The official Star wars thread

[Etrurian emperor]

Because why not? My last few ''official topics'' have done fairly well, and Star Wars still is among one of the biggest franchises on the internet. So give us your spicy Jedi hot takes, your likes, your dislikes, your opinions on Jar Jar and more.

-I'm the strange sort of creature who think that the Prequel movies are peak Star Wars. Especially Return of the Sith is the greatest Star Wars movie out there. I did start out with the prequels of course, so I had no innate nostalgia for the original movies, and I think the sequels are about as objectively bad as a trilogy can get. But the prequels had the right mix of story, action and sheer fun. Except Attack of the Clones which is just awful. As a prequel guy I rather like that they have gotten some degree of rehabilitation and that people now at least agree that even if they're not good they're at least dumb fun. To this day new prequel memes are still coming out. 

-Maybe its because it was my first Star Wars movie but I honestly never got the big backlash about the Phantom Menace. Granted, it doesn't hold up as well as I remember it but I still think its largely solid. I was actually surprised to learn the movie had a seething hatedom upon its release. I honestly thought the prequel hate started with Attack of the Clones. 

-I think Palpatine is the best Star Wars character because he embodies the aspects of the prequels I like so much. A mix of story, actions and fun. He's got such a long convoluted plan that his part in the story is certainly a spectacle, he's got a great fight with Yoda, and just about everything he says and does is so bombastic and fun. Ultimately Palpatine is just very, very camp just like Star Wars should be. 

-The Mandalorian is widely acclaimed as the best Star Wars series since Lucas left but I mostly think its just fine. I liked it. I enjoyed the episodes that I watched but I never got super invested and after putting it down somewhere mid season 2 I don't really feel compelled to get back. Meanwhile the seemingly controversial Obi Wan is something I can get more easily invested in. Despite some internet grumblings about it I rather like it.

-I always had a soft spot for Darth Maul but hearing he was brought back was a huge turn off for me. Its clear that he was only brought back for the fanservice and I don't think the clone wars really needed a third faction in the war. Most importantly Maul takes away from Dooku who's arguably the more interesting Sith. And just Maul being around kinda breaks the setting. The entire time he could  have foiled Palpatine's plot by just telling everyone he's a Sith. If Maul hated his master so much he should have shouted it from the rooftops. There are some bright spots for his character. Maul's final moments were actually pretty great, but overall its just not worth it.

-I think Count Dooku is largely wasted. This is partially because of Darth Maul intruding in his war but he also has the bad fortune of being the main villain in one of the most boring Star Wars movies, before being quickly dispatched in the following movie. This is a shame because a Sith who's not a raving lunatic but who has political goals he wants to realize could be very interesting. 

-Its great that the Disney Canon brought back admiral Thrawn but they also put the character in an impossible position. Thrawn's whole thing is that he's the greatest strategist in the galaxy. He's the genius to end all geniuses. The problem with this is that if Thrawn returns in the post Endor era then he can only lose. Just by virtue of the sequels existing we know that any attempt by Thrawn to topple the galaxy will fail. But this creates a bizarre contradiction. The New Republic is depicted as so weak that the joke villains of the First Order can destroy it without any effort, so if the great genius Thrawn is easily outclassed by joke villains then he's not a genius or even a minor threat, and if Thrawn really is a big deal then it means a New Republic which defeated him cannot possible have been crushed by a gaggle of joke villains. Similarly Thrawn being stuck chasing down a random bunch of misfits in Rebels and ultimately being twarted by them also cast doubt on him supposedly being such a titanic figure. 

-In general any post endor villain like Moff Gideon or whoever else is created will fall into the above mentioned problem. Because of their place in the canon they're destined to lose in a scenario that vastly worse villains are destined to win with hilarious ease. 

-I never really connected to general Grievious as a character. He's just a weirdly written character. In the movies he's just a quirky miniboss that character talk rather dismissively about. But in every story outside of the movies he's supposedly this uber baddass who can beat up several jedi masters at once and who's greatly feared by everyone. So which is it? 

-I think Kylo Ren should have been the main villain of the sequel trilogy. I have a strong suspicion that Palps was brought back because studio and fans alike didn't think Kylo could convincingly carry a movie by himself, but I think he'd have been great. Kylo forming his own ideology of ''killing the past'' rather than being your run of the mill crazy Sith would have been interesting, and Kylo growing from a whiny,  joke character that throws temper tantrums into an all powerful emperor would be good character development. Rise of Skywalker did its best to push Kylo as far away from the villain spot as it could, but the scenes where he was shown leading the First Order made him come off as sufficiently imposing, and it be great if we got more of that. 

Edited June 21 by Etrurian emperor

[Fabulously Olivier]

Okay, hot take. Kylo Ren's got the coolest Sith outfit. Yes, a million times cooler than Darth Vader's. Shame about the character under the mask, and the scene of him destroying said mask was just as emblematic of everything wrong with The Last Jedi as the scene where Luke throws away his lightsaber.

[vanguard333]

42 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

-I think Count Dooku is largely wasted. This is partially because of Darth Maul intruding in his war but he also has the bad fortune of being the main villain in one of the most boring Star Wars movies, before being quickly dispatched in the following movie. This is a shame because a Sith who's not a raving lunatic but who has political goals he wants to realize could be very interesting. 

I think one thing that would've really helped Dooku (and the prequel trilogy as a whole) would be if he had made a small appearance in The Phantom Menace that established him as Qui-Gonn's master and showed him being disillusioned with the Jedi and the Republic.

