u/WarMinister23

Does anyone have any good fanfic recs for fanfiction focusing on the naval aspect of Star Wars? MiliSciFi-type stories?

I finally finished the story recently, and I’m a bit confused on the origins of the Invisibility Cloak. Harry receives it mysteriously, as he did in canon. But where canon has it be Dumbledore returning the Hallow to the Potter line, HPMOR has it be someone who is not Dumbledore giving it back to the Potters with the explicit warning that Dumbledore should not get it. Was this a Quirrell ploy and I missed the part where that implication was made? Or is there something else I’m completely missing here

Saw it at an Alamo screening. Great experience. Entire theater was laughing, cheering, and shouting out how weird it was the whole time. Some thoughts (minor spoilers below):

The Breenscreen usage is minimal. Fair amount of stock footage, but whatever. Most of it is shot on-location, including a good few scenes at that Nevada community college from the first Cade film (this is just one of many call-backs to his previous works). There's a lot of re-used footage, both shot film and stock footage. The same stock footage shot of a building was used like twelve times by my friend's count. There is one shot of rescue workers at a plane crash, used once at the very beginning and once at the end, that I highly suspect is AI. Otherwise no AI (even that VoiceOver from the trailer, which appears a lot in the movie, is given a named credit in the closing credits).

There's two characters–I'll call them the iPad Interns–who appear a lot in the film as Neil's "handlers" at the agency. In a lot of scenes they're very clearly reading their lines off their iPads, as if this is the first time they've seen the script and are being told to act through dialogue they've just been handed. I think this lines up with other behind-the-scenes reports on how Neil is apparently very stingy with the scripts during production and the general theory that the absurd amount of wooden acting across his movies is due to his directing choices.

In the vein of the call-backs mentioned above, he deliberately scatters the movie with tons of references The car and garage from Fateful Findings, of course but also others–some dialogue from both Double Down and Fateful Findings crops up if you're watching closely.

Frankly, the whole movie feels like an attempt to remake Twisted Pair more competently. Most of Neil's films are the same one or two plots reworked countless different ways, but this especially feels like a remake of Twisted Pair done better. This is also his least political film, even less so than Twisted Pair which at least had jumbled messages about the threat of AI and/or "programmable virtual alternate reality." He's just a government agent who goes on missions to bomb other countries, I think? Also he literally murders a Senator in the back half of the film (or a "candidate for Senate", the movie flip-flops on how it refers to the guy). It's never made clear who the antagonists are, what their goal is, or why the Senator(?) had to die.

The love interests are both played by actresses who definitely look young enough to be his daughters at this point.

Another recurring character is a girl who introduces herself as an "influencer." I'll say she's best described as Neil's boomer idea of what an influencer is.

There are two scenes where he flies a fighter jet (I think a USAF F-16, but an aerospace geek can correct me if I'm wrong). Mostly just the same footage re-used, including stock footage of an actual fighter jet in flight and landing.

There's a reappearance of a Man In Black archetypical figure, which has appeared in both Fateful Findings and Twisted Pair.

iPads feature heavily. There are two characters (the iPad interns) whose entire role is being Neil's "Mission Control" at the unnamed agency, which means they just sit on couches (probably at Nevada State College!) looking at iPads while reciting dialogue in the most wooden fashion possible (again, I suspect they were looking at their scripts, which they had just received right then). There's one great scene where Neil uses an iPad to dig a 'hole' in some gravel and then buries the iPad there.

It also features at the very end the closest thing to an actual twist in a Neil Breen movie, something almost reminiscent of M Night Shyamalan. THat's all I'll say. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

I don't think he's become self-aware, but if there is a movie where he would've it would be this one. There's tons of callbacks to his earlier works, that seem almost deliberately included to wink at the audience. It's certainly his most competently produced film to date, eclipsing even Fateful Findings, but that's judging it on the sliding scale used for the Breenius. It's more coherent than the Cade duology and Double Down. It's also Neil at his most humble, playing his most human character both in the sense that this character's struggles and pain actually feel realistic and earned compared to his others, and in that this character is literally just a regular human and not a sci-fi messiah or gifted with magic powers.

10/10, go see it if you can.

I posted in r/australian a week ago, and someone recommended I post this here too, so I just wanted to offer gratitude for the Aussie firefighters who've come out with Kiwi firefighting teams to the States to help American firefighting services during this bad wildfire/bushfire season we've been having.

In an era where our incumbent government has alienated diplomatic allies with aggressive and disrespectful action, to put it mildly, it is very humbling to see Australia and New Zealand being magnanimous enough to still offer help to yanks during a serious natural disaster such as the terrible wildfire season we've had. I understand that this is a longstanding agreement between our nations, and I've learned we actually have in the past sent firefighters across the sea to render assistance during your wildfire season as well. But still, I wanted to at the very least say thank you and that it does mean a lot.

https://wildfiretoday.com/wildfire-support-on-the-way-from-aust-nz/
https://www.kptv.com/video/2026/07/31/australia-sends-team-help-fight-oregon-wildfires/https://youroregonnews.com/2026/08/12/australian-and-new-zealand-experts-aid-battle-with-grasshopper-fire/

I've seen some news lately that Aussie and Kiwi firefighting teams have come out here to the States to provide assistance with wildfires/bushfires in the PNW. In an era where our incumbent government has alienated diplomatic allies with aggressive and disrespectful action, to put it mildly, it is very humbling to see Australia and New Zealand being magnanimous enough to still offer help to yanks during a serious natural disaster such as the terrible wildfire season we've had (I assume brought about by climate change) and I wanted to at the very least say thank you and that it does mean a lot.

https://wildfiretoday.com/wildfire-support-on-the-way-from-aust-nz/
https://www.kptv.com/video/2026/07/31/australia-sends-team-help-fight-oregon-wildfires/

https://youroregonnews.com/2026/08/12/australian-and-new-zealand-experts-aid-battle-with-grasshopper-fire/

I have heard the one where he plays a murderous cyborg who's also a messiah figure is very good! Does that narrow it down at all?

/joke

This is a serious question and i am fairly sure in line with this subreddit‘s rules on not asking US-centric questions, I apologise if it is actually in violation of those policies.

simply put: Does anyone here understand why Canadian firefighters often come here to give us assistance during our catastrophic wildfires, despite the longstanding animosity between our two countries? We are not grateful pleasant recipients of the aid, especially since our response to Canadian wildfires is apparently to accuse you all of doing it deliberately to screw with US air quality or whatever it is the current government line is. I‘d say it’s not likely to continue now, but I’m curious as to why it was ever a thing in the first place and wanted to ask some folks who are themselves actually from Canada rather than just talk about it with other yanks.

thank you