Star Wars

[echo echo]

You're not, it just isn't worth talking about anymore

[wispy lichen]

For real

[supple star]

I am enjoying this read of HttE more than the first time I read it. I liked it fine the first time but I remember some whiplash with it. Excited to read the rest of the trilogy but my library doesn’t have a physical copy of DFR and it is a six week wait for the ebook 😭

[dry herald]

Don't worry, I still think its the best sequel

[wispy lichen]

I think TFA is the best sequel. I think TLJ is the most interesting sequel, but also the one I dislike the most.

[wispy vortex]

That’s a low bar, TFA was the most insanely safe option possible

[wispy lichen]

On the bright side, the farther we get in, the less people wanna read the books lol. Thrawn Trilogy is just the most famous and so gets a lot of readers.

[wispy lichen]

Yeah…

I’m also enjoying this read a lot more tho

It’s very fun

[wispy vortex]

It is!

[wispy vortex]

Rebels, Canon Thrawn books, htte||And the best part is that there’s still room for it to happen in some form. Thrawn is alive and loose in the galaxy, Pellaeon is canon and everything is lining up||

[wispy lichen]

||the only loss is the queen||

||Karrde is an EASY addition to canon||

[dry herald]

||Yeah, I hope that in the mandalorian movie, they try to make it similar to htte||

[wispy vortex]

Canon Thrawn ||Hsishi is already canon, I saw that as Zahn prepping for Karrde||

[wispy lichen]

We actually have a movie with a working title of Heir to the Empire. It’s the Ahsoka show sequel.

[wispy lichen]

We also have (Bad Batch) ||Tantiss||

[wispy vortex]

||The queen?||

[wispy lichen]

HTTE

[wispy vortex]

Ah right

[wispy lichen]

Does not work in canon

[wispy vortex]

||It’s not impossible, they’d just have to kill her||

[golden flame]

Boooooo

||Mara Jade deserves to have a Happily Ever After™️||

[wispy vortex]

Legends ||Again||

[dry herald]

Ah, interesting

[golden flame]

Boooooooooooooooo

[wispy lichen]

Legends ends with New Jedi Order in my brain

[golden flame]

||Yeah her role was basically subsumed (in part) by the Inquisitors||

[wispy vortex]

||Outbound Flight is now semi canon too, so Cbaoth is||

[wispy lichen]

NJO ||the Republix is repaired, Jacen marries Danni, Jaina married Jag, and Jacen trains Ben||

[wispy vortex]

||Nah, even in Legends there were inquisitors. Mara Jade didn’t hunt Jedi, she wasn’t trained enough for that||

[wispy lichen]

Yeah. ||Inquisitors are Vader’s. Mara was Palpatine’s. ||

canon and legends ||Inquisitors are more similar to Starkiller than anything||

Also (Legends) || Mara was far more subtle than Inquisitors ||

[golden flame]

||Tbf, I don't actually know much pre OT legends lore lol||

[wispy vortex]

||She was a spy and operative, the Emperor’s will manifest.||

||This mostly comes from the Thrawn trilogy||

Join the read through Jazz!

[wispy lichen]

legends ||Mara would deal with things that needed a subtle hand. For example, manipulating politicians or assassinations. We see her kill the head of a crime syndicate (or what she thinks is) in the Mara comic||

[wispy lichen]

Yes! Legends lore is fun and we’re hitting some juicy stuff

[golden flame]

I outta

I should pull my HTTE copy out

20th anniversary edition!

[wispy vortex]

Ooooo

[golden flame]

Very nice book lol

It's got authors notes from both Zahn and his editor in the margins

[wispy vortex]

If I can ever afford a house, I’m going to buy so many physical books to fill a library

[wispy lichen]

XD

[wispy vortex]

I love fancy special edition books but I have no room

[golden flame]

Oh for sure

[wispy lichen]

We officially start tomorrow! But some started early lol. Two weeks per book.

#1364954784737792102 message
This is our order ^

But also you can just join for the Thrawn trilogy if that’s what you want

[wispy vortex]

You left out Rogue Planet by accident

[wispy lichen]

I left it out on purpose

I planned to mention it when we hit NJO as a supplemental thing people could do if they wanted, not part of the official read

But I can add it if you’d like

It does have important bits lol

[wispy vortex]

I haven’t read it

[wispy lichen]

I haven’t either but I plan to before NJO, but maybe I’ll add it in post Traitor. That’s the best spot I can think it fits.

[wispy vortex]

:O

[wispy lichen]

I’ll throw it in the reading order lol. Do you think before NJO or in the middle?

[wispy vortex]

You havent read it???

[wispy lichen]

Nooooo

[cedar osprey]

A Star Wars movie with something actually interesting to say and people didn’t like it 🥲

[wispy vortex]

It failed at both being a good movie and a star wars movie

[wispy lichen]

It looks like it was published between Dark Tide I and II that’s interesting

[wispy vortex]

characters made nonsensical decisions

[wispy lichen]

I’ll throw it in before NJO

[wispy vortex]

It didnt work thematically

And plotlines were pointless

[echo echo]

I thought it was a good movie and a good Star Wars movie, in a universe where the 90s era Star Wars EU hadn't happened

[wispy lichen]

I don’t agree

[echo echo]

I know, hence this

Just, such a tired discussion

[cedar osprey]

I’m too tired to argue my court case for Last Jedi

My fault for taking melatonin

[wispy lichen]

I agree

I’ve been in so many arguments about TLJ that it’s not worth it beyond agreeing to disagree

[cedar osprey]

I still remember the internet discourse when that movie first came out

I have PTSD from the front lines

[bitter trail]

our last discussion on it had me change my name on this server to Luke Skywalker Understander for a while, and i stand by it

but yeah rn? drained 😩

[wispy vortex]

lmao

[bitter trail]

i kept it in my profile even

[wispy lichen]

Luke

[wispy vortex]

Thrawn trilogy ||Luuke ||

[dry herald]

||man, that reminds me of how hard the reveal of luuke went||

[wispy lichen]

Thrawn trilogy ||it gets memed a lot as an example that Legends is “actually dumb” but it goes so hard in context ||

[golden flame]

||Like...is the name dumb? Maybe! But does it make sense that that a clone would be given a mispronounced version of the template's name? Yes!||

[spare frost]

Evvery discussiion of TLJ alawys has this vibe to me

[warm thicket]

||Me when I meet my evil clone, Zed||

[dry herald]

Thrawn trilogy + duology + legends general ||huh, didnt realize that. I will admit, the thrawn books are the only legends I've read, but they're pretty good. But from what I've heard, some of the other legends stuff is very problematic cough suncrusher cough cough dinosaur people *cough||

[broken smelt]

Yeah you're definitely not alone! But I've had all those conversations before, so I feel no need to defend it to people who don't like it or the sequels

[dry herald]

Yeah, its one of those things where its best to agree to disagree tbh

I personally enjoyed all star wars movies, so no skin off my back if people have a different ranking than me

[warm thicket]

I like talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the sequel trilogy
In person
With people I know
Specifically, people I know who aren't going to just say "woke bad"

I've talked about it enough on the internet to know that most people have opinions on the movies and they're more interested in stating their opinion than learning other people's. Though I guess that's the internet for you

[wispy lichen]

Today is our start day for the readalong! We are starting with Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. Our goal is to finish it in two weeks.
Our next book will be Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn.

[golden flame]

If you want notifications each time the readalong moves to a new book, react to this message with 🚀

[wispy lichen]

HTTE 8 ||Fey’lya 😡 ||

[wispy lichen]

Out of curiosity, who has read HTTE before and who is it a first time for?

[warm thicket]

This will be the third or fourth time for me, though the first reading it with my eyes and not my ears

[autumn hemlock]

I've apparently read it before!

[supple star]

This is my second time.

[supple star]

||He is so annoying. Least favorite character of the book for me. Karrde is my favorite.||

[warm thicket]

HTTE
||I would like some hot chocolate please||

[dry herald]

HTTE + BoM || Luke 🤝 Marasi
wanting hot chocolate||

[warm thicket]

I was just thinking about that

[wispy lichen]

HTTE ||one of the best Star Wars moments ||

[warm thicket]

||Luckily it's right at the start, too, so you can get to the best moment and stop reading real quick||

[dry herald]

Andor 2.1 + rogue one ||finally got to season 2, and dang is this show good. I love how the stolen prototype was from Sinear. I wonder if its a prototype for the tie advanced? Not sure on the timeline of those.

Also interesting to see the group that was left behind dealing with andor. Not a good position for either of them.

Also, im certain the "energy project" is the death star. Which makes sense to cover it up with that. I do like how this show shows the complete brutality of the empire. And I almost gasped when Krennic was there, but makes sense ||

[wispy vortex]

ANH ||The tie advanced that Vader flew was a prototype ||

[warm thicket]

I'm not entirely sure that's information one would get from anh alone 😂

[dry herald]

It's appreciated though

Andor 2.1 ||and man, do i feel bad for Bix with her ptsd ||

[supple star]

||The ship Andor stole is the TIE Avenger. The ships chasing him were TIE Advanced Prototypes||

[patent schooner]

||To be exact the chasing ships where Tie/v1 which is the model Inquisitors use. Vader uses the Tie/x1||

[warm thicket]

Finally got to start htte today on my lunch break and a coworker decided to talk to me about superman

[warm thicket]

I have a slight problem
I really want to physically read the Star Wars books because I never have before, but it's hard not to crave the voices and sound effects from the audiobook. They're just so good

What do?

[patent schooner]

That is really not possible to answer...

you have to just figure out what you prefer. There is no right and wrong here

But maybe try alternating a book. Read a couple chapters when you got time and then listen to some. Or read and then listen to the same chapters again

[wispy lichen]

I alternate between listening and reading and it works well

I personally like listening to Star Wars ambient music while listening which satisfies some of my ear worms

[cedar osprey]

My only thing is audiobooks can get so expensive

So that’s why I prefer just reading

[wispy lichen]

Yeah. I use Libby for that lol.

[patent schooner]

well I dont do audiobooks so i wouldnt know

[cedar osprey]

Howwww

Isn’t that the site where you need a library card

[wispy lichen]

Yup! You just borrow from your library. It includes ebooks and audiobooks.

So I will typically buy a physical book, then borrow the ebook and audiobook for it so I can travel without the book and listen while doing other stuff

[warm thicket]

That's why today's episode is brought to you by Libro.fm!

[wispy vortex]

Read along to the audiobook

[wispy vortex]

You can get a library card through it

[wispy lichen]

HTTE 9 ||it’s so cute that Artoo is linked to Luke’s X-Wing because he never memory wiped him lol||

[wispy vortex]

TCW ||Just like his father||

[wispy lichen]

Frfr

[supple star]

||I am glad that no one has ever said “you know what this Star Wars story needs to ramp up the drama? Artoo getting memory wiped.”||

[golden flame]

That would be a war crime

[broken smelt]

||Lol I think that would come too close to killing hiim, which Lucas explicitly forbade||

[golden flame]

@wispy lichen I totally forgot my edition of Heir has this at the very beginning:

[wispy lichen]

Yup! The adult book timeline

[golden flame]

Mmmhm. I think my copy of Thrawn has the canon timeline, not sure

[golden flame]

Heir 3 ||MARA JADE MY BELOVED IS HERE||

[golden flame]

Thrawn all: ||Waitwaitwaitwait...LUKE AND MARA WAS MY FIRST ENEMIES TO LOVERS SHIP, HOW DID I NOT REALIZE THIS. I WAS SO YOUNG||

[wispy lichen]

HTTE ||Karrde is so funny in these scenes because he’s like “Ah yes uh Luke Skywalker…” and Mara cringes and he’s just like Oh okay then…||

All ||It’s extra funny when Mara is like MAN I HATE LUKE and it pops over to Luke just drinking hot chocolate and hanging out with his sister ||

[golden flame]

||Luke: breathes
Mara: YOU TAKE THAT BACK YOU SONUVA--||

[cedar osprey]

Here’s David Corenswet being a huge Star Wars nerd

[supple star]

||Karrde: 🤨 what dis about||

[autumn hemlock]

All right, finished HTTE, and my verdict is: I think I read like half of it in the past? There were definitely some early sequences I firmly remembered, and then suddenly I stopped remembering sequences. HTTE all ||I also super don't remember being introduced to c'boath, but the whole "Sheev was doing a battle meditation" thing is something I definitely remember, so maybe I skipped a chapter or something on my initial half-read?||

[wispy lichen]

How did you like it? You probably haven’t read the rest of the trilogy, then?

[autumn hemlock]

It was alright, it had it's ups and it had it's downs. It was certainly readable, but I'm not clamoring to reread it.

I probably haven't read the rest of the trilogy, but there are enough random things I remember clearly that haven't happened in this book that it's anyone's game.

[autumn hemlock]

In a world where a 5 is mid in the most literal sense, I wanna say it's probably like a 6. It was by no means bad, but nothing really blew me away. I wanna say I probably feel about as strongly about it as I do about a random given Redwall book.

Note that "The Long Patrol", "The Legend of Luke", "Mossflower", and the first half of "Marlfox" don't count as random given Redwall books

[golden flame]

Heir, while good, definitely doesn't stand entirely on its own. It's the first part of a trilogy, and was written as such

[wispy lichen]

I think Heir to the Empire is a very solid pulp novel. It feels like 90s action adventure novels. Not in a bad way, but in terms of level of quality. I personally would give it a 7 or 8, but I get it.
I’d rate the rest of this trilogy higher and rate several EU books or series higher.
I’d put HTTE itself in high B-tier and the trilogy as low A-tier.

But it definitely has that pulp style to it, for better or worse.

