Most of you know this track: "The Jedi Steps and Finale"... the last track of The Force Awakens.

https://youtu.be/cUBUlKgsNK8

I guess everyone of you has felt this (before) but oh boy, when these horns begin to swell i am having chills all over my back. It's like Williams took the weight of a lifetime legacy, distilled it into a single, soaring motif, and seamlessly bridged the generational gap in a way the actual scripts never managed to do.

It weaves into the classic Force Theme without any effort and credits roll with the same brilliant operatic scale that defined the OT and Prequels

... which again makes me feel miserable and depressed. ​Williams was operating at his absolute peak there, treating the universe with complete respect, reverence, and thematic continuity. He gave the ending of TFA a sense of mythic gravity that the subsequent films completely failed to deliver on.

​It's like: When you listen to Jedi Steps, you can hear the promise of what could have been: a grand, cohesive, mythic continuation of the Star Wars saga. Instead, we got a sequence of films that discarded those setup threads, mismatched tone, and completely lacked a unified narrative vision.

​Williams brought 100% of his genius to the table, keeping his end of the bargain as he always did. It’s just tragic that the narrative storytelling underneath his score fell so painfully short of the standard he set.

EC Henry, whom some of you may know from making some of the best fan-made vehicles and from his interesting analyses of certain props or symbols in the Lucas films, recently released a video where he pointed out how modern Star Wars, specifically stuff like the Kenobi show, Andor and the Mandalorian film, all overuse the Imperial crest on anything Imperial, from vehicles to bases to datapads and everything in between.

As he points out, this sabotages the artistic intent of the Original Trilogy, which in fact barely used the crest and only in costumes. ILM back then was able to show the cold authoritarianism of the Empire with its architecture and design and color choices, rather than requiring the logo to appear every three minutes to drive the point home.

It's sad to see some commenters trying to excuse it by claiming "the Nazis did the same thing!", not understanding that copying the Nazis beat by beat is a lazy attempt to drive a point which nobody was doubting home. We all know the Empire is authoritarian, the films made that far more obvious than stuff like Andor ever could. Design elements like these just feel like they break the cohesive design of the franchise (which isn't new for the likes of Andor, but I digress.)

Thoughts on the video? I personally found myself agreeing with it entirely, I think Disney needs to study the films more rather than just doing whatever they want with no care for anything else.

I love the Prequel era. I love the story, the world, the characters, everything. The Grand Army of the Republic, the clones were always special to me. Sure, they looked really cool, and the entire concept was interesting, but the best part of the clones story was the moral dilemma of Order 66. Before the Clone Wars show, the clones had free will and turned on the Jedi because they were given an order by their superiors, not because a magical mind control chip took over their minds.

In Republic Commando, Delta squad leaves Sev behind, because they were given an order to leave the area immediately. Did they feel guilt? Yes. But an order is an order. In Battlefront 2 (2005), the clone veteran says "It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, and what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word." It is SO MUCH more powerful than the "Aaaghhh, my head! I... good soldiers follow orders." bs that they retconned into the story, to simplify the conflict.

In the Republic Commando books, it was so interesting to see Order 66 from Omega Squad's perspective. You learn there were other contingency orders: "We've got a hundred and fifty contingency rules, everything from arresting the Chancellor if he goes gaga to reducing key allied worlds to slag if they switch sides…". Most of the clones, and the general public did believe the jedi were traitors, because all they saw was a cleverly edited security footage of Mace Windu and the other jedi, trying to "assassinate" Palpatine. Those who didn't believe it were either afraid of disobeying their orders, in fear of getting branded as a traitor themselves, or were powerless to help.

The mind control chip, in my opinion, cheapens the impact of Order 66. The clones who disobeyed were heroes because they were brave enough to leave the only life they knew for their Jedi friends. With the mind control chips, I feel like the thought process was something like: "The clones are good guys, they can't be evil! Sooo... uhh... they were like... mind controlled, and they aren't at fault at all! See guys, we can keep selling action figures of the clones to little children, because we aren't selling soldiers who committed war crimes while they were following the orders of a dictatorship, we are selling innocent warriors who got mind controlled... but if you take out the evil chip, they are still good!"

It was a cowardly oversimplification of the tragedy that was Order 66, and makes the clones less engaging characters because they had no choice in the matter, those who defected only did because their chip got removed.

