18 minutes ago, markcsoul said:

In regards to Lucas, I do find it kind of funny that when some fans likes certain aspects of star wars, they say it's because lucas had help, and when they don't like certain aspects of star wars, it was lucas' fault. It can't be both ways.

It absolutely CAN. When he's surrounded by more talented people for the original trilogy, and surrounded by people to afraid to tell him no during the prequel trilogy, it can totally be both ways, because the circumstances are completely different.

21 minutes ago, markcsoul said:

In regards to Lucas, I do find it kind of funny that when some fans likes certain aspects of star wars, they say it's because lucas had help, and when they don't like certain aspects of star wars, it was lucas' fault. It can't be both ways.

Uhh... why can't it be both ways? And for the record, I said "OFTEN in spite of him."

Learn the behind the scenes stories of A New Hope. The first screening of the movie was so bad that several of his best friends in the world were riffing it in front of him. It was almost 3 hours long, and 8 minutes of that - EIGHT MINUTES! - was the opening crawl, written so badly that De Palma started cussing at it and Lucas for being a "******* waste of time" and wrote him a new crawl right there on the spot.

Marcia Lucas put in several 25-hour days (in her words) editing the film down to a much more watchable 2 hours.

Now, go here for some information about the Phantom Menace rough-cut screening, surrounded by people working for Lucas:

I put it at the 1:15 mark for the relevant point: If Lucas weren't able to fire everyone around him the exact same thing would have happened . The relevant line: "But those people who didn't challenge Lucas on some of those questionable ideas also share some of the blame." Then it brings up a Gary Kurtz line: "I think one of the problems is that (Lucas) doesn't have enough people around him who challenge him."

Because he kicked them out of his life after Return of the Jedi. He created a black snow culture at the ranch - where if he looked out the window and said, "The snow is black," he would fire anyone who pointed out that it was, in fact, white.

Every creative person is a font of both good and bad ideas - but isn't able to tell the difference . That's what editors are for. Lucas had some BRILLIANT ideas. Vader being Luke's father (admittedly on his second pass of ESB)? Sith Lord Palpatine engineering multiple crises that would elevate him to power, and being in control of both sides of the war so he'd win no matter what? Anakin's temptation being fear of losing his love? Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, because he didn't know if Ford would do another movie? Moving away from hard science fiction, which over-explained EVERYTHING in an effort to make it sound plausible, to a more loose "Traveling hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy!" soft science fiction?

All great ideas, and some of them are realized perfectly.

But the bad ideas are equally his. The only difference is that the original trilogy had people to filter out the bad ideas and leave the good. By the time of the prequels Lucas had surrounded himself with yes-men afraid to pee without his permission, much less question his genius.

And that brings us to Rebels. It functions as a writing unit - no one is so in charge that they can't be questioned, no one is so intimidated they can't pipe up with an idea that might be better than the one already flying around the table. It's sanitized for its target audience, but less than you'd expect. That poor Ugnaut in the season 3 opener...

1 hour ago, markcsoul said:

In regards to Lucas, I do find it kind of funny that when some fans likes certain aspects of star wars, they say it's because lucas had help, and when they don't like certain aspects of star wars, it was lucas' fault. It can't be both ways.

Yes he had help on the OT, but he was still a huge part of it's success. And no he was not a one man show in the PT not listening to anyone, he had a producer, he had people work on the scripts, he had his director friends view early screenings.

Since most newer fans like most if not all aspects of star wars , they probably find little to hate about lucas. Between all the iconic stuff he's created through star wars and indy he's kind of a modern day Walt Disney for how he'll likely be remembered. And of course having star wars land opening soon is truly fitting.

Right there is something I'm really happy about. I might have grown up with the prequels but I predate them a fair amount, so they weren't the Star Wars I knew and loved. That was the OT. The Prequels were just more of it, and that was great. Over the years yeah I've seen their problems, but I just can't bring myself to have any disdain for them. The funny part is, some curmudgeons might say I'm blinded by nostalgia, without a single hint of irony.

How is this relevant? I'm just... Really glad to see fans that don't hate everything. The fanbase shows its toxicity in every new trailer's page, and it's always disheartening. "Another female lead?" "Stormtroopers can't be black." "That lightsaber is for skywalkers only." "Jar Jar Abrams is ruining everything."

