14 hours ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

There is room for Aliens of course, as long as they know their place and respect those above their station.

For instance, let’s not forget, for a time, Grand Moff Tarkin kept Ackbar as a favored pet.

Is that something you wrote into existence back in the WEG days?

I hated that part. It emphasized the ‘everyone is related/knows everyone’ nature that totally dragged down the EU. There was no need to link Tarkin and Ackbar in any way other than perhaps as military adversaries.

the whole officially sanctioned humans-first crap was totally unnecessary as well.

So that's how fans talk to writers they believe were responsible for things they didn't like, instead of respectfully and cordially disagreeing, it's, "That was unnecessary and dragged everything down, I hated it so much."

I despise Halo 4. It annihilated my favorite IP.

But if I spoke to the ones responsible for it, I'd do my absolute best to be level headed with it.

1 hour ago, GrimmyV said:

the whole officially sanctioned humans-first crap was totally unnecessary as well.

How so? In the entire OT, we never see anyone but a male human in Imperial uniform. Sure, they had spies and bounty hunters working for them, but why is it hard to believe that the Empire would use racism to support its goals?

3 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

How so? In the entire OT, we never see anyone but a male human in Imperial uniform. Sure, they had spies and bounty hunters working for them, but why is it hard to believe that the Empire would use racism to support its goals?

Why would non humans or females ever care about serving in a military that uses uniforms, equipment and vehicles designed for human male clones and their later counterparts. Almost no aliens are portrayed as warlike or conquering with the notable exception of the Rakata so the various cultures around the galaxy don’t seem to produce many individuals suited to military service. It also seems that when the Empire conscripts cadets from the various training academies that humans may be preferred simply due to logistical reasons. I’m sure the hygiene requirements of an ithorian or Rodian differ greatly from that of your average human male, not to mention the dietary requirements of Hutts or even larger sapient species.

the seeming specie-ism of the Empire in the OT needs to have far better canon evidence than some EU RPG materials from the dark age of SW media.

also it seems to me that the Rebellion was similarly lacking in Nonhuman non males until RotJ. Curious. Thank goodness for Sasquatches and space princesses.

39 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

So that's how fans talk to writers they believe were responsible for things they didn't like, instead of respectfully and cordially disagreeing, it's, "That was unnecessary and dragged everything down, I hated it so much."

I despise Halo 4. It annihilated my favorite IP.

But if I spoke to the ones responsible for it, I'd do my absolute best to be level headed with it.

I dunno, Stan Lee and Chris Claremont are two of my heroes but I won’t hesitate to call them out on the more questionable stuff they’ve pinned.

the Empire was evil because they blew up whole planets and ruled by fear. It didn’t need to be racists as well. At least we don’t have confirmation of Sheev kicking Porgs for fun, yet.

That said, I’m very glad for the many contributions of the many many unsung heroes of Lucasfilm, Lucasarts, WEG, Decipher, Kenner and anyone else blessed and fortunate enough to work with the Greatest Space Fantasy Of All Time. Thank you. Thank you for giving Greedo a species, thank you for giving Mauler Mithel an awesome name, and THANK GOD FOR GUNBOAT!!! Sorry if I did seem ungreatful and insulting. My wife calls me on that a lot too.

2 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

It emphasized the ‘everyone is related/knows everyone’ nature that totally dragged down the EU.

Actually Episodes 1 to 3 did far worse in that regard.

C3PO constructed by Anakin, Boba's father being the basis of the clone army, Yoda saying hi to Chewbacca ???

1 hour ago, Giledhil said:

Actually Episodes 1 to 3 did far worse in that regard.

C3PO constructed by Anakin, Boba's father being the basis of the clone army, Yoda saying hi to Chewbacca ???

Don’t forget the Gungan senator (who just so happened to be from the same planet )giving emergency powers to the chancellor. #staywoke

2 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

the Empire was evil because they blew up whole planets and ruled by fear. It didn’t need to be racists as well.

Sure it did. To contrast it all the more with the Rebellion...

...MODELS of variation that they are. Look at all those...different shades , and heights!, of white+male+human. So diversity, very equality, much wow!

I think we need to read Thrawn to get a better idea of how speciesism works in the new canon.

And to be fair, in the new canon, they did tone down the racism and sexism of the Empire. All hail Cienna Rae and Grand Admiral Sloane.

