Also, did anyone notice Feloni’s voice as one of the stormtroopers?

39 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Also, did anyone notice Feloni’s voice as one of the stormtroopers?

Well that explains all the ‘misses’ in this series....

Decent episodes. More or less what we expected, but the key event was well handled.

Not sure why a project to produce starfighters and a project to build an artificial hyperspace-capable moon that blows up planets are competing for resources though. They seem like they'd be in different leagues.

2 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

Decent episodes. More or less what we expected, but the key event was well handled.

Not sure why a project to produce starfighters and a project to build an artificial hyperspace-capable moon that blows up planets are competing for resources though. They seem like they'd be in different leagues.

Maybe it shows how many of the TIE/D that Thrawn wants to push out? Like he wants to possibly try and replace all the normal Tie fighters with the Tie Defender? That is the best I could come up with. And arguably would be a bit silly in some sense those fighters would like make paste out of the rebels and leave very high tech craft for police actions and patrolling, especially when most pirates you might be facing would be using some broken down and rusting Clone Wars fighters. Alternatively I guess it could all be part of Thrawn's preparation for whatever is coming to his people that he was worried about in the book and he wants plenty of fighters up and running.

1 minute ago, Animewarsdude said:

Maybe it shows how many of the TIE/D that Thrawn wants to push out? Like he wants to possibly try and replace all the normal Tie fighters with the Tie Defender? That is the best I could come up with. And arguably would be a bit silly in some sense those fighters would like make paste out of the rebels and leave very high tech craft for police actions and patrolling, especially when most pirates you might be facing would be using some broken down and rusting Clone Wars fighters. Alternatively I guess it could all be part of Thrawn's preparation for whatever is coming to his people that he was worried about in the book and he wants plenty of fighters up and running.

Possibly, but wouldn't the two projects go hand in hand? Utilize Project Stardust as a carrier for these new and impressive fighters? And have the best fighters available for its defense? Even if you think that fighters can't do anything to your giant Sphere o'Fear, wouldn't you want the best fighters available on it?

Shoot, skip construction on a single Star Destroyer and you'd save the resources needed to build a dozen squadrons of Defenders. I know the Empire is the exact opposite of cost-effective, but "it uses too many resources" doesn't make a lot of sense when we're talking about the different scales of these projects.

Kanan's death was long overdue. And that "eye restoring" before his death was imo too much, the whole scene was a nice ending enough without it.
They have 4 episodes to kill the apprentice now (and the Mary Sue, or else she'll destroy the whole Empire before ANH).

1 hour ago, Alpha17 said:

Possibly, but wouldn't the two projects go hand in hand? Utilize Project Stardust as a carrier for these new and impressive fighters? And have the best fighters available for its defense? Even if you think that fighters can't do anything to your giant Sphere o'Fear, wouldn't you want the best fighters available on it?

Shoot, skip construction on a single Star Destroyer and you'd save the resources needed to build a dozen squadrons of Defenders. I know the Empire is the exact opposite of cost-effective, but "it uses too many resources" doesn't make a lot of sense when we're talking about the different scales of these projects.

I know in the book Thrawn makes a point about how the Death Star was soaking up more material than fleets of ships would, and he leans more towards having multiple fleets capable of handling multiple issues than one really big ship/battle station sort of deal. It is a bit of a suspension of disbelief but I bet they could easily just throw any reason in there to explain it away, say like the Emperor was still playing ball somewhat with the Senate at the moment so two large projects even if they were secret might attract too much attention.

Or he just wanted his subordinates be at each other's throats, like in Legends.

1 hour ago, Alpha17 said:

Possibly, but wouldn't the two projects go hand in hand? Utilize Project Stardust as a carrier for these new and impressive fighters? And have the best fighters available for its defense? Even if you think that fighters can't do anything to your giant Sphere o'Fear, wouldn't you want the best fighters available on it?

Shoot, skip construction on a single Star Destroyer and you'd save the resources needed to build a dozen squadrons of Defenders. I know the Empire is the exact opposite of cost-effective, but "it uses too many resources" doesn't make a lot of sense when we're talking about the different scales of these projects.