It gets really tiring. The oncoming reprieve is oh, oh so needed...

11 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Right there is something I'm really happy about. I might have grown up with the prequels but I predate them a fair amount, so they weren't the Star Wars I knew and loved. That was the OT. The Prequels were just more of it, and that was great. Over the years yeah I've seen their problems, but I just can't bring myself to have any disdain for them. The funny part is, some curmudgeons might say I'm blinded by nostalgia, without a single hint of irony.

How is this relevant? I'm just... Really glad to see fans that don't hate everything. The fanbase shows its toxicity in every new trailer's page, and it's always disheartening. "Another female lead?" "Stormtroopers can't be black." "That lightsaber is for skywalkers only." "Jar Jar Abrams is ruining everything."

It gets really tiring. The oncoming reprieve is oh, oh so needed...

Oh, I LOVE TFA and Rogue One is frankly the best Star Wars movie, period. I sat through TCW and found many elements and episodes that I liked - hell, one episode even made me like JAR JAR BINKS, for crying out loud (when he was leading a clone detachment to rescue Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Dooku)! And I ain't posting in this Star Wars: Rebels thread because I hate the show either.

I just refuse to blindly love or hate anything. If something is good, I will praise it. And if something is bad, I won't shut up about it.

Frankly, a lot of the online raeg at the casting of TFA (and to a lesser extent Rogue One) is IMHO coming from the same 'alt'-right, reactionist hetero white manchildren who see the raising of women, minorities, gays to be their equals in deed (instead of just on an easily ignored piece of paper) as the reason they're failing at life. To them, the fact that Finn was black and Rey a woman was taking away from what THEY see as normal, fit, and proper - so naturally they raged at it even before seeing the movie.

I'm a German/Irish male and can't stay in the sun too long lest I freckle up, and their attitude saddens me. It doesn't really baffle me - so much of their lives has been messaged "the only thing they need to succeed is be white and male," and finding out that it takes effort to do so has apparently stymied them.

But that's on a tangent, admittedly a relevant tangent.

Wether one thinks Lucas did good at what he did or not, I couldn't hate him when he donates most of his money and ensured with selling SW to Disney that all of the Staff kept their job.

I think he is a good guy. And I cannot hat a good guy

Git Gud, People

Agreed. I think some people, not anyone om here but in the wider SW community, go way too far and attack him personally.

George Lucas, from everything i've read or heard, is a really great guy. That isnt to say he's perfect, I think everyone has a side to them that is a bit of an *** because thats just to be human, but for the most part he seems like a really cool dude.

20 hours ago, Forresto said:

Whitewashing tends to refer to casting so im also a little confused at this as well.

I also disagree that Thrawn in the new book and the show are nothing alike. Thrawn in the show is only ever shown hunting down the rebels and in the end is ruthless, which is what he's like in the book. The rebels are an active threat to his long game plan. Im curious to hear how you think they're different.

It means taking a character and retconning the bad things, flaws etc., for example Han Solo shooting second in SE is Lucas' whitewashing, or maybe Kallus, after two seasons of being portraited as mustache twirling villain, murdering own troops for lulz and bragging about genocide, suddenly going "oh, I really didn't mean to genocide your people, we ok?".

Zahn absolutely loves to do this, and the best (worst?) examples are Thrawn and Mara Jade.

In context of nu canon, we learn that Thrawn is ruthless, effective, doesn't care about civilian casualities, is devoted to the Emperor.

Then Zahn reads the script, goes "OH NO THEY MADE MY FAVOURITE PET CHARACTER A BAD GUY" and proceeds to take every point of that list and subvert it. That whole civilian thing? You got it wrong, totally not him guys, look, he was even angry it happened. He will very much go out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualities. Emeperor? Oh, you misunderstood, he very much disagrees with the Emperor, he can even tell him that, he only accepts him as the lesser evil. And obviously everything bad he does he does only because he is the good guy and wants to save his people and the galaxy form the Greater Evil.