[wispy lichen]

I agree with this

I think Zahn also gets better over time

Wow. Crimson Empire is… good? This is a shock.

I thought it was a sequel to Dark Empire so I was expecting poor quality lol

Wait this is peak

[echo echo]

Heir also gets a lot of credit for kicking off the 90s era period of Star Wars canon after there had been basically no new Star Wars for nearly a decade

I think for a lot of people who remember it fondly, that's a large part of why they remember it fondly

[warm thicket]

"abruptly"
-HTTE:
chapter Two page 12
chapter Three page 33
chapter Three page 35
chapter Four paragraph I'm Not Counting That High
chapter Six paragraph Near The End
chapter Seven paragraph Forty-Six
chapter twelve Near The End
chapter Thirteen paragraph Six
chapter Sixteen paragraph Thirteen
chapter Sixteen paragraph Forty-One
chapter Seventeen ~2/3 through
chapter Nineteen paragraph Twenty-Two
chapter Twenty halfway through
chapter Twenty-Two, near the end
chapter Twenty-Two again, Eight paragraphs from end
chapter Twenty-Three, paragraph Twelve
chapter Twenty-Three again
chapter Twenty-Three a third time, barely over a page later
chapter Twenty-Three again, oh my gosh
chapter Twenty-Three, I'm beginning to think I'm hallucinating all of the other words. Abruptly is the only word in this book. The rest are a delusion I've created for myself
chapter Twenty-Four paragraph Forty-Nine
chapter Twenty-Five paragraph Seventeen
chapter Twenty-Five About Halfway
chapter Twenty-Five, four pages later
chapter Twenty-Five, two pages later
chapter Twenty-Six paragraph Twenty-Six
chapter Twenty-Six paragraph Forty-Eight
chapter Twenty-Six paragraph Sixty-Six
chapter Twenty-Six paragraph Eighty-Four
chapter Twenty-Six, last paragraph. Now tied with chapter Twenty-Three for the most abrupt chapter
chapter Twenty-Eight, two pages from the end. I really thought we were gonna get through without one
chapter Twenty-Nine paragraph Twenty-Eight
chapter Twenty-Nine paragraph Four From The End
chapter Thirty, two pages in
chapter Thirty, two pages after that
chapter Thirty-One, page 382
chapter Thirty-One, page 388
chapter Thirty-One, page 389
chapter Thirty-One, page 392

[echo echo]

Star Wars, in my opinion, is best when it is treated as a setting to be worked within more than a specific collection of characters or plotlines and Zahn was among the first to make good on that in a big way. Luke's presence in the book notwithstanding, Zahn introduced a lot of new characters, ideas, and conflicts in a way that hadn't been done basically at all in Star Wars in a long time and it caught fire in a way nothing put out during the OT era ever really did

With good reason. A lot of that OT era canon has some ideas that have stuck around, especially in the more sci fi areas of Star Wars, but most of it was pretty bad and none of it was taken seriously as canon in the post-HTTE world

[wintry lark]

It's always so weird when you look at how people talked about Star Wars before the prequels and their imaginations are entirely limited to the original trilogy characters

[wispy lichen]

I think what helps greatly is it’s the next stage in the story for the main characters of the OT, so it is a continuation of where they were at.

For people attached to those characters, it’s fun to see where they go next.

[cedar osprey]

Who would win in a fight: Kaladin Stormblessed vs Luke Skywalker, both at the height of their powers

[dull dust]

Luke would be juggling with kaladins corpse within 3 seconds

Hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby type matchup

[wispy lichen]

Luke at his peak was insane

[cedar osprey]

But can he beat Goku tho

https://tenor.com/view/goku-prowler-goku-goku-mad-goku-dbs-dbs-gif-11120329515669448575

[wispy lichen]

Luke has some crazy feats but I’m not familiar enough with Goku to be fair

[cedar osprey]

I think a lot of crazy Luke feats are in Legends

But I’ve heard things about canon Luke too

[wispy lichen]

Yes. Legends Luke is where the crazy is.

[dull dust]

No.

[autumn hemlock]

I think if lightsabers can block ki blasts you've got a fight up until around the start of DBZ, but after that base attribute scaling goes off the rails

[dull dust]

My Luke scaling isn’t totally up to date but yes that is general about where I would assume

[golden flame]

https://youtube.com/shorts/s0gKOcwoJRw?

[wispy vortex]

NJO ||If Luke can shove black holes, he can beat anyone||

[golden flame]

Man, Zahn really did capture the voices of the main trio perfectly. Its so easy to hear (young) Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford in my head as I read the lines

Also, Heir all ||[REDACTED] Fey'lya. [REDACTED] that [REDACTED] fr||

[echo echo]

I don't exactly blame them. Very little of what they had to work with existed without that core of three very charismatic actors

[wispy vortex]

I wish someone had shelled out for a full cast audio adaptation with them doing their voices

What could have been

[echo echo]

For all that I am decidedly not a Filoni hater I do think he could stand to be less fixated on his blorbos and making them interact as the core of his Star Wars work

To some extent I think Saw Gererra is the ideal Star Wars character, and I'm only kind of joking. Casually show up when it makes sense, win an Emmy for best guest actor (hopefully), leave and not overstay your welcome

[golden flame]

Heir 11, Star Wars gen: ||that last paragraph is, imo, a peak example of why the old Jedi fell, and what Luke understood about how to fix it: it's not attachment that was the issue, it was the inability to move on. He understood that to experience love, and loss is normal, but you had to keep going despite it. And that's why he's a better Jedi than anyone in the Clone Wars||

[autumn hemlock]

You have footnotes?!

[wispy lichen]

This is the 20th anniversary edition

[golden flame]

20th anniversary edition babyyyy got annotations from both Zahn and his editor

[wispy lichen]

star wars general ||I largely agree that this is what distinguishes Luke from the Old Republic, but I might not be quite so severe in this particular instance, because the Jedi did have Masters and Apprentices they were forced to let go of and they were encouraged to behave similarly, to process the grief and let go of any lingering emotions that might cloud their judgement or corrupt them. But on the whole it was fear of such loss that drove them to avoid personal relationships that might develop attachments (and thus possessiveness), where Luke is just willing to feel and love and grieve in more extremes, while not becoming enveloped by that||

So I mostly agree

[golden flame]

It's more of a "in retrospect" thing anyway lol, since this was written before the prequels

[autumn hemlock]

Alas, it looks like Libby doesn't know that version exists. Also for some reason "Heir to the Empire" brings up a lot of Sarah J Maas results

[wispy lichen]

Yeah haha

It is interesting how stuff can be retroactively applied in such an interesting way

[autumn hemlock]

I think the only reasonable conclusion is that Jazz is required to post pictures of all the pages with footnotes

[wispy lichen]

This version is the one I borrowed from Libby but for some reason the ebook doesn’t have the footnotes despite saying it is that edition

[golden flame]

Also, Heir 11/Thrawn: Alliances ||I appreciate that Zahn, even in his modern stuff, does italics for Force visions. It's a neat throughline||

[wispy lichen]

Like (Legends general) ||Luke’s whole order having love and marriage and families when coming out of it being Luke’s love that saves Vader just works so well as this shift away from the Old Republic || but it couldn’t have been planned so it’s weird how it worked out

[wispy lichen]

Okay but this footnote is really funny. (HTTE 11) || “Nah, Yoda didn’t mess with the ship. He was trolling Luke tho.” Lol. Okay Zahn. ||

[autumn hemlock]

||Allegedly
Potentially||

[golden flame]

True! ||The footnotes add so much context into not just the story but Zahn's understanding of the Force||

Heir 11/Legends gen ||oh and how close Mara came to ending the Rebellion right there...thankfully she did not, and the hot redhead lives||

Gods I love Mara Jade

She's so cool

[cedar osprey]

Everytime someone mentions Mara Jade my mind automatically goes to this video https://youtu.be/Bq30vO3K4Lw?si=1Y39EI9g2lrGdvOO

[golden flame]

Heir 12/all ||Even KNOWING this is a fakeout...goddamnit it gets me anyway||

Heir all: ||foreshadowiiiiinnngg~||

[warm thicket]

"Abruptly"
-HTTE Chapter Three Paragraph Forty-Two

[warm thicket]

"Abruptly"
-HTTE Chapter Three Paragraph Seventy-Three

[wispy lichen]

Count the number of times someone says “sardonically” too

[wispy lichen]

HTTE ||gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss||

[warm thicket]

Oh no, I didn't know there was another of these

[warm thicket]

HTTE Chapter 4

[wispy vortex]

Thrawn Trilogy ||Its crazy how often the trees in the Grand Corridor are mentioned throughout the books||

[warm thicket]

Thrawn Trilogy all
||Especially because it's the perfect little innocuous piece of worldbuilding that seems like it was included just for the sake of being cool.||

[warm thicket]

Ch 4 paragraph I'm not counting that high

[golden flame]

Heir 26 ||mara: IMMEDIATELY hates 3PO. Real, ngl||

[golden flame]

Heir idr ||down bad Luke is down bad||

[wispy lichen]

HTTE all || Luke is so adorable ||

[golden flame]

||He's just a lil guy! And he's totally not thinking "I could fix her", nope. Why would he think that?||

[wispy vortex]

Legends ||Obviously because Lando is going to fix her||

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/madness-c3po-c3p0-star-wars-sw-gif-5027419

[golden flame]

Legends ||The only thing Lando can "fix" are sabacc games||

[wispy lichen]

Might be the worst thing from Legends haha

Jazz have you read Hand of Thrawn before?

[golden flame]

Once, I think, but it's been years. I have almost zero recollection lol

[wispy lichen]

Crimson Empire II Issue 1 ||jump scare. It’s him. ||

[wispy vortex]

He comes!

That reminds me

[wispy lichen]

|| https://tenor.com/view/he-man-fabulous-skeletor-smiles-gif-19986880 ||

[wispy vortex]

I still have to find those dark empire full cast adaptations

[wispy vortex]

||Does he actually do much or does he just kinda lurk||

[wispy lichen]

Dunno yet

Probably Dark Empire II + III ||just creates political unrest||

[wispy vortex]

||His favorite hobby||

[wispy lichen]

So true

[wispy vortex]

||I wonder if there is anyone in Star Wars that did more damage to the galaxy||

[wispy lichen]

Legends general ||he is, legitimately, one of the most despicable villains but in a way that makes me look at him and think “what an absolute clown”||

||as far as “more damage”, I’d blame one of the leaders of the Vong about as much as him||

||Like Shimrra ||

[wispy vortex]

||He set the stage for the invasion though. It was his Peace Brigade that caused most of the refugee crisis and seriously hampered the war effort||

[wispy vortex]

Finished htte

||I love how calm Thrawn is, even in defeat. Pellaeon keeps waiting for him to explode but itll never happen||

[golden flame]

Htte all ||Its such a good characterization moment.||

[wispy lichen]

And done with Crimson Empire II

[wispy vortex]

How was it?

[ionic sonnet]

I've made almost no progress on HTTE last week :/ butr I will be having more time this coming week so hopefully I will catch up

[wispy lichen]

It was pretty good! I think CE I is better.

Some good set up for New Jedi Order with (CE II) ||Nom Anor manipulating the empire into losing a large portion of its power base||

[unkempt sail]

since riordanverse readalong is in a lull I figured I'd join in, only 3 chapters into HTTE but it's so fascinating thinking back to pre-prequels and where people thought the story would go. ||I'm not well versed in SW lore, but fascinated by how Coruscant is described before we had the visual of the citywide planet (unless that was in other legends books/comics before this?) also hot chocolate being exotic to Luke, lol||

[warm thicket]

HTTE ch 3
||I don't think it was described before the prequels all that much, maybe not before this book even, I forget which came first. Was it even mentioned in the OT?||

[wispy lichen]

||just as like “the Capital” or seat of the Emperor ||

||and I think at this point it was a citywide planet but with like mountains and such ||

[warm thicket]

||I never really considered the topography of the planet. I wonder if natural landscapes were just flattened or if they found a rather smooth planet and went, "oh perfect"||

[wispy lichen]

star wars ||we know they built up to the tops of mountains and had a mountaintop sticking out in Monument Plaza||

||and at its deepest it is DEEP. the lower you go, the more seedy Coruscant gets ||

[unkempt sail]

||Yeah, there was some line about Luke looking out at some mountains in the distance and I thought "...huh, I didn't think they allowed that much uninhabited land but maybe it's like Camelback mountain in Phoenix, AZ"||

[wispy lichen]

It’s definitely interesting

[dry herald]

Thrawn trilogy general (forgot which chapter/book) ||It's also interesting how the clone wars were interpreted before the prequels, with the idea that it was people ocnquering with cloning technology||

[wispy vortex]

https://tenor.com/view/lov-you-gif-7161129628444095192

[broken smelt]

||yeah, HTTE is the first mention of Coruscant in any official/published work but the idea of it came from a draft of Ep 6. Zahn created the name though, and Lucas used it after that||

[dry herald]

huh, interesting

[wispy vortex]

I’m listening to the Dark Empire audio drama and they keep pronouncing it Corus-cant

[golden flame]

takes 1d4 psychic damage

[wispy vortex]

Every single time

By the end my brain will be mush

[wintry lark]

If you think about it, that's how it should be pronounced

It's not spelled Corusceant

[warm thicket]

Abrupdated count

Hmm
There's an "abrupt" at the start of chapter 10, but not an "abruptly"

[wispy lichen]

The coolest saberist was Dooku and I will not elaborate

[wispy vortex]

Nah Bane

Bane was Dooku but better

What are yalls favorite clone trooper armor

[wispy lichen]

Tech

He’s so adorable

[wispy lichen]

Okay but Revan

I think my favorite Old Republic character is the Exile because WOW

[wispy vortex]

Mine is the Clone Commando armor, it looks so cool

watch this short film, youll see why I love them
https://youtu.be/JMbBjKnUoC4?si=azK7FqNyhnjDSi3r

[wintry lark]

We don't even see him fight

[wispy vortex]

We do in the books

Quite a bit

[wintry lark]

reading someone fighting ≠ seeing them fight

[wispy vortex]

?

