That would fit with the increasingly parental roles of Hera & Kanan. They're a little family of space terrorists.

Ah. I was not aware of that (the info from the Celebration Panel).

Scratch my previous theory.

Edit: So the prototype Tie-Defender, has improved shielding and armor (took a few direct hits from those Interceptors), superior handling and speed (compared to the Interceptors that it out-ran and maneuvered), 6 laser cannons, 6 missile launchers (concussion?), and a nav-com w/hyperdrive. All this BEFORE the X-wing or B-Wing.

That thing would have been a nightmare for the rebellion. And probably would have been more successful in snuffing it out (IMO). Though I would imagine its cost per ship would be as ridiculously high for the empire as the F-22 is for the USA. But still, that is one very impressive piece of hardware.

2 hours ago, Arrakus said:

Ah. I was not aware of that (the info from the Celebration Panel).

Scratch my previous theory.

Edit: So the prototype Tie-Defender, has improved shielding and armor (took a few direct hits from those Interceptors), superior handling and speed (compared to the Interceptors that it out-ran and maneuvered), 6 laser cannons, 6 missile launchers (concussion?), and a nav-com w/hyperdrive. All this BEFORE the X-wing or B-Wing.

That thing would have been a nightmare for the rebellion. And probably would have been more successful in snuffing it out (IMO). Though I would imagine its cost per ship would be as ridiculously high for the empire as the F-35 is for the USA. But still, that is one very impressive piece of hardware.

I doubt the cost would be comparable. For starters, manufacturing in the Star Wars universe would be insanely cheap. Also, they'd be ordering millions, not hundreds, of whatever model fighter as they have thousands upon thousands of worlds to patrol.

9 hours ago, Kallabecca said:

I doubt the cost would be comparable. For starters, manufacturing in the Star Wars universe would be insanely cheap. Also, they'd be ordering millions, not hundreds, of whatever model fighter as they have thousands upon thousands of worlds to patrol.

Ordering millions is the part which makes it economically equivalent to a a few hundred F-35s ;-)

Remember the republic had trouble to pay for a few million extra clones during the clone wars. The empire has less economical issues as they imperialized a lot of key industries and introduced slavery to keep the cost down. But at the same time they had to introduce slavery to get all their projects going. So the empire most certainly is not an entity with unlimited resources either. Fabrication seems super fast, raw materials seem to be the bigger issue and building fabs themselves was a major investment as well.

9 hours ago, Kallabecca said:

I doubt the cost would be comparable. For starters, manufacturing in the Star Wars universe would be insanely cheap. Also, they'd be ordering millions, not hundreds, of whatever model fighter as they have thousands upon thousands of worlds to patrol.

Correction, meant F-22. F-35 has a bigger program budget, but the F-22 has a higher cost per plane.

Well the USA built F-22s for ~340M a pop. Or they could have built/maintained the F-15's at ~40M.

The Empire could have built Tie-D for 200K a pop. Instead they built/maintained the existing Tie-F for about 80K.

IMO, I can see similarities. It is not my intent to dive into a cost economics break down between SW vs RL. I was just attempting to draw parallels between different philosophies on R&D projects, and ultimately doctrines of war. The briefer in ANH said it best, "the Empire does not see 1 maned fighters as much of a threat, or they would have a tighter defense."

***I do not have my SW books nor did Google F-22 costs. The numbers are just from my memory.

Me, I'm more interesting in the Strip Mining Machine. That thing was a nasty piece of work.

And the Thrawn book really did a lot for Governor Pryce in my head. She too is a nasty piece of work ( but a lot less strip-miney)

The description of it was way cooler than seeing it actually perform. All it seemed to do was burn the landscape.

I like how the ore crawler was basically a miniaturised World Devastator. Nice nod to old EU stuff.

On 2017-11-07 at 2:20 PM, Arrakus said:

Kaynan will perish, which will drive Hera to be 100% committed to the cause (as she will have nothing left to look forward to after the war).

Well iTunes Canada finally released the last four episodes, so I happily binge watched and now I can safely re-enter this thread...

Was thinking the same, there is some secret on Lothal that Kanan will die protecting. I also noted the line Ezra says at one point, that he belongs on Lothal and won't be leaving. That might be the kind of thing a kid says, but it's all kind of setting up a scenario where they don't have to die to prevent them from intruding on the Skywalker thread.

My thought on the Defender was that now they have the plans, they can use the tech to beef up those little A-Wings, and maybe reinstate their Legends status as the fastest star fighters ...

The A-Wings in Rebels seem to be more of an early design anyway. At least they are not identical with the ones we know and love.

4 hours ago, whafrog said:

Well iTunes Canada finally released the last four episodes, so I happily binge watched and now I can safely re-enter this thread...

Was thinking the same, there is some secret on Lothal that Kanan will die protecting. I also noted the line Ezra says at one point, that he belongs on Lothal and won't be leaving. That might be the kind of thing a kid says , but it's all kind of setting up a scenario where they don't have to die to prevent them from intruding on the Skywalker thread.

For what it's worth, in most countries, Ezra would not be considered a kid at this point. I'm almost certain he's 18 as of the start of Season 4 (which is taking place in the final year before A New Hope).