6 minutes ago, eMeM said:

It means taking a character and retconning the bad things, flaws etc., for example Han Solo shooting second in SE is Lucas' whitewashing, or maybe Kallus, after two seasons of being portraited as mustache twirling villain, murdering own troops for lulz and bragging about genocide, suddenly going "oh, I really didn't mean to genocide your people, we ok?".

Zahn absolutely loves to do this, and the best (worst?) examples are Thrawn and Mara Jade.

In context of nu canon, we learn that Thrawn is ruthless, effective, doesn't care about civilian casualities, is devoted to the Emperor.

Then Zahn reads the script, goes "OH NO THEY MADE MY FAVOURITE PET CHARACTER A BAD GUY" and proceeds to take every point of that list and subvert it. That whole civilian thing? You got it wrong, totally not him guys, look, he was even angry it happened. He will very much go out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualities. Emeperor? Oh, you misunderstood, he very much disagrees with the Emperor, he can even tell him that, he only accepts him as the lesser evil. And obviously everything bad he does he does only because he is the good guy and wants to save his people and the galaxy form the Greater Evil.

Well said.

14 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Uhh... why can't it be both ways? And for the record, I said "OFTEN in spite of him."

Learn the behind the scenes stories of A New Hope. The first screening of the movie was so bad that several of his best friends in the world were riffing it in front of him. It was almost 3 hours long, and 8 minutes of that - EIGHT MINUTES! - was the opening crawl, written so badly that De Palma started cussing at it and Lucas for being a "******* waste of time" and wrote him a new crawl right there on the spot.

I would like to see the source of 8-minute opening crawl and De Palma wiriting new on the spot.

According to JW Rinzler that screening (that happened in February 1977) included the third draft version of the crawl:

The REPUBLIC GALACTICA is dead. Ruthless trader barons, driven by greed and the lust for power, have replaced enlightenment with oppression, and “rule by the people” with the FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE.

For over a thousand years, generations of JEDI KNIGHTS were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. Now these legendary warriors are all but extinct. One by one they have been hunted down and destroyed by the sinister agents of the Emperor: the DARK LORDS OF THE SITH.

It is a period of civil wars. Rebel Armies, striking from fortresses hidden deep within the Great Rift, have won a crushing victory over the powerful Imperial Starfleet. The Emperor knows that one more such defeat will bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control of the Outland systems could be lost forever. To crush the rebellion once and for all, the Emperor has sent one of his most ferocious Dark Lords to find the secret rebel strongholds and destroy them…

Note that the more recent fourth draft, completeld well before the screening (January 76) had a different and much more familiar crawl:

It is a period of civil wars in the galaxy. A brave alliance of underground freedom fighters has challenged the tyranny and oppression of the awesome GALACTIC EMPIRE.

Striking from a fortress hidden among the billion stars of the galaxy, rebel spaceships have won their first victory in a battle with the powerful Imperial Starfleet. The EMPIRE fears that another defeat could bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control over the galaxy would be lost forever.

To crush the rebellion once and for all, the EMPIRE is constructing a sinister new battle station. Powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, its completion spells certain doom for the champions of freedom.

And from what I've gathered De Palma didn't write a better crawl on the spot, but sat down with Lucas the next day and rewrote it. Because of the similarities to the fourth draft we can assume a lot of it came from Lucas anyway, once again you give way too much credit to people around Lucas and exaggerate his flaws.

26 minutes ago, eMeM said:

It means taking a character and retconning the bad things, flaws etc., for example Han Solo shooting second in SE is Lucas' whitewashing, or maybe Kallus, after two seasons of being portraited as mustache twirling villain, murdering own troops for lulz and bragging about genocide, suddenly going "oh, I really didn't mean to genocide your people, we ok?".

Zahn absolutely loves to do this, and the best (worst?) examples are Thrawn and Mara Jade.

In context of nu canon, we learn that Thrawn is ruthless, effective, doesn't care about civilian casualities, is devoted to the Emperor.

Then Zahn reads the script, goes "OH NO THEY MADE MY FAVOURITE PET CHARACTER A BAD GUY" and proceeds to take every point of that list and subvert it. That whole civilian thing? You got it wrong, totally not him guys, look, he was even angry it happened. He will very much go out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualities. Emeperor? Oh, you misunderstood, he very much disagrees with the Emperor, he can even tell him that, he only accepts him as the lesser evil. And obviously everything bad he does he does only because he is the good guy and wants to save his people and the galaxy form the Greater Evil.