 

44 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

-I always had a soft spot for Darth Maul but hearing he was brought back was a huge turn off for me. Its clear that he was only brought back for the fanservice and I don't think the clone wars really needed a third faction in the war. Most importantly Maul takes away from Dooku who's arguably the more interesting Sith. And just Maul being around kinda breaks the setting. The entire time he could  have foiled Palpatine's plot by just telling everyone he's a Sith. If Maul hated his master so much he should have shouted it from the rooftops. There are some bright spots for his character. Maul's final moments were actually pretty great, but overall its just not worth it.

I thought I was alone in not liking that Maul got brought back in The Clone Wars. I liked Maul in The Phantom Menace, but I thought bringing him back was really unnecessary, and yeah; his survival really does break the setting.

 

47 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

-I never really connected to general Grievious as a character. He's just a weirdly written character. In the movies he's just a quirky miniboss that character talk rather dismissively about. But in every story outside of the movies he's supposedly this uber baddass who can beat up several jedi masters at once and who's greatly feared by everyone. So which is it? 

Funny enough, there's a reason for that discrepancy. When the creators of the original Clone Wars show (the one that was actually made between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) were given General Grievous to use in the show, George Lucas hadn't finished creating the character, so they didn't know that George Lucas intended for Grievous to be a cowardly Saturday Morning Cartoon villain (or about the cough that the character has in ROTS) until the final season. They just knew stuff like "he's a cyborg", "he's called the Knightslayer", and "He collects the lightsabers of every Jedi he kills", and they came to the understandable conclusion that Grievous was supposed to be a badass.

I did like what they came up with in the final season of that show to explain the discrepancy; that Mace Windu Force-crushed Grievous' chest during the Battle of Coruscant; permanently crippling him and giving him the cough. It kind-of made movie Grievous a bit more badass as it meant that Grievous put up a decent fight against Obi-Wan while still injured from his fight with Windu.

Funny enough, I much preferred the Grievous portrayed in that show, even though I saw the movie version of him first. The version of Grievous in the show was downright terrifying. I was looking forward to that version of Grievous being on-screen again in the cartoon The Clone Wars, only to be really disappointed when that version of Grievous was even worse than the movie version. He lost to gungans armed with spears!

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Grievous being on-screen again in the cartoon The Clone Wars, only to be really disappointed when that version of Grievous was even worse than the movie version. He lost to gungans armed with spears!

To be fair, he has his moments.

But since the status quo is enforced by The Revenge of the Sith, he is not immune to Kenobi trolling him.

 

 

Edited June 22 by Armchair General

[vanguard333]

43 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

To be fair, he has his moments.

But since the status quo is enforced by The Revenge of the Sith, he is not immune to Kenobi trolling him.

Eh; those are certainly not bad, but they are a far cry from the Knightslayer from the previous cartoon (granted, everyone is more badass in the previous cartoon, but it's especially striking with Grievous).

Let me remind you of what Grievous was like in the original Clone Wars:

It wasn't just that he was strong, but also that he was scary (deliberately so, as a training scene between him and Count Dooku established that, because he isn't Force-sensitive, he must have fear, surprise and intimidation on his side when up against the best of the Jedi).

 

Anyway, those videos also remind me: I did not like the idea of Obi-Wan or Anakin meeting Grievous before Revenge of the Sith, as their meeting in the start of the film was implied to have been their very first meeting.

One thing does confuse me: why tell Grievous that the ship's going to self-destruct? That just gives him a chance to escape.

Edited June 22 by vanguard333

[Fire Emblem Fan]

-A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are all fantastic.
-The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith range between good and very good.
-Attack of the Clones is...well, not great, but still better than anything Disney has done with the license. Yes, that includes The Mandalorian.
-"Allegiance," "Choices of One," "Shadows of the Empire," "Heir to the Empire," "Dark Force Rising," "The Last Command," "I,Jedi," "Ambush at Corellia," "Assault at Selonia," "Showdown at Centerpoint," "Specter of the Past," "Vision of the Future," and "Survivor's Quest," are all pretty great Star Wars books. (Listed in order of their placement in the timeline, not in publishing order.)
-Making the old Expanded Universe non-canon was a gigantic mistake on Disney's part. Not all of it is good, there's quite a bit of bad, but there is still a large sizeable portion of it that is VERY good, such as all those books I just mentioned, and some I didn't. There's also a plethora of fantastic characters that are infinitely better than any and every character Disney has come up with, such as Mara Jade and Kyle Katarn. Heck, Mara Jade is one of the best characters Star Wars has ever had, period. And then of course there's all the great video games that amount to nothing now for the new canon. The good in the EU completely blows each and every thing Disney has done with the new canon out of the water.
-The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker are all just awful, for various reasons. Rogue One and Solo are bad, too. All the Disney+ series have been bad as well (The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi...), and my hope that maybe just one will be good has so far had no positive results.
-Can you tell I don't like Disney Star Wars? I dislike every single thing they've done with the license. All of the movies they've attempted, their treatment of all the old characters like Luke and Obi-Wan, the new canon and new characters...all of it, I dislike it all.

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

One thing does confuse me: why tell Grievous that the ship's going to self-destruct? That just gives him a chance to escape.

Because it's funny.

 

At any rate, it's one of the episodes that I haven't seen. I might have, but I'm not entirely sure.

[vanguard333]

2 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Because it's funny.

 

At any rate, it's one of the episodes that I haven't seen. I might have, but I'm not entirely sure.

Yeah, it's funny, but it really isn't good strategy in a desperate situation.

 

In any case, I still maintain that Grievous' introduction to the original Clone Wars is definitely among the top 10 Star Wars fights, and none of Grievous' fights in The Clone Wars comes close.