Legally he might not be one, but in temperament and in the storytelling role he fulfills he is very much a young'un.

3 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

For what it's worth, in most countries, Ezra would not be considered a kid at this point. I'm almost certain he's 18 as of the start of Season 4 (which is taking place in the final year before A New Hope).

That's a fine job of parsing. You've never heard post high-school kids talk with absolute certainty about things they know nothing about?

Besides, I have "kids" who are in their 20s. They will always be my kids. From a certain point of view, practically everybody on this board is a "kid" in my eyes...

2 hours ago, whafrog said:

That's a fine job of parsing. You've never heard post high-school kids talk with absolute certainty about things they know nothing about?

Besides, I have "kids" who are in their 20s. They will always be my kids. From a certain point of view, practically everybody on this board is a "kid" in my eyes...

I wasn't trying to say Ezra isn't still childish. Just felt like pointing out that he is technically an adult. Trust me, I'm 23, and I'm still totally a kid at heart. But it seems like people keep forgetting that time is passing in Star Wars. Sabine is, what? 20 now? Ezra's 18. They're adults now, even though so much of the fanbase still sees them as the kids they were at the start of the show.

Ahem.

I09 has a breakdown of the trailer:

Was that the Mortis Gods?

Yes, it was. In the trailer’s most shocking revelation, Ezra at some point comes into contact with an image of the Mortis Gods, characters who appeared in a landmark, three-episode Clone Wars arc in 2011 and revealed there are powerful beings beyond the Jedi and Sith that play a huge role in balancing the force. (The episodes were season three’s “Overlords,” “Altar of Mortis,” and “Ghosts of Mortis” if you want to go back and watch them, which you don’t have to, but totally should.)

Predictably, Filoni wouldn’t say much about the revelation but acknowledged its potential importance. “I find them to be an interesting relic of folklore that could come up in some way,” he said. “So there were avenues that allowed that image to be a possibility. And we’ll have to see what it actually means when you get down to it.

Was that Emperor Palpatine in the final shot?

“It’s kind of fun to leave it to speculation,” Filoni said. “There are many twists and turns when you’re dealing with a character like Palpatine. He’s so wonderfully written all the time, especially in the films. And it seemed inevitable that if you’re dealing with the Empire, if you’re on this quest to fight evil, that you’re going to have to come across the real devil of our saga, which is Palpatine. So I think, in some ways, it was an inevitable encounter for Ezra. So we’ll see what that yields.”

What is the significance of the Convor?

Throughout both Clone Wars and Rebels , the mythic, Star Wars version of an owl called a Convor has appeared. It also pops up not once but twice in this trailer. Obviously, Ezra straight-up addresses it, but there’s also one on the Daughter’s shoulder.

1 hour ago, Desslok said:

Star Wars Rebels returns February 19 with two new episodes, then continues February 26 and ends on March 5 with an extended finale.

What a schedule.

Isn't that how networks used to burn off episodes of underperforming shows they were contractually obligated to air?

That or running them at 3 in the morning on Sundays. . . .

I'm glad they're shutting down Rebels.

People are up in arms about the "destruction of canon" in the new movies, but what about this show?
There's toooons of stuff just thrown out the window here, and nobody seems to bat an eye.

I personally didn't like it. It was a bit too much of a kids show for my tastes.

I posted this in the other Rebels thread but i'll post some thoughts here.

I think Filoni is a great comprehender of the force and the overall lore, and he's a decent storyteller, however he's overly sentimental and attached to his characters.

One of the first things I learned in scriptwriting it that audiences hate Deus ex Machina. They want their characters to earn their victories but more so they want to see them overcome challenges. When we see characters overcome great challenges its satisfying because one way or another it makes us feel that we too can overcome great obstacles in our lives. So in that sense the higher the stakes the better.

~

I get not wanting to kill off main characters, that's not the kind of show Rebels is, however then you have to demonstrate your characters working through real problems and to a degree suffering.

Avatar the Last Airbender is a very similar minded show with a core group of protagonists. Important characters rarely die but that show puts its characters through all the works that it doesn't matter because life and death of our protagonists is'nt what's at stake, the fate of the world and other people are. And our characters significantly develop from the beginning of the series to the end.

I think what Rebels lacks is any framing of what's at stake because we never see either our protagonists suffering at the hands of the Empire or anybody else. Yes we see bullying by soldiers and officers and occasional conscription but nothing more then generic vignettes that is unfortunately universally true of most occupying armies historically.

There is no world building, there is no frame of reference to what is so unique about the Empire's evil. Rogue One on the other hand perfectly sets up why we should dislike and even hate the imperials.

4 hours ago, Forresto said:

I think what Rebels lacks is any framing of what's at stake because we never see either our protagonists suffering at the hands of the Empire or anybody else.

?? The protagonists are tortured, whole towns are burned, farmers are run off their lands...all this in the first season, and more follows. What more "framing" do you want?

Just gonna throw out more moments of "suffering" for the protagonists.

Kanan is tortured, loses his sight, wavers in his faith, doubts himself as a teacher and a leader, has hangups about war.