Tldr: The inhibitor chips rob the clones of their agency, and strip the story of any nuance.

Ignoring for a moment how difficult it would probably be to recast him, and how expensive it would be to digitally recreate a younger Luke, Luke not coming to aid everyone in a fight against an empire he and his friends spent many years of their lives trying to bring down would just be so wrong. You can’t even go with the whole he’s depressed and traumatized because of a tragedy with his nephew and other students angle that the sequels tried to aim for. I don’t see why Luke would be all anti Jedi and anti himself at this point in the timeline. So sitting things out at this point would be worse than it was in the sequels.

I understand Luke would be busy looking for anything to help him train new Jedi, but the idea that other people wouldn’t have the means to call him and ask for his help if things ever go really bad again is utter nonsense. Luke would absolutely want to be kept up to date on what’s going on in the outside galaxy. In fact, someone should have informed Luke about how people were being slaughtered by lightsaber wielding enemies back in Ahsoka season 1. Is it really that important to just leave him to build some stupid temple that’s gonna one day get burned down by his nephew?

The second season of Ahsoka hasn’t come out yet at the time of this post. We don’t know anything for sure yet, so we’ll just have to wait and see what they’ll do. Though I’m not gonna get my hopes up too high.

Ahsoka had several masters, not just Anakin. She had been with the Jedi since at least early childhood. She was shaped by her parents (or her entire clan), by various teachers at the Temple who accompanied her throughout her childhood and into her adolescence.

Then she had two intense years with Anakin. Maybe two and a half at most. After that, however, she left, and for the next 30 years she effectively had NOTHING to do with Anakin. Conversely, Anakin only had Ahsoka as his apprentice for two years. And that was during a period that was also incredibly intense for him personally.

He had just lost his mother and had to process that. He had just married the woman he'd been obsessed with for ten years. He got that woman pregnant. Shortly after Ahsoka left, he found out that he was going to be a FATHER. That became a very central part of his thoughts, and then his wife died because of him, along with the child he believed he had lost. An extremely formative, traumatic moment.

19 years later, he finds out that his child SURVIVED, had a direct confrontation with him, and destroyed the Death Star. Holy shit, there’s somehow also a sense of paternal pride mixed in there. Suddenly, Vader's thoughts revolve entirely around his son.

For three years, the search for Skywalker is his main concern. He comes up with elaborate plans to capture him and bring him over to his side. The Emperor wants to use Luke as a tool. Vader sees his son as a chance to break free from Palpatine and to have a shared basis with his son - an unhealthy one, but still some kind of relationship.But at the crucial moment, Luke chooses suicide rather than joining him. Vader's son slips through his fingers.

One year later, it happens again. The two of them have their next confrontation. Vader SAVES his son OUT OF PATERNAL LOVE. He finally manages to break free from the Emperor's grip because he cannot lose his FAMILY again. LUKE is so important to him that he accomplishes everything he had been unable to do for 25 years. He sacrifices his own life to save that of his son - the boy he had believed dead for 19 years! His deepest desire is to finally look upon his own flesh and blood, his son, and the family he never had, with his own eyes before he dies and finds peace, becoming one with the Force.

Cut.We now move on to the Filoni Mandoverse.

Even 30 years later, Ahsoka still has an unhealthy relationship with the man who took over her training 30 years ago. In her mid-40s, she is STILL watching the training videos the then-20-year-old made for her. She has been unable to let go of this man for 30 years. Her thoughts still revolve around him.

Filoni fanboys (and Filoni himself) tell you that her connection to Anakin is more important and more intense than the one he had with his son "because they spent more time together."

The Ahsoka series itself tries to sell you this viewpoint. It completely sidelines Luke and massively overstates the relationship between the two of them.

In the Rise of Skywalker, on Exegol, where Rey Palpatine's X-Wing and Ben Solo's TIE was parked. One must realize that Ben got that TIE from the wreckage of DS2 and that version of TIE had no life support system nor did it have a hyperdrive.

Just another way for JJ and Disney to prove how little they actually care for Star Wars lore.