 

39 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

-The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker are all just awful, for various reasons. Rogue One and Solo are bad, too. All the Disney+ series have been bad as well (The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi...), and my hope that maybe just one will be good has so far had no positive results.
-Can you tell I don't like Disney Star Wars? I dislike every single thing they've done with the license. All of the movies they've attempted, their treatment of all the old characters like Luke and Obi-Wan, the new canon and new characters...all of it, I dislike it all.

I agree about everything on that list except for Rogue One. Rogue One is the only one I don't regret watching (which isn't saying much, but it's more than can be said about the rest of Disney Star Wars). I won't say the movie is good; it isn't, but I wouldn't say it's outright bad either. It's in the middle.

[lenticular]

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

As a prequel guy I rather like that they have gotten some degree of rehabilitation and that people now at least agree that even if they're not good they're at least dumb fun.

I think that the rehabilitation of the prequels is somewhat similar to the rehabilitation of FE: Fates. People who disliked them when they first came out still dislike them now, but they just don't care as much. Time has passed, other movies have come out, they've grown invested in new things. Which means that more of the people who are talking about the prequels these days are the people who like them. And the passage of time also means that people who were kids when the prequels came out -- and are more likely to look at them with the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia -- are now in their twenties and thirties and forming a sizable portion of online discourse. I honestly expect that, in twenty years, you'll be able to find people saying that they're glad that the sequels have seen rehabilitation, but that [trilogy four] is just objectively bad.

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

-Maybe its because it was my first Star Wars movie but I honestly never got the big backlash about the Phantom Menace. Granted, it doesn't hold up as well as I remember it but I still think its largely solid. I was actually surprised to learn the movie had a seething hatedom upon its release. I honestly thought the prequel hate started with Attack of the Clones. 

From memory, the big things that people hated about The Phantom Menace were: JarJar Binks, midi-chlorians, and child Anakin. Which I can largely agree with, although the degree of hatred and vitriol directed towards it was way out of proportion.  The hatred and harassment directed at Jake Lloyd (who played young Anakin) was particularly gross and uncalled for, obviously. No movie can ever possibly be bad enough to warrant destroying the life of a ten year old with a concerted harassment campaign.

Anyway, my unpopular opinion and lukewarm take is that I enjoyed Attack of the Clones the most out of the three prequel movies. It had the fewest parts that irritated me, and I thought that the arena battle (especially the first part, versus the monsters) was one of the better Star Wars set pieces.

2 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

-"Allegiance," "Choices of One," "Shadows of the Empire," "Heir to the Empire," "Dark Force Rising," "The Last Command," "I,Jedi," "Ambush at Corellia," "Assault at Selonia," "Showdown at Centerpoint," "Specter of the Past," "Vision of the Future," and "Survivor's Quest," are all pretty great Star Wars books. (Listed in order of their placement in the timeline, not in publishing order.)
-Making the old Expanded Universe non-canon was a gigantic mistake on Disney's part. Not all of it is good, there's quite a bit of bad, but there is still a large sizeable portion of it that is VERY good, such as all those books I just mentioned, and some I didn't. There's also a plethora of fantastic characters that are infinitely better than any and every character Disney has come up with, such as Mara Jade and Kyle Katarn. Heck, Mara Jade is one of the best characters Star Wars has ever had, period. And then of course there's all the great video games that amount to nothing now for the new canon. The good in the EU completely blows each and every thing Disney has done with the new canon out of the water.

My memory of the novels is that anything written by Zahn or Stackpole was pretty great and anything written by anyone else ranged from mediocre to terrible. I definitely wasn't all that high on Roger MacBride Allen's Corellian trilogy; they were far from the worst, but I didn't love them either.

Either way, I don't blame Disney for making the old EU non-canon. There was just so much damn stuff that it was all but impossible to keep up with all of it. And I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it must have been to try to write in that continuity and have to make sure that you didn't contradict anything that had gone before. Sometimes, starting over with a clean slate is the best idea.

[King Marth 64]

I had to say a few things, Star Wars is my favorite movie franchise.

First off, the Star Wars franchise does not deserve to be hated.

Second, Star Wars is a Movie Franchise (it originated as a movie franchise), not a Book Franchise like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. those EU/Legends books can't connected to the movies. Disney had never made EU/Legends non-canon. The Prequel Trilogy did retconned some stuff like Boba Fett's origins, origins of The Clone Wars, Attachments, & no everything is OP non-sense. Even The Clone Wars cartoon did a major retconning from the EU/Legends like Anakin has Ahsoka as his Padawan, Barris Offee's fate was changed, Savage kills Adi instead of General Grievous killed Adi, Dathomir Witches, etc. EU/Legends had made a lot of Star Wars characters way too OP like Luke, Star Killer, etc.

Third, The Prequel Trilogy and even The Sequel Trilogy doesn't deserve to be hated. Those toxic critism comments that has hatred towards The Sequel Trilogy and The Prequel Trilogy are down right painful bad and the bad comments needs to be destroyed from the Star Wars fandom for good. Those toxic Fandom Menace group needs to disappear for good. They clearly didn't see The Holiday Special since that was the worst Star Wars movie. (not the Prequel Trilogy, not the Sequel Trilogy, not the Spin-offs, just the Holiday Special is the absolute worst Star Wars movie)

Fourth, I am sorry, but The Empire Strike Back is not the best Star Wars movie ever in my opinion, it's my very least Star Wars movie in the franchise. I didn't like the movie because of the pacing issues, Asteroid Scene had issues, lack of space battles, Han's and Darth Vader's iconic lines felt very cringed, Luke's and Vader's duel was not handled well, Wampa Scene, and the Luke's training with Yoda felt too rushed (I think it would help if Yoda had explained about the Jedi Order to Luke and maybe explained the Jedi Order Rules as well). Return of the Jedi did made way better than The Empire Strike Back in The Original Trilogy. But, I'm still think in my book the Original Trilogy is my least favorite trilogy in the franchise. I really liked The Prequel Trilogy and loved The Sequel Trilogy. The Mandalorian is technically my least favorite Star Wars content in the Disney era.

