Maul survived. Lucas realized he made a terrible mistake by killing him. Apparently it panned out pretty well- I haven't watched all of The Clone Wars.

It's starts out terrible and gets progressively better.

He has, like, 4 separate appearances, and in each one, he's a much better character.

He starts out as just, like, a gibbering lunatic attached to a metal crab. Becomes a growling monster with giant Grievous legs in his next appearance. Then eventually, he gets regular looking cybernetic legs, and gets his **** together and becomes a much more methodical, calculating character, and actually manages to accomplish some things besides just ranting about Obi-wan.

And, in those appearances, he gets into 2 of the better lightsaber fights of the series:

I like this one because Maul didn't used the force and kept it skill vs. skill.

I'm curious if they'll go into what happened after Sidious captured him.

Well, they already did go into what happened after Sidious captured him. See the Son of Dathomir miniseries by Dark Horse, which is still canon. Would've been a cool arc. Mandalorians vs Battle Droids. Maul vs Dooku. Vs Greivous. And Talzin vs Sidious. The sad thing, the arc pretty much exists to eliminate Maul's Shadow Syndicate (probably setting up the Siege of Mandalore with the Death Watch) and puts back into Sidious's captivity.

Didn't realize there was a 2003 Clone Wars Cartoon and a 2008 one. The 2003 one is the one I've seen bits of and I hate how every character looks.

When I get a chance I'll try and look into the first episode of season 2 of Rebels.

The thing about Ewoks is that Ewoks aren't main characters. They may be funny looking but they don't ruin the ******* movie. In a Galaxy full of thousands of sentient beings, I think it's fine that every once and a while there a silly one is allowed to exist. None of the Ewoks follow Leia around and step in poop and do CGI front flips or lick the ******* arc light between the engines of a pod racer. I think one of them steals a speeder bike and immediately crashes it but that's it.

They're just teddy bears that happen to live on a moon that generates a shield for a Death Star. That doesn't seem out of line for a Star Wars movie. And they think C-3PO is god. Well, C-3PO is God and Anthony Daniels is his prophet.

If instead of being Ewoks they were instead the type of alien that Ponda Baba is or Wookies, would that be fine?

So, I had heard before RotJ came out that the original plan had been for Endor to be Kashyyyk and the Ewoks to be Wookies and so, under the weight of my own overblown expectations, the Ewoks always felt like they were a dumbing down of what could have been. I was 13 when RotJ came out and I think it might have been the first time I was painfully aware of the power of product placement, the Ewoks seems like they were for kids. Not for 13 year olds.

Now [spoilers ahead] as for Maul and TCW, watch this and tell me it isn't a great scene .

If instead of being Ewoks they were instead the type of alien that Ponda Baba is or Wookies, would that be fine?

Assuming they weren't running around butting heads and making cutsie noises just like moving teddy bears, yeah, pretty much

Would you have taken something like the fighting Wookies on the beach scene from AotC or the Teddy Bear's picnic from RotJ?

And, in those appearances, he gets into 2 of the better lightsaber fights of the series:

I like this one because Maul didn't used the force and kept it skill vs. skill.

I'm curious if they'll go into what happened after Sidious captured him.

That is probably my favorite fight scene in the entire series.

And, in those appearances, he gets into 2 of the better lightsaber fights of the series:

Ninja'd - totally agree, love this scene.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else kinda have an issue with Ezra getting a crossguard lightsaber? When the first The Force Awakens trailer came out, and Kylo Ren ignited his firey lightsaber and then ignited the cross guards in that snowy forest, the world instantly divided into two camps. One thought the cross guards were ridiculous, and the other thought they were awesome. I have to admit, I was in the former group. But now that I have seen TFA, I actually really like Kylo's saber as it suites him and is believable for his character. That said, I feel like Disney should have kept the broadsaber a unique to Kylo thing. I know the whole "its an ancient design" line, but in my opinion, it would have been better as just his design on screen. Not mention, that Ezra already had his own unique saber design that was also pretty cool. Am I the only one that this bothers?

Just because he finds one, doesn't mean he is getting one. And all the lore about Kylo's saber before hand clearly indicated that it wasn't unique. But, the key thing remains, Kylo's saber still remains unstable, which is perfect for him.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else kinda have an issue with Ezra getting a crossguard lightsaber? When the first The Force Awakens trailer came out, and Kylo Ren ignited his firey lightsaber and then ignited the cross guards in that snowy forest, the world instantly divided into two camps. One thought the cross guards were ridiculous, and the other thought they were awesome. I have to admit, I was in the former group. But now that I have seen TFA, I actually really like Kylo's saber as it suites him and is believable for his character. That said, I feel like Disney should have kept the broadsaber a unique to Kylo thing. I know the whole "its an ancient design" line, but in my opinion, it would have been better as just his design on screen. Not mention, that Ezra already had his own unique saber design that was also pretty cool. Am I the only one that this bothers?