Hera loses her home, loses her squadron under her command in front of her eyes, has to deal with a bloodthirsty family member.

Sabine loses family members by a weapon she helped create, a mistake she made in her youth that cost her dearly. she is sort of exiled from her people.

Ezra discovers his only family is gone, learns the hard way why the dark side is the wrong path, makes mistakes constantly and has to learn from them. His trust in Maul let Kanan become blinded among other mistakes he had to learn to deal with. His homeworld is occupied and his neighbors treated like garbage. Cities are burned in the name of the Empire. Allies are killed.

Chopper.... is a droid and is there for humor.

Zeb... I'm not entirely sure. He had to deal with his people and learned that he needed to have more faith and hope that things can work out if you're good and do the right things.

On top of all this, the oppression and evil nature of the Empire is stated constantly. They blockade planets that are running low on food and medical supplies. They take land from the locals and if they resist, imprison them. They force the townspeople to work in their manufacturing facilities to build weapons of war. They trade in arms considered illegal by their own senate that are essentially considered a warcrime when used.

Because it's clearly a different viewpoint than what I'm seeing from the show, can you explain what you view to be as suffering @Forresto ?

24 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Chopper.... is a droid and is there for humor.

Chopper's a psychopath.

25 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

On top of all this, the oppression and evil nature of the Empire is stated constantly. They blockade planets that are running low on food and medical supplies. They take land from the locals and if they resist, imprison them. They force the townspeople to work in their manufacturing facilities to build weapons of war. They trade in arms considered illegal by their own senate that are essentially considered a warcrime when used.

Let's not forget that the Empire has also forced those unwilling workers to test some of the weapons in the fact of catastrophic failures to sniff out sabotage.

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

Just gonna throw out more moments of "suffering" for the protagonists.

Kanan is tortured, loses his sight, wavers in his faith, doubts himself as a teacher and a leader, has hangups about war.

Hera loses her home, loses her squadron under her command in front of her eyes, has to deal with a bloodthirsty family member.

Sabine loses family members by a weapon she helped create, a mistake she made in her youth that cost her dearly. she is sort of exiled from her people.

Ezra discovers his only family is gone, learns the hard way why the dark side is the wrong path, makes mistakes constantly and has to learn from them. His trust in Maul let Kanan become blinded among other mistakes he had to learn to deal with. His homeworld is occupied and his neighbors treated like garbage. Cities are burned in the name of the Empire. Allies are killed.

Chopper.... is a droid and is there for humor.

Zeb... I'm not entirely sure. He had to deal with his people and learned that he needed to have more faith and hope that things can work out if you're good and do the right things.

On top of all this, the oppression and evil nature of the Empire is stated constantly. They blockade planets that are running low on food and medical supplies. They take land from the locals and if they resist, imprison them. They force the townspeople to work in their manufacturing facilities to build weapons of war. They trade in arms considered illegal by their own senate that are essentially considered a warcrime when used.

Because it's clearly a different viewpoint than what I'm seeing from the show, can you explain what you view to be as suffering @Forresto ?

How much do they actually change from any of that?

Kanan is the only character I feel like has truly evolved over time.

Ezra's whole arc is very circular with him never really changing that drastically, he just sees more or the world. Heck Carl Grimes from Walking Dead has more character development. The one time things got truly interesting with Ezra was his temptation to the dark side that lasted all but three episodes.

On a finer point what cities are burned? Because the way the citizenry act their lives don't seem all that bad. I never get even an ounce of the feeling of supreme fascist rule that I get from watching a show like Man in High Castle, or playing Wolfenstein: The New Order, that show how worn down everyone is and how pervasive the government's regimes are. Rebels tries but subverts this constantly by making the Imperials look incompetent.

I'm not saying a show ultimately aimed at kids should be to the same level of Man in High Castle, but there is a way of portraying what is essentially Nazisim to kids that still feels awful if you really understand what's going on. The Original Star Wars film does this beautifully.

To the characters any time they're in proximity to the Empire it should feel like a noose is around their neck the entire time and if you make a wrong move with them you're done for. This is how Luke, Han, Leia, even the jedi in the group Obi Wan all acted towards the Empire. Every stormtrooper is dangerous. Every encounter is potentially going to go south. I

Avatar the Last Airbender does the same thing whenever they run into Fire Nation troops.

In Rebels you might as well shoot blind and you'd still wipe out Imperial platoons. Things are only dangerous when Thrawn, Tarkin, and Vader show up and even then probably not.

I'm not saying the show doesnt have suffering, what i'm saying is its often very generic.

Compared to almost any other piece of faction that deals with fascism, seems extraordinarily juvenile. Heck there are episodes of the Clone Wars that felt oppressive but thats because the bad guys kept winning and applying pressure and even when the heroes gained a victory they paid a price.

~

Regardless of how you politically feel the US prison system often has prisoners work on production lines, our armies bomb and occupy cities half way around the world, our navy (the largest in the world) patrols every ocean in the world.

In comparison to real life the Empire on Rebels has nothing to what people are currently doing here. In the movies at least they feel like this whole other level of evil just like the Nazis.