Fifth, Luke isn't out of character in The Sequel Trilogy since he wasn't raised at the Jedi Order. He makes mistakes like a human being does that gives him three dimensional flaws.

Edited June 22 by King Marth 64

[Armchair General]

9 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

First off, the Star Wars franchise does not deserve to be hated.

True, but it kind of does deserves to be criticized.

 

9 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Second, Star Wars is a Movie Franchise

Also true, but the main goal of SW eventually turned into writing anything that looked good after LucasArts stopped making the films. Of course, outsourcing your projects to several companies without an long-term plan for the brand.

 

9 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Third, The Prequel Trilogy and even The Sequel Trilogy doesn't deserve to be hated.

Personally, I kind of hate the sequels on account that they keep bringing back some jokes from the previous series; and we never really had any drawn out duels that the series was known for. The pacing also felt kinda rushed, in my opinion.

 

9 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Fourth, I am sorry, but The Empire Strike Back is not the best Star Wars movie ever in my opinion, it's my very least Star Wars movie in the franchise

Yeah, Episode 5 is an bit of an dub and could have benefited with an more reasonable script. The duel against Vader felt kind of forced and it was basically an footnote in the greater scale of the series.

 

10 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Fifth, Luke isn't out of character in The Sequel Trilogy since he wasn't raised at the Jedi Order. He makes mistakes like a human being does that gives him three dimensional flaws.

This would have made more sense if Luke was an little bit younger when that incident happened or if he had a few of his students fall to the dark side like some of the Expanded Universe content showcased. Don't get me wrong, people do make some mistakes here and there; but it's kind of hard to believe that Luke almost settled on killing his nephew after being an teacher for at least 20 years.

 

13 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah, it's funny, but it really isn't good strategy in a desperate situation.

Personally, I blame the writers. Although it's not out of character for Kenobi to troll someone, but they aren't allowed to actually kill Grevious; come to think of it, this isn't the first time that they've used that joke.

 

13 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

In any case, I still maintain that Grievous' introduction to the original Clone Wars is definitely among the top 10 Star Wars fights, and none of Grievous' fights in The Clone Wars comes close.

The great thing about that cartoon is that it didn't really tone down how violent an war actually is, since  nearly everything else had to tone down the violence.

[vanguard333]

10 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Fifth, Luke isn't out of character in The Sequel Trilogy since he wasn't raised at the Jedi Order. He makes mistakes like a human being does that gives him three dimensional flaws.

The fact that he wasn't raised in the Jedi Order and he knew the ways in which the Jedi messed up and lost their way means his mistakes should've been new ones that make sense for his character, not old ones that would make sense for the Jedi Order to make but not for Luke to make.

Luke Skywalker would not try to murder his sleeping nephew; that is extremely out-of-character. This is a man who refused to fight Darth Vader: the second-most evil man in the galaxy, after finding out that Vader is his father. This is a man who had to essentially be tricked into fighting Vader by Palpatine (Palpatine did everything he could to tempt Luke into attacking him, not Vader, knowing Vader would stop the attack and trigger a fight) and let's not forget that Luke refused to kill Vader even at his most furious. Luke would never draw his lightsaber on a nephew that was asleep and hadn't even turned evil yet.

[indigoasis]

Ooh, I very much enjoy Star Wars, so I'll share a bit of what I can.

• The music and production value for a majority of Star Wars media is always phenomenal, not to mention it's filled to the brim with so many interesting ideas and concepts. What's also great about that latter point is that new ideas can almost always be made, so Star Wars could never really run out of content
  • ... but they always come back to Tatooine anyway, so eh
• Even though the sequel trilogy is lackluster in the story department, I find that everything else about it is well done (music, acting, etc.)
• The Force Unleashed, The Complete Saga, KotoR, and Fallen Order are some of the best Star Wars video games
• Speaking of TFU, I would love to see Starkiller come back in some capacity. He probably won't since he can be a pretty brutal character (so an instant no-no for Disney), but I can always hope he does someday

I don't think I really have any other strong opinions. I know the series gets a lot of criticism, but I try to enjoy it (and anything else, for that matter) for what it is. I'm not really one to criticize anyway.

[King Marth 64]

4 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

The fact that he wasn't raised in the Jedi Order and he knew the ways in which the Jedi messed up and lost their way means his mistakes should've been new ones that make sense for his character, not old ones that would make sense for the Jedi Order to make but not for Luke to make.

Luke Skywalker would not try to murder his sleeping nephew; that is extremely out-of-character. This is a man who refused to fight Darth Vader: the second-most evil man in the galaxy, after finding out that Vader is his father. This is a man who had to essentially be tricked into fighting Vader by Palpatine (Palpatine did everything he could to tempt Luke into attacking him, not Vader, knowing Vader would stop the attack and trigger a fight) and let's not forget that Luke refused to kill Vader even at his most furious. Luke would never draw his lightsaber on a nephew that was asleep and hadn't even turned evil yet.