So, going with a new twist on a classic character was bad? The best villains are ones you can sympathize and, in some ways, route for. Giving Thrawn an ulterior motive, one that people could understand and relate to, gave the character more depth and interest. It also gave old fans of Thrawn something new to work off of, not to mention some interesting options for stories in the future.

He also gave an excellent reason why he wanted to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, and it wasn't because of the sanctity of human life. Killing civilians is wasteful and sloppy, things that a personality like Thrawn's would find distasteful.

1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

So, going with a new twist on a classic character was bad? The best villains are ones you can sympathize and, in some ways, route for. Giving Thrawn an ulterior motive, one that people could understand and relate to, gave the character more depth and interest. It also gave old fans of Thrawn something new to work off of, not to mention some interesting options for stories in the future.

He also gave an excellent reason why he wanted to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, and it wasn't because of the sanctity of human life. Killing civilians is wasteful and sloppy, things that a personality like Thrawn's would find distasteful.

No, no. That's not what he's saying- Zahn's done this before.

As an example did you know Thrawn once disguised himself as Jodo Kast for reasons?

2 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

So, going with a new twist on a classic character was bad? The best villains are ones you can sympathize and, in some ways, route for. Giving Thrawn an ulterior motive, one that people could understand and relate to, gave the character more depth and interest. It also gave old fans of Thrawn something new to work off of, not to mention some interesting options for stories in the future.

He also gave an excellent reason why he wanted to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, and it wasn't because of the sanctity of human life. Killing civilians is wasteful and sloppy, things that a personality like Thrawn's would find distasteful.

I wouldn't have a problem with a sympathetic villain if he was consistently written as such. But he wasn't in TTT, he wasn't in Rebels. Zahn has a habit of just rewriting the established characters and events to make his characters look better.

Wat we talking about

34 minutes ago, eMeM said:

It means taking a character and retconning the bad things, flaws etc., for example Han Solo shooting second in SE is Lucas' whitewashing, or maybe Kallus, after two seasons of being portraited as mustache twirling villain, murdering own troops for lulz and bragging about genocide, suddenly going "oh, I really didn't mean to genocide your people, we ok?".

Zahn absolutely loves to do this, and the best (worst?) examples are Thrawn and Mara Jade.

In context of nu canon, we learn that Thrawn is ruthless, effective, doesn't care about civilian casualities, is devoted to the Emperor.

Then Zahn reads the script, goes "OH NO THEY MADE MY FAVOURITE PET CHARACTER A BAD GUY" and proceeds to take every point of that list and subvert it. That whole civilian thing? You got it wrong, totally not him guys, look, he was even angry it happened. He will very much go out of his way to avoid unnecessary casualities. Emeperor? Oh, you misunderstood, he very much disagrees with the Emperor, he can even tell him that, he only accepts him as the lesser evil. And obviously everything bad he does he does only because he is the good guy and wants to save his people and the galaxy form the Greater Evil.

Its a new canon, a new universe, a new character. Thrawn may be a great guy compared to the rest of the Imperials but he still is supporting an evil regime and punishing those who oppose it. Thats whats so cool about new canon Thrawn. That conflict. He may be more decent and what he's doing is for the greater good but he's still batting for the "space nazis".

If this were EU i'd agree with you. Within the confines of a single universe white washing is BS like Han Solo for instance. I can't speak for EU Thrawn in the other novels because I only ever cared about the trilogy and duology.

However regardless of what happened in the EU Zahn isnt going to be able to change Thrawn from what is now established in the show and novel. If the current story group and Disney has shown me anything its that they're pushing for consistancy.

8 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

No, no. That's not what he's saying- Zahn's done this before.

As an example did you know Thrawn once disguised himself as Jodo Kast for reasons?

Yes. Don't have a problem with it.

4 minutes ago, eMeM said:

I wouldn't have a problem with a sympathetic villain if he was consistently written as such. But he wasn't in TTT, he wasn't in Rebels. Zahn has a habit of just rewriting the established characters and events to make his characters look better.