Its better

[wintry lark]

books don't have choreography

[wispy vortex]

They don’t need them

[wispy lichen]

Book fights are definitely choreographed

[wispy vortex]

I adore book fights

[golden flame]

Glowing visors >>>>>>>>

[wispy vortex]

It looks so good

[golden flame]

Yes they can be?

[wispy lichen]

Miraluka are so cool

[wispy vortex]

they are

[wispy vortex]

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-gif-4048595941757682802

[unkempt sail]

through HTTE 10/thrawn all (gen) ||so do we add an extra vowel to every clone name (I have heard about Luuke before, but I've no idea if this is the book where he appears)||

[warm thicket]

You should update that tag to Thrawn Trilogy All

Thrawn Trilogy All ||But yeah, it's something I wondered as well. Is the implication that the clones step out of the machines and go, "I know my name, it's Luuke," or if everyone naming clones is just super un creative||

Star Wars all ||Is that why clones are given numbers and such? Otherwise we'd have Jengo Fe'ee'ee'eeeeee'ee''eee'eee'ett (pronounced f-[dolphin noise]-et)||

[unkempt sail]

updated. I've never read any star wars books (besides the novelization of episode 1 ages ago??) so my husband is very excited for me to meet characters with any number of extra vowels

[wispy lichen]

Star Wars books are very fun with some very fun names

Some gems of Star Wars names:
||Lumpawaroo (nicknamed Lumpy)
Jagged Fel
~~Glup Schitto ~~
Elan Sleazebaggano
Ima Gun Di (guess who dies in their first apperance?)||

[warm thicket]

Ok that third one is a meme, not a real cannon name

[wispy lichen]

I thought that was an actual name 😭

[autumn hemlock]

Imagine Monkeygirl's outrage when she discovers they cut Glup from Canon and Legends!

[wispy lichen]

HTTE 23 + TCW general ||Luke is so funny. Like his father he refuses to memory wipe his droid. Then he accidentally coincides his escape with both Han and Thrawn’s drama, driving Karrde insane. Karrde on the other hand is just trying (and failing) to stay out of galactic politics. Mara is also getting stressed out over Luke, more than Luke is stressed for sure (and he’s a CAPTIVE). Luke is just like 👉 👈 Okay but can I have more hot chocolate? The kidnapping is fine and all but, hot chocolate?||

Star Wars general ||also how is Artoo still functioning none of my computers would be working after 30 years of no software updates lol||

[wispy vortex]

Legends ||Im perpetually surprised that Karrde hasnt just given up and joined the New Republic||

[wispy lichen]

||he realized how much hot chocolate he’d have to smuggle in for the New Republic after having Luke as a prisoner and just gave up on that ||

[golden flame]

Star Wars gen ||R2 is just Built Different™️. I'm guessing Anakin probably did some tinkering to improve the lil bugger||

[wispy vortex]

Thrawn Trilogy ||I mean, the Katanas worked too, kinda, and they had 0 maintenance||

[wispy lichen]

We also generally see (SW general) ||working Rakatan and Gree tech||

[broken smelt]

Lol I can tell you never had a nokia phone. Old tech is just built different

[warm thicket]

Potentially devise take here
I hate that they spell his name Artoo

[broken smelt]

That's how he's credited in some movies. So I wonder where it originated from

[golden flame]

To be fair, that's just a thing in SW media, at least for R2 and 3PO

[warm thicket]

I know it's a thing, and I don't like it

[vale dirge]

In Spanish they call him “Arturito” which is the diminutive of the Spanish version of Arthur

Imagine if George Lucas had given R2 a name like “Robbie”

[wintry lark]

Artie

[topaz cliff]

Artoo and threepio I can kinda forgive, but I bought a k2so action figure and the box said "k2so (kaytuesso)" and it gave me psychic damage

[golden flame]

Oof

Kaytoo I would accept. After all, Artoo and Threepio are only part of the name. But the full thing...oof

[warm thicket]

I think I hate it because Artoo is a shorter version of the full name to say, but longer to spell than R2D2

Same with Threepio

[golden flame]

Lol

Fair enough

[autumn hemlock]

How about rtwodtwo

And cthreepzero

[supple star]

I think you mean
Artoodeetoo and Ceethreepio

But isn’t the reason for this is because you aren’t supposed to put numerals in dialogue.

[wispy lichen]

Finished the smuggler story in SWTOR

Smuggler ||I thought Act 1 was really fun (treasure hunt and revenge on betrayal? Awesome!) and they had good ideas for the rest but didn’t really know what they were gonna do with the rest and it just kinda floundered around a bit. ||

[echo echo]

All of the plotlines struggle with this to some extent but Smuggler struggled the most

IMO

I get the struggle, all eight classes have to go through the same planets for the same amount of time and in the same order (for each faction but even then the orders are pretty close for the Imperial/Republic storylines)

And you can feel the sacrifices for the Force using classes in the military classes and scum and villainy classes

There's also simply way too many worlds

Some of them later on some plotlines literally just do drivebys on

[wispy lichen]

I think Knight is a bit better balanced across the story, but that’s probably the base story they based other stuff around

[upper tangle]

Finally got around to listening to the latest A More Civilized Age and dear god poor Rob

[wispy lichen]

Finished HTTE!

HTTE all ||overall, a fun story. Definitely feels of it’s time in storytelling. Very 90s pulp. I enjoyed it about as much as I’ve enjoyed it in the past.
Notably though, the leads all sound like themselves. Luke, Han, and Leia all feel a lot like their OT selves. This just feels like the “next step” for their characters in a natural way. ||

Crimson Empire III 1 || time jump. Lol. Leia being Chief of State is such a mental shift from Thrawn Trilogy. ||

||OOH It’s the Solo kids||

[bitter trail]

https://www.tumblr.com/sotheresthattodealwith/790690605602914304/lesbianjubilee-i-bless-the-swamps-down-in-dagobah

ah shoot

posts that make me lose it at 1 o'clock in the morning

[wispy vortex]

That reminds of a rather infamous Reddit post

[dull dust]

Took me a minute to hear the words in the proper tune but I got it now

[wispy vortex]

The Last Command ||One more word and the New Republic would have fallen

“That was before I got stuck on—” Luke broke off, eyeing the people beginning to wander through the corridor. “I’ll tell you later,” he amended.||

[wispy lichen]

Finished Crimson Empire III!

||I think 3 was my least favorite tbh. 1 was the best. Aspects of this serve as a great prequel to both Hand of Thrawn and New Jedi Order. It’s interesting to see Pellaeon’s first desires for a treaty and Nom Anor’s scheming.
Luke was acting a little unlike himself tho. A bit pushy and judgmental. It also seems like Kir Kanos abandoned his oath a little suddenly. I’d have liked to see more contemplation at the least before he decided that. ||

[wispy lichen]

Now that we’re close to the end of our first two weeks for Heir to the Empire (though no pressure for those unfinished, take your time ), what are everyone’s thoughts on the book as a whole? Any first time readers? Who was your favorite character and what was your favorite scene?

[golden flame]

Mara Jade my beloved

[wispy vortex]

A reread for me, but I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Even more actually, now that I can pick out little details that won’t matter until later. You can really tell he planned the whole trilogy out before writing cough Disney cough

[wispy lichen]

HTTE all ||for me I think it’s probably a 7.5/10 or 8/10. It’s a very fun book and feels very Star Wars as it was in the OT, with all of our leads feeling straight off the screen. It’s a fun adventure of “where did they go next?”
I think the negatives are that Zahn pats Thrawn on the back a bit much and often events fall into place to make Thrawn look more smart. It’s also very… 90s action flick. Not that its a bad thing, but its basically exactly what you’d expect.
Mara Jade is ofc my favorite, alongside Luke. My favorite scene was hot chocolate or Leia on Kashyyyk ||

[wispy lichen]

It is much much better than the sequels haha

[wispy vortex]

||I think a lot of that is because we are watching Thrawn through Pellaeon’s perspective, and he really looks up to him||

[wispy lichen]

HTTE ||I’m talking more in terms of “all these things happen in a specific way so that Thrawn can seem super smart for putting together the clues”||

[wispy vortex]

True

[warm thicket]

Thrawn Trilogy All
||I just love the way that sometimes Grand Admiral Thrawn's intelligence is extraordinary, and then other times it's just like obvious stuff.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: Captain Pellian, I've studied this species' art, and as such I can predict how they'll send in all of their forces and then yield as soon as we bring in a second Star Destroyer.
Captain Pellian: Wow sir, that's amazing!
And then later on
Grand Admiral Thrawn: Yes, Captain Pellian, I think the ship that is the same model as Mara Jade's, containing Mara Jade's clothes, and an isla miri - which only Mara Jade could have gotten - belongs to Mara Jade.
Captain Pellian: Absolutely astounding sir, I don't know how you reach these conclusions!||

[unkempt sail]

HTTE 19 ||a lot of people in this smuggling vessel speak "dryly", hmmm.||

Legends general, speculation/joke on my part ||so this is technically enemies to lovers, right? I'm aware that Mara Jade is Luke's wife at some point but she really hates him at this point without a clear reason||

[wispy vortex]

RAFO

All will become clear

[wispy lichen]

<@&1396936875054203020> this is our start week for Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn. No rush for those who aren’t quite finished yet, as we are on the Thrawn trilogy for 4 more weeks. ☺️ we are doing this book for two weeks
The next book will be the Last Command by Timothy Zahn.

[stuck drum]

Why did I get this ping lmao

[wispy lichen]

Lol. You have the role haha.

[stuck drum]

Huh

[autumn hemlock]

Unfortunately so far "about two weeks" has actually meant at least one week, and not a couple hours...

[autumn hemlock]

Hmm, do I go for the PvP library user play and borrow the next book now, so I don't need to worry about whoever's apparently one book ahead of me scooping it up...?

[wispy vortex]

yes

[autumn hemlock]

(For backup context, I'm still waiting on book 2's hold)

[cedar osprey]

https://x.com/discussingfilm/status/1952849346501984744?s=46

DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm)

Matt Smith has been cast as the villain in ‘STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER’ alongside Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth.

In theaters on May 28, 2027.

(Source: Deadline)

X · Aug 5, 2025, 9:49 PM

Quite a feat to play characters in two of the most iconic sci-fi franchises ever

[dull dust]

Is it I feel like once your in the sci-fi role cast type you get passed around

[cedar osprey]

Very true

Although he did try the comic book movie thing once… did not go very well

No fault of his own

https://tenor.com/view/morbius-matt-smith-morbius-dance-matt-smith-dance-gif-14268889263374843709

Found the better gif

[broken smelt]

Makes sense. He was allegedly going to be in Ep9 for awhile, during an earlier script draft. So they must have already had some excitement for working together

[golden flame]

To be fair, he WAS the highlight of the movie lol

[cedar osprey]

True

He was the only person actually trying

[golden flame]

Only person who really wanted to be there, tbh

[grave cliff]

What movie was this?

[wispy vortex]

Morbius

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/ddd-gif-26902737

[dry herald]

https://tenor.com/view/morbius-im-about-to-morb-its-morbin-time-morbius-sweep-marvel-gif-25782014

[topaz cliff]

It's wild to me that Adria Arjona was in both Morbius and Andor

[supple star]

Started reading Mask of Fear and am loving the political drama of it.

In chapter 1 || there is a beautiful scene of thousands mourning the Jedi on Jedha. It is nice to see that some people did care.||

[twin dove]

Wasn’t expecting this guest announcement for DragonCon!

[broken smelt]

Wow, didn't think he wanted anything to do with Star Wars or Disney these days

[wispy vortex]

He loves doing star wars stuff

Hes pissed at disney, but hes a huge star wars nerd

[twin dove]

Yeah I knew he was definitely not a fan of the mouse.

Haha kinda want to see how much his signatures/photos are.

[cedar osprey]

He’s actually a real nice human being

[rose cliff]

Omg??? I think I need to go to dragon con this year 👀👀👀👀

[cedar osprey]

Will continue to be mad that they wasted his character

[twin dove]

He seems like he is super nice! And yes I hate they wasted his character.

[golden flame]

Tbf, that's true of basically all the sequel characters lol

[unkempt sail]

Star Wars is also a more recognizable title to put by his name over something like Attack the Block (which is also really good!)

[wispy vortex]

Attack the Block was great

[grave cliff]

Notable for also having a Jodie Whittaker, the 13th doctor

[cedar osprey]

Revenge of the Sith

[warm thicket]

Abrupdated

This one is particularly bothersome as the full line is, "Abruptly, much quicker than he expected, the squeal dissolved into a voice."

[bright blade]

I've started listening to the audiobook of From A Certain Point of View; Return of the Jedi, and it's got some mood whiplash going on with its first two stories.

It basically jumps from something super serious and plot relevant to something I'd expect to see in Looney Tunes.

Which I suppose is a very Star Wars thing to do

[warm thicket]

What's that one about?

[bright blade]

From A Certain Point of View is a kind of anthology series that's been done for each original trilogy movie on their 40th anniversary. Each book contains 40 short stories taking place from the perspective of peripheral characters who are indirectly or tangentially related to the movie's plot, if at all.

I've just started the one for Return of the Jedi, and I really liked the first story, but then the second one... well, it's pretty goofy. A total 180 from the utter seriousness of the first one. We'll see about the next 38!

