BTW, I will not be sad at all to see Rebels go the way of the dodo. In fact, hopefully, we will have all forgotten about it entirely over the course of the next few years.

...and perhaps Filoni and company will soon be granted permission to cover the ground between RotJ and TFA, which would allow for plenty of (perfectly acceptable to us old-school fans) Jedi action, freaky lightsaber designs, and ridiculously overpowered starships.

Why? There can be plenty of acceptable jedi action and freaky lightsaber designs in Rebels too. And it's actually far more belivable to be beacuse the Jedi order is dead for less than 20 years, sop lenty of time for a decent number of survivors to show up, while in FA there have been no Jedi at all for 30 years straight since Luke failed at training a new generations, and the old survivors probably died of old age or are too old for that s**t (to quote Lethal Weapon).

As for ridiculously overpowered starships, that's the bread and butter of Empire shipbuilding.....they invented the Death Star after all.

So Rebels is in a far better position to show jedi action that FA, which will have to do with Luke and whoever might live through the rebellion (Ashoka will be a bit too old, Yoda and Obi-Wan are dead, Rham Kota Quinlan Voss and any other legend survivors are getting too old as well); only Kanan and Ezra will have the right age to be properly active.

The FA timeline is actually much better suited to a "rogue squadron" style series than one showing any Jedi.

As for Rebels life expectancy, we all knew that since it's set 5 years before ANH there can be only about 4 seasons before the movie takes over.

Well, they managed to drag The Clone Wars out for five seasons in spite of the war only lasting three years in terms of the established timeline, so it is possible that Rebels could run more than 3 seasons if Disney thinks there's a market for the show.

Good point Dono, i had forgotten that.I hope you're right. But Filoni has said somewhere that now Ezra is 16 and we're in second season it seems theya re going with one season=one year model for now.

B5 is probably not the best example in this case... Haha.

JMS rushed the series to completion in Season 4. Then? TNT picked it up and said, "hey, how about some more B5?" That unfortunately led to the pitiful Season 5, the terrible made-for-TV movies, and the ill-fated Crusade.

But, hey, Seasons 1-4 were indeed incredible television.

(...if not just a wee bit ridiculous with JMS' penchance for having each character deliver looooooong soliloquies from time to time.)

Yeah, but most of that was more Screwed By The Network than anything on JMS. While I cant defend the movies (beyond JMS wanting to capture lighting in a bottle again), Season 4 was rushed because the show had all but been canceled, and Season 5 suffered because the show was resurrected at the last moment, Crusade was hamstrung by TNT who realized that people who liked wrestling didn't watch B5 and people who liked B5 didn't watch Wrestling.

My point - having a firm (more or less) endpoint for the series isn't necessarily negated by the fact that the plan (almost) fell apart towards the end.

Actually, it kinda is...

I mean, what was the firm endpoint? Haha.

See what I mean? If we're talking about the end of Season 4, then I'm (sorta) with you. But if you include Season 5, the made-for-TV movies, and the unfinished Crusade? Well, your argument falls apart. It doesn't matter who was at fault. (And please reread my post; I never once laid blame at JMS' feet.)

Anyway, I DO see what you're trying to say, Desslok... But, again, B5 is a bad example.

A better example would be DS9.

Behr and Moore knew exactly how things would (and should) wrap up at the end of Season 7. And unlike any other Trek series, DS9 had a definitive ending.

That experience actually helped Moore craft a definitive (although controversial to some) end for the reimagined BSG. But to be fair, BSG's ending was not planned ahead...

Yeah, but I'm not talking about the entire B5 franchise. I'm talking about the series that ran from '94 to '98. When the show was originally planned, there was a beginning, middle and end. All those external forces are unfortunate, but Sleeping in the Light was always where JMS was aiming for when tape first rolled for Midnight on the Firing Line.

But that's all missing my point. It's better to have a end game in mind (even if that endgame changes somewhat along the way) instead of just aimless wandering until you run out of story - and then milking your show for three tepid seasons past that point.

So, yeah, DS9.

Yeah, but I'm not talking about the entire B5 franchise. I'm talking about the series that ran from '94 to '98. When the show was originally planned, there was a beginning, middle and end. All those external forces are unfortunate, but Sleeping in the Light was always where JMS was aiming for when tape first rolled for Midnight on the Firing Line.

But that's all missing my point. It's better to have a end game in mind (even if that endgame changes somewhat along the way) instead of just aimless wandering until you run out of story - and then milking your show for three tepid seasons past that point.

Lost ... was one of the most appropriately-named shows ever.

Lost ... was one of the most appropriately-named shows ever.

Unfortunately, yes. Ha.

Still, I love that show.

I'd like to see Rebels go four seasons and end.

3 seasons seems too short. 4 or 5 would be much better -- it could get into the lead up to Episode IV and the actual "first victory" of the Rebellion against the Empire. I'd also prefer to see some planned two or three part episodes. As it stands, Rebels episodes are entirely too short to have any kind of a twist included that isn't wrapped up in the next scene or two.

If a show like MASH can fun for 11 years based on a 3 year war then I think a season or two more is fine.

