Yep, I anticipated having the same reaction to Maul's resurrection, and then...somehow they pulled it off. The voice acting was superb, and he was a useful vehicle to pull stories out of other characters.

I always looked at the return of Maul as being a nod to the general opinion that Lucas was wrong to kill of the character. That he was far too popular and interesting to just off so quickly. He never got his due. And the TCW team was fixing that mistake (and successfully did so, IMO).

Yep, I anticipated having the same reaction to Maul's resurrection, and then...somehow they pulled it off. The voice acting was superb, and he was a useful vehicle to pull stories out of other characters.

Sam Witwer is quite talented. Also the voice of Starkiller from The Force Unleashed games. Whether you like or hate the games, he is a true Star Wars fan.

I always looked at the return of Maul as being a nod to the general opinion that Lucas was wrong to kill of the character. That he was far too popular and interesting to just off so quickly. He never got his due. And the TCW team was fixing that mistake (and successfully did so, IMO).

From what I heard, Filoni and the crew did not have a choice. Lucas wanted to bring Maul back and it was up to the team to make it work. They did a great job for what they were trying to accomplish.

I always looked at the return of Maul as being a nod to the general opinion that Lucas was wrong to kill of the character. That he was far too popular and interesting to just off so quickly. He never got his due. And the TCW team was fixing that mistake (and successfully did so, IMO).

Most people don't know Lucas was fully involved in every story arc. What's more interesting is that Lucas himself was the one who wanted to bring Maul back, for that exact reason, and some others. There was more to tell about him, and Lucas also wanted to show that even Maul had feelings and compassion, as a way of contrasting Sidious. The team was actually aghast, and dubious when he first presented it.

This is exactly what I like about the effect Lucas has had in the past that I am certain will be lost in future: he has this way of springing seemingly random stuff on his team and they panic, and then do their best work. The two-bladed lightsaber? A last minute addition, and suddenly the costume and choreography has to be modified ending up with probably the best live-action lightsaber battle in the franchise.

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

That is one of the things in the EU I pray they get rid of. Palpatine 2.0 cheapens the genius of Palpatine 1.0.

I have enjoyed very much reading novels and comics, but I never once did I think they should affect what GL had in mind for his galaxy. That's why the Black Fleet trilogy upset me as I read it. It started with the promise of revealing something about Luke's mother, and then didn't. Of course Kube-McDowell didn't know about Naboo yet.

Desslok, I agree, mostly. The Bantam books suffered from strictures that eased with the arrival of the prequels, I believe. I have never understood people' affection or Thrawn. Luke could not marry a sith! Yuzan Vong, I thought, were a misstep but I read them all as they appeared. I liked the Darth Caedus storyline and will miss the multi-author/book arcs. Really, the take-away is writing Star Wars is hard and best left with a genius like Lucas. I expect the Disney films to be wan knockoffs. But they are not for my generation

Mara Jade wasn't a Sith. Just because you use the force and work for the "bad guys" doesn't mean you have to be part of the Sith order and you can always renounce it if you aren't too far gone. Thrawn was just a cool commander that didn't tolerate incompetence and brought the fledgling new Republic to its knees using great off the wall tactics. "OK we cant feasibly make cloaking devices work on fighters, can we put them on asteroids in Coruscant's orbit?" And no one revived the Emperor, if memory serves they tried to clone him in a secret facility on the Rim that the Emperor himself had built before he died as a back up. I liked how Thrawn attempted to use the crazy dark side jedi as a force multiplyer for his fleet, it was a cool use for jedi powers that was used at a later date by New Republic forces.

I always looked at the return of Maul as being a nod to the general opinion that Lucas was wrong to kill of the character. That he was far too popular and interesting to just off so quickly. He never got his due. And the TCW team was fixing that mistake (and successfully did so, IMO).

Most people don't know Lucas was fully involved in every story arc. What's more interesting is that Lucas himself was the one who wanted to bring Maul back, for that exact reason, and some others. There was more to tell about him, and Lucas also wanted to show that even Maul had feelings and compassion, as a way of contrasting Sidious. The team was actually aghast, and dubious when he first presented it.

This is exactly what I like about the effect Lucas has had in the past that I am certain will be lost in future: he has this way of springing seemingly random stuff on his team and they panic, and then do their best work. The two-bladed lightsaber? A last minute addition, and suddenly the costume and choreography has to be modified ending up with probably the best live-action lightsaber battle in the franchise.