[unkempt sail]

Yeah, I didn't realize it was a series and picked up the RotJ one from the library earlier this year. Some of them are poignant, and a bunch in the middle I'm like, "ah yes, we really needed to know what was going on in the life of background bounty hunter #3"

oh, I guess it was last year. anyway, "Dune Sea Songs of Salt and Moonlight" reminded me I should read Thea Guanzon at some point, and "My Mouth Never Closes" was very funny

[supple star]

Yep that’s FaCPoV for you. Some stories are great, Some are really bad fanfiction.

[sturdy scroll]

My wife and daughter (Doomslug Prophetess) are up in the Metroplex this weekend. Last minute they decided to drop in to Rebel Scum con. My wife sent over a pic of our daughter getting hugged by Michelle Ang, and given how much she enjoyed Bad Batch she is over the moon

[unkempt sail]

somehow, we own HTTE and The Last Command, but not book 2 so I'll be making a library trip when it's a decent hour and not 3 AM. HTTE all, light RotJ (a little bit of FaCPoV as I was reminded)- ||when Mara kept alluding to seeing Luke before, and in a context where Han also probably did I wondered if it was Jabba related. All the dancers get short stories in the FaCPoV so I wonder if there was an allusion to Mara being there by an author, or if they knew to avoid it since canon. HTTE ends very abruptly, but it does feel very fun and pulpy (even though everyone talking sardonically or dryly is annoying)||

[wispy lichen]

HTTE all ||yeah the “sardonically” and “dryly” is annoying lol. I agree. It’s very fun and pulpy. ||

[warm thicket]

A touch I truly love [All legends, probably] ||is that Luke (and others) can understand R2, the story is often from his viewpoint, and yet R2 still talks in a series of beeps and whistles. It makes it feel like I'm watching the movie still.||

HTTE
||sorry, the question is entirely what?||

[dry herald]

Andor 2.4 + rogue one ||man, this show is so peak. Its interesting how Andor and Syril are kind of dark mirrors. Both radicalized, but for different reasons and on opposite sides of the conflict. I can also see how this is setting up andors arc in rogue one, with his conversation with bix. Im worried for her, that she might od or something, as she's nowhere to be seen in rogue one and was doing drugs at the end.... I hope she's OK and just leaves him ||

[wispy lichen]

What I really like is (HTTE all) ||how much Luke, Han, and Leia feel straight off the screen. Like we are seeing more adventures along the same story with them. This is something many Legends novels fail at and the sequels never did. This is about the main characters of the franchise we know and love. ||

|| Right from the beginning, Luke’s epiphany that being a Jedi should be more about caring for individuals than for galactic matters is so very Luke and fits so well. ||

[supple star]

Mask of Fear is so good. Like wow I love how much it gets into the politics of Star Wars. Specifically ||the Separatists and their relationship with the Corporate powers, the Delegation of 2,000, Mon and Bail’s political differences, etc.||

Also it is so interesting to see a way less crazy Saw.

[broken smelt]

One of things I loved about that book was how so many of the characters all felt like a bridge between Clone Wars and Andor. He really nailed characterization across the board

[cedar osprey]

My favorite thing about Clone Wars is how the series just starts as your average kids show centered around Star Wars, and then as you get to the later seasons it just becomes about the horrors of war and war crimes

[wispy lichen]

Bad Batch feels like a sequel to the Clone Wars in a lot of ways, especially clone plotlines.

[patent schooner]

Love Bad Batch so much

might be one of my favorite star wars shows ever and not just animated

I think Andor Bad Batch and Clone wars would be my top 3 in no specific order

[wispy lichen]

Rebels, BB, and TCW are my top 3 lol

https://tenor.com/view/star-wars-wrecker-fists-the-bad-batch-knuckles-gif-21827001

[patent schooner]

valid. Rebels would be in my top 5 I think

[golden flame]

Finally
The set is complete

[cedar osprey]

I LOVE Thrawn Ascendancy

Even more than 2017 Thrawn trilogy

[golden flame]

I only read book 1 when it came out, I kinda dropped off star wars soon after; then my aunt got my Lesser Evil for Christmas this last year lmao, so I knew I'd have to complete the set at SOME point

[dry herald]

Thrawn ascendancy is pretty good. I like the HTTE trilogy better, but I do think it tops visions of the past/specter of the future for me

(haven't read the 2017 trilogy though)

[wispy lichen]

Interesting. I think Hand of Thrawn is my favorite from Zahn.

[wispy vortex]

I think Ascendancy is my favorite

[warm thicket]

I'm eager to reread, I only read hand of thrawn once a while ago and remember liking the thrawn Trilogy more

[supple star]

I just got Dark Force Rising from Libby.

||I really like Karrde. Nicest crime lord award goes to him||

||Thrawn: it is elementary dear Pelleaon. ||

[unkempt sail]

we visited my friend's library-themed restaurant yesterday and I realized the stack of star wars books contained dark force rising so i'm going to borrow it until the used copy I bought arrives (weirdly, the stack of paperbacks only had that and not 1 or 3 for the thrawn zahn trilogy)

[autumn hemlock]

Dark Force Rising 28 , prequel trilogy ||This is from well before chapter 28, but the conclusion of the Noghri plot makes it super obvious how badly Lucas botched the timeline. Assuming I'm correctly remembering when this takes place (~5ABY), the "Clone Wars conflict" that devastated their planet happened when Vader was the ripe old age of 2. Also the archive entry on C'baoth has lead me to believe Sheev was an established senator like 70-90 years BBY? I might just misinterpreted what I was reading there though...||

||Either way, 3 years is still way too short for The Clone Wars||

||wait, I think the throwaway line I'm remembering was how long it had been since Endor. Vader would've been 5.||

[cedar osprey]

Yeah this was peak

Claudia Gray is genuinely a top 3 Star Wars author

[wispy lichen]

She’s probably my favorite canon author

[wispy vortex]

but Zahn!

[topaz cliff]

I should give this one another try. I think I got bored about halfway through

[cedar osprey]

Coruscant has been one of the few planets in the Star Wars universe that I just CANNOT grasp my head around

Like what do you mean the planet is one big city AND there’s thousands of levels

How can anyone find their house in that place

[warm thicket]

How do you find your house right now?

[topaz cliff]

I think just because it's a planet doesn't mean people are moving around a whole lot within it. Like nobody is living in "china" and working in "panama"

[cedar osprey]

The thing is I live in the suburbs

So it’s very spread out

But Coruscant is bigger than earth I think??

I’m not sure

[warm thicket]

Addresses would certainly suck in a planet that populated. I wonder if they number things like hotels where it's based on level

I also wonder if there are mole people

[cedar osprey]

Apparently I read somewhere that the lower most levels actually had no idea that the Clone Wars or Galactic Civil War even happened

[autumn hemlock]

I feel like addresses would pretty straight forward on a planet that's reconstructed itself to have layers on layers of living

[warm thicket]

Honestly I really want some Star Wars stuff from those types of people. People so separated from Galactic politics that they are minimally impacted. I wanna see the family dinner that finds out the republic is the empire now, only to call their distant cousin on another planet who goes, "we turned into an empire 30 years ago, and we actually just turned back into a republic"

[autumn hemlock]

Like to me, finding a house in Coruscant feels like it'd be about as hard as finding an apartment in an apartment building, just with bigger lookup tables.

[warm thicket]

"Oooo let's check out this one, it's right in the city!"

[cedar osprey]

Honestly would like an entire show or movie just focused on Coruscant

It’s always been one of my fav planets

[autumn hemlock]

I'd love to see more people that have no idea what a Jedi is. Based on the numbers from the end of the Old Republic, Han's stance on The Force should be an overwhelmingly common one, and most people shouldn't even know what a Jedi is (I ran the numbers a few years ago, and it works out to something like 1 in a trillion people is a Jedi)

[cedar osprey]

They sort of explored this in the Obi-Wan and Anakin miniseries comic by Charles Soule

[autumn hemlock]

Kenobi all ||Acutually, now that I think about it, that makes the fake Jedi con-man kinda hilarious. "I'm from a religious order you probably haven't heard of that's being hunted to extermination, you can trust me."||

[grave cliff]

And like, if you live there you probably don't work, shop etc too far away. Maybe a train ride or something. If the jedi want to find a particular building in the lower levels...may the force be with them

[warm thicket]

It's one of the things that I think even Andor glossed over a bit with the first episodes. In real life we have trouble finding someone if they cross state lines, let alone national borders. But if someone can simply flee to a different planet? Good look tracking them down

[unkempt sail]

I was surprised to see a ||Dexter Jettser|| story in the RotJ From a Certain Point of View, but it was a pleasant surprise for "how is surface level Coruscant reacting to events"

[cedar osprey]

You know my Coruscant spin off idea has made me think, if you guys could make ANY spin off of Star Wars (animated or tv show or movie, anything) what would it be and why?

[warm thicket]

Pretty much what I described. Centered around a family on some planet in the outer rim that's technically part of all of these governanments, but is far enough out and unimportant enough that nobody really cares about it. I want to see the family that watches as [Star Wars movies] ||one guy and his son|| take turns overthrowing each other. They watch with the interest that someone in Nevada has when keeping up with the British royal family

[supple star]

I want an anthology series about droids. It could allow Star Wars to really dive into how they are treated and focus on their perspectives. I would want it to take place over the course of the entire Star Wars timeline and would follow both fan favorites and droids created for the show.

[wispy vortex]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Droids

[wispy lichen]

My ideal SW show is a show telling the story of New Jedi Order from Legends.
My ideal show that is based on nothing yet created is a archivist from the Jedi touring force groups of the galaxy, learning more about alternate views of the force for the sake of cataloguing them.

[wispy vortex]

legends ||So Jacen, but nerdy||

[wispy lichen]

Yeah and (Legends) ||more like enlightening of the MC creating their own view of the force than “uh oh sith!!! Learning about other cultures is turning Jacen dark!”||

[topaz cliff]

I would love a no time period jedi and padawan story that could explore its own corner of the galaxy. Kinda like the village bride or the elder but fully developed.

Or, I wrote like 2/3 of a fic about Numa, the twi'lek girl who was friends with Waxer and Boil, about her path in the rebellion (pre alliance)

[wispy vortex]

My ideal show would be an adaptation of the X-Wing books

Give us Corran Horn you cowards!

Wedge deserves screen time!

[spare frost]

my ideal SW show is s3 of andor

Honestly take the people who made andor and set them like 10 0years before or after the actual movies and let them do whatever and make up whatever factions and go wild with it though thatd be great

[dense lance]

my ideal SW show would be, in new canon, Broom Boy the Series

[warm thicket]

My ideal SW show is one set hundreds of years apart from anything current cannon.
Andor was great, Mandolorian had it's moments, but I really struggle to care about characters or events tangentially related to already established events

[warm thicket]

Abruptdated, a few times actually

[wispy lichen]

Funnily, it’s “sardonic” that I see the most

Like it’s everywhere in Thrawn Trilogy lol

[warm thicket]

Oh I notice those now as well. I noticed the frequency of the abruptlies the second time I read Dark Force Rising, then quickly realized they plagued the whole trilogy. So I decided to mark them this go round since I'm reading instead of listening.
I'm gonna go through and update that to page numbers, I wasn't at first because I was on my tablet

[autumn hemlock]

I guess I should probably put some thoughts about DFR in here before I play nice and return the book...
DFR all ||Overall, this felt like an improvement. I definitely hadn't read this one before, so my other vague half memories are from other series/arcs.||

||I liked how everyone had firmly different arcs, with Han getting bounced around by the needs of the plot bizarre luck The Force (lending all sorts of credence to that old fan theory that he's an undetected precog/guidance of The Force savant) while Leia does a Howdunnit on the indentured servitude of the Noghri and Luke joins a Cult.||

||I'm less of a fan of how the Thrawn of it all is shaking out. All of his military wins this book are off-screen or of negligible importance, and while it is a reasonable conclusion, I'm iffy on him attributing greater competence to the MCs after they happen to be in the right place at the right time. I also don't like the idea that the hangars of an ISD don't have doors that can be closed, that feels like it'd be the first step when you discover a high-profile jail break...||

DFR all ||oh, right, I also like how everyone is underestimating our crazy Jedi clone friend Joruus. Calling it now, Thrawn's ultimate failure is because he crosses him one last time, and he takes the Chimera out of action by grabbing it by a part that isn't covered by the Ysalamari or he chucks a squadron of TIE fighters at it or something.||

[broken smelt]

My dream show is something set in its own time period (so probably far back in the Old Republic) that's a large ensemble cast & large scope story, lots of character nuance (like Andor) and politics. With a mix characters types, let me see the Jedi/Sith mixed with galactic players and normal folks

[dry herald]

A kotor show could potentially be this if Disney goes through with it. Assuming its done well ofc

[warm thicket]

I wanna see a trilogy set roughly 10 years after the sequel trilogy. Rey is the only trained user of the force left alive, she's barely even a Jedi Knight, let alone a master. She's got a couple students, but she's more like the leader of a club than a teacher.
They hear rumors of someone starting to tap into the dark side gaining power out there, and go to investigate. Someone's found some old Sith holocrons and is training to use the Force for her own nefarious purposes. There's a confrontation about a quarter of the way through the movie, and it seems like this is going to be the setup of the trilogy. Dark vs Light again.
Then in the heat of their confrontation they're interrupted by a new group. Not Jedi nor Sith, not dark nor light. A group comprised of experts with the force who no longer bother with things like sabers, they use blasters and thermal detonaters. They use the force to trip up their opponents, destroy their cover, and expertly mold their surroundings to their will. There is no reverence for tradition, here. No philosophy of strength or stoicism. Merely the Force as a tool.
The fledgling Jedi and wannabe Sith know that there's no way for them to continue their conflict while this group spreads, they must contend with those who would bury the tradition of the past in favor of the pragmatism of the future