6 hours ago, mithril2098 said:

that's Legends only.

I created Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun in 1983 so he still lives in that timeline.

- Noel

But then again, 1983 was a Long Time Ago ...

14 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

So that's how fans talk to writers they believe were responsible for things they didn't like, instead of respectfully and cordially disagreeing, it's, "That was unnecessary and dragged everything down, I hated it so much."

I despise Halo 4. It annihilated my favorite IP.

But if I spoke to the ones responsible for it, I'd do my absolute best to be level headed with it.

I would too, but I'd still make it a point to tell Rian Johnson that he made terrible writing and art direction decisions. They made the dreadnaught flat and boring because he told them "I just need something flat to fly over." That Art Of- book is full of things that show how little imagination he had.

On 2/15/2018 at 5:40 AM, JediSamurai said:

unless you count Commander Sato. but i was referring to imperial underlings, mandos, inquisitors, ect. Apparently dude only watched one episode.

That post you quoted was from 2014 , so yeah, he hadn't seen as much of the show.

14 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

How so? In the entire OT, we never see anyone but a male human in Imperial uniform. Sure, they had spies and bounty hunters working for them, but why is it hard to believe that the Empire would use racism to support its goals?

[Just to be clear, this isn't a jab at anyone who made UP the Supremacist Empire. It's a clever idea, but I'm going to lay out why I'm personally not a fan of it.]

To be fair, it was very obviously a contrivance to make up for the fact the films were predominantly white human males. The way I see it, there are three approaches here: The Legends One, The Lucas One (go back and photoshop people into the background) or the one Canon seems to be taking where you leave the original films alone and just make new stories in that period with a more diverse cast.

(For the sake of brevity here, when I talk about people I'm going to be including aliens as people)

Now, I understand why the OT is so 'undiverse', especially given the time the OT was made, but the Legends rationale for it felt very contrived fix for what was basically an oversight. My problem with Legends is that it went out of its way to contrive solutions to oversights that were better just not acknowledged. It's the same issue as fans who are annoyed that the Star Destroyers and TIEs have different artistic styles in Rebels. It genuinely feels like older Legends would have tried to explain that away. When you're spending time writing material to retcon stylistic differences or real world artistic oversights you run the risk of diluting your story by solving problems few people really care about. It becomes a massive problem when your canon becomes a sprawling tapestry of different authors with different perspectives all trying to fix each other's 'mistakes'. (My limited understanding is that comics have a similar problem, partly worsened by their love of the Revolving Door of Death)

While the Canon Empire seems to favour humans, they've made an effort to tweak the material to include a wider range of people without contriving a *reason* why we happen to see a narrow demographic of people in the OT films. If you keep up the Legends rationale you then have to go back and explain why people like Ray Sloane, Iden Versio, Cienna Rae etc were so exceptional as to reach the positions they did. An (unintended I'm sure) consequence of the Legends Supremacist Empire is that it actually makes it harder to have more types of people involved in Imperial stories. It also doesn't solve the same narrow demographic being present amongst the Rebellion and criminal underworld.

I'm really glad we are seeing more diversity of race and gender in new films, but I'd find it distasteful if someone went back to the OT and started whatever the film equivalent of photoshopping people in to "fix" the "Canon Error". All films have their flaws, there's nothing gained by scribbling over them in sharpie or explaining them away in expanded source material. Most 'plot holes' and oversights aren't disastrous and if the plot hole is that disastrous a follow-up story cannot retroactively fix that, the original text was still hobbled by it. (And I feel like this obsession with plot holes in many SF fandoms really detracts from people engaging with stories in a much more interesting way)

The earlier films have various problems. They are a product of their time. But all media is a work in progress (especially a sprawling franchise), and I think it's better to try and address your oversights in your new stories than try and go back and retcon and finangle reasons for those errors or mistakes in the old ones. Tweaks and director's cuts, sure, but they are contextually different and such changes tend to hinge on artistic theme and tone more than 'historical' canon events.

On 15/02/2018 at 7:52 AM, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Sir if you are planning to use me as a conductor to hotwire a control panel to break into the tracking system of a certain flagship, I would certainly insist on a lovely dinner first. With at least two Zeltron dinner companions.

