sprint-based phone but my wife got nothing on her Visible (old Verizon network based). Major disappointment there, but at least I still came home with some great photos of other things. The guy said to come back after 3:00 - we came back at 4:15 - he was gone, but the road was still closed. Whitney, but both times we tried to go, the road was closed for work. Whitney Portal Rd is right next to camp and leads you up to the trailhead and other interesting attractions up Mt. Manzanar is a must-do historic site about 20 miles from camp. The Park Service visitor center outside of town is very nice. Gas and food were on the expensive side, but I've seen worse. The town of Lone Pine is only a 10-minute drive away. (Though many of the side trails require a higher-clearance vehicle) The dirt roads are in good condition and just about any car should be able to go to the Arches trailhead off of Movie Rd. The surrounding Alabama Hills are ruggedly beautiful, especially during the golden hour. Our loop had one faucet and I expected to see a "don't fill your tanks" sign on it, but there wasn't, so we quickly stopped and grabbed 15 gallons or so. There is a faucet at the entrance by the dump station but I didn't check to see if it was potable. We saw no loud or obnoxious campers (but then, it was so windy, it would be hard to tell!) ![]() It seems the people that come here tend to be very responsible and respectful. The whole campground was exceptionally clean (if dirt can be clean!). The vault toilets were very clean and not once did I even get a whiff of foul odor. The numerous, aggressive speed bumps are much more of a nuisance than the narrow road. It's not like you're going around blind corners on the side of a cliff. True, it's like a mile of 1-way road, but there are a few turnouts and, more importantly, as the road is simply crossing the desert, the entire expanse is in sight the whole time so you have plenty of warning if someone is coming. There were some reports that the road into the park was of concern. The sites are all decently sized, but some are more level than others. There were hurricane-force winds on 395 that day so maybe more people than normal pulled in to get away from it (needless to say, the campground, which is completely open was also extremely windy for 2 of our 3 days there.) We went "in-between storms in the Sierra" in mid-April and expected the place to be nearly empty so we were starting to panic when we arrived after an 8-hour drive to find the first loop completely full! Fortunately, we found a dozen or so sites still available in the other two loops. Gorgeous (in a primitive way) location with panoramic views of Mt.
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Then, they usually either sell it to malicious actors on the Dark Web or use it to breach your other accounts. Hackers can install spy apps over the air or perform aggressive man-in-the-middle attacks to steal your data. ![]() We bring our phones everywhere with us, and they’re especially vulnerable if you use public Wi-Fi to access files or social media through it. With the recent increase in data breaches, ransomware, and hacking attempts, all diligent users should consider using VPNs on their phones. But you definitely need the best one.īut that’s not the end of the benefits associated with using VPNs.Ī great thing about them is that you can use them on your mobile device. VPNs have become the need of the hour because of their ability to enhance your browsing experience. ![]() Hence, the likelihood of having the best VPN is high when you do, according to Reddit users. People have provided their detailed experience with the real-time VPN services here. 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The first time I realized I could venture beyond the visible background, I had accidentally double clicked out of frustration as I realized I had to do more but could see no useful options on my screen. Few locations are larger than what’s displayed, making it hard to tell which boundaries can be explored. Malachi walks to a spot with a single click or teleports with a double click. Though this inventory concept is sensible, the execution doesn’t live up to its expectation and results in much unnecessary backtracking. ![]() For example, after discovering I needed an item to progress, I had to travel by train to Malachi’s apartment and back, but in reality, the person I’m looking for would likely have moved from or even left his initial location. ![]() ![]() While I understand the logical reasoning behind such an inventory system, the rest of the game does not follow the same rationale. These give the player an idea of what might be useful in the future (some red herrings exist), as Malachi is loathe to pick up items unless he realizes he needs them. After