[wispy lichen]

DFR ||yeah this one is definitely an improvement over the previous and I think a lot of Thrawn’s “genius” feels very Zahn-made more than it actually seems genius||

[warm thicket]

Episode X - Tradition of the Past
Episode XI - Commandos Rising
Episode XII - Balance to the Force

Though a name like that for Episode XII implies an end point to the story, so Disney probably wouldn't do that

[autumn hemlock]

Sequel movies, Zee's pitch ||Calling it now, Broomboy is a member of the third party (which I'm calling The Reformists) because his only on-screen use of the Force is to summon a tool he uses to reshape his surroundings.||

[warm thicket]

This is the way

I really wanna see this because they really have a fresh start right now. There's no reason to do the same thing again as before, because all of that is gone. I wanna see a really good story centered around tradition vs change, and the whole theme is to find a Balance™ between the two

[supple star]

Sweet https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rr2UMWHgNqk

||We got Jaxxon AND Revan||

[wispy lichen]

||Revan ||

[warm thicket]

I know the rule is show don't tell, but the part in chapter 24 of HTTE when ||Mara is thinking about all of the horrible things that the empire might do to Karrde is just so well written. She wants to make sure he's going to be okay, even though she doesn't think she wants that. And she can't convince herself that Karrde won't just look out for himself, so she feels she owes him for staying even though she doesn't even know for certain if he will.||
||Plus, the way she intimately understands what Thrawn is probably doing is just chilling ||

[wispy lichen]

Dark Force Rising 13 ||It’s really easy to pretend Thrawn isn’t evil because he’s so much more honorable and gentlemanly than many Imperial leaders we might otherwise see, but he really is still doing terrible things in service of a terrible empire. Like, the way he keeps the Noghri enslaved is so awful and he sees them solely as tools to discard and break, without caring for the people he exploits. ||

||Thrawn is a bad guy 🗣️ ||

[wispy vortex]

||It doesn’t help that canon Thrawn is so much better||

[wispy lichen]

Legends and canon ||I think this is Zahn erasing his own memory. Zahn even says he writes his books such that they all happen in one continuity. Which is CRAZY. ||

[wispy vortex]

He’s getting old lol

[wispy lichen]

Haha

I mean I can see in my mind how (SW general) ||Thrawn over time in service to an evil empire becomes more hardened and callous and starts to transition from anti-hero to villain|| we just don’t see that and it’d be interesting to see

[wispy vortex]

Canon Thrawn ||It would be really difficult. He’s still an antihero up to nearly Yavin||

[wispy lichen]

Yeah this is true. Idk what Zahn was cooking.

[bright blade]

I am hyped for this. IMO, Rebuild the Galaxy was low-key one of the best things Disney-Lucasfilm has done with Star Wars. It's quality storytelling and hilarious.

[dry herald]

All thrawn content ||the way i see it is that thrawn is mostly like a weapon. You point him in the direction you want him to go, and he will get it done. Its a matter of who is wielding him in general that determines his outcome. He's always seen everyone as a resource to use for his strategy after all. ||

[warm thicket]

HTTE and Thrawn
||I think I would agree if he wasn't so callous, and that's putting it nicely. He had that guy executed for failing to catch Skywalker, that's not really 'just a tool' behavior.||
||Perhaps in other books one could have that takeaway, I don't remember him doing anything particularly evil in Thrawn. But the Thrawn Trilogy Thrawn is straight up evil. If the cards were reshuffled, I doubt the rebellion would have taken him.||

[wispy lichen]

DFR 28 || Fey’lya might be one of my most hated fictional characters. ||

[wispy lichen]

DFR 29 || Luke has such “I can fix her” vibes ||

All finished!

[wispy vortex]

I would too

[wispy vortex]

Legends ||One thing I didnt like about NJO was his political recovery||

[wispy lichen]

Dark Force Rising all ||yeah this is so much better than HTTE lmao. I think Mara’s PoV hard carries this book. In HTTE, her personality is mostly “EW LUKE” but here we see other sides to her and the way Palpatine’s influence destroys her. Also, her and Luke’s entire dynamic is so cute. She is convinced she must kill him because of an insane order from a long dead emperor but every chance she gets does not do it. And he’s convinced by some calling to help her every step of the way despite her clear hatred of him.
Also, Leia’s arc is a bit more fun in this book. We meet Bel Iblis who is pretty cool. The Katana fleet is a neat concept with a “Ghost Ship” told as a myth to sailors type of vibe. Thrawn still stumbles into info that is built up just so he can seem smart but that’s probably the biggest weakness of this book for me. Karrde, Luke, and Mara probably are the highlights. ||

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/dandadan-dan-da-dan-dandadan-funny-funny-dandadan-anime-funny-gif-3634604110654380989

Legends || Fey’lya in NJO makes me so unbelievably angry because he sucks so much and I just want someone to slap him or kill him. ||

[wispy vortex]

||It did lead to Borleias, which is one of the most epic stands in Star Wars||

[wispy lichen]

|| he is bad in Thrawn but in NJO I want to throttle him so much. The biggest villain of NJO ngl. ||

[wispy lichen]

This book is actually peak

S-tier

Makes me think I’ll enjoy Wraith squadron when we hit it

[wispy vortex]

More than once my motivation for rereading NJO was just to get to that

||Wedge is one of my favorite characters, and General Mode somehow seems right after all those decades as a fighter pilot||

[wispy vortex]

Omg you havent read Wraith Squadron???

[wispy lichen]

Not yeeeet

But I will in this readalong!

I speed read my way to NJO lol

HTTE trilogy -> Jedi Academy trilogy -> Hand of Thrawn -> NJO is what I did

[wispy vortex]

youre going to adore the x-wing books

They are Wedge at his best

[wispy lichen]

I think I’ll like the Wraith Squadron better than Rogue because I liked Allston’s NJO books better than Stackpole’s

[wispy vortex]

Corran Horn tho

[wispy lichen]

Corran is cool

[wispy lichen]

Ooh thank you

[autumn hemlock]

RiP the blargle key

[broken smelt]

This is why I absolutely love his character! Legends ||He's so hate-able, and slimy, and shortsighted. And so often I feel like those types of characters end up joining the villains or defecting from the heroes. But for all his faults, he is legitimately on the side of the New Republic. Or at least that's how I remember it. It's been awhile since I've read a lot of those books||

[wispy lichen]

||Yea he is legitimately on the side of the New Republic which might be why I hate him so much because of how much of a detriment to the Republic (and life itself) he is||

[wispy lichen]

<@&1396936875054203020> This is our start week for The Last Command by Timothy Zahn. No rush ofc if you aren’t finished with DFR just yet. ☺️ we are doing this book for two weeks.

The next book will be Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole. This is the first of the X-Wing series.
That is a good jump on point for people who did not read the Thrawn trilogy and/or find the sound of an X-wing series interesting.
It’s also a good jump off point for people who don’t necessarily want to commit to the next 10 books of the readalong lol.

How does the pacing feel for everyone? Is two weeks enough time to get through the books?

[autumn hemlock]

Pacing's fine for me, my only concern is Libby availability, but so far it's worked out

[wispy lichen]

Yeah that makes sense

How did y’all like DFR?

[echo echo]

(I'm not on the readalong but Rogue Squadron was my favorite of the old EU stuff, love me some Space Top Gun and have since I was a kid)

Its super pulpy but I was absolutely the center of the target audience for it when I was like twelve or thirteen

[wispy vortex]

Pulpy is good, pulpy is fun

[wispy lichen]

Pulp is absolute cinema

[wispy vortex]

Peak!

[supple star]

DFR 18 ||I am starting to think Winter is Delta source. She seems to be the only character important enough to know these things but not so important to Star Wars that they would never be made a traitor.||

[toxic rune]

aw I missed talk about Coruscant 😔

I love Coruscant

[warm thicket]

Well we can't talk about it anymore
What do you like about it?

[warm thicket]

||"They must have forgotten to report in, was Pelleon's first, hopeful reaction. But it died stillborn."||
-Heir to the Empire, chapter 30

Ok, that language there is a bit much I think, Pelleon

[wispy vortex]

lmao

[toxic rune]

I like the concept of an ecumenopolis in general and coruscant can be a very interesting setting for neonoir

there's a lot of good (and a lot more not good) neonoir star wars set in Coruscant

[supple star]

I just moved and my new library has so many Star Wars books. This is going to make things read along much easier. And the library is really close.

[bright blade]

I listened to more of From a Certain Point of View; Return of the Jedi today and ||that Sarlacc story is heckin' weird. It's a vegetarian with a surfer dude bro stoner voice.||

[wispy vortex]

Lmao

[supple star]

I liked FaCPoV but I can’t imagine listening to the audiobook of it. Like they are stories with including code and data readouts. One of my favorites was the mouse droid story for ANH; how would they do that? There is so much numbers.

[warm thicket]

Something like this, probably

#cosmemes message

[supple star]

DFR 22 ||Love the reverse ANH prison rescue.||

[bright blade]

Oh, let me tell you. They put every. Single. Word. Of code. Into the audiobook. Every. Individual. Number. And it's terrible. Worse than that one thing from Words of Radiance. I hate that mouse droid story for that very reason. I also thought the story itself was uninteresting and uncompelling, but the narration translating so terribly to audiobook format made it all the worse for me.

I don't have a ranking for every FaCPoV story, but that mouse droid one is definitely at the bottom of my list.

[supple star]

Yikes that sounds awful. Which is sad because I like the mouse droid story, mainly because I like mouse droids and droids pov’s. ||It made me sad to see how the mouse droid was treated. All the characters acted nice to it but all of them ignored that making it facilitate their secret romance was seriously damaging it.||

[supple star]

DFR 24

||“I could name one or two other droids who have more curiosity than their original programming intended.”
“Your Highness!” Threepio protested, sounding wounded. “Artoo is a different case altogether.”||

[warm thicket]

My copy of Dark Force Rising has two phone numbers on the inside of the cover.
Do I text these numbers?

[wintry lark]

It's very likely that at least one of those numbers no longer belongs to the person who wrote it

Well, I guess the probability depends on how old the book copy is

[wispy vortex]

Yes

[warm thicket]

Well it's got this in the back, so rather old

[cedar osprey]

Ah yes, the great new and groundbreaking invention known as the Internet

[warm thicket]

This was before you needed your parents permission

[cedar osprey]

My FBI Agent watching me download Club Penguin without my parents permission:

[wispy lichen]

Ehrm actually ☝️ 🤓
Club Penguin was a flash based game and so ran on your browser

[warm thicket]

Two reasons for the FBI agent to be upset then

[supple star]

DFR 27 ||Leia and Karrde just destroyed Fey’lya. 🔥||.

||“You see, Councilor, some of us don’t consider loyalty to be all that outmoded,”||

||Suck it Fey’lya, just suck it||

This last chapter has really increased my hatred for him.

[wispy lichen]

Welcome to the club 🙏

Hate that guy

[cedar osprey]

OH MY GOD THE VILLAGE BRIDE GIRL IS BACKKKK https://x.com/starwars/status/1958959871841509599?s=46

Star Wars (@starwars)

Back to where it all began.

Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 arrives October 29, only on @DisneyPlus.

X · Aug 22, 2025, 6:30 PM

[echo echo]

https://x.com/culturecrave/status/1959765408732643452

Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave)

Ewan McGregor says he’s going to watch every episode of ‘The Clone Wars’

“That’s my homework”

(via @TheSWU)

X · Aug 24, 2025, 11:50 PM

Huh

The source here is some Twitter account, and they only have retweets of other outlets citing them about this

Paul Tassi is convinced it is to do Clone Wars live action, which seems insane to me

[golden flame]

That seems...silly

[bright blade]

Maybe scenes from it, but a full remake? No. Just no. There's literally no reason for it. No good reason.

If you're gonna do live-action Clone Wars, keep it to brief flashback sequences in different shows. Like they already did.

[patent schooner]

yeah that pretty much has a 99% chance to be pain

And there is still so much space to just tell new stories set during the clone wars

even if executed incredibly well it just inherently is a bad idea

[bright blade]

(Sounds like another live-action remake I know of that came out this year) 😒

[patent schooner]

its kinda worse than a remake though. Atleast a remake isnt part of a huge continuity most of the time

[warm thicket]

https://tenor.com/view/do-you-have-any-idea-how-little-that-narrows-it-down-that-narrows-it-down-clear-now-its-clear-now-i-understand-now-gif-21256627

[bright blade]

Okay, I'm talking about How to Train Your Dragon

[warm thicket]

Forgot that one came out, rip

[broken smelt]

I suspect if anything it's more flashbacks or spirit visions ||probably for Ahsoka S2 like the brief one we saw in S1 or the Kenobi series||

[dry herald]

Honestly, I enjoyed HTTYD live action. But yeah, I don't think a clone wars one would be any good.

[wintry lark]

Maybe they'll be revisiting the scrapped season 7 and 8 episodes

It'd make more sense to do that in animation, despite the weirdness of going out of chronology, but it's possible

[dry herald]

Andor s2.5 ||very interesting episode. Seeing how Syril, andor, and Wilmon both relate and contrast. All radicalized, all in different ways. The revolutionary, the fascist and the extremist||

[supple star]

The Last Command 10 ||Just when I thought Karrde couldn’t be any more awesome; he goes and gets all of these smugglers to team up against the Empire. I also like the good heel turn from Ferrier. Makes sense that he would want to work against the Empire after how Thrawn treated him.||

This trilogy has given me Mara and Karrde to love and Fey’lya too absolutely despise.

