Star Wars Megathread

[celedhring]

Because Imperial secret bases built inside mountains is such a novel concept in the Star Wars universe 

[Syt]

Of course.  Still wondering what Thrawn is up to. Does he want to recreate the original Empire? Is he part of the contingency and works towards the First Order? Or is he doing Chiss Ascendancy stuff?

[viper37]

Because Imperial secret bases built inside mountains is such a novel concept in the Star Wars universe 

yeah, they should go for the space fortresses instead

[Syt]

So, the episode guide on the official Star Wars page is online, and as usual has concept art etc. In the concept art the place is actually called Mt Tantiss

[crazy canuck]

Once more, I love the visuals in this show. Lots of cool stuff with the water and the lightning (much better than CWs Calamari eps, for example).

I also had Bioshock vibes 

Incidentally, the "Part 1 of 4" thing looks like it was a typo on Disney+ Spain's part, they have changed it to 2 parts.

The finale was a bit disappointing for me, really just an add on to part 1.  Would have been better to end the season with part 1 and then start season two with part 2, now there is now cliff hanger and not no real indication of where they are going with this.  They have lost there way a bit.  They spent most of the season building up who the kid was, a few episodes where bounty hunters were after her, and now - meh its all for nothing.

[Syt]

So, following his stroke it's official that Tom Kane will retire.



He's been an incredibly prolific voice actor: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0437454/

And one of the staples of Star Wars games and animation; see his Wookieepedia page for his Star Wars works: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Kane

Among many other things he was the voice of Yoda, Admiral Yularen, the narrator in Clone Wars, and many, many more.

[Syt]

People found the knitted sweater that one Mon Calamari wore in Mandalorian on Amazon:

https://twitter.com/lightreyber/status/1437214915534622720?s=20

[celedhring]

Stars Visions is out! Watched the first couple eps. The first one is a super-stylized (and awesome) samurai flick with lightsabers. Second one is cute.

[Syt]

So Star Wars Visions is out. A bunch of Manga studios were asked to do a short Star Wars animation, and generally given free reign.

I just watched The Duel by Kamikaze Douga (probably best known for JoJo's Bizarre Adventures).

It's a story old as time: village gets attacked by bandits, Ronin steps in to save the day.

Only they went fully old school with the visuals:










(black borders are because my screengrabber sucks)

[celedhring]

Finished it! Favorite ones were The Duel, The Elder, and The Ninth Jedi. Heck, I would watch a whole show of the latter one.

As usual with these anthology shows there's a lot of ups and downs, but the whole "take Star Wars and do whatever you want with it, canon be damned" was pretty refreshing.

[Syt]

Finished up myself. I watched in Japanese with subtitles, but will certainly rewatch in English.

I agree that The Duel, The Elder, and The Ninth Jedi were there best. And my immediate reaction to 9th Jedi was also, "Yes, please give me a show based on this!" Great self contained story but also works as an excellent pilot

The Duel: As pointed out in the screengrabs - a callback to old timey Akira Kurosawa who was a major inspiration for Star Wars. I mean, just look at the respective title screens of Yojimbo and The Duel:




Very classic "Ronin saves village from bandits", but very well executed, and with a compelling art style - black and white with dashes of color (lights, blaster shots, lightsabers). Interestingly, there will be a novel about the Ronin character (called "Ronin") coming out some time soon.

Tatooine Rhapsody: Boba Fett is tasked with apprehending a young Hutt who plays in a rock band and bring him to Jabba for execution. Silly little story, with a fun rock soundtrack. Loved seeing the Mos Espa pod racing arena again.

The Twins: Twin brother and sister, dark force users, duel on a twin star destroyer over a powerful crystal - the sister wants to use it for evil, he wants to prevent that. Visually I thought this was really cool, but overall lacked substance.

The Village Bride: Bandits terrorize a village (sound familiar? ) in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. The village chief's daughter is willing to sacrifice herself to save the village. A lost Padawan saves the day. I think I would have liked this one better if I had seen it before The Duel, because the premise is similar, and while it's well done The Duel just seems to do this so much better.

The Ninth Jedi: Some time in the distant future. The Jedi are scattered throughout the galaxy. Light sabers have passed into myth. A mysterious figure assembles a handful of stray Jedi, promising them lightsabers that have been created by a saber smith with the kyber crystals found on the planet. Cool visuals, an interesting premise and some nice twists. This was great, and felt like a pilot to a show (that I would gladly watch).

T0-B1: Star Wars Pinocchio by way of Astro Boy. Retro art style and a synth soundtrack in the style of Isao Tomita ( ) make this the arthouse entry to the anthology. A droid helps an old guy who tries to turn (what appears to be) Tatooine into a lush landscape. The droid himself dreams of becoming a Jedi. An inquisitor shows up and kills the old man. The droid later continues his work, manages to turn the planet into a garden, defeats the inquisitor in a tight battle and learns to use the force.

The Elder: Fun story about a master and an apprentice, sometime before Phantom Menace, probably, sensing a dark presence on a planet and investigating. They're faced with an old dark side user who they have to fight to the death. Besides the action it adds a theme of transience and all existence being transitory. Loved it. Would watch more of the master/apprentice having adventures - they had pretty good chemistry.

Lop & Ocho: An (adopted) ruling family is torn between supporting or resisting the Empire, embracing tradition or technological progress. It sees daughter turn against father and sisters against each other. Strong Meiji restoration vibes. It wasn't quite good, I thought, but the ending was ... there? It sets itself up for a sequel, but as it is feels incomplete (unlike 9th Jedi which can easily stand on its own).

Akakiri: The playlist order starts with a Kurosawa homage and ends with one. A Jedi has visions of death and killing that draw him to a planet where he grew attached to a certain princess. The princess is removed from power by a usurper. They make their way to the fortress with two comic relief peasants. It's clearly inspired by Hidden Fortress, in which a general, a princess and two peasants have to make their perilous way and which greatly inspired George Lucas for Star Wars (the peasants took the form of C-3PO and R2-D2, and the peasants in this one have similar body shapes to the two droids). The story revolves around destiny and choice, and ... I did not expect the ending. Really liked this one.


In retrospect I think I would have liked a few more stories without Jedi or lightsaber duels (I had flashbacks to watching fan films on TheForce.net in the early 00s which featured MANY lightsaber fights ).

[The Minsky Moment]

It's official, we lost WW2.  We stamped out Japanese militarism yet somehow allowed this to flourish.

[Syt]

LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales

Bit of a mixed bag. It goes the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror route with a silly framing story and vignettes that spoof horror media.

The framing is Poe Dameron crashlanding his X-Wing on Mustafar and runnning into a Hutt who's converting Vader's Castle into a hotel resort (just go with it). Meanwhile, Vader's lackey (from Rogue One) has plans of his own and tells three stories.

One is about Ben Solo joining the Knights of Ren, as a parody of the Lost Boys.
Next is Spider Darth Maul and General Grievous rushing to find a legendary Sith artifact for Palpatine.
And finally The Monkey's Wookiee's Paw as a "What If" in which Luke leaves the farm to go to the academy and join the Empire.

Those three and the framing so far were quite fun.

Unfortunately, the action finale felt quite generic and "meh". Without that I would have liked it a lot better.

[Syt]

It's weird how the animation quality of Bad Batch is basically on the level of the end of Attack of the Clones at this point.

[celedhring]

Not a high bar. The battle of Geonosis in AOTC is a total eyesore with all the CGI clone troopers.