selecting an object or person, up to six options are shown: talk, psychoanalyze, operate, look at, pick up, or use with the active inventory item. Interacting with objects in Moebius is much like in any other point-and-click. Though many point-and-click games run the same way, the restrictions seem painfully obvious in Moebius. If you don’t make the decision required of you, well, you either don’t progress or you die. The presence of pseudo options in conversations and actions only serves to accent the linear progress, failing to make even the tiniest illusion of choice. That’s not to say the story is bad, but it’s a simple feel-good tale that fails to touch on the huge existential potential of its premise. None of the “twists” caught me by surprise, and Malachi expectedly learns to trust others and show affection. Unfortunately, its innovation doesn’t go much further, as the plot quickly becomes predictable. With a refreshing premise and a realistic environment, the story provides satisfying answers yet still makes the player wonder. Aside from Malachi and perhaps a couple of others, the characters are rather one-dimensional but serve their roles well in moving the plot forward. As someone who values logic over emotions, I find Malachi rather relateable, but I can see some players being frustrated by his dismissive tone. The prequel comic reveals a rather traumatic childhood as well, which preps the player’s empathy towards a character that may seem insufferable otherwise. Though Malachi comes across as self-absorbed and cold, he is surprisingly fascinating due to his no-nonsense demeanor, extensive encyclopedic knowledge, and calculative, distrusting nature. Not one to turn down money, Malachi accepts the job in spite of his curiosity regarding the classified reason for his assignment and the obscurity of F.I.T.A., the government agency behind this orchestration. Does the game live up to fan expectations?Ī prequel comic introduces us to Malachi Rector, a highly intelligent but generally apathetic appraiser whose penchant for running his mouth tends to get him into “security trouble.” Upon recuperation from his latest beating, a wealthy Amble Dexter hires him for an assignment unlike his usual job - instead of appraising antiques, his mission is to gather details on a murdered woman and to determine if her biography matches that of any famous woman in history. Moebius: Empire Rising, a Kickstarter game that raised almost 50% over its $300,000 goal, promised to be a spiritual successor to the Gabriel Knight series. As a growing name in the point-and-click genre, Jane Jensen has garnered much fanfare for Gabriel Knight and Gray Matter. ![]() ![]() If you’re happy and you know it, and you really want to show it If you’re happy and you know it, shout hurray If you’re happy and you know it, stomp your feet If you’re happy and you know it stamp your feet. If you’re happy and you know it, and you really want to show it. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. (This song has gestures, so move along as you sing to make it more fun!) I’m a Little Teapot LyricsĪnd pour me out!’. Well you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town. Papa’s gonna to buy you and horse and cart. (This is a beautiful nursery rhyme to sing at night time as your little one is falling asleep) Humpty Dumpty LyricsĪll the King’s horses and all the King’s men,Ĭouldn’t put Humpty together again. The little dog laughed to see such sport,Īnd the dish ran away with the spoon. (insert actions and continue the song as above with each action such as “wash our hands” or “shake our head” etc) 8. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush Lyrics Touch each body part as you sing the song for more interactive learning! Kids will love it. This fun nursery rhymes has gestures as well. Was the bottom of the deep blue chop, chop, chop!Īnd Bingo was his name-O! 5. ![]() Was the bottom of the deep blue knee, knee, knee! Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea! Alphabet Song (Abc’s) LyricsĪlphabet games for kids 3. My kids love these nursery rhymes, and I am sure your kids will love them too! Make sure to check in as we edit this post often to add new info! 30 Nursery Rhymes for Kids with Lyricsįind below 30 popular rhymes with lyrics that kids will love! At the end of the post you can find baby lullabies and kids poems to check out too! 1. Read your baby or child a story in rhyme, or sing along together. Just like reading books to your kids is important, singing nursery rhymes are a fun way to interact with kids and beneficial to their language development. ![]() When your little one has mastered the numbers, try learning how to tell time in English!