I have only seen him ignite it, not sure if he is actually getting one. We shall see, but yes, I would struggle with that too unless they have a convincing plot device to explain it.

Just because he finds one, doesn't mean he is getting one. And all the lore about Kylo's saber before hand clearly indicated that it wasn't unique. But, the key thing remains, Kylo's saber still remains unstable, which is perfect for him.

Like I said, I know in the lore, that they just made up to coincide with the movie as it was coming out, says that the cross guard lightsaber is an ancient and non unique design. But again, I wish they would have left it alone and left it a Kylo thing. In the almost 40 years since the lightsaber was seen on screen, it has been the same(not counting Darth Maul's double bladed saber) and now suddenly we have a new style show up in two different eras within a few months of each other. Just rubs me wrong is all. It just feels like some producer in an office somewhere was like, "people really liked that new lightsaber that we gave Kylo, lets put it in our other SW show and they'll eat it up." In other words, if feels forced. Now maybe the episode will explain everything satisfactorily and I'll be eating my words. I hope so. We'll have to wait and see.

And since I was thinking about it, I decided to do an "Evolution of the Lightsaber"

1977 - lightsaber invented, two colors, blue and red(Star Wars)

1983 - third color -green - introduced(Return of the Jedi)

1996 - The first double bladed lightsaber- had a normal sized handle, but a blue Blade on each end (Star Wars: The Sith War)

1997 - An ancient lightsaber predecessor is introduced. It requires a power cord plugged into a battery on the users belt to operate.(Star Wars: The Golden Age of the Sith)

1999 - A double sided red bladed lightsaber with a longer handle (The Phantom Menace)

2002 - A purple bladed lightsaber and the first on screen fight where a combatant used two lightsabers at the same time. Also a curved handled lightsaber (Attack of the Clones)

2005 - A combatant uses 4 lightsabers at the same time(Revenge of the Sith)

2008 - A black bladed lightsaber with a flattened "sword like" Blade, is introduced. (The Clone Wars)

2014 - A lightsaber with a built in stun pistol introduced (Star Wars: Rebels)

2015 - A lightsaber with light crossguards is introduced. Additionally, this saber seems to be unstable or firey. (The Force Awakens)

Did I miss anything major?

Lucasarts could have easily done this, they chose not to. That led to us having some real gems from the 90s-2000s.

DX9s, XG-1s, the Escort shuttle, the scout ship, the BFF-1 freighter.. the XQ Platforms (now canon - thanks rebels!)

I disagree that that's the same thing, at least, with the DX9, BFF-1 and XQ.

They HAD to create those ships, because ships of those types didn't even exist in Star Wars at the time. There were no Imperial troop transports. No large bulk freighters.

With the Corvette and the Frigate, they didn't NEED to create something new. They needed ships of that size, but the lore already made it clear that Rebel stuff was mostly old Empire stuff. So the lore already gave them an excuse to just use those ships again.

They didn't have to invent new ships but I am glad they did. With as many different shipwrights as are out there in Star Wars I think most eras should have a much wider variety of ships filling roles then they do now. Could have done without the dagger and wedge shape obsession though.

And since I was thinking about it, I decided to do an "Evolution of the Lightsaber"

...

Did I miss anything major?

Aksoka's white lightsabers in rebels.

And since I was thinking about it, I decided to do an "Evolution of the Lightsaber"

1977 - lightsaber invented, two colors, blue and red(Star Wars)

1983 - third color -green - introduced(Return of the Jedi)

1996 - The first double bladed lightsaber- had a normal sized handle, but a blue Blade on each end (Star Wars: The Sith War)

1997 - An ancient lightsaber predecessor is introduced. It requires a power cord plugged into a battery on the users belt to operate.(Star Wars: The Golden Age of the Sith)

1999 - A double sided red bladed lightsaber with a longer handle (The Phantom Menace)

2002 - A purple bladed lightsaber and the first on screen fight where a combatant used two lightsabers at the same time. Also a curved handled lightsaber (Attack of the Clones)

2005 - A combatant uses 4 lightsabers at the same time(Revenge of the Sith)

2008 - A black bladed lightsaber with a flattened "sword like" Blade, is introduced. (The Clone Wars)

2014 - A lightsaber with a built in stun pistol introduced (Star Wars: Rebels)

2015 - A lightsaber with light crossguards is introduced. Additionally, this saber seems to be unstable or firey. (The Force Awakens)

Did I miss anything major?

You missed The Inquisitor's lightsaber. Also, there have been lightsabers with crossguards before in another comic (don't remember which one). Also, the short lightsabers, known as Shotos, introduced around 1984 when Luke dueled Lumiya in the original run of the Marvel comics. Which reminds me, Lumiya's lightwhip is a variation of the lightsaber. Oh, and of course, I can't mention the Shoto without bringing up the Lightclub introduced in Star Wars Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (The Pic and Gorc fight, one with a Lightclub, the other with Yoda's old Shoto). I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting, but yes, the lightsaber design has been evolving for a long time.