I realized Lucas was an intrinsic part of the TWC story development. Perhaps my choice of wording didn't convey that. But neither did it disallow for it. The fact is, the team did do what they did specifically to correct the mistake Lucas made in Ep 1 wrt Maul. The fact that he was on (dictating to) the team does not detract from that point.

The fact that he was on (dictating to) the team does not detract from that point.

Ah, I misread you, I figured "TCW team" meant "not Lucas". But I wasn't trying to detract from your point, I was trying to enhance it. Sorry if it came off argumentative.

Not at all. S'all good. Best I clarified my point anyway. Going back, I see where my words were poorly chosen.

I took me 3 or 4 seasons to start liking TCW, then...then they resurrect Darth Maul! Really!? Was that necessary??? Could not they just create a new adversary? Was this a lot of creative effort?

I was really displeased, with this, and with the fact that no major character dies or gets (permanently) captured ever! Ventress, Grievous, Cad Bane ...too many seasons to cover such a short time spam? I guess I am just too old for these cartoon stuff.

I felt the same way about most of that. It seemed fairly ridiculous for them to give all those characters "plot armor" when they should have been using their TCW-original characters for just this purpose.

Yep, I anticipated having the same reaction to Maul's resurrection, and then...somehow they pulled it off. The voice acting was superb, and he was a useful vehicle to pull stories out of other characters.

Maul was awesome! I thought the idea of his having survived was kind of stupid, and the initial introduction he gets as well, but then it just got fun.

I always looked at the return of Maul as being a nod to the general opinion that Lucas was wrong to kill of the character. That he was far too popular and interesting to just off so quickly. He never got his due. And the TCW team was fixing that mistake (and successfully did so, IMO).

Agreed. He seemed like he would make for a very cool returning villain. As much as I like Christopher Lee, I would have preferred another movie with Darth Maul to having Dooku. Or, they could have had both, perhaps showing the internal power and favor conflicts among the Sith.

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Yeah, this is stupid. There's a 2-part comic that does this, and it's fairly awful, but nearly every EU author manages to slip some reference to this into their books. My biggest problems with the comic are that the premise is kind of dumb (and as another poster said, it undermines Palpatine's character), and that the whole arc of the plot is over too quickly (2 comics is not nearly enough room to cover the whole story they were putting out there).

Another problem I have with TCW is that it's incredibly repetitive: we return to the same handful of planets again and again and again...without ever being told why they're important (what the hell is so important on Ryloth, or Felusia that they're perpetual battlegrounds? I thought the former was a fairly barren place). How many times does General Grievous escape capture? How many times do the Jedi allow someone to escape, because they don't want to kill an unarmed opponent, or are trying to take a moral high road...when allowing that person to escape will clearly lead to thousands, if not millions of deaths? There's also something lost when we know that X character will not die or get seriously maimed, because they appear in Episode 3. If I were the writers of the show, I'd have put in extra effort to create and develop interesting characters that they can kill later on during the show, just to avoid these sorts of problems, but most of those characters they have to work with...continue to be protected by story armor anyway.

Also, why are the droids so incredibly stupid? I understand that they're probably somewhat ineffective because it's cheaper to build large numbers of mediocre models than a smaller number of the better versions, like the assassin droids, but what reason is there to never update their programming, other than for comedic effect?

TCW was a noble attempt to fix the mess that was the prequels, but you can't fix what is already broken.

Another problem I have with TCW is that it's incredibly repetitive: we return to the same handful of planets again and again and again...without ever being told why they're important (what the hell is so important on Ryloth, or Felusia that they're perpetual battlegrounds? I thought the former was a fairly barren place).

To the importance of Ryloth and Felucia, though, they were on major hyperspace lanes (the Corellian Run and Perlemian Trade Route) and so controlling them was likely of strategic importance. Also, slaves for the Confederacy.

How many times does General Grievous escape capture?

Besides, it's an episodic serial. This is what happens in episodic serials. They're a little formulaic, but still awesome and fun.

How many times do the Jedi allow someone to escape, because they don't want to kill an unarmed opponent, or are trying to take a moral high road...when allowing that person to escape will clearly lead to thousands, if not millions of deaths?

There's also something lost when we know that X character will not die or get seriously maimed, because they appear in Episode 3. If I were the writers of the show, I'd have put in extra effort to create and develop interesting characters that they can kill later on during the show, just to avoid these sorts of problems, but most of those characters they have to work with...continue to be protected by story armor anyway.