Īs you can see, there are many ideas that you can put to practice with this lovely song and video for kids! It’s just a matter of creativity to start learning while playing.English Nursery Rhymes for kids: Below you will find the lyrics of 30 of the most popular and fun baby nursery rhymes for kids in English. This song for kids is also an excellent way to learn the numbers in English from one to six, by counting the hours along with the clock. For example, what’s big and yellow? The sofa! Describe the paintings, the window, or the rug. What color is the dog? Where was the bird before landing on the clock?Īlso, after you’ve sung the song a few times, you can take your time and play a game of “I Spy” by describing different objects in the room and having your child guess the correct object. Take this opportunity to enhance your child’s vocabulary in English! Ask them to describe the different animals and describe where they are. What a surprising afternoon Cowy is having!Īs your little one watches the video, make sure to practice the names of the animals in English. There is a dog that goes woof, a rabbit that jumps and goes boing, and a fish who takes a dive. This situation repeats a few more times with different animals that venture to sit on top of the clock. Just a few moments later, the clock strikes two, and the bird flies away from it! As she’s drawing and writing on a sheet of paper, her cat suddenly runs up a big pendulum clock that’s near the window! What a shock that was… hen, the clock strikes one, scaring the cat who swiftly comes back down.Īs time passes, a lovely bird just lands on top of the clock. Cowy is lying face down on the living room’s rug. In this version of the song, your little one will spend an afternoon with Cowy the Cow in her house. Nowadays, this is still one of the main uses for the song thanks to its particular lyrics and story. Its origin is simple but fun: it is believed that it was used as a counting-out rhyme for the little ones. The earliest known version of this nursery rhyme for kids dates back to the year 1744 when it was first published in London as a part of a collection of similar songs. Hickory Dickory Dock, the cat ran up the clock… Have you heard this amazing rhyme for kids? It’s great for singing, dancing, and can also be a nice tool to start learning and practicing English from a young age!Ĭhildren’s songs usually have interesting stories and backgrounds, and the Hickory Dickory Dock is not the exception. The clock struck six, and they played tricks! Hickory Dickory Dock, the pets went in the clock. Hickory Dickory Dock, the fish swam up the clock. Hickory Dickory Dock, the rabbit hopped up the clock. Hickory Dickory Dock, the dog ran up the clock. Hickory Dickory Dock, the bird flew up the clock. Hickory Dickory Dock, the cat ran up the clock. The new Crafting menu now also keeps a bit more of a memory. It seems like a small tweak but all helps to add polish. We’ve improved the Charging mechanic for projectile-based weapons so you can now stop charging a weapon without needing to wait for the charging animation to complete. the existing ‘rocker’ functionality so we’ve added an option for that in the input settings. A few players have requested the option to choose between toggling the new radial menus open vs. We’ve made some adjustments in this build based on player feedback. Most containers will be able to be picked up, but containers cannot store other containers.Įvery couple of months we pause to revaluate the project to make sure we’re on the right track, listen to feedback and address outstanding bugs. Clicking on items in either ‘container’ will transfer the item to the other container. The basic radial mechanics are the same as the inventory, except now you will see a small backpack at the bottom that you can click on to toggle between your backpack and the storage container and vice-versa. In case you missed our rundown of the new feature in the experimental patch notes, the mechanics are very simple and fast – if you’re looking at a container, press to open it to display a similar radial style menu as the backpack inventory. This build transitions our latest work on the experimental branch to the stable branch – the new Storage system. This build features expanded Building mechanics and the new Storage system! I'll let other people report and work that out, and I'll wait for a slightly more stable release.Update 0.24.00 is an update for Stranded Deep released on February 6, 2017. 90.00 mainly because I've heard mention of bugs in the forums. Or at least, I haven't found anything glaringly wrong with it, and enjoyed some of the fun stuff I wasn't expecting. 