Hmm Zeltrons... <3

On 15/02/2018 at 11:25 AM, Giledhil said:

Important people ? Not one in 3 and a half seasons so far (Ashoka doesn't count, she wasn't really a part of the crew). And they have yet to kill Kanan AND Ezra to keep up with ANH.

Did I watch a different episode? We see at the end Ashoka leaving the place. Alive. Walking.

15 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

I dunno, Stan Lee and Chris Claremont are two of my heroes but I won’t hesitate to call them out on the more questionable stuff they’ve pinned.

the Empire was evil because they blew up whole planets and ruled by fear. It didn’t need to be racists as well. At least we don’t have confirmation of Sheev kicking Porgs for fun, yet.

That said, I’m very glad for the many contributions of the many many unsung heroes of Lucasfilm, Lucasarts, WEG, Decipher, Kenner and anyone else blessed and fortunate enough to work with the Greatest Space Fantasy Of All Time. Thank you. Thank you for giving Greedo a species, thank you for giving Mauler Mithel an awesome name, and THANK GOD FOR GUNBOAT!!! Sorry if I did seem ungreatful and insulting. My wife calls me on that a lot too.

While a certain lack of tact could be brought up, something I have done when talking to the old advisor, I don't think calling him out some of the ‘more dated’ aspects is all bad. After I have seen him, on these boards, seemingly cite things as gospel because he worked on them.

While much of the WEG stuff was necessary at the time, it doesn't necessarily make it better simply because it is newer. Nor does the newer automatically become better either.

I do agree that Tarkin’s slavery of Akbar was symptomatic of the old incestuous nature of the Now Legends fiction - that if a character had two seconds of screen time, they had to have an over elaborate backstory that involved being either directly related to or starting galaxy altering events (or characters); Willrow Hood I am looking at you!

Have you read Lost Stars?

Ciena Ree is involved in a lot of stuff...

Like, talk about dipping your nose into Airtime to form an elaborate background.... it’s not limited to the old stuff ?

50 minutes ago, Odanan said:

Did I watch a different episode? We see at the end Ashoka leaving the place. Alive. Walking.

I don't know about this. I really think Vador killed her.

2 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

I don't know about this. I really think Vader killed her.

That's always been my belief. Her being alive is terrible writing ("Mary Sue wins again!"). Vader killing her is him putting a nail in the coffin of Anakin and adding more anguish to the darkness of his soul. If she lived, then their confrontation is just a meaningless fight.

But that debate has been on here before, and it's not pretty, so let's not gin it up again.

35 minutes ago, BenderIsGreat said:

That's always been my belief. Her being alive is terrible writing ("Mary Sue wins again!"). Vader killing her is him putting a nail in the coffin of Anakin and adding more anguish to the darkness of his soul. If she lived, then their confrontation is just a meaningless fight.

But that debate has been on here before, and it's not pretty, so let's not gin it up again.

...Since when was Ahsoka a Mary Sue?

Do you guys actually know what Mary Sue means, or do you just say it about female characters you don't like?

52 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

I don't know about this. I really think Vador killed her.

46 minutes ago, BenderIsGreat said:

That's always been my belief. Her being alive is terrible writing ("Mary Sue wins again!"). Vader killing her is him putting a nail in the coffin of Anakin and adding more anguish to the darkness of his soul. If she lived, then their confrontation is just a meaningless fight.

But that debate has been on here before, and it's not pretty, so let's not gin it up again.

I will try not to be rude, but it doesn't matter what you think, believe, want or discuss. She is seen walking away, just like Vader.

She is alive.

5 minutes ago, Odanan said:

I will try not to be rude, but it doesn't matter what you think, believe, want or discuss. She is seen walking away, just like Vader.

She is alive.

The thing is Vader could have killed her, turning her into force ghost like Qui Gon and Obi Wan, which is what we could be seeing here.

8 minutes ago, Odanan said:

I will try not to be rude, but it doesn't matter what you think, believe, want or discuss. She is seen walking away, just like Vader.

She is alive.

That's actually a zoom from the episode ? I watched it on a 23' computer screen, so I didn't see that this clearly. Thanks for the shot.

2 minutes ago, T70 Driver said:

The thing is Vader could have killed her, turning her into force ghost like Qui Gon and Obi Wan, which is what we could be seeing here.

Actually, yes, that's a possibility. Or her "walking away" could be an allegory for her death.
Anyway, I don't see Vader letting her live.