avecigrec
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I've been loving it. Only seen the first 2 episodes of Rebels and read some of the comics - no issues keeping up though.
STAR WARS! STAR WARS! STAR WARS
- Thread starter David A.
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Yeah, I've been loving it. Only seen the first 2 episodes of Rebels and read some of the comics - no issues keeping up though.
I haven't watched either. I guess I'm going to have to to fill in the blanks on the backstory.
I really enjoy this channel on YouTube. He does pretty good recaps. I believe this came out right before the season started.
Trying to get up on my clone wars and rebel knowledge before ahsoka since i've never seen those. Since i do not want to see the clone wars 140+ episodes i found this helpful
A Guide to Star Wars: The Clone Wars for Grown-Ups
If you’re a Mandalorian fan who just wants to know more about Ahsoka Tano, Boba Fett, and Mandalore, this guide is for you.slate.com
The few story arcs i watched so far with this guide are quite good
so i´m through with this clone wars speed through and there are indeed some great story arcs (my favourites beeing the end of season 5 and the arc where clone trooper fives nearly uncovers the order 66 conspiracy) in there. i have to admit that i liked the bounty hunters story arcs the least. Ashoka is clearly the heart of the show, the other center is the clones which really get fleshed out as beings with feelings and compassions. The "roger, roger" droids are quite annoying, but a villain like general grieveous is indeed more terrifying than he was in the movies. I liked the Asajii Ventress character arc during the seasons and i think they even did a decent job with reviving maul. I also like that it deals with lots of nuanced topics for an animated series like war profiteering on both sides, the cost of raging war on the people fighting on the ground etc. Anakin is a much more likable character than in the movies and his gradual transition to the dark side shown much better. Generally the jedi are pointed more grey and their entanglement in an endless war shown critical.
The look of the series improves a lot over the season. While it looked somehow like n older computer game in the beginning the lasts seasons had some stunning graphics. I really like the last 5 or so (wordless) minutes of the series that looked gorgeous and showed alot of emotions in ahsoka and even vader without anyone speaking.. But overall i am glad i took a shortcut through the series because even in those storylines there were episodes that really dragged ( endless samey battles of clones and droids running at each other).
You did right by skipping out on the worst, most cartoony bits. There's the episode where the Sepratists mistake Jar Jar for a Gungan jedi, the one where the Gungans somehow capture Grevious and hold him for ransom...really any episode with the Gungans. There's also the unabashed film parody episodes, the most egregious being the Zilo beast 2-parter that's just straight up Godzilla/Kong.
Darkness over Umbara and The Seige of Mandalore easily stand out as the best stuff. Most of the back half is pretty decent actually, except where Filoni really deviates from established canon.
Turning Barris Ofree from a gifted Jedi battle medic to a literal terrorist. Doesn't help that she and her master (Luminara) are the 2 muslim-coded jedi.
Completely changing the Nightsisters and Dathomir from their previous appearances.
The concept of the inhibitor chips completely changes the clone's motivations for order 66, and is a HUGE change. This is a biproduct of Filoni wanting to "humanize" the clones and give them individual personalities, which is completely diffrent from how they were normally presented. Order 66 went from "loyal soldiers follow orders, even if it means shooting a supposed ally in the back", and dealing with the emotional fallout from that, to "I dont know anybetter because I have a mind-control chip".
Yoda's whole vision quest, which involves him knowing important information he really should not be aware of at the time (ie the Rule of 2). Plus changing Darth Bane's whole look..just cause
Completely changing the Nightsisters and Dathomir from their previous appearances.
The concept of the inhibitor chips completely changes the clone's motivations for order 66, and is a HUGE change. This is a biproduct of Filoni wanting to "humanize" the clones and give them individual personalities, which is completely diffrent from how they were normally presented. Order 66 went from "loyal soldiers follow orders, even if it means shooting a supposed ally in the back", and dealing with the emotional fallout from that, to "I dont know anybetter because I have a mind-control chip".
Yoda's whole vision quest, which involves him knowing important information he really should not be aware of at the time (ie the Rule of 2). Plus changing Darth Bane's whole look..just cause
and I agree that portrayal of teenage Boba Fett is awful. Strangely enough the definitive portrayal of Clone-Wars era Boba is the "Young Boba Fett" young readers series from the early 00's. I still have mine from when I was a kid and they really (weirdly enough) hold up.