90.00 this map itself works fine in either, so far. And yes, I turned off this Unity Mod just to see if this mod was interfering with my ability to place objects (it wasn't, once the mod was uninstalled, same issue) I don't know if there were other things I couldn't place or build no water still was enough for me to back out. 90.00, I had started a new game / standard islands only, because of the bugs I was experiencing (couldn't place loom, and then I couldn't place a water still). 79.01 experimental (that's the one where I've pretty much leveled up everything, I think all that is left is some cooking skill) and gyrocopter myself from isle to isle. 90 so I reverted to experimental build so right at this moment I'm running. 90.00 (the first co-op / latest release) - but only in single-player mode, not co-op but then I was having too many issues with single-player on. Have you tried on the 0.80 version or the last release "multiplayer" ? I didn't look too many times because, you know. While in flight, if I hit f8 / f9 it would show my position between isles as the player at least, I'm pretty sure I saw that. and have the gyrocopter and use that for island hopping. I have a save game where I've done a lot. ![]() This wasn't actually expected-but I liked it, lol. I do enjoy the artwork and names for the beasties and the carrier. I didn't notice the (cheat) things until I had used it for a while. ![]() Originally posted by fuzzybunnyslippers12:Working great just needed to educate myself on the options available within the unity manager, lol. ![]() Steam’s offline play mode is so unreliable it’s not worth it, and the dreaded error: I won’t be putting it on the netbook though. It’s one of the only games my sister likes so I could give it to her. I’ll probably still pick it up for Steam, especially because I just noticed that they give you a 2nd Steam key for the $15. They also stated during development that some parts of the game were being re-tooled to suit co-op, so I wanted to play single-player with those changed elements in place. Thanks EndeavourAccuracy! I had no evidence that Together was more up-to-date than the original, but that was what I was suspecting when I asked about a DRM-free version. Quoting: EndeavourAccuracyDon’t Starve Together is more up-to-date than Don’t Starve. Then choose “Host Game” to launch your own world, or “Browse Games” to use a LAN. Quoting: LinasBingo.Quoting: InverseTelecineI’d like to be able to play it single player when I can’t play co-op.ĭon’t Starve Together is more up-to-date than Don’t Starve.Įven if you are alone or off-line, I suggest you choose Don’t Starve Together.Ĭlick “Play” and then (quickly, if you are on-line) “Play Offline”. Isn’t the standard Don’t Starve supposed to be the single player component of the game? Quoting: InverseTelecineI’d like to be able to play it single player when I can’t play co-op. ![]() I’d like to be able to play it single player when I can’t play co-op. The original ran great on my little underpowered Asus netbook, which is frequently away from a WiFi source. So no DRM-free version is available yet? I was hoping we’d see a GOG release after it left early access. Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month: SteamLUG, the Steam Linux User Group, occasionally has Don’t Starve Together events, and has its own Don’t Starve Together server where everyone is welcome! If you gave this game a try for a few hours and decided it wasn’t your cup of tea, maybe give it another go. Plus the new Toadstool cave monster with its Sporecaps, and the related Shroom Skin that can be used to create the Mushlight and Glowcap Mushroom Lights. There is also the Mushroom Planter (to grow caps and spores), Friendly Scarecrow (to reduce crows and increase canaries), Scaled Furnace, and Potter’s Wheel (to build sculptures). Moonlenses that can be used to create the Ocuvigil map marker that reveals a ‘fog of war’ area to all players, and the Moondial that shows the moon phases and emits light.The Map Scroll, to share minimap information with other players.The Cartographer’s Desk, which allows access to a new Cartography Tab, to craft Map Scrolls.New minimap icons for tree stumps, burnt trees, gold and moonrock boulders.If two players have a compass equipped, they see each other on the minimap. ![]() To allow for the changes, the minimap data is now being stored on the server. The biggest changes this update brings are related to the minimap. (I think there are also related sketches/trinkets in graves and tumbleweeds?) It’s a big update that adds interesting new features!Īmong other things, the Moon Caller’s Staff has been added, and Marble Sculptures can be created with Suspicious Marble. View cookie preferences.