Also, why are the droids so incredibly stupid? I understand that they're probably somewhat ineffective because it's cheaper to build large numbers of mediocre models than a smaller number of the better versions, like the assassin droids, but what reason is there to never update their programming, other than for comedic effect?

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Nope. Never happened. Did you hear me? IT. NEVER. HAPPENED.

Also, why are the droids so incredibly stupid? I understand that they're probably somewhat ineffective because it's cheaper to build large numbers of mediocre models than a smaller number of the better versions, like the assassin droids, but what reason is there to never update their programming, other than for comedic effect?

Yeah, comedic effect to be sure. The films did this too. Also, they're mass-produced battle droids. It's established that they are made for overwhelming firepower, not for strategic insight or individual thought. It's a very well-integrated part of the lore, love it or hate it. Droids are stupid unless they need to be smart. And if they're smart, they're usually not good at much else.

And, I'd like to point out, they were mass-produced by businessmen, not soldiers. Their increasing eccentricity is a product of hasty mid-war upgrades to base systems never meant for that kind of complexity. Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare has an interesting sidebar on this, and the book as a whole serves as a good transitional piece that ties together a lot of the scattered materiel.

TCW was a noble attempt to fix the mess that was the prequels, but you can't fix what is already broken

I don't understand this statement.

Are you proposing, that things that are working fine, be fixed? I believe that was tried once, with much uproar. Greedo shooting first and all.

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Nope. Never happened. Did you hear me? IT. NEVER. HAPPENED.

There have been far worse stories in the EU, and as bad guys go, resurrected clone Palpatine isn't nearly as bad as crawls out of the Sarlacc Boba Fett.

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Nope. Never happened. Did you hear me? IT. NEVER. HAPPENED.

There have been far worse stories in the EU, and as bad guys go, resurrected clone Palpatine isn't nearly as bad as crawls out of the Sarlacc Boba Fett.

So in your mind the survival of a single bounty hunter that went into the stomach of an ancient creature fully armored and carrying a jet pack plus weapons is worse than the revival of the emperor whose death the entire OT cummulated at?

Since we talk about resurrections, I have heard / read that in the books Palpatine is also revived at some point.

Nope. Never happened. Did you hear me? IT. NEVER. HAPPENED.

There have been far worse stories in the EU, and as bad guys go, resurrected clone Palpatine isn't nearly as bad as crawls out of the Sarlacc Boba Fett.

So in your mind the survival of a single bounty hunter that went into the stomach of an ancient creature fully armored and carrying a jet pack plus weapons is worse than the revival of the emperor whose death the entire OT cummulated at?

I find it easier to believe that Palpatine had a contingency plan (this was the master planner of the Clone Wars after all) than to believe that Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc.

In the words of Boba, "Everyone tried for the obvious exit, I made a new one." He did come out with his armor almost melted off, covered in burns and still barely survived.

In the words of Boba, "Everyone tried for the obvious exit, I made a new one." He did come out with his armor almost melted off, covered in burns and still barely survived.

I'm familiar with the stories. I just think that Palpatine surviving makes more sense than Boba Fett surviving (or Maul surviving post-Naboo). I don't think it invalidated the OT at all, since I thought the OT was more about redeeming Anakin/Vader than about taking down the Emperor. Because of that, I have no problem with the Emperor returning post-Endor to challenge Skywalker in a different manner (but I do think Force Storms are pretty stupid).

I am just mad they blew up the Eclipse and Twilight class super star destroyers at that event. I always loved the ships and space battles far more than the silly jedi stuff and the Impies always had the coolest ships.

I don't understand why people find it implausible that one of the galaxy's most notable bounty hunters, himself being creative, well-armed, and being an unaltered clone of Jango Fett. was able to free himself from a very slow-acting digestive system.

"Boba Fett really died" is not on the same level for me as "Greedo shot first." Boba Fett was defeated rather humorously and unceremoniously, but his demise was not certain. Yes, he went into the Sarlacc, but Jabba had just got done telling us that he would be digested over 1,000 years. Sounds to me like he had ample time to come up with a contingency plan.

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Also the Emperor coming back as a Dark Side spirit and possessing a clone of his...yeah, I could buy that. It sounds very much like Darth Sidious. He seemed to have a fascination with the idea of living forever, and was the most powerful Sith Lord in history, so he would probably also have a contingency plan set up. Great idea for a story.

The execution of that idea, however, was not so good IMO. So I'm happy that it's not canon anymore, and could possibly be retold. Either way, I think I prefer the idea of "Palpatine being really dead."