He almost did killed Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. Luke does realizes about his nephew in the third flash back. He realizes in the moment a few seconds after he ignite his lightsaber that he didn't feel like he should do it and it reminded him when he was fighting his father. Luke did said that he did felt something had happened to Ben Solo when he was sleeping. HelloGreedo did made good points about Luke, Luke isn't a Super Hero and not a perfect teacher, he's does make mistakes in the past like going off to Cloud City not ready yet. He was raised by Moisture Farmers in 19 years and even Owen Lars did forbid Obi-Wan to train Luke & see him that I think that's why Luke got so aggressive from Owen back then. (If Owen wasn't so strict and Luke was trained by Obi-Wan before A New Hope, Luke would might be a little bit different and I think he would might be handled better as a teacher) Luke did started Jedi Training at the age of 19, Yoda did mentioned that Anakin in The Phanton Menace that he was too old to be trained due to he felt very dark inside and Anakin wasn't a better Jedi than the others. Obi-Wan and Yoda were presumably had plans for Luke since he was the only two hopes they had left in The Original Trilogy. I technically think Luke would have been a bit more better teacher in context if he was trained earlier than started in 19 years old.

The book of The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi did mentioned that George Lucas wanted Luke going to have the same route like in The Last Jedi handled and they did inspired some elements from Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

I'm still putting my hopes in The Mandalorian Season 3 or 4 would have Ben Solo appeared as a kid & the new antagonist would appear as a Darkside Villain would turn out to be one of Grogu's masters that didn't appeared in the flash back and might reveal him or herself as Grogu's masters. I was going to predict that Ben Solo might have meet Grogu during in Season 3 or 4 after The Book of Boba Fett's ending and we might see how Ben Solo went down to a dark path in his childhoood in the story. (I was bumbed that they let Grogu reunited Din way too soon in The Book of Boba Fett and it felt like they should have waited the reunion for The Mandalorian Season 3.)

Edited June 22 by King Marth 64

[Fire Emblem Fan]

22 hours ago, lenticular said:

My memory of the novels is that anything written by Zahn or Stackpole was pretty great and anything written by anyone else ranged from mediocre to terrible. I definitely wasn't all that high on Roger MacBride Allen's Corellian trilogy; they were far from the worst, but I didn't love them either.

Almost every book I mentioned was written by Zahn (Allegiance, Choices of One, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, Survivor's Quest). He's truly the king of EU Star Wars. Or just Star Wars outside of the movies, honestly. Dude knows his stuff.

[Jingle Jangle]

Finish watching the Obi Wan series, overall a pretty mediocre experience. From the meh plot, weak supporting cast, questionable retcons, and dull soundtrack weaken the experience. No clue why the series don't want to use the John Willian's music until the final episode. There are some decent moments, but that's all they are; moments. Reminds me of the Solo movie too much.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 6/22/2022 at 1:58 PM, vanguard333 said:

Luke Skywalker would not try to murder his sleeping nephew; that is extremely out-of-character. This is a man who refused to fight Darth Vader: the second-most evil man in the galaxy, after finding out that Vader is his father. This is a man who had to essentially be tricked into fighting Vader by Palpatine (Palpatine did everything he could to tempt Luke into attacking him, not Vader, knowing Vader would stop the attack and trigger a fight) and let's not forget that Luke refused to kill Vader even at his most furious. Luke would never draw his lightsaber on a nephew that was asleep and hadn't even turned evil yet.

I think the difference between Darth Vader and Ben Solo, in relation to Luke, is the question of responsibility. Luke wasn't responsible for his father's fall to the Dark Side - that was the result of Anakin's own choices, bent by Palpatine's persuasion, and enabled by Obi-Wan's training. When it comes to Ben Solo, however, Luke is the Obi-Wan. If he really believes that Ben is going to turn to the Dark Side, and create immense pain and suffering across the galaxy, then it's partially Luke's fault for training him in the first place. The notion that killing his nephew may not be just morally permissible, but morally necessary, is a tempting one. In this regard, it's not too dissimilar to Anakin's own moral fall in Episode III, brought on by his wish to save the ones he cared about most.

The difference, of course, is that for Luke, it was just a passing thought. And are passing thoughts not allowed? Do we really think that humanity's own "moral paragons" have never felt insecurity, or spite, or moral uncertainty? This was part of the movie's "kill your heroes" message - a reminder that even great people are still just people, not static moral touchstones. Luke made a mistake, and it cost him and his family dearly. He thought that the best things he could do was isolate himself, so as not to hurt anyone else. But with a little help from Rey and Master Yoda, he learned to accept his mistake, and regained the confidence in himself (and trust in others) that led him to redeem his father many years before. Far from "defamation of character", I think it's a beautiful reaffirmation of Luke's inherent inclination toward goodness - without the weight of being tempted by the Dark, following the Light would cost nothing.

[vanguard333]

11 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I think the difference between Darth Vader and Ben Solo, in relation to Luke, is the question of responsibility. Luke wasn't responsible for his father's fall to the Dark Side - that was the result of Anakin's own choices, bent by Palpatine's persuasion, and enabled by Obi-Wan's training. When it comes to Ben Solo, however, Luke is the Obi-Wan. If he really believes that Ben is going to turn to the Dark Side, and create immense pain and suffering across the galaxy, then it's partially Luke's fault for training him in the first place. The notion that killing his nephew may not be just morally permissible, but morally necessary, is a tempting one. In this regard, it's not too dissimilar to Anakin's own moral fall in Episode III, brought on by his wish to save the ones he cared about most.