ĭon’t Starve Together, the multiplayer expansion of action-adventure video game Don’t Starve, has been updated with ‘A New Reign: Part 1’. YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. ![]() ![]() I may not be into sonic like a lot of other people are but I won't lie in saying that this game is amazing and is worth any gamers time/money. It's also one of the more challenging games in the series as well as having fun boss fights and some of them are creative. It's basically like 3 & Knuckles but with more expanded on it. The games bonus stages are fun as hell and the levels themselves are fast and well designed. Contents 1 Appearance 2 Overview 3 Powers and abilities 4 Gallery 4. Unlike its counterpart, this Silver Sonic is a simple, mass-produced Badnik model. It is an alternate version of Mecha Sonic from another dimension set in the recent past. It has the save system from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, The ability to play as five characters if you download the DLC which is worth it by the way. Silver Sonic 1 is an enemy that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It's also full of refences to other games in the series which is great for long time fans and even to non sonic fans like myself. The people who made this did a fantastic job with it's soundtrack, visuals, controls, Content, level design, gameplay, and everything that makes an excellent 2D platformer. This is one of the best games in the series that's not even made by Sonic Team. Sonic 2, 3&Knuckles, Generations, Mania (which is what I reviewing right now), Rush, Unleashed, All stars racing Transformed, Sonic CD, Colors, Advance 1, Pocket adventure and sonic Riders which is a guilty pleasure of mine. ![]() There are games In the series I really like such as But I won't say the series as a whole is bad far from it. The series has always had a lot of misses for me which is why I never got into it like many other people did. I will start of by saying I am not a fan of sonic the hedgehog. So I wanted Bartlet to have that as a marker, that whatever he was engaged in, his personal beliefs were going to be costly,” both when he lived up to them and when he didn’t.ĭoes he ever look at this White House and think even a fictional president couldn’t have believably gotten away with what Trump has? Yes, Sheen said: “Oh my God, can you imagine?” I’ve always believed that if what you believe is not costly, then you’re left to question its value. It was Sheen’s idea to make Bartlet a Catholic and a Notre Dame grad, but the specifics of his faith weren’t as important, he said, as that “I wanted Bartlet to face every situation, whether it was personal or public, that he would come from a moral frame of reference. And they don’t think scruples are a weakness. They are on speaking terms with their better angels. For me, the appeal of Sorkin’s fictional public servants is that while they don’t always do the right thing, they desperately want to. Which is exactly how people in Washington describe how things used to be. “It was people with differences of opinion trying to serve.” Nobody was out to destroy anybody else” on the show. “Aaron Sorkin never trashed the opposition. Likewise, Sheen said, the Republicans whom Aaron Sorkin wrote for "West Wing" weren’t malevolent, and the actor appreciated that. ![]() Honor in the crunch: Conservatives voting Joe Biden over Donald Trump are patriots. “He was a general, a servant, a patriot, a fair-minded and decent man.” “I grew up with Eisenhower he didn’t even know he was a Republican” and might not have become one had the Democrats asked him to run first. And though yes, a strong liberal himself, he hopes that the GOP, too, can be restored to what it once was. Sheen is blessedly confident that the reality show of Trump’s White House will soon be canceled by the American people. He was never more than 3 feet away from whoever was talking, and was either approving or disapproving by his body language.” “You watched him with the White House task force” on COVID-19? “He never left the stage. Every day is a new episode, and every day, it’s all about him, all the time.” This administration, what the hell was their policy on anything? I hate to say this, but it is a show. His instinct is to bully and to be what it’s all about all the time - all the time. Not a good one, because he has no sense of truth. That’s where we are.”īecause, and Sheen should know, Donald Trump “is an actor. “It isn’t that," he told me in an interview. The guy who played President Bartlet for seven seasons, the actor and activist Martin Sheen, said his character wouldn’t see this as an election season at all, in any traditional sense. Lately, on my pretend getaways from the real president, I’ve been wondering what Josiah Bartlet would make of an election season so late stage in its malignancy, a tape of the first lady asking “You know, who gives a f- about Christmas stuff and decoration?” was barely a one-day story. And during Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings, how poignant to hear potential Bartlet nominees say no president would ever try