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the fact that we're getting more variation in lightsaber designs. It used to bug me that there didn't really seem to be many variations of lightsabers when I was a kid. Comparing lightsabers to real world swords, which have hundreds or thousands of different variations with different blade lengths, widths, amounts of hand protection, grips, ect, it always seemed weird that lightsabers came in a set standard, one blade that was a meter long. It makes waaay more sense for this super technologically advanced society to have a vast array of different lightsaber types, all things considered.

Edit: Forgot Maris Brood's "guard shotos." Also, found the comic that the lightsaber with a crossguard appeared in before. Star Wars: Republic: 61. Used by Roblio Darte.

And since I was thinking about it, I decided to do an "Evolution of the Lightsaber"

2008 - A black bladed lightsaber with a flattened "sword like" Blade, is introduced. (The Clone Wars)

Did I miss anything major?

Minor note: the darksaber is stated to be an ancient relic, stolen when the mandalorians were a standing army.

I'd add the lightsaber-halberds that are carried by Jedi Sentinels in the Clone Wars series. Don't know when their first appearance was, though. On a side note, I'm hoping Rey ends up with something like that in the next film, given her existing proficiency with a staff.

Back to Rebels and Clone Wars and the appeal of both, I could probably sum it up on a basic level by saying 'It's Star Wars'. Rebels is very much in the vein of the Original Trilogy while Clone Wars is everything the Prequels should have been; it actually bothered to show us some of the war itself, it established the Anakin/Obi-Wan friendship/brotherhood far better than the films (Obi-wan's line in RotS, 'you were my brother, Anakin, I loved you', is much more believable after 5 series of CW), and both are capable of doing things the films really couldn't.

Then there's the fact that (Clone Wars in particular) goes much wider in the setting than the films. The Anthology movies promise different takes on the setting, different stories and that's great, but if you want some of that now, Clone Wars was doing it from the start. Some of the best episodes are those that are focused on the Clones and half the time don't feature a single Jedi. There are several (and one episode of the Maul arc in particular) that are 'bad guy' episodes, no Republic presence to be seen. Yes, there were duds (most of the Senate-based episodes, a horrible 4-part arc about a squad of astromechs...) but of the 120ish episodes (not counting the Lost Missions half of series 6) I'd say at least 80 are really good, another 20 most of the rest are watchable, there's only a handful that I wouldn't happily put on right now.

From a technical perspective, the visuals are jarring at first but you stop caring after a while as the writing and voice acting is consistently good, and as animation goes, the latter series of CW in particular are really very good.

But ultimately, they're just Star Wars. At times fun, cheesy, hilarious, at others, dark, tragic and deep. I strongly urge anyone who hasn't seen both to go and do so at some point.

Oh Yeah, Maris' Light Tonfas.

You also missed Kotor's yellow lightsabres.

No-ones made a light-bayonet yet. (i've talked about it a lot).

Marvel comic Dawn of the Jedi series has the claim as far as I know for the very first lightsaber. Called a Forcesabre, it had no switch to activate it. Instead the user had to channel dark side Force power into it to ignite a blade. It proved rather dangerous to the users as it seemed to pull them away from the balanced state they had been taught to use. Rather unique read. Kind of like seeing the origin story of the universe in a way.

Marvel comic Dawn of the Jedi series has the claim as far as I know for the very first lightsaber. Called a Forcesabre, it had no switch to activate it. Instead the user had to channel dark side Force power into it to ignite a blade. It proved rather dangerous to the users as it seemed to pull them away from the balanced state they had been taught to use. Rather unique read. Kind of like seeing the origin story of the universe in a way.

That was a Darkhorse series actually. Fun read though (Which I can't say about all the Dark Horse comics)

Whoops. I have it on Marvel Unlimited so I keep thinking it's Marvel. Lol thanks

I can't mention the Shoto without bringing up the Lightclub introduced in Star Wars Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (The Pic and Gorc fight, one with a Lightclub, the other with Yoda's old Shoto).

I remember that being a really fun fight.

I feel like we need to petition to Disney or Dave Foli to re-introduce Kyle Katarn to the canon in some way. He was just, so cool. (I'd even be okay with him dying by Kylo Ren)

I feel like we need to petition to Disney or Dave Foli to re-introduce Kyle Katarn to the canon in some way. He was just, so cool. (I'd even be okay with him dying by Kylo Ren)

The other thing is he is a perfect character to bring back, His return wouldn't really mess with any of the new canon.

Honestly, the cannon supports most everything pre-Vong to one degree or another. Specific details don't work but there are few characters that CAN'T exist more or less unchanged.

Isn't Kanaan and Hera quite Kyle Katarn-, and Jan Orsish... already?

Isn't Kanaan and Hera quite Kyle Katarn-, and Jan Orsish... already?

I can kinda see it, but it's not the same.