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Guess I need to reed the battle medic books. Barris is definitelthe worst part in the ashoka conspiracy storyline. I liked ahsokas estrangement from the way the jedi council does politics, but Barris role and while motivation in the plot weren't particularly well written. She had no real reason to frame her friend ahsoka and it felt more like the writers wanted a shocking reveal.as I said I liked the overall arc of ahsokas departure from the order but hers was def the weak part.
The humanizing of the clones worked well for me, but I had not read any of the clone wars canon stuff before, so I understand that this is disappointing for readers of those novels
The humanizing of the clones worked well for me, but I had not read any of the clone wars canon stuff before, so I understand that this is disappointing for readers of those novels
Well im glad you enjoyed what you watched, jumping around really is the way to watch TCW as opposed to straight through.
Yeah the disparity between canon and legends, and their very diffrent portrayals of certain things can be jarring. The more Filoni adds to his Star Wars universe the more Legends lovers like me mostly stick to pre-disney content, but that's fine...... What was really awful was 2008-2013, when The Clone Wars (2008) was on the air, but Disney hadn't made the Lucasfilm purchase, so it just had to somehow sit in current continuity while contradicting things left and right. That's probably what started the negativity surrounding 'ol Dave. Bad times.
Feel free to ask for Legends recommendations anytime if you're ever in the mood; I really love writing about Star Wars. The Medstar Duology (the two Battle Medic Novels) are great, but more in the cult classic territory of SW books. There's probably a dozen more I'd recommend first, unless you're just itching for a wartime medic novel (which is admititly unique and a very interesting read....it's kind of like the serious parts of MASH).
Oh and I forgot to mention the one episode I really do enjoy a lot.
The one where Sidious learns about Mauls survival and takeover of Mandalore, and goes to put an end to it. Seeing him cackle like an absolute madman, doing acrobatic flips and 2on1ing Maul and Savage Opress without breaking a sweat.....that's some good stuff.
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yes, please. the wealth of material is just very hard to see through. high republic was easy to access because it just started as a new project and did not require any other reading before
Most Legends novels really don't require much prior reading before hand (though the more you put into it, the more you'll get out). Most everything connects, so you'll probably find a couple names that aren't fully referenced; but I just take a couple minutes, look up the name on wookiepedia and read about it a bit, and then see the "appearances" section for all the other times this person/thing is mentioned. Hell, I still have to do this for High Republic.
The post Return of the Jedi story is the most complicated part of Legends, and the one part that really does require a reading order. While it's a bit of a ordeal I find it greatly rewarding. The 19 part novel series "New Jedi Order", which details the Yuuzhan Vong war, is absolute peak Star Wars in my eyes, on par with the classic films. Jaina Solo is and always will be my favorite character.
But other than post ROTJ, most of the novels are mostly standalone (with the exception of series like Republic Commando ofc). You can really just pick an era or character that interests you, and theres bound to be some books that interest you. The comics (published by Dark Horse but now owned by Marvel, and readily available on Marvel Unlimited) are INCREDIBLE and not to be missed. Some of my favorite series include Knights of the Old Republic, Tales of the Jedi, Dark Times (detailing the transition from the Republic to the Empire) and Legacy (an absolute bonkers series set 140 years after the original trilogy).
It is vast; that'll happen when you have an EU running wild for 20 years. If you have a specific era or character in mind I can give you some more specific recommendations.
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avecigrec
Well-Known Member
I've read the first 19 issues of this (Epic Collection vol. 1 equivalent). I was drawn to it because it's written by John Ostrander who wrote a lot of my favourite DC Comics stuff growing up (Manhunter, Suicide Squad) - I was kinda resistant for the first couple of issues, but I let that go fairly soon after and really enjoyed what I read so far. Gonna have to get back to it once I clear my library backlog.
Ostrander is the man. Love all that DC stuff (The Spectre!) and his Star Wars material has that same dark introspection aspect that's so emblematic of his work. He wrote a good chunk of the "Republic" series (the flagship prequel era series coming out at the same time as the films), and is a large reason that run is so highly regarded, even managing to get some of his ideas into the new canon (see: Dark Disciple).