to replace a conservative icon on the Supreme Court with a far left liberal, or vice versa. ![]() The night that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, it was cathartic to watch a grieving President Bartlet ask God what the actual hell in Latin. Who knew that watching federal employees comply with the Hatch Act could be so stirring? And where aides both brilliant and morally sentient get up every day wondering how they can contribute to the common good. Where the leader in the other party who briefly fills in after the 25th Amendment is invoked doesn’t try to change the locks at the White House. Of course, I’m talking about Jed Bartlet’s America, in the 1999-2006 television show "The West Wing," where the commander in chief would rather step down during a personal crisis than risk even the temptation of putting his own interests ahead of ours. ![]() Late at night, I slip off to the America in which the president can keep a staff and is a man in constant communication with his conscience. For the past couple of months, I’ve been escaping pretty regularly from the America in which the president tells white supremacists to “stand by” and brags about how clean the cages where we keep children are. ![]() But because participants are private citizens, some things were confidential. It reviewed complicated documents (from the lease to the city’s general plan) and summoned many stakeholders from a “menu” of more than 100 for question-and-answer sessions (the menu itself was drawn up by 14 local organizations who were themselves selected by lottery).Īnyone could sit in the “observers’ gallery” to watch the proceedings, which were also livestreamed on its YouTube Channel. Panelists received a stipend, equivalent to $20 per hour of deliberation, as well as child care and elder care, reimbursement for transportation costs, laptops, and language interpretation and translation. Over three months, it would hold 81 hours of meetings. Unable to find a location at the fairgrounds itself-its various venues were already booked-the panel met first at a community center and then at Kenilworth Junior High. On May 4, they followed up with a “reselection” event to fill the 12 open positions. When 12 of the 36 panel members did not confirm their participation, the organizers conducted another lottery, generating another 1,000 possible panels. (At the city’s request, Healthy Democracy aimed for slight over-representation of previously underrepresented demographics.)Īt a public event in April, organizers selected one of those panels by lottery-number 811-to become Petaluma’s citizens’ assembly. From that group, Healthy Democracy used a computer program to create 1,000 randomized potential panels of 36 people, each representative of Petaluma by age, gender, race/ethnicity, location, housing status, educational attainment, and experience of a disability. The process started with a mailing to 10,000 randomly selected residential addresses in Petaluma, inviting people to participate in the panel. Officially, the citizens’ assembly would be charged with answering this question: “How might we use the City’s fairgrounds property to create the experiences, activities, resources, and places that our community needs and desires now and for the foreseeable future?” Petaluma’s answer was to spend $450,000 to hire America’s leading experts on citizens’ assemblies, the Oregon-based nonprofit Healthy Democracy, to bring the people into the process. How to avoid more fighting and expensive litigation? That led to conflict between the city, the fair, and the obscure state agency to which the city leases the property. So, when city officials made clear that they wanted to rethink the future of the fairground, people in Petaluma worried that their traditions, livelihoods, and favorite tacos might be in jeopardy. The site also hosts a speedway, two schools, emergency shelters, a popular Mexican food spot, and many other valued pieces of Petaluma. The property, at the city’s geographical and cultural center, is home to the annual five-day Sonoma-Marin Fair and its famous centerpiece event, the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. ![]() Petaluma’s leaders decided to try a citizens’ assembly to avert a community-wide fight over the future of the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds. The assemblies offer a potential path around problems that discredit democracy in California and elsewhere: the money that corrupts elections, the lobbyists who own politicians, and the polarization that makes complex and contentious issues too difficult for elected governments to solve. In Petaluma, they called this a “lottery-selected panel.” Its more common name is “citizens’ assembly.”