[wispy vortex]

||Yeah I really liked the turn as well||

[supple star]

||Boo, never mind I guess. Ferrier is still slime. This is what I when I make presumptions||

||At least he might of slightly screwed up Thrawn’s plans.||

[supple star]

TLC 11 ||I said that I thought Winter was Delta Source, but I am not sure anymore. She seems too connected to the Rebellion to be an imp. I still don’t know who else it would be. I guess if Thrawn gains word of what they planning will determine this||

[warm thicket]

||I like Karrde was handled for this reason as well. He's made it very clear that he's not part of the empire or the new republic, most of his conversations with Mara amount to as much, but he definitely has a preferred victor in the scenario.||

[echo echo]

https://x.com/andorofficial/status/1960818562203050386

Andor | A Star Wars Original Series (@andorofficial)

Don't do it.

Consider ANDOR in all Emmy® categories, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Writing & more. #Emmys #FYC

X · Aug 27, 2025, 9:35 PM

This is, possibly, Andor's best possible advertisement

[wispy vortex]

Andor for best Comedy

[cedar osprey]

Just looked at my syllabus for my psych class and one of the major assignments is writing a paper on a movie and one of the movies is Revenge of the Sith

First paper I’m going to get an A+++ on

[echo echo]

When I was in high school the school had a policy that if you had an 85 or higher in the class and took an AP test associated with that class, you wouldn't have to take a final

So many of the AP teachers would come up with softball assignments wildly disproportionately weighted so they wouldn't have to administer a final at all

Including my Latin teacher. She had us watch all six (at the time) Star Wars movies and then write an essay about how Lucas had adapted defining qualities of classical epic poetry for his movies

[supple star]

TLC 13 ||I am really liking Luke and Mara’s relationship so far. Luke’s all “I can fix her” while Mara’s all “doesn’t this idiot know that my dead boss wants me to kill him”||

[echo echo]

About half the class was super into it, myself included, and the other half of the class kind of cut loose and didn't pay attention despite an apparent lack of familiarity with the source material

[supple star]

TLC 13 ||What is C’boath up to. And once again who is Delta Source.||

[echo echo]

When the essays they turned in were extremely bad, she ended up feeling really disrespected and really put the screws to them. She didn't intentionally fail them, but she did make them all take the final, she made the final brutal, and their overall grade ended up dropping about a letter apiece

[supple star]

Well it is like poetry, it rhymes.

[echo echo]

Classical poetry does not in fact rhyme

[wispy vortex]

Thats why it sucks

[echo echo]

To be clear, this is legit. Lucas was clearly very aware of classical forms when he was making those movies, as much as he was aware of The Hero's Journey

[supple star]

TLC 14 ||Random New Republic Guard: “Why are there so many Jawas in the Imperial Palace?”||

||Leia “Their attacking Coruscant”
Ghent “oh, can they do that.” ||

I love Ghent

Such a nerd

[warm thicket]

Ghent is like a step away from being prefectly unaware of situation he's in and I love it

[autumn hemlock]

TLC all ||Ghent is precisely aware enough of the situation he's in to know that he gets to have more fun if he pretend not to be aware of the situation he's in||

[warm thicket]

Is anyone here a doctor?
Can I get a doctor's note excusing me from work so I can read Star Wars?

[bright blade]

This is perfect advertising. I love it.

[cedar osprey]

Don’t know how good this movie is gonna be but I’m just happy they’re finally telling stories post-Rise of Skywalker https://x.com/starwars/status/1961096656512078140?s=46

Star Wars (@starwars)

Day 1: A whole new adventure begins #Starfighter

https://t.co/eI5xaROQAj

X · Aug 28, 2025, 4:00 PM

[bright blade]

You know what I want to see in Star Wars? More stuff during the Galactic Civil War, like between ANH and TESB or between TESB and ROTJ.

We have so much visual media content of post-ROTS and pre-ANH along with post-ROTJ and pre-TFA. Clone Wars fills in between AOTC and ROTJ and Acolyte goes pre-TPM, but I want to see more during the Galactic Civil War.

-# Sorry for all the abbreviations, I'm frustrating myself here.

Specifically, I want to see the story of the Bothan spies mentioned in RotJ. I want them to get they're own miniseries or movie a la Rogue One or Andor. It would definitely be less human-centric because of, well, Bothans, but that's why we have advanced MoCap, right?

It's unlikely, but I have ideas and it's the kind of thing I'd want to see.

[echo echo]

I do think they've specifically avoided those areas because they're pretty wall-to-wall full timeline-wise of the old EU and I think they don't want to completely directly overwrite that

For the most part they've been pretty circumspect about not driving directly over the old canon stories and doing a "well actually what really happened was"

[wispy lichen]

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-starfighter-cast

[bright blade]

If there was already a pre-existing Star Wars story about the Bothan spies, I don't see why it couldn't be adapted. In fact, I would hope there is, because I'm already coming up with one and I doubt it's canon-friendly. 😆

[echo echo]

Amy Adams in the cast is big. Ryan Gosling as a producer is a little (highly)

[bright blade]

Ooh, producer? And cast member?

[echo echo]

He wasn't listed as such

Which is what makes it

[bright blade]

So only as producer. Interesante.

[echo echo]

Producer only

[bright blade]

Muy interesante

[warm thicket]

Personally for me, it's hard to have stakes in a piece of media where we already know what happened at the bookends of it, and I don't really have faith that they'd make the story of the Bothan spies all that interesting.
Maybe they'd make it a heist movie in the style of Ocean's 11 and that would be cool, but in reality I think they'd basically just do Rogue One a second time.

I want something new, separate from the movies. Give me something that takes place centuries prior to or decades years after the movies.

[cedar osprey]

One of my favorite Star Wars comics is Jason Aaron’s 2015 run set between ANH and ESB

I’ve always said they need to adapt that into a animated show

Fills the gap between ANH and ESB perfectly

[echo echo]

I mean to be honest I'd have said the same about Andor

I probably did, actually, I was pretty tepid on it before it actually came out

[wispy vortex]

I just want Starfighter to be a Rogue Squadron adaptation and I know it wont be and it makes me sad

[echo echo]

I just want Starfighter to be good and these days that feels like at best a coin flip

[cedar osprey]

No matter how good or bad it is it’s actually gonna be great to see a Star Wars movie on the big screen again

[warm thicket]

This is true

[topaz cliff]

is that the one that crosses over with the Darth Vader comics in Vader Down?

[cedar osprey]

Ya

[wispy lichen]

There is in Legends. Well, kind of.

[wispy vortex]

Yeah, Manuel Both-Hanz

[broken smelt]

Unfortunately I doubt this time period will be explored on screen. They had numerous comic runs sometime in the last decade covering everything from 4-6 so unless something amazing comes across Lucasfilm's desk, I assume they're leaving that period alone

[supple star]

The one issue with a canon Bothan story is catching general audiences up with all the Crimson Empire stuff. As I believe in canon comics spoilers ||Crimson Dawn agents who managed to get onto the DS II leak the info to the Rebels on Quira’s orders. The Alliance eventually send some Bothans to confirm this and steal the plans. But the Emperor has learned that knowledge of the DS II has leaked and allows the plans to be stolen so that a trap for the Rebellion can be made.||

A lot happens between ESB and RotJ

[warm thicket]

I want a whole movie that's just the plan for the whole Jabba's Palace of Return of the Jedi

Either they had like 300 contingencies set in place, or it was the most convoluted plan in existence

[bright blade]

I just assumed there was a backup plan to the backup plan in that case. Still took a lot of planning, though.

RotJ ||"Okay Lando, you go first and impersonate a palace guard. If that doesn't work, we'll send in Artoo and Threepio to make a threat. If Jabba doesn't listen, Leia will take Chewie to get an in. And if that doesn't work, Luke will go in and save everyone."||

[warm thicket]

||"Alright gang, we've gotta get Han out of Jabba's Palace, and out of the carbonite. The latter should be easy, just hit the buttons on the slab, but rescuing him from that point forward will be tricky. I've come up with a simple, fifteen step plan.
First, Lando, you need to get a job as a palace guard."
"Got it, and from there I can rescue Han while nobody's looking."
"No, you'll be present to watch as I give Jabba C3PO and R2D2, but R2's got a secret package hidden inside."
"And then I'll go get that package from R2?"
"What? No. That's for later. Once the three of you are safely in Jabba's custody, Leia will come in dressed as a bounty hunter. Her prey: Chewbacca himself."
"Ahh, I see. Then Leia, Chewbacca, and I attack the guards and make our exit with Han safely in tow."
"Lando that's the dumbest idea ever. No. Leia's going to sell Chewy to Jabba after threatening to kill everyone with a thermal detonater."
"What if Jabba calls her bluff?"
"...
ANYWAYS then Leia sneaks through the crowd at night and frees Han, but she gets captured. Now the gang's all together."
"Together in custody, you mean."
"That's when I come in, and I threaten Jabba. Obviously he'll have none of that, and he'll capture me as well."
"I give up."
"Then as Jabba's getting ready to execute all of us, I take that secret package from R2, my new lightsaber!"
"Why didn't you get that from R2 earlier?"
"Then, with me fully armed, it'll be a breeze to kill Jabba, blow up his sail barge, and steal a ship to get out of there." ||

[bright blade]

...That's better worded.

[warm thicket]

I think about this a lot, hence me really wanting to see the planning meeting

||R2 went in first with Luke's lightsaber, meaning at the very least the group had Luke coming in later as a contingency, but the timeline is unclear. Maybe each team was meant to communicate how the plan was going and couldn't because they were captured, but maybe the plan was for all seven of them to be captured and figure it out from there.||

||And hey, get everyone inside with a hidden lightsaber and wait for Luke to do his thing to get us all unrestrained and armed" isn't really a bad idea.||

[golden flame]

||Lando was already there; that's how he found Han and let the others know where he was.||

[golden flame]

He's listed at the start:

Joining the previously announced Ryan Gosling, the film stars Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams.

Previous announcement in question (the link on the film's name in the article):

Gosling will play a brand-new character teased by the actor’s appearance on stage.

[bright blade]

Cool, so actor and producer. I like that.

Diego Luna was one of Andor's executive producers. I think this a good thing, letting actors do more than just act.

[wispy vortex]

The Rock was an executive producer on Black Adam

[bright blade]

Well, that's the Rock.

[cedar osprey]

Oh we’re in good hands https://fxtwitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1961220018596872656

Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave)

Claudio Miranda will reportedly serve as cinematographer on ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
︀︀
︀︀His past projects include ‘F1’, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, and ‘Tron: Legacy’

**💬 90 🔁 520 ❤️ 9.6K 👁️ 218.8K **

FxTwitter · Aug 29, 2025, 12:11 AM

[supple star]

I finally found out what Delta Source was.TLC 17 ||It was the tree. They were mentioned so many times but I didn’t think anything of them||

[wispy vortex]

||Rereading them, its insane how many times they are randomly talked or thought about||

[warm thicket]

||They're such a good reveal because those trees are so prefectly in the category of 'cool af thing I wish was real' so it's unlikely anyone would forgot or miss them.||

[wispy lichen]

TLC 17 ||yeah those trees get mentioned so much hahaha||

[wispy lichen]

I frfr gotta dial in this weekend to finish TLC lol

[wintry lark]

I thought TLC was a TV show and searched my brain really hard for what it could be

(I figured it out)

[supple star]

It is a channel that is not about learning.

[silver elm]

Simon Bird as Yoda, a role decades in the making 🙏

Great casting from Shawn levy

[wispy lichen]

TLC general ||I love when Star Wars things have several climaxes. The force super powered climax, the spaceship battle climax, the gun battle climax, the political climax. It’s very pulp in a fun way. Just brings a grin to my face. ||

[supple star]

TLC 23 ||Karrde: “I’m not part of your war, it’s just business”
Leia: “Sure buddy”||

||Also find it funny how everyone and their mother is going to Bilbringi, the place which everyone believes is the place nobody would try to hit, which means nobody will see it coming.||

[wispy lichen]

<@&1396936875054203020>
This is our start week for Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole. Ofc don’t feel pressured to rush if you are on an earlier book or aren’t yet finished with TLC. Since this is the first of the X-Wing series, it is a good jump on point for people who did not read the Thrawn trilogy and/or find the sound of an X-wing series interesting.
It’s also a good jump off point for people who don’t necessarily want to commit to the next 10 books of the readalong lol.

As a sort of look ahead, we will be reading the first Stackpole books up to when it transitions to Wraith Squadron, then reading I, Jedi and continuing on with the remaining pre-NJO X-Wing books (there is one X-Wing book set way later) The next book will be Wedge’s Gamble by Michael Stackpole.

[wispy lichen]

Okay, just finished up with TLC.

The Last Command all ||I love Mara and Karrde, they’re such fun characters. Mara and Luke are so cute together
It’s cool how many iconic characters this series introduce. Mara Jade, Thrawn, the Solo twins, Talon Karrde. I think this is my favorite book of the series. I love the slow development of Mara’s decision over the book. You see her slow awareness that she lost out on free will and was controlled by the Emperor all her life. Her reluctance for that to happen to the twins really helps you understand just how much she wants to break away and be her own self, apart from the control of a dark side overlord. I think C’baoth in a lot of ways represents her relationship to the Emperor and her rejection of C’baoth coincides with her rejection of the Emperor’s hold on her.
Also, people always say Luuke is silly but it actually does work in context IMO. ||

[wispy vortex]

I’m so excited to see your reactions!