The difference, of course, is that for Luke, it was just a passing thought. And are passing thoughts not allowed? Do we really think that humanity's own "moral paragons" have never felt insecurity, or spite, or moral uncertainty? This was part of the movie's "kill your heroes" message - a reminder that even great people are still just people, not static moral touchstones. Luke made a mistake, and it cost him and his family dearly. He thought that the best things he could do was isolate himself, so as not to hurt anyone else. But with a little help from Rey and Master Yoda, he learned to accept his mistake, and regained the confidence in himself (and trust in others) that led him to redeem his father many years before. Far from "defamation of character", I think it's a beautiful reaffirmation of Luke's inherent inclination toward goodness - without the weight of being tempted by the Dark, following the Light would cost nothing.

This is not about Luke being a moral paragon; I am talking about who he is as a character: what he values and what comes as instinct to him. What was shown about Luke is that he cares deeply about his family & friends and his first instinct to help them when they're in danger; even when that danger is that said friend or family is about to fall into darkness or has fallen into darkness. Given everything established about Luke Skywalker: the character, his first instinct upon seeing his nephew possibly turn evil in the future would not be to draw his lightsaber; even as a passing thought. If anything, his first instinct/passing thought would be to hug his nephew.

Having him falter or make a mistake that costs him dearly is perfectly fine, but it has to be something that makes sense and fits the character, and I argue that him drawing his lightsaber against his nephew because of a dream his nephew had does not fit Luke Skywalker's character.

 

For an example in other media of a former hero faltering in a way that I think made sense and fit the character: The Legend of Korra. (If you haven't seen Avatar: the Last Airbender, this example won't make much sense.)

Spoiler

As much as I dislike that show overall, there was one thing in season 2 that I did find interesting: in season 2, all three of Aang's kids are shown, and it is revealed that Aang unintentionally showed favouritism towards Tenzin: the child that could airbend, by taking him to places that he never took his other two kids. This actually made sense, as one major aspect of Aang's character was that his childhood was essentially ripped from him, first when it was revealed that he was the Avatar, and then again when he became the last Airbender. The birth of Tenzin was the day he ceased being an endling, and it made sense that he would want to make sure to give Tenzin the childhood he never had, and, in so doing, he unwittingly showed favouritism. One thing I particularly liked was that, at the end of the episode that revealed this, it showed that, despite this particular error in his parenting, he was still a loving father to all three of his kids and they were still a happy family.

 

[King Marth 64]

20 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

This is not about Luke being a moral paragon; I am talking about who he is as a character: what he values and what comes as instinct to him. What was shown about Luke is that he cares deeply about his family & friends and his first instinct to help them when they're in danger; even when that danger is that said friend or family is about to fall into darkness or has fallen into darkness. Given everything established about Luke Skywalker: the character, his first instinct upon seeing his nephew possibly turn evil in the future would not be to draw his lightsaber; even as a passing thought. If anything, his first instinct/passing thought would be to hug his nephew.

Having him falter or make a mistake that costs him dearly is perfectly fine, but it has to be something that makes sense and fits the character, and I argue that him drawing his lightsaber against his nephew because of a dream his nephew had does not fit Luke Skywalker's character.

 

For an example in other media of a former hero faltering in a way that I think made sense and fit the character: The Legend of Korra. (If you haven't seen Avatar: the Last Airbender, this example won't make much sense.)

  Hide contents

As much as I dislike that show overall, there was one thing in season 2 that I did find interesting: in season 2, all three of Aang's kids are shown, and it is revealed that Aang unintentionally showed favouritism towards Tenzin: the child that could airbend, by taking him to places that he never took his other two kids. This actually made sense, as one major aspect of Aang's character was that his childhood was essentially ripped from him, first when it was revealed that he was the Avatar, and then again when he became the last Airbender. The birth of Tenzin was the day he ceased being an endling, and it made sense that he would want to make sure to give Tenzin the childhood he never had, and, in so doing, he unwittingly showed favouritism. One thing I particularly liked was that, at the end of the episode that revealed this, it showed that, despite this particular error in his parenting, he was still a loving father to all three of his kids and they were still a happy family.

 

Humans does make mistakes and Luke is a human being, that is being part as a character. It gives him out of the one-dimensional character and flesh him out more to show Luke had been struggling. Luke wasn't expecting to receive the same pain losing his nephew and his other students. Luke is pretty much didn't want to go through the same way as his master Yoda had gone through from Order 66. This is like it's poetry that it rhymes.

Edited June 24 by King Marth 64

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, King Marth 64 said:

Humans does make mistakes and Luke is a human being, that is being part as a character. It gives him out of the one-dimensional character and flesh him out more to show Luke had been struggling. Luke wasn't expecting to receive the same pain losing his nephew and his other students. Luke is pretty much didn't want to go through the same way as his master Yoda had gone through from Order 66. This is like it's poetry that it rhymes.

I see you ignored the point that I made despite quoting it and instead just reiterated that Luke isn't perfect. No one is arguing that that Luke is perfect or infallible; my point was that the particular mistake they chose to have him make was out-of-character.

Consider Empire Strikes Back: Luke makes the mistake of charging right into Vader's trap in the name of saving his friends, despite Yoda and ghost-Obi-Wan pointing out that Luke is not ready and that it's almost-certainly a trap (which is actually what it turned out to be), and Luke loses his fight with Vader and loses an arm in the process. No one complains about this mistake because it made perfect sense that Luke would do this. When it comes to friends & family, Luke's first-instinct is to charge into any danger to help them; this was first shown in A New Hope when he realized that the stormtroopers would've followed the droids back to his aunt & uncle's moisture farm, and was shown many times afterward how much Luke values his family & friends and that his first instinct is to help them when they're in danger. As such, the villains exploiting this with a trap and Luke easily falling for it made perfect sense.

Luke considering killing his sleeping nephew does not make sense; his first instinct would be to give the kid a hug.