But in Rebels and the Thrawn Trilogy, our view of him is from his opponent's point of view, therefore casting him in a certain light. A change of prospective, and you get a different angle on a character. It's classic storytelling.

8 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Its a new canon, a new universe, a new character. Thrawn may be a great guy compared to the rest of the Imperials but he still is supporting an evil regime and punishing those who oppose it. Thats whats so cool about new canon Thrawn. That conflict. He may be more decent and what he's doing is for the greater good but he's still batting for the "space nazis".

If this were EU i'd agree with you. Within the confines of a single universe white washing is BS like Han Solo for instance. I can't speak for EU Thrawn in the other novels because I only ever cared about the trilogy and duology.

However regardless of what happened in the EU Zahn isnt going to be able to change Thrawn from what is now established in the show and novel. If the current story group and Disney has shown me anything its that they're pushing for consistancy.

What I'm saying is that in my opinion Thrawn in Rebels and the book weren't written consistently. I'm bringing Legends only because Zahn has aslo done it back then.

8 minutes ago, RIP Yoda said:

Wat we talking about

That's what happens when there is no Rebels news on the horizon for too long :|

Hahaha

1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

But in Rebels and the Thrawn Trilogy, our view of him is from his opponent's point of view, therefore casting him in a certain light. A change of prospective, and you get a different angle on a character. It's classic storytelling.

No, it's not. Both of them present the Imperial perspective in scenes that the main character can't possibly know are even happening, much less describe in detail.

Do you guys think there's gonna be a rebels aspect to battlefront 2. (As in the show) how cool would it be if thrawn was in it!

7 minutes ago, eMeM said:

No, it's not. Both of them present the Imperial perspective in scenes that the main character can't possibly know are even happening, much less describe in detail.

They are still the protagonists. That alone colors our view of the situation. Rebels, for all its strengths, still takes a very black and white view of things, especially its villains. Thrawn is a grey area, even in the Thrawn Trilogy, from my point of view. The book gives us a lot of insights about Imperials (like how the carnage of the Clone Wars drives some of them, why some of them joined, etc.) that we don't get from Rebels, or even the movies.

When it comes to the book and the show connecting, I now view certain scenes in the show differently than I did before reading the book. It makes the Bendu's warning potential carry more weight and dread for Thrawn, or make you think about his compliments to Hera in a different way.

I also think you are discounting how a character can grow beyond the original intent. He started out as an antagonist, but grew more as the character was explored, making him a more interesting character, in my eyes.

40 minutes ago, eMeM said:

What I'm saying is that in my opinion Thrawn in Rebels and the book weren't written consistently. I'm bringing Legends only because Zahn has aslo done it back then.

That's what happens when there is no Rebels news on the horizon for too long :|

Okay you make the point that Thrawn doesnt care about civillian losses on the show but he does in the novel. He's never shown being ruthless to civillians in the show only insurgents and rebels which again fits his characterization in the novel. That dude in the factory, he was a sabeteur and most likely working with Rayder's rebels, so Thrawn made him an example. From Thrawn's perspective the man went from being a civillian to a combatant the moment he engaged in sabotage against the Empire.

As for Batonn, rewatch Thrawn's first scene in Rebels. When Kallus beings up civillian losses its Pryce whose all chipper and says something like "acceptable losses...yada yada." And while she's talking about her killing hundreds of civillians (something only Thrawn and her really know about) Thrawn looks at her and you get this impression now from the book that he was glaring at her. Its on his record but she did it.

22 minutes ago, RIP Yoda said:

Do you guys think there's gonna be a rebels aspect to battlefront 2. (As in the show) how cool would it be if thrawn was in it!

I'm kinda hoping we get "Rebels" heroes, or even (fingers crossed) Ahsoka.

How tangentially off topic do you think we can get?

Just now, demon3o5z said:

How tangentially off topic do you think we can get?

STOP! I wanna talk about cheese.

Just now, SabineKey said:

STOP! I wanna talk about cheese.

Like, Star Wars cheese, or regular cheese? Cus I have some thoughts on the popularity of cheddar.

oh YEAH OFF TOPIC MANIA!!!!!!!!!!!!