[wispy lichen]

I know! Now we’re onto stuff I haven’t read lol

[supple star]

TLC 27 ||Ok the battle with Luuke was awesome. How Mara Jade fulfilled the Emperor’s last command was ||

Wait as second, is that what the title means?!

[wispy vortex]

Yep!

[supple star]

Finished, I think that was my favorite of the trilogy. ||The twist at the end was great. Mara and Karrde are the best. C’boath was a great villain. I do think that canon Thrawn is more compelling though. He went out like a boss though||

[wispy vortex]

||I think it helps that we got canon Thrawn through his perspective instead of just Pellaeon||

[glad mason]

So is the starfighter film actually happening?

[wispy lichen]

yeah

It's filming

lots of traction behind it

Which tbh I just wish it was Rogue Squadron in LA haha but I think a fun Top Gun-esque starfighter film could be great if it's just a fun action movie

[broken smelt]

Yeah production just started last week, they released a cast list too

[supple star]

Just started Rogue Squadron and I am like the Rebel slang for Imperial fighters

[wispy vortex]

woo

[wispy lichen]

I think Imma try to get a good chunk of the SWTOR Bounty Hunter story done today

I only have BH and Secret Agent left, then I’ll play through a force class again to take to endgame

[broken smelt]

That was my first class, back when the game first came out. I had fun with it. Though I never actually ever finished any of the playthroughs I started 😅

[frigid nexus]

RotS + RotJ + language warning

[copper kite]

https://www.tumblr.com/star-pacifist/791491406689648640

I love star but hate war

-# #anidala #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #star wars #hey so theres a straight flag apparently

Tumblr · Aug 10, 2025, 11:23 AM

[glad mason]

“I ❤️ heterosexual marriage” is an actually progressive statement in this context 😭

Real Martin Luther vibes

[wispy vortex]

God I love Wedge

[supple star]

Me too. I am enjoying Rogue Squadron so far.
RS 14 ||Ok the word “Scrounge” did something weird to Emtry.||

Corran is pretty cool. ||It’s nice that the hot shot pilot actually takes criticism to heart instead of just thinking he knows best||

[wispy vortex]

He’s my favorite character

[wispy vortex]

||I love that he comes as a fully formed person. He’s fully grown, and he already went through his idiot phase.||

[warm thicket]

My favorite thing about Mara Jade is how she's the player at the table that goes, "if I reveal whatever secrets the party has we can move the story forward in interesting ways."
Dark Force Rising Chapter 17 ||Captured by the imperials, she immediately goes, "Well I guess I can give them the win button in return for them leaving us alone" and offers Thrawn the Katana Fleet with no hesitation.||

[wispy vortex]

DFR idk a couple chapters later ||Yet sometimes that isn’t the best policy||

[supple star]

RS 17 ||Well Kirtan figured out where there base was pretty quick.||

RS 18 ||Wow, Corran’s takedown of that stormtrooper was impressive, he also showed that he is great at one-liners.||

[supple star]

RS 26 ||Noo Ooryl 😭||

[wispy vortex]

||I love him so much :(||

[supple star]

RS 27 ||The debate between Wedge and Salm is so interesting. Salm’s reasoning for why he should be wrote up by Wedge kinda makes sense.||

[wispy vortex]

||Hes played as an antagonist, but he’s still a good man at heart||

[supple star]

||I like how the difference between the two are like the differences between X-wings and Y-wings. X-wings are a very balanced fighter, and can take on many times their number in TIE’s. Y-wings have a lot of fire power, but are slow and need support. An X-wing pilot can fight on their own if needed, but Y-pilot needs constantly work in tandem with every else.||

[wispy lichen]

I’m behind on RS lol

I’ll try to crank some out tomorrow

[supple star]

RS 29 ||of course it’s a trench run||

||Wedge is feeling the déjà vu ||

||I am thinking that Corran (who might be force sensitive) is going to be the one to blow up the thermal exhaust port conduit line.||

RS 29 ||find it funny that no one questions that Emtry is some kind of super smuggler droid ||

[wispy vortex]

||Hey, he’s just scrounging!||

[supple star]

Why are even the characters who are meant to be jerks in this book emotionally intelligent? That isn’t how this is supposed to work. ||There hasn’t been a single dumb fight in this book.||

[wispy vortex]

Lmfao

[supple star]

RS 31 ||Like Bryor is saying this, Bryor!|| I honestly love it so much.

[wispy vortex]

||Hes such a good antagonist. Reminds me a lot of Iceman from Top Gun||

[wispy lichen]

<@&1396936875054203020>
We’ve hit the start week for our next read, Wedge’s Gamble by Michael Stackpole, book two of the Rogue Squadron series.

Our next read will be the Krytos Trap. If you’re behind don’t worry because so am I lol.

(I plan to finish RS today)

[wispy lichen]

And I’mmmm done

[wispy vortex]

Thoughts! Tell me everything

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-waiting-story-googly-eyes-gif-9320612

[wispy lichen]

Rogue Squadron all ||Corran is a fun protagonist. He’s a distant, arrogant punk. But that’s what makes him fun. Similar to Top Gun.
I love Wedge and Tycho they’re both so def my fav parts of the book were them.
I do have a good amount of knowledge about Corran in particular from future books so it’s funny to see how he started out haha.
I found the Battle for Borleias interesting because the story has a very tight focus on the X-Wing pilots and their mission. The other missions clearly were executed with success, but we didn’t see them. Just interesting.
Also, Mirax saying the imps probably knew about the attack and the attack going about as planned anyway was lol. There’s a spy in RS tho, so maybe there actually is a leak, it just didn’t seem to have any impact on the story XD.
Overall, it feels like a fun 90s pulp novel. Stackpole writes the more fun stuff well. ||

[wispy vortex]

||Hey, he’s the opposite of a punk lmao||

||Hes the straight laced detective||

[wispy lichen]

https://tenor.com/view/top-gun-maverick-tom-cruise-ray-ban-aviator-gold-gif-5218174231976413805

[wispy vortex]

Lmao

Legends ||Borleias always seems to have the best sieges||

[wispy lichen]

Legends ||The Borleias duology in NJO is peak||

||It makes me firmly think that while I’d rate Stackpole as a solid B-tier fun writer, I’d give Wraith a hard S||

[wispy vortex]

||You mean Rogue? Aaron Allston wrote Wraith Squadron||

[wispy lichen]

No no no ||Rogue is B, Wraith will prob be S. At least from my small NJO experience with the authors||

[wispy vortex]

||Ahhhhh, yeah while I love Corran, I think I enjoy Wraith more||

[unkempt sail]

Super behind but started Dark Force Rising. DFR 5, general meta EU knowledge ||ok, I know that Mara Jade eventually marries Luke and is force sensitive or something, but that's about all I know about her. From this chapter, sounds like she was Force trained by the Emperor...another bonus apprentice besides Vader? Interesting. ||

[wispy vortex]

I love this book so much

[supple star]

Pieces of the Past is out today. Can’t wait to watch it.

[sturdy scroll]

I sure did enjoy the Rogue Squadron books.

And I still love Heir to the Empire and its immediate sequels.

[supple star]

PotP 2 ||Mara Jade Referenced!||

Ben Schwartz is perfect as ||Jaxxson||

PotP 2 ||Luke: For once nothing tragic is going to happen to the Skywalker family.
Me: shouldn’t have said that 😬||

PotP 3 ||Jedi Vader: I had the moral high ground, she had the actual high ground ||

Oh my I guess in this universe ||Luke wears the skimpy outfit||

Why doesn’t Disney+ let me take screenshots.

[wispy vortex]

They hate you

[supple star]

PotP 3 ||The Snoke Pit?!||

||Luke: but who’s Snoke
Padme: It doesn’t really matter ||

I want the BB8-wing as a Lego set.

[supple star]

Pieces of the Past was great. Lego Star Wars never misses.

[bright blade]

Ooh, I forgot Pieces of the Past was out! Season 1 of Rebuild the Galaxy was legitimately great. Looking forward to Season 2.

[supple star]

It was a lot of fun. The relationship between Sig and Dev is one of Star Wars’ best in recent years.

[quaint moss]

I'm poking my head in here to say that my boyfriend is a MASSIVE Star Wars nerd and can talk about it for hours and I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. But it's really cute.
Y'all Star Wars fans are very funny /pos

[dry herald]

If you ever want to get him mad, just tell him that episode 9 is the best movie

[wispy lichen]

https://youtu.be/_pa1KLXuW0Y?si=WQk0t_Bk6btYhoN8

[dry herald]

Exciting! Not going in with super high expectations tbh, but it does look like it will at least be enjoyable

[fervent cape]

Presumably this has been suddenly dropped to try and stem the flow of people unsubscribing over the Jimmy Kimmel stuff

If im being honest, between the poster and the trailer, it feels to me almost like a parody of itself

[broken smelt]

Of course that's possible, Disney's gonna Disney, but there has been a lot of conversation about a trailer coming soon too. Even before that happened

I love this trailer, I'm glad that they seem to be sticking with the tone of the show. At least based on this teaser (which is all just vibes)

[cedar osprey]

Oh, Nice! They dropped the Mandalorian traile- IS THAT BABU FRIK?????? MY GOAT??

https://tenor.com/view/abell46s-ternura-babu-frik-meme-memes-gif-19221837

[dry herald]

https://tenor.com/view/babu-frik-hehey-hey-hi-gif-15987423

[autumn hemlock]

Disney putting out feelers to find out which parts of E9 are still allowed to exist

[dry herald]

Oh yeah, here's my hot take: episode 9 definitely isn't that good as far as star wars goes. But it's not any worse than episode 2 for me

[dull dust]

Idk episode 2 has fun action scenes

[wispy lichen]

E2 doesn’t break lore in gross ways

[dull dust]

I mean basically every Star Wars broke the lore it just healed around it

[autumn hemlock]

They're bad along different axis

2 is bad in execution, 9 is bad in conception

[dull dust]

I probably enjoyed 9 more in the moment becuase watching two directors discard everything the other set up for each other was hilarious

[echo echo]

I think they're also bad in opposite ways. The PT was, for all its faults, a fairly big swing, and I respect it for that (even if I'm more down on it than most these days). Episode 9 was an act of artistic cowardice, trying to take back everything that 8 did that was controversial

Not an attempt to "heal around" 8, an attempt to put it back in the bottle

[autumn hemlock]

Now that I stop and think about it, 2 and 9 are hilariously opposite of each other

New bad headcanon: Disney Execs slid Abrams a note saying "don't screw it up like 2", so he took every artistic decision that was opposed to it that he could

[cedar osprey]

Episode 9 didn’t deserve Babu Frik

[dry herald]

Thats valid.

[gray tinsel]

it force healed you could say

[dull dust]

I don’t think it’s cowardice it’s the exact level of petty 8 was.

[echo echo]

https://x.com/paultassi/status/1970201295110771054

Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi)

ain't no discourse like Last Jedi discourse

X · Sep 22, 2025, 6:59 PM

I got the vibe RJ was taking a big swing but I never got the impression that swing was aimed at JJ

Nor could I smell the panic that 9 had as it tried to undo everything 8 did. Wouldn't even call that petty, just terrified

Well, I suppose fear can inspire pettiness but I never got the impression the point was to throw RJ under the bus because anyone working on 9 hated his movie, it was just what they had to try to do because they didn't know how else to interact with the part of the fandom that very loudly hated 8

[cedar osprey]

No, dear god

I can’t talk about TLJ again

[dense lance]

My biggest problem with TLJ is that Rian invented Rose because he didn't see any potential conflict between Poe and Finn

A reminder that Poe left Finn to die in the desert after using him as a tool for his own escape

[cedar osprey]

God forbid Rian Johnson actually tries to do something different with Star Wars and people hate it

[dense lance]

And then does that exact same thing at the beginning of TLJ

That is literally my biggest problem. My biggest problem with Abrams's movies is that they're useless and should not exist

[echo echo]

Not everything about TLJ that was different was good. I do have my beefs with the film, even if I'm more positive on it than negative (and more positive on it by far than I am, say, the PT)

[cedar osprey]

I will always love JJ Abrams because he somehow followed up TLJ with a movie that TLJ lovers and TLJ haters both hated

That’s unheard of

Bro said “Wow this movie is pretty controversial, what if I made a movie that EVERYONE hated”

[dense lance]

-# I also really liked the Holdo maneuver

[autumn hemlock]

As a piece of film, it's great!

As a thing in a setting that exists, it's nonsense!

[echo echo]

I am comfortable assuming some of what I don't like about the film was Weird Disney Things (especially as it is inconsistent with Johnson's normal moviemaking), and I have been persuaded (by this chat!) that they probably should have given Luke's primary arc to someone who was really into Luke. I am not into Luke, so I don't feel betrayed by perceived character assassination, but I can absolutely concede that he probably wasn't The Guy to handle it especially without anything that seems to have resembled actual narrative oversight

[dense lance]

Hence my conclusion that people need to loot Star Wars for what they like and make better stories with it

[supple star]

In comparison the “Hyperspace skipping” scene in 9 is so so so so bad.

[echo echo]

Ships ramming each other is literally the oldest trick in the book

[autumn hemlock]

Quick, someone get a time machine and send Lucas back a century so his works can enter the public domain by the time of the Disney Acquisition

[dense lance]

There were so many weird bits of lore generated from the sequels about hyperspace that it would've been neat to have that be a major plot point throughout

"oh yeah Starkiller Base, which is literally the planet Ilum, shoots a lightsaber beam through hyperspace"

[echo echo]

The attempt to get deeper in touch with Star Wars' Quasi Science Fiction and Weird Space Magic is one of my favorite things about TLJ in particular, and I think it broadly succeeded on those attempts

[supple star]

Yeah hyperspace had not been fleshed out that much. It still hasn’t but the High Republic has explained a ton of stuff.