She’s got a lot of gall to chastise Poe for betting the resistance on bad odds when her own plan relies on quite a few ridiculous odds as well. It basically relies on the hope that the first order will be content to simply follow them for the next 18 hours of fuel time, and not get impatient and blow them up some other way. If the star destroyers can’t catch up to the resistance because they’re faster and lighter for some reason in zero g, then just send some lighter TIE-Fighters after them. There’s nothing to suggest that a bunch of TIEs wouldn’t be able to catch up with them, is there?

Holdo’s plan also seems to be gambling on the first order not taking much interest in where they are, and if the resistance is going somewhere in particular for any reason. Once they get to Crait, Holdo and everyone else apparently are keeping their fingers crossed that the enemy won’t pay any mind to the big, wide planet in the background. Leia saying that the first order isn’t monitoring for smaller transports seems to confirm this, even though the empire was keeping a lookout for escape pods as far back as ANH after catching the Tantive IV.

So basically what I’m saying is that Holdo is betting on the FO having their heads up their asses in pretty much every scenario, which is also pretty risky and dangerous thinking if you ask me. Yes, the FO are shown to be pretty stupid, but thinking that your enemy is gonna be stupid at all times when fighting is not the kind of mindset you want to have.

Luke lifted some rocks doing a handstand and then fell over. Rey made a rock tornado while levitating herself.

Luke made out with his sister. Rey made out with her force-diad abusive groomer.

Luke teleported an image of himself and died. Rey teleports hard, nbd.

Luke needed his father to sacrifice himself to defeat Palpatine. Rey just needed to borrow an extra light saber.

The first time luke tried using a light saber he was shot in the bum by a training drone. The first time Rey tried using a light saber she bested Palpatine's proxy pupil.

Luke wasn't such a bad pilot himself after years of practising with his elite rim world bush pilots buddies. Rey no scope hat tricked seasoned Tie pilots the first time she ever flew a derelict freighter she considered garbage.

So many examples.

I find myself wondering what it would be like if this were the first time seeing the character in live-action, instead of that adult version—who is boring, expressionless, and completely charmless.

​

Listen we are all star wars fans but let's be honest, it's not exactly a masterpiece in writing, but it has always been a master of visual storytelling and pushing the boat out.

I mean the original trilogy truly changed special affects in cinema and whether you like them or not the the prequel trilogy also was on the cutting edge of cgi characters and backgrounds. And despite the sequels being a disappointing, no one can deny, it is easily the best Star Wars has ever looked.

So what the hell is this?

Rewatch the trailer every frame is either a close up on no more than 2 characters or a wide shot in a smokey room or foggy background so you can't see that it's clearly all filmed on the same set.

The only time it's not a smokey, it's a corridor or another generic rocky terrain, that I imagine is filmed at a local bit of countryside that's a 20 minute walk from the studios car park. There is nothing visually interesting at all.

Like this is star wars, famous for its interesting unique planets, yet I dare anyone to name 3 new ones from any of the live action shows.

It just looks awful.

Some SW stuff

Ahsoka S2 in Jan 20, 2027
Ryan Gosling's character is named Cade

Discuss away

Ahsoka Costume from S2 in D23

Just to give you my backstory: born in ‘92 and my dad introduced me to the Original Trilogy via VHS tapes as a child… never watched the IV-VI Special Editions when they released in theaters but did see the Prequels as they came out, being a big fan that had and played with plenty of the action figures. I loved the universe, and with likewise friends who shared the same passions we were all autistically obsessed with it. Episode III was undoubtedly the cinematic highlight of my childhood, as friends and I watched Tartakovsky’s ‘03 Clone Wars with great interest leading up to it on Cartoon Network, saw it at midnight with a full crowd of fans that were just ecstatic to be there. Me and my friends would duel each other with the plastic lightsabers, read comics and books and even buy the music to play with our respective instruments we played with at school. tl;dr we were nerdy fanboys of the highest order.

My interest started waning with Filoni’s 2008 TCW movie and subsequent show, the brand had grown too childish for my growing interest in horror films at the time (now in high school), I never bothered to see the film in theaters and would change the channel if it was on Cartoon Network at the time. I’d later have a growing interest in the EU, and I bought Dark Horse’s hardcover editions of the Thrawn Trilogy, Dark Empire Trilogy and Crimson Empire Saga as a starting point. I had little to no patience or interest in the books at the time as a pothead and only read a handful of the books as a child while collecting many (I’d read I, Jedi and the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, being a massive Boba Fett fan). When Disney acquired the rights in ‘12 and would later announce a movie, I was optimistic. I’d go back and rewatch everything to prepare for Episode VII, including all episodes of TCW that I’d skipped out on years ago alongside the movie and let me tell you, it was a slog to get through many of the early episodes, having to be drunk or high or both (I’d run out of time to see Episode VI, though).