To be fair, MASH was very rapidly approaching it's sell-by date when the show wrapped up. I recall the writers saying "Yeah, we're out of stuff to say - it's time to end it while we're still on top."

To be fair, MASH was very rapidly approaching it's sell-by date when the show wrapped up. I recall the writers saying "Yeah, we're out of stuff to say - it's time to end it while we're still on top."

There are only so many ways you can use a show that's nominally about the Korean War as a thinly-veiled commentary on the Vietnam War.

So far I've enjoyed Rebels quite a lot, and I do like the fact that it is a little more compacted than TCW was. Hope it doesn't go on as long as TCW but I do want them to give me a few more seasons (i'd say 4 seasons is a good count)

I can't wait until one of my players announces he's going to use his weapon "in the style of the ancients" as he blasts away at the ship's controls hoping it will magically gets them all to safety.

Sorry, but the latest episode of Rebels was pretty badly written IMO.

Yeah... at the moment Rebels is really taking a turn for the worse.

"Bo-rifles are magic navicomputers that can chart black holes" actually isn't that much for me to swallow if they had the time to throw in a line about how they were ceremonial weapons designed to "always lead their wielders home" or something like that. This episode and the last one really feel like they should've been two-parters; there's a lot of interesting stuff that gets crammed into too small of an episode, so it ends up just seeming like they pulled most of it out of their asses.

Honestly I kind of get the feeling that they're rushing through some of the character development stuff on their way to the main plot.

I thought it was okay - loads of backstory on Zeb and I really loved the music as they were tiptoeing through the nebula. Not the best episode, but it wasn't terrible either.

I can't wait until one of my players announces he's going to use his weapon "in the style of the ancients" as he blasts away at the ship's controls hoping it will magically gets them all to safety.

Yeah, but he had two Jedi also helping to supercharge his Staff of Power, so not that huge of a stretch in a universe filled with Kung Fu monks with Lensmen powers.

Besides, if my players did something outta left field like that at the climax of the game (and flipped a point to do so), I'd probably let them get away with it too.

I thought it was okay - loads of backstory on Zeb and I really loved the music as they were tiptoeing through the nebula. Not the best episode, but it wasn't terrible either.

I can't wait until one of my players announces he's going to use his weapon "in the style of the ancients" as he blasts away at the ship's controls hoping it will magically gets them all to safety.

Yeah, but he had two Jedi also helping to supercharge his Staff of Power, so not that huge of a stretch in a universe filled with Kung Fu monks with Lensmen powers.

Besides, if my players did something outta left field like that at the climax of the game (and flipped a point to do so), I'd probably let them get away with it too.

Agreed, also the great visuals help smooth out the ruffles of the under-explained staff.

Also, yet another exhibit in why Hondo Ohnaka is the greatest character ever, he switches sides what, 3-4 times? I'm honestly just waiting for them to do an episode with both he and Rex in it.

I think this episode pretty much killed my hope of Hondo becoming the first canon Rebel privateer to appear, and when will his ship appear on screen? I want to see one in a real fight not just disabling a ship whose bridge is unmanned due to character idiocy. Still not a terrible episode IMO.

Going by the Rebels Recon associated with this episode, part of the intent was to demonstrate that the Force wasn't exclusively a Jedi/Sith thing, and that different cultures had different manifestations of the mystical energy field that the Jedi and Sith call the Force. And we've already had the Nightsister clan in TCW doing outright "magic" as part of the new canon, so having another culture display a different flavor of "space wizardry" or "space shamanism" isn't entirely unexpected, especially as we've had Maz in TFA who is a Force user with quite a bit of knowledge on the subject, but by her own admission is not a Jedi.

This episode, to me, further emphasizes one of the things I find wrong with Force and Destiny - the focus on the careers all being Jedi. This episode was interesting, and paves the way for Lasat actually being playable in the RPG. The Arquitens launching fighters is also an interesting tidbit. It seems that the Empire is equipping many of their non fighter carrying vessels with fighter/carrier refits or capability.

Still not sure what I think of the episode as a whole, but I absolutely -loved- the music that started playing as they approached the narrative space hazard.

Thos episode, to me, further emphasizes one od the things I find wrong with Force and Destiny - the focus on the careers all being Jedi.

Guess it's a matter of perspective, since I've found that it's really only the LS Form specs that have a "Jedi focus" in Force and Destiny (Niman Disciple most of all). Maybe your players are focusing on the Jedi aspect, but I've seen plenty of character builds for FaD where the PC in question had zero ties to the Jedi and no reason to grab a lightsaber.

Thos episode, to me, further emphasizes one od the things I find wrong with Force and Destiny - the focus on the careers all being Jedi. This episode was interesting, and paves the way for Lasat actually being playable in the RPG. The Arquitens launching fighters is also an interesting tidbit. It seems that the Empire is equipping many of their non fighter carrying vessels with fighter/carrier refits or capability.

Eh, I've never gotten hung up on names. A Politico doesn't necessarily mean a politician and a Shadow doesn't necessarily mean a Jedi.