Star Wars Megathread

[Syt]

Watching the video and the words "Robert Rodríguez, one of my all-time favorite directors" should disqualify him from running a film youtube channel.

He made good some points about the similarities to the Ten Commandments, though.

[celedhring]

Syt, are you familiar with the new Zahn Thrawn books? Are they good? Wondering about buying them for my brother as holiday present, he loved the old Thrawn trilogy.

[Habbaku]

I watched Boba Fett last night. That was a steaming pile of trash.

[Syt]

Syt, are you familiar with the new Zahn Thrawn books? Are they good? Wondering about buying them for my brother as holiday present, he loved the old Thrawn trilogy.

I read the first one. I don't like Zahn's style of writing, so I didn't continue. There's only so much frowning and furrowing of brows and murmuring I can take during a story. I also felt his Thrawn was a bit too much like Cumberbatch's Sherlock (including his own Watson style character) who is hyper-competent and planning his five-dimensional chess moves ten steps ahead of everyone else. The first book also has a parallel story of how Governor Pryce (from Rebels) rose through the ranks which I actually liked.

YMMV.

[celedhring]

You make it sound like it'll fall into "I shouldn't like this, but I do" category. 

[Eddie Teach]

I watched Boba Fett last night. That was a steaming pile of trash.

You sound like someone who hasn't seen Star Wars since the mid 90s.

[Habbaku]

K.

[celedhring]

My only fear is that they try to do The Mandalorian without Mando - the western vibes, the same-ish music... - which just won't work. I hope they let Boba get its own thing, Godfather in space could be fun.

[Syt]

At any rate, Temuera Morrison's ad for aPolynesian Spas makes a lot more sense now (call it foreshadowing).



https://youtu.be/21HKBw449bE

[Syt]

My only fear is that they try to do The Mandalorian without Mando - the western vibes, the same-ish music... - which just won't work. I hope they let Boba get its own thing, Godfather in space could be fun.

It does surely have some western vibes, but I'm a sucker for space westerns, so I can live with that (I mean, his dad was called Jango FFS). I'm curious where they will take the direction. It's only 7 episodes, and if they keep narrating the 5 years since ROTJ as flashbacks, I'm half wondering if it would have been served better as two feature length films - one filling the gaps between ROTJ and Mando, the other telling the post Mando part. Since we're apparently heading towards some sort of overarching climax that will have Mando, Fett and Ahsoka converging in some way, I would assume this is the story of Fett aquiring a power base that will come into play later on in either battling Thrawn or settling the fate of Mandalore (or both). Kind of like Maul's creation of Crimson Dawn in Clone Wars, maybe, but with a more good guy character leading it, and overcoming more resistance (I mean, Maul basically walks up to the crime lords, kills some of them and that makes them fall in line).

Saw some speculation about the sand people we see in the episode (which dress notably different from what we've seen in the movies and Mandalorian). Some speculate they might be influenced by a comics story - Vader did return to Tatooine, and apparently while there slaughtered some more Tuskens for good measure. Some survivors of the massacre started worshipping him as some sort of warrior god, with effigies and stuff. I find it doubtful that they'd make such a reference in the show (they would have to explain that to viewers at some point, because the vast majority - me included - doesn't follow the comics). Star Wars Explained said he didn't expect it to be confirmed on show but that it might become a throw-away line in a visual dictionary or something (which are technically considered canon). But I do wonder if we will get some more info on why these guys have a more bad ass look than the "generic" Tuskens, but my guess is that the main reason is "to make them more visually interesting", to be able to discern standing within the tribe etc.

I've seen a fair lot of people wonder who the unfortunate stormtrooper at the start of the episode is. It seems people have been trained to expect all kinds of connections to non-live action material at this point. I think it's cool when those connections happen (Cobb Vanth was a huge one for me, putting a cool minor side character from a series of vignettes within a novel on screen), but I also don't want the series to fall into the trap that everything showing up is a reference to something somewhere. That happens already A LOT in Star Wars. Sure, you can wave it away as "The Will Of The Force", and the mythical character of the original movies (including the prequels, and sequels if you want to be charitable), with myths and legends also having quite closed off systems of characters interacting with each other, but I feel outside of "the main movies" it has less of a place, unless the story is meant to specifically tie into the "main saga". I thought Rebels managed that well, establishing a lot of new stuff (both characters, but also as to how the Force works and what it can do) without getting too bogged down by the "main story" so to speak. Where movie characters or from other shows showed up their appearance was either brief (Leia, Lando) or as major catalysts for the story that didn't become part of the main cast (Vader, Maul, Ahsoka), or made sense in context of the story (Rex, Wolffe, Gregor). But the main story arc was carried by the main cast of the show.

[Eddie Teach]

SFGate* agrees with Hab. Found the show "worse than polio".

*NHOI before

[viper37]

Syt, are you familiar with the new Zahn Thrawn books? Are they good? Wondering about buying them for my brother as holiday present, he loved the old Thrawn trilogy.

They are very good books, with the caveat that I find Thrawn to be borderline invincible in this series, so the effect of surprise is kinda gone whenever he shows up in a battle.  Not that the author would kill his character, but sometimes, just sometimes, I'd like him to face these "impossible"* odds and be forced to execute a retreat.

I do like however that you are far away from the Republic, the rebellion, the Empire(s).  It's a totally new society to explore, a totally new culture based on the doctrine of not firing the first shot (which is at odds with Thrawn's own philosophy or preemptive strikes).


*It is stated in the books Thrawn does not believe in impossible odds.

[Syt]

I find Thrawn to be borderline invincible in this series, so the effect of surprise is kinda gone whenever he shows up in a battle.  Not that the author would kill his character, but sometimes, just sometimes, I'd like him to face these "impossible"* odds and be forced to execute a retreat.

And people complain about Rey being a Mary Sue character.

[Syt]

Also, Sophie Thatcher's character in the latest BoBF trailer looked familiar:

[Eddie Teach]

Same haircut but different fashion sense. Where is the second pic from?