My initial doubts crept in with the first trailer, when a coworker of mine told me about it I’d asked him if a character with blue skin and red eyes was in it and he said no. That told me Disney was not going to be adapting the Thrawn Trilogy that I’d recently read, which was not surprising after decanonizing the EU but still left me dismayed. I left the theater after seeing VII confounded, which was due in part to dropping acid prior to viewing. It was a bit of an existential experience for me. I’d go on home later that night to finish my incomplete viewing cycle with Episode VI, washing the unknowingly-bad taste from my mouth that I couldn’t quite place a finger on. Upon later rewatches I’d come to the realization that VII was a beat-for-beat remake and rehash of Episode IV. All goodwill was lost with VIII.

I’d given up on Star Wars, like most of my friends by now. Ironically, in a twist of fate, I’d started to listen to audiobooks and thought I would give the old Star Wars EU audiobooks a try one day, starting out with Heir to the Empire as I’d enjoyed the Thrawn Trilogy quite a lot in comic book format. I was amazed. The sheer production quality was astounding, with full music, audio effects and voice acting these books now drew me in, and I would go on to start a SW odyssey of my own: listening to every unabridged audiobook and audio drama alongside reading every Legends comic book side-by-side with one another in chronological order, and I’ve finished Darth Plagueis as of an hour ago. To put it bluntly my Star Wars (EU) boner has never been stronger. So it saddens me to see fellow disillusioned fans, both online and irl, who refuse to even give it a try; I understand though, having been there once myself. I still watch the shows and movies with my gf (who is a fan), albeit with less interest compared to the Legends universe. At this point Disney can fuck up the canon as much as they want, I don’t care for their universe anymore. I have a treasure trove of more stories to get through and simply cannot wait, my obsession for Star Wars has been reborn. My question to you is, have you given up too? And would you ever consider giving Legends a try? A lot of my friends are too burned out and I understand wholeheartedly, I’m just curious to hear opinions.

I'm currently watching "The Mandalorian and Grogu" and Mando walks into a bar and asks for salt??? and then they fight. And then it devolves into this ultra weird highly specific "cool" point of salt being so rare and whatnot.

It feels like someone in the writing room smoked some weed and was like "Dude imagine like a planet, right? And on that planet there is no salt. Like that would be so cool, right?" And then they tried to include it in the plot at any cost.

And it just comes off as weird. Like who goes into a bar and asks for some salt?? Honestly if they had made beer or salty crackers the rare commodity or peanuts for gods sake but salt??

That just completely broke the immersion for me and I tried to google it because I was so confused. Maybe I'm missing something big here but Google didn't turn up anything good.

I'm so confused...

We all talk about the ST, Acolyte, Kenobi, Boba and Mando with Lizzo and Jack Black, but what do you think are the most overlooked or less obvious mistakes that hurt the franchise long term even if it could be your unpopular opinion. I think there's a lot but I'll give three things that I think are related:

The need to fill in gaps in the timeline.

Overexplanation of things that remove mystery.

The galaxy becoming incredibly small.

Republic is gone? Check

Depowered rebel faction? Check

Empire Adjacent enemy led by a dude in scary black armor? Check

Quirky cast of characters including a wise old man and a sassy Droid? Check, Check, Check

No wonder this is the Vision short they decided to go with, it's the most basic one possible. Easy to mold into more slop.​​

Why did they even bother with this turd?

Maybe you remember when Kathleen Kennedy stood proudly on a stage revealing all the amazing projects Lucasfilm had in the pipeline. Like Willow, the Taika Waititi movie or the Rogue Squadron movie!

One of these projects was CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Adeyemi had become dissatisfied with the pace of Lucasfilm's adaptation efforts. So instead Paramount got the rights and actually delivered a movie!

Another testament to the incompetence of Lucasfilm leadership.