[King Marth 64]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I see you ignored the point that I made despite quoting it and instead just reiterated that Luke isn't perfect. No one is arguing that that Luke is perfect or infallible; my point was that the particular mistake they chose to have him make was out-of-character.

Consider Empire Strikes Back: Luke makes the mistake of charging right into Vader's trap in the name of saving his friends, despite Yoda and ghost-Obi-Wan pointing out that Luke is not ready and that it's almost-certainly a trap (which is actually what it turned out to be), and Luke loses his fight with Vader and loses an arm in the process. No one complains about this mistake because it made perfect sense that Luke would do this. When it comes to friends & family, Luke's first-instinct is to charge into any danger to help them; this was first shown in A New Hope when he realized that the stormtroopers would've followed the droids back to his aunt & uncle's moisture farm, and was shown many times afterward how much Luke values his family & friends and that his first instinct is to help them when they're in danger. As such, the villains exploiting this with a trap and Luke easily falling for it made perfect sense.

Luke considering killing his sleeping nephew does not make sense; his first instinct would be to give the kid a hug.

You're technically missing the point. Luke is not out of character, he was just doing his job as a Jedi Master in the wrong way, but realizing it in a few seconds as Ben's uncle. He's not raised at the Jedi Order, he definitely doesn't know much about what other Jedi Masters do since the only members he directly meets were from Jedi Order when they were alive that Luke saw was Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, Ahsoka (Book of Boba Fett), and (from comics). By the time in Chapter 6 of The Book of Boba Fett that I think Luke doesn't quite fully understand how well to properly run as a teacher since he did start as a Padawan in Age 19 and working his way in Age 23. And besides that, how would it be possible to give Kylo Ren a hug in that situation time like this since Ben Solo had been turned into the Dark Side and what he witnessed?

Edited June 25 by King Marth 64

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

You're technically missing the point. Luke is not out of character, he was just doing his job as a Jedi Master in the wrong way, but realizing it in a few seconds as Ben's uncle. He's not raised at the Jedi Order, he definitely doesn't know much about what other Jedi Masters do since the only members he directly meets were from Jedi Order when they were alive that Luke saw was Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, Ahsoka (Book of Boba Fett), and (from comics). By the time in Chapter 6 of The Book of Boba Fett that I think Luke doesn't quite fully understand how well to properly run as a teacher since he did start as a Padawan in Age 19 and working his way in Age 23. And besides that, how would it be possible to give Kylo Ren a hug in that situation time like this since Ben Solo had been turned into the Dark Side and what he witnessed?

I am missing nothing; I am pointing out that that's incorrect. You're missing a point that was established in the original trilogy and further reinforced by the prequels (understandable, as Disney Star Wars made this mistake): unlike what Disney Star Wars would like people to think, Luke knows he can't be like the old Jedi Masters, because the Jedi from the time of Obi-Wan and Yoda lost their way (one of the defining themes of the prequels is the rot within the Jedi Order, to the extent that they could not recognize the Sith lord when he sat right in front of them).

In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan and Yoda insisted that Luke needed to kill Vader. Luke disagreed, saying he can't kill his own father. When it came down to it, Luke refused to kill Vader and instead pleaded for Vader to return to the light, and the result was Vader returning to the light and killing Palpatine, bringing balance to the Force (until Disney Star Wars came along and ruined that) and also vindicating Luke's decision. Luke knows that he can't be like the old Jedi, and he also knows that he shouldn't be like them.

Are you seriously asking how it would be possible for an uncle to hug their nephew?

[Eltosian Kadath]

Time for some of my little hot takes on Star Wars

- The Star Wars Table Top RPG systems have been some of the best Star Wars related material out there (other than the mostly mediocre first D20 System Wizards of the Coast released when they first got the license). The D6 game is a classic, Saga edition is still my favorite of the d20 systems, and the FFG system (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny) are excellent.

- The Sequel trilogies are all bad, but of the three, episode 8 is the best of them, and episode 9 is by far the worst.

- The orig trig, and Prequels are both solid, with Return of Jedi as my favorite, mostly thanks to that last confrontation between Luke and Vadar before the emperor.

 

On 6/21/2022 at 10:29 PM, lenticular said:

I think that the rehabilitation of the prequels is somewhat similar to the rehabilitation of FE: Fates. People who disliked them when they first came out still dislike them now, but they just don't care as much. Time has passed, other movies have come out, they've grown invested in new things. Which means that more of the people who are talking about the prequels these days are the people who like them.

I think I disagree with this here as I used to rather hate those movies, but have found my opinion on them softened over the years, and this happened even before the Sequels came to stink up the place. Oddly enough I think it was outside material that helped me reach that perspective, the screenshot web comic Darths & Droids, goofy talk about the Darth Jar-jar theory, and even using one of the classic complaints about Episode 1's story (the way it start with trade negotiations...) as a bit of a challenge for making the premise of an RPG adventure (which led to the creation of the adventure I most enjoyed running, to the point of even running it at a convention).

 

On 6/22/2022 at 8:52 PM, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Almost every book I mentioned was written by Zahn (Allegiance, Choices of One, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, Survivor's Quest). He's truly the king of EU Star Wars. Or just Star Wars outside of the movies, honestly. Dude knows his stuff.

Fun fact, he was given the West End Games D6 Star Wars Table Top RPG books as reference material, as the people behind Star Wars didn't really have much of the lore written down, and had kinda given the little TTRPG studio free rein to write the lore they needed...