[echo echo]

Especially in a numbered mainline film

[supple star]

Yep

[echo echo]

A lot of Star Wars' "harder" (I use that term loosely) sci fi comes from the weird mid-80s era that was largely ignored by what came after

[autumn hemlock]

TLJ ||I think my favourite TLJ thing is Luke's last stand (which I don't have a problem with being his last stand, assuming the context of him cutting himself off from the force however many years ago)||

[supple star]

I certainly wouldn’t mind if Star Wars decided to hammer down some aspects of its cosmology

Or at least explore how hyperspace and the Force are connected.

[dense lance]

Every time they do they retcon it

[dull dust]

||it wasn't specifically aimed at JJ but it was aimed at the fans you can go scene by scene in the movie and it almost always discards or abandones elements that fans where theorizing about or were getting hype by. The scene with captain phasma for example. Its only aimed at JJ in so much as JJ did a layup and TLJ batted the ball away from the net instead of sinking it || sequal series starwars

[golden flame]

Star Wars is best when it's a bunch of new characters doing random things in an otherwise unexplored corner of the galaxy. I firmly believe it functions best in an anthology format

[wispy vortex]

||I hated it, because it was absolutely unnecessary. It accomplished nothing and was pointless.||

[echo echo]

I actually also hold Disney more accountable than RJ for this especially since RJ has been very loud about the fact that he sought greater direction from Disney and did not get it. If they can't be bothered to grease a wheel going out of its way to squeak especially when that wheel is bearing the frontline character of Star Wars in a major role, I kind of don't know that that's the wheel's fault

[echo echo]

Works for this too. RJ says he reached out to JJ personally like a lot to get clarity on where JJ was going and JJ was just like "I dunno man vibes" and like, what are you supposed to do with that as a moviemaker?

[golden flame]

Cough mystery box or whatever

[wispy vortex]

You follow the established plot lines

Instead of going off in a dozen random and pointless directions

He didn’t need JJ to tell him the plot lines, he just needed to watch the previous movie

[echo echo]

If you don't know where they're going, and the guy who started those lines also don't know where they're going, I dunno man I have a hard time holding him fully responsible for saying "welp lets move on from that as gracefully as possible" if he doesn't have an idea he likes, especially when "make the movie you want to make" was the consistent direction he was getting from Disney

[wispy vortex]

TLJ was the opposite of graceful

It was jarring

[echo echo]

To you, I guess

Can't say as I agree

It also doesn't strike me as petty or personal

[wispy vortex]

Also, how do you not know where the plot lines were going? Everybody knew where they were going after TFA, because it was just ANH again

[cedar osprey]

To you

Not to me

Idk, I thought it was good

[cedar osprey]

Disagree completely tbh

[echo echo]

Which is almost certainly why TLJ drew from ideas and imagery that Empire used, even if he "subverted expectations" in the way he used them

Which is often used by critics as "I didn't like the way he used them"

[dull dust]

the issue is that if you allow it once you have to ask why not just do that every time its a vastly more efficient war technique than any warship ever shown

[wispy vortex]

Subverted expectations is not what people go to watch Star Wars for. They got to watch Star Wars because they want to watch Star Wars.

[echo echo]

Which, fine you're allowed to, but I don't think the way he handled it was literarily irresponsible

I mean when Star Wars authors do Different Thing I Like, I generally actually do like it

[wispy vortex]

That’s the freedom that comes with working with auxiliary material

You don’t have that when working with the mainline property

[echo echo]

And like, "this is a decent retread of ANH but I hope they can move in a different direction for episode 8" is pretty much exactly what I was hoping coming out of the theater when I watched 7

And then they did!

[cedar osprey]

I mean, people also watched and loved Andor and Rogue one and that’s NOTHING like the prequel or OG trilogies

[wispy vortex]

My point is that TLJ didn’t move in a different direction, it teleported halfway across the country then went at a weird angle that it wasn’t supposed to go in

[wispy vortex]

Both of which are auxiliary works, as I said

[echo echo]

That was not the vibe I got. The parallels to Empire were pretty clear to me

[cedar osprey]

The thing is, Star Wars NEEDED to be something different, especially after the backlash the prequel trilogy got (although it’s been much more heavily favored in recent years, I still think they’re mostly bad except for Episode 3), it was obvious to them that the standard Star Wars formula wasn’t gonna work for them anymore, so they went and made a trilogy they had no clear vision for

[echo echo]

(I also just simply don't agree that "mainline" Star Wars can only ever be one thing. To me the only things mainline Star Wars needs to be is recognizably Star Wars and good)

[cedar osprey]

Yes

[neon panther]

Star Wars didn't NEED anything before the sequel trilogy, and I think it trying to 'make things right' instead of just moving on and being its own thing is the biggest thing wrong with it.

[cedar osprey]

I think you grossly underestimate how hated the prequels were when they originally came out

People literally sent DEATH THREATS to a CHILD

[neon panther]

Pretty sure I'm a good bit older than you, so I think I do.

[echo echo]

I do think just Being Another 70s/80s Retread was dangerous territory for Star Wars to be in, especially since it was happening at the peak of Just Another 70s/80s Retreads

[neon panther]

I genuinely just wish that they had done anything except 'Star Wars Episode 7'

[echo echo]

It was an awkward space where Star Wars Rhymes but also Star Wars is historically exceptional, and 7 was not exceptional for its era

[neon panther]

I think just about anything else could have been good, or at the very least accepted.

[echo echo]

https://tenor.com/view/aint-that-the-truth-honestly-truth-seriously-brad-pitt-gif-16274011

[cedar osprey]

I’m just glad we’re moving past trying to have a trilogy and instead having projects that stand on their own

The best thing about Star Wars is that it’s literally a HUGE galaxy, you can tell stories at any time in any place

To confine it to just the Skywalkers for the sequels was a mistake instead of trying to tell a new story

[echo echo]

I do also specifically giving 7 the grace of "well, this is Disney's first major swing at a Star Wars story and they probably do need to establish their credentials as being able to do an OT-compatible story especially with the PT being the most recent major development in Star Wars"

But in retrospect I think it absolutely was a mistake

Painted them into a bad corner

Not sure they could have known that at the time though

[neon panther]

Yeah, at the time I was a huge 7 defender. I wanted so badly for it to be good.

[echo echo]

I still think in a vacuum its solidly like 6.5/10

Extremely okay

Arguably the safest thing they could have done

Too safe, in some ways it turns out

[neon panther]

Tbh, I haven't watched it since TLJ came out.

I've certainly ruminated on what I consider its narrative flaws, but I would feel unqualified in giving a score.

[echo echo]

Its the same score I gave it at the time. I felt like it was a statement as much or more than it was a movie

I still think that

[cedar osprey]

I genuinely don’t give movies scores anymore, unless it’s a movie that I REALLY feel like I have to

[echo echo]

I just think the statement axis of it withered on first contact with TLJ

[cedar osprey]

I feel like confining a movie to an out of 10 score is kind of ridiculous

[echo echo]

It is

I think its a useful conversational shorthand and reading too deeply into it is counterproductive

[wispy lichen]

I am a super Luke fan

I love love love Luke

[wispy lichen]

TLJ made me quit Star Wars for a solid 5 years. TRoS was just the gross overtaste.

[wispy vortex]

I just pretended Disney didn’t exist even more than I already did

[wispy lichen]

Gosh I remember TFA came out and there was this buzz of excitement.(ST all) ||Who is Snoke? He’s the new big bad figure that’s so exciting! What if he’s Plagueis? What if he’s x? What if he’s y? Ooh Ben Solo killed his dad! He’s so evil.
Poe Dameron seems awesome! Finn seems cool! Can’t wait to see where they go with those characters (then they walk back any main character moments in TLJ with Finn which is horrible). Who is Rey? There’s a big mystery! Let’s theorize for years about why there is such a secret behind her! Let’s read deep into the TFA novel and the deep connections to the Skywalker line in her visions.

And TLJ comes out. And it slaps. Every. Single. Excitement. Down.
It subverts all expectations, but in doing so ruined every theory and exciting discussion I had in the interim. Rey? Nobody. Snoke (the super mega cool big bad)? Dead. Finn a Jedi? Nah he’ll go off on a pointless side quest. Poe gets to be cool? Nope.
And Luke I need not go into because we’ve gone into that enough||

Nothing will surpass that excitement of expectations for TLJ on the schoolyard, talking to my friends about all our theories for TLJ and getting so excited about what was to come with the set up of TFA.

[wispy lichen]

So I disagree because New Jedi Order is my favorite Star Wars ever and it’s solidly about the Skywalkers

I think the problem is bad writing, not the characters

[wispy lichen]

Yeah this

[golden flame]

||I will say, Rey just being a person is the one thing I liked; it brings fresh blood into the Skywalker story, and shows that with persistence someone can rise to match someone naturally gifted. Of course, that's entirely in theory, and not how the execution went...||

[wispy vortex]

I would have liked that ||if she was originally written with that in mind. They had no idea what they were going to do with her, whether she was nobody or somebody. You can even tell by the music, Williams interwove as many themes as possible into hers to cover all his bases||

[wispy lichen]

||yeah I think the problem was in setting up this mystery that feels like a betrayal a bit when there is nothing to it because I spent a lot of time so excited about all the possibilities that it just felt… like a slap in the face?||

[wispy lichen]

Exaaaaactly

[golden flame]

||oh I agree with you both. I don't necessarily mind it being a subversion, a "this is someone new, and she's got a spark". That kinda story I actually really like. But again: the execution was...frankly the worst.||

[warm thicket]

That's really what's upsetting to me about the whole thing. Star Wars was bought out by a company with more money than some countries. A company that was, at the time, halfway through a multi decade long saga of stories that all competently interwove together and told a sweeping narrative, epic in scope.
And nowhere along the line did anyone plan out all three movies

[golden flame]

||Especially how it was delivered. "Ah yes, the known murderer, psychopath, and war criminal shall tell our heroine that her parents were junkies! Brilliant!"||

[warm thicket]

I understand that they couldn't write them all at once, but no plan? At all?
That's the real tragedy of the sequels in my view

[wispy lichen]

The other tragedy for me was (ST) ||this failure to pass the torch by making the legacy characters feel almost inconsequential where it would be better to see this natural development of the old helping the new ||

[wispy vortex]

||It retroactively ruined the OT||

||Why let Red squadron get wiped out at Yavin when you can just send one ship at it in hyperspace? What’s the point of the character moment of Luke refusing to kill Vader if a simple dream almost makes him kill his nephew? Why does Vader’s sacrifice matter if it was all for nothing and the emperor is back (somehow)?||

[wintry lark]

ST ||tbf Ian McDiarmid was by far the best part of that movie||

[supple star]

||Because throw ships through hyperspace rarely works. The Holdo maneuver wasn’t a planed outcome. Had the circumstances been different ie if Snokes super star destroyer hadn’t been super thin, it wouldn’t have worked. Also the rebels didn’t have a ship big enough to damage the Death Star like that.||

[wispy vortex]

||All they needed to do was hit the super laser.||

||Also why does thinness matter? It’s thin in the wrong dimension||

[golden flame]

||weeelll...that's...not how relativistic mass works...physical size is...kinda irrelevant||

[supple star]

||What I mean is that the Death Star has a much larger mass shadow than SSSD. A ship could not jump within range to hit it.||

[golden flame]

||See, that assumes mass-shadows actually matter stares at lightspeed skipping||

[supple star]

||Well if just want to damage the superlaser, why not use proton bombs. And if just the super laser was damaged the empire would hyper jump it away, repair the lazer, and strike back.||

[wispy vortex]

||even then, random drones could easily take out SDs. Why wasnt every Venator destroyed by a random droid ship in the clone wars?||

[wispy vortex]

||A single ship wiped out an entire fleet. Im pretty sure one can destroy a superlaser beyond easy repair.||

||Whats the point of all those death star star destroyers when an unmanned ship can wipe each of them out easily||

||Shove C3PO in an A-wing, problem solved||

[supple star]

||technically, it was multiple ships, most of the damage was debris from the SSSD||

[wispy vortex]

||Exactly. A single ship in Lando's fleet could wipe out the entire fleet of DS SDs||

[supple star]

||Yeah if everything was lined up just right, it wasn’t. Also you can’t just hyper jump just anywhere.||

||Also this relies on the ship falling apart in hyperspace and once that happens it is impossible to aim the pieces or guarantee where they exit Hyperspace. There is an entire book on that||

[wispy vortex]

||Thats not what happened in the movie. It was intact when it hit. It hit on the runup to hyperspace||

[supple star]

||In that case it would be impossible to hit the Death Star that way, it would pull you out of hyperspace before you got close (same with any star destroyer with an interdictor mass generator||

[wispy vortex]

||Very, very few interdictors were in service||

||And they would have to be powered up||

[glad mason]

All ||I think the fundamental issue is that, not only was the tfa setup answer-less, it also wasn’t even interesting setup. “Who is Rey” is fundamentally a dull question when Rey herself is a boring character, which TLJ, for all its faults, did try to fix||

[wispy lichen]

||but to a kid who is excited by the question, for the response to be a non-answer was heartwrenching ||

[glad mason]

||I think tfa had a lot of flaws but “Rey Nobody” was a really interesting concept tbh||

[wispy lichen]

||it would be interesting if TFA set it up: the way it played out broke my heart lol||

It took me a few years to care about Star Wars again after TLJ came out

And when I did, I became a NJO stan lmao

[wispy vortex]

Which is far preferable

[wispy lichen]

NJO

[toxic rune]

meh

way too much grogu

makes it too obvious that it's just to sell a marketable plushie