Ĭitizens’ assemblies are composed of everyday people, chosen by lottery, rather than elected officials. That future arrived with an unsexy name-the Petaluma Fairgrounds Advisory Panel, a version of a type of democratic body that is gaining popularity from Japan to Ireland. The Sonoma County city also showed me the future of California democracy. I went to Petaluma to learn what might become of the world’s ugliest dogs. ![]() I didn’t hear anything for a few days, and at that point I was like, “well, I did it, at least now I don’t have to wonder.” A week later I got a call from Kiri, and she goes, “Kathy and I have been discussing your story a lot, and I think we want to proceed with this.” I was so elated, and one of the crazy things was that the first spinoff was supposed to be Solo, but Larry Kasdan got pulled into the development of The Force Awakens, and out of all of the spinoffs that they were tinkering with, Rogue One got slotted up to take its place in the queue. They listened very politely to the whole thing, Kathy told me she was impressed with the story, and that was basically it. When the day came, I brought my treatment, sat down with Kathy and Kiri, and just dove into the pitch and the characters. I spent those six weeks writing up a really detailed treatment with all of the character descriptions. So I called up Kathy and made an appointment, and I think it took maybe six weeks to find a time to meet with her and Kiri Hart from the Lucasfilm Story Group. Kind of as a mental exercise, I asked myself, “well, if I were serious about this, who are the main characters? What are their arcs? What is the plot structure? How does this start, and how does this end?” I remember a specific moment where I was at this annual charity trivia game that we do, and I was on a team with a couple of friends, and we had about an hour over dinner while we were waiting for it to begin, and Kim Libreri said “tell me about this Star Wars story idea you have?” So I pitched him the half-hour version of it, with every detail, and at the end he goes, “you have got to go pitch this to Kathy.” At that point I realized I had to do this, because if I didn’t I would always wonder what could have been. So I started having this conversation with a number of people, and every time I pitched it, I would start to add more detail, and it would get bigger and bigger. Early concept art from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. What about that?” People would go “oh… actually, that sounds pretty cool…”. As a bit of a joke, I started pitching an updated version of my story that went, “picture a SEAL Team Six in the Star Wars universe, and they’re going on this desperate, high-stakes mission to break into the most secure facility in the Galactic Empire to steal the plans for the Death Star. The first one we announced internally was Solo, and I got so excited about where these spinoff films could go, because the possibilities were endless. What we also announced then that I was really intrigued by were the spinoff films. Well, flash-forward to 2012 after Lucasfilm’s acquisition by The Walt Disney Company, where George selected Kathleen Kennedy to lead Lucasfilm, and our announcement of the continuation of the Skywalker Saga. John Knoll works on a miniature of Sheev Palpatine’s private viewing box in the Galaxies Opera House on Coruscant in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. I started thinking about all of the interesting tales you could tell in a show like that, and one of the first things that popped into my head was, “what about a Mission: Impossible-style operation to break into the most secure facility that the Galactic Empire had to steal the plans for the Death Star?” I started toying with that idea, along with a few others, and I approached Rick again to learn more about the time period they wanted to set the show in, and I realized that none of my ideas would apply to that period, so I shelved it. I started chatting to Rick McCallum who was producing the film, and he mentioned that he and George Lucas were developing a Star Wars live-action TV series, and that they were working on scripts. I was on set when we were shooting in Sydney, and I think we were waiting for some set-up to happen. I started thinking about this all the way back on Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. How long back had you been thinking of this idea before it was greenlit? John, the whole idea of Rogue One started with you. Industrial Light & Magic’s Publicity Group sits down with John Knoll, Executive Creative Director at ILM, and the Senior Visual Effects Supervisor on Rogue One: A Story Wars Story to discuss the film’s five-year anniversary. John Knoll in the cockpit of a crashed Partisan X-wing fighter on Jedha from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. |
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