Legacy is so different than everything else, it's like being dropped into post-apocalyptic Star Wars. At first it's kind of jarring: how did we get from The New Republic, to a galaxy with 3 equal ruling factions (one of which is an Imperial remnant?); then the more you read Post-ROTJ things start to fall into place and it starts to make sense. It connects a ton to past work too; one major character in the series is revealed to be a relatively minor character that Ostrander introduced waaaay earlier in the Republic series, and was subsequently included in a bunch of novels. Ah man it's so rewarding.
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dbarila
Well-Known Member
I was actually thinking that this was the most "Star Wars" feeling episode of any TV series yet. Kind of weird that the episode that felt the best to me so far only had Ahsoka in it for the first 2 minutes? I kind of wish this is how the series started instead of being the 3rd to last episode.
wokeupnew
Well-Known Member
I watched this video today on my lunch break and it did a great job of explaining so much of this show that I have no clue about. I still don't quite know things but I know more than I did before today.
When I first started watching I wondered why the series was called Ahsoka because it didn't feel like she's the main character of the show. It still kind of doesn't. They probably could have called it something else to get more people to watch it as well.
dbarila
Well-Known Member
Rebels?
They aren't really Rebels anymore. And, groan, they'll be the Resistance eventually. Ahsoka is more marketable than Sabine and Ezra. Clone Wars was much more influential than Rebels.
imtheocean
Well-Known Member
I started watching Rebels on the strength of Ahsoka, and am really enjoying it. I couldn't get more than a few episodes into Clone Wars, but I suppose I should watch the essential episodes.
I was the same. I've only watched the final season of Clone Wars and that was more because of enjoying the Ahsoka parts from Rebels. Rebels feels so much more like the original trilogy. Plus, you didn't have characters where you automatically knew their fate like in Clone Wars, outside of some guest appearances. It was a cool window into how bleak things have gotten.
Being sick the last days npmadd me binge through highlights from essentials more easily.
What I liked really well is the Characterization of the ghosts Crew, their stories and interactions. That's where rebels shines for me. I also like thrawn as a villain and him bringing some tactical manouvering to the battle that was completely missing from clone wars. There were some cool Story arcs with mauls return and end and ahsokas confrontation with vader. The backs and forths with thrawn in season 3 with the counter spionage thing was well done. Also the mandalore plot gave some background iwish i had before watching mando.I know it's supposed to rather be a kids show but overall the writing was not good. The empire seems to have a major human recourse problem because except thrawn everyone else running a command is utterly incompetent. Also after season 2 the writers obviously had no ideas what to do with vader and the inquisitors so they just never appear again which is even more surprising given the turn season 4 takes.
This might be a hot take given some internet reviews I just skimmed through but I hated season 4 ( beginning with the strange bendu storyline in seaon 3). The whole thing with spirit animals, force sensitive wolves traveling through the planet, time traveling jedi temples was too much on the mystery side for me. The main character death came as no surprise because it was so obvious in the episodebecause everyone was having his big farewell moment with him in the episode. And his death was completely forced with the empire working completely against their own interest in this case.
And again, the empire tries to uncover this big time traveling jedi temple that is connected to he mortis legend and the empire does not have vader who was at mortis nor his inquisitors close while the two jedis that made most trouble for the empire at yhat time were known to be around regularly. So, yes, Sorry but season 4 was not good, so I'm alittle afraid going into ahsoka if that's really season 5 of rebels
This might be a hot take given some internet reviews I just skimmed through but I hated season 4 ( beginning with the strange bendu storyline in seaon 3). The whole thing with spirit animals, force sensitive wolves traveling through the planet, time traveling jedi temples was too much on the mystery side for me. The main character death came as no surprise because it was so obvious in the episodebecause everyone was having his big farewell moment with him in the episode. And his death was completely forced with the empire working completely against their own interest in this case.
And again, the empire tries to uncover this big time traveling jedi temple that is connected to he mortis legend and the empire does not have vader who was at mortis nor his inquisitors close while the two jedis that made most trouble for the empire at yhat time were known to be around regularly. So, yes, Sorry but season 4 was not good, so I'm alittle afraid going into ahsoka if that's really season 5 of rebels