 

On 6/22/2022 at 10:58 AM, vanguard333 said:

 

Luke Skywalker would not try to murder his sleeping nephew; that is extremely out-of-character. This is a man who refused to fight Darth Vader: the second-most evil man in the galaxy, after finding out that Vader is his father. This is a man who had to essentially be tricked into fighting Vader by Palpatine (Palpatine did everything he could to tempt Luke into attacking him, not Vader, knowing Vader would stop the attack and trigger a fight) and let's not forget that Luke refused to kill Vader even at his most furious. Luke would never draw his lightsaber on a nephew that was asleep and hadn't even turned evil yet.

23 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

 

In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan and Yoda insisted that Luke needed to kill Vader. Luke disagreed, saying he can't kill his own father. When it came down to it, Luke refused to kill Vader and instead pleaded for Vader to return to the light, and the result was Vader returning to the light and killing Palpatine, bringing balance to the Force (until Disney Star Wars came along and ruined that) and also vindicating Luke's decision. Luke knows that he can't be like the old Jedi, and he also knows that he shouldn't be like them.

Watch Return of the Jedi again. It isn't some grand trick of Palpatine that gets Luke to fight, and even try to kill Vadar, it is when he thinks he will be responsible for his sister suffering and falling to the dark side. Even knowing that Darth Vadar is his father, the idea that Luke himself might have betrayed his sister gets him to strike out at his own father in anger, calling on all the power of the dark side to try and kill him, until he has a moment of reflection, seeing himself (just like in the dark side cave of The Empire Strikes Back) in his fathers broken robotic hand, and having faced, and turned back from the Dark Side, has become a true Jedi.

Luke is perfectly willing to run head first into violence (even against family) when he thinks he is responsible for people suffering. We see it in each of the three movies of the orig trig, when he think His droids might have led to Storm Troopers attacking his aunt and uncle in a New Hope; when he thinks Leia and Han might be tortured or killed as a way to get to him; and of course the moment I described in Return of the Jedi. Reckless violence being his first response to thinking he is responsible for creating the next Sith who will make the people he cares about suffer sounds entirely in line with his character, just as not going through with it after a moment of reflection does, at least for the Luke Skywalker we see in the original trilogy (I do not know enough about the EU's interpretation of him to say one way or the other...)

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Watch Return of the Jedi again. It isn't some grand trick of Palpatine that gets Luke to fight, and even try to kill Vadar, it is when he thinks he will be responsible for his sister suffering and falling to the dark side. Even knowing that Darth Vadar is his father, the idea that Luke himself might have betrayed his sister gets him to strike out at his own father in anger, calling on all the power of the dark side to try and kill him, until he has a moment of reflection, seeing himself (just like in the dark side cave of The Empire Strikes Back) in his fathers broken robotic hand, and having faced, and turned back from the Dark Side, has become a true Jedi.

Luke is perfectly willing to run head first into violence (even against family) when he thinks he is responsible for people suffering. We see it in each of the three movies of the orig trig, when he think His droids might have led to Storm Troopers attacking his aunt and uncle in a New Hope; when he thinks Leia and Han might be tortured or killed as a way to get to him; and of course the moment I described in Return of the Jedi. Reckless violence being his first response to thinking he is responsible for creating the next Sith who will make the people he cares about suffer sounds entirely in line with his character, just as not going through with it after a moment of reflection does, at least for the Luke Skywalker we see in the original trilogy (I do not know enough about the EU's interpretation of him to say one way or the other...)

I don't have to watch it again; I remember the film very clearly. The fight starts with Palpatine goaded Luke into attacking him and Vader blocks Luke's lightsaber. Luke then spends that part of the fight being on the defensive and pleading for Vader to turn back to the light, and then when Vader finds out about Leia being Luke's sister and threatens to turn her to the dark side, and then Luke uses the dark side to defeat Vader and then has that moment of reflection. You are describing the fight as if it begins when Luke uses the dark side, when the fight began when Luke and Vader's lightsabers clashed in front of Palpatine.

"When he thinks he is responsible for people suffering" It's not about whether or not he thinks he's responsible; his mindset is that, if the people he cares about are in trouble, he must help them. When he realizes the droids might've led to Storm Troopers attacking his aunt and uncle, he's not driven by blaming himself; he's driven by the need to save his family. With Leia and Han being tortured in Empire Strikes Back, it's not the idea that it's a trap for him that's the reason he goes, but the fact that Leia and Han are being tortured that's the reason he goes. It's Yoda and Obi-Wan who have to point out that it's a trap, and Luke's response is that, even if it is, his friends are in danger so he has to help them. 

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

"When he thinks he is responsible for people suffering" It's not about whether or not he thinks he's responsible; his mindset is that, if the people he cares about are in trouble, he must help them.

Luke tries to help when people are suffering, but when he thinks he is responsible for it, he does so in a way that is recklessly dangerous, and massively irresponsible.

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

When he realizes the droids might've led to Storm Troopers attacking his aunt and uncle, he's not driven by blaming himself;

But blaming himself is what makes him head off there alone...

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

With Leia and Han being tortured in Empire Strikes Back, it's not the idea that it's a trap for him that's the reason he goes, but the fact that Leia and Han are being tortured that's the reason he goes.

Literal quote from the movie

Obi Wan's Ghost "It is you and your abilities that the emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer."

Luke Skywalker "That is why I have to go."

Luke believing he is responsible is a part of his decision to run head first into an obvious trap without anything even resembling a plan to get him (and his friends) out of that trap alive. Heck, when Luke gets to Cloud he doesn't free his friends from the Storm Troopers he sees guarding them, instead he gets lured away from helping them and into a fight with a waiting Vadar instead, leaving Lando to do all the actual helping.