"Resources" can mean more than raw materials. Engineers and scientists are a resource as well. We know from Rogue One that "Stardust" was running into design issues, which is why Krennic forces Galen Erso back. It may be the case that Krennic was also arguing for shifting engineers and scientists from the Defender program over to his own (which would definitely fit the character). The Empire is large, but finding engineers and scientists who are willing to help them make more powerful weapons is something that is going to shrink the available talent pool. As evidenced by Galen Erso trying to hide from them.

2 hours ago, eMeM said:

Or he just wanted his subordinates be at each other's throats, like in Legends.

This right here. By having his subordinates spending time and effort against each other, it leaves little to no time for them to instigate a military coup against the crown.

Filoni the murderer.

4 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

Decent episodes. More or less what we expected, but the key event was well handled.

Not sure why a project to produce starfighters and a project to build an artificial hyperspace-capable moon that blows up planets are competing for resources though. They seem like they'd be in different leagues.

The way I see it, Stardust has been going for almost 30 years at that point, with nothing but promises. If Thrawn can prove that elite starfighters can do more than said battlestation, he will get the accolades and the death star would have been scrapped. But, Ahrinda Price kriffed that all up, halting Thrawn’s work, making HIM look foolish in the eyes of the Emperor.

So anyway yeah, she's dead.

And so is Kanan (sp?) which was a real surprise and kind of unnecessary.

Blowing up that apparently unarmored, unshielded fuel dump was a boner move for the Empire. You'd think the governor would know that it's extremely essential to the factory's operation, given that said factory is the reason they're there in the first place, and been like "oh, let's send in every stormtrooper we have and just physically swamp them/stunblast them". Of course, they should have put huge shield generators around the fuel pods to keep everyone out in the first place.

Also, why not just glider up to the super-vulnerable fuel dump, set some charges, and glider off to have a ready-made distraction for your extraction op? Or do that before you send in your extremely valuable Y-Wings? Or let a kid plan an op?

(sigh) Rebels. At least they didn't kill Chopper, so I guess it's all okay. If Rian Johnson does in the next movie I'm gonna drive up to his house and kick him in the balls.

9 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

If we wanna get technical, Jedi masters are still Jedi knights, just not all Jedi knights are Jedi masters. Also, this

“ I was once a Jedi knight, the same as your father”

-Kenobi

Then there’s also Anakin for that short moment.

Still, I never meant to infer Kanan was the last jedi or something.

8 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

Possibly, but wouldn't the two projects go hand in hand? Utilize Project Stardust as a carrier for these new and impressive fighters? And have the best fighters available for its defense? Even if you think that fighters can't do anything to your giant Sphere o'Fear, wouldn't you want the best fighters available on it?

Shoot, skip construction on a single Star Destroyer and you'd save the resources needed to build a dozen squadrons of Defenders. I know the Empire is the exact opposite of cost-effective, but "it uses too many resources" doesn't make a lot of sense when we're talking about the different scales of these projects.

So, let's talk about this. The TIE Defender is a fairly complex, well made starfighter with various configurations, as we are all very aware. Six lasers, four lasers and two ions, and both can carry missiles, six, if need be. On top of that, Thrawn's newest long winged variant has the wonderful Hyperdrive addition.

This all fits in about the same area as a TIE/LN, and I had not even considered that Thrawn was proposing all of The Empire's fighters be replaced by the TIE Defender. That actually makes its name make sense. They're like space dobermans . They're much scarier than what they're guarding once they're close- or at least they are now cause they sure got to you fast, and do you really want to take that chance? I sure as **** wouldn't.

(Even though the Doberman I own is the dumbest, most mild tempered dog on earth. Totally useless as a guard dog but that's alright.)

But let's really consider what it takes to make the TIE Defender. now, it utilizes a similar shell to our beloved TIE/LN but not exactly the same one, given its need for a hyperdrive and an extended rear end (where I assume the reactor/fuel is kept). On top of that, it has a sickeningly efficient set of capacitors- it seriously must have, to power six gatdam lasers at once. So, what else do we know? We know it's a prototype that has not seen mass production, and that we have only seen <10 of them ever in use, to which we can assume are all being made on Lothal, a fairly remote world with just enough facilities to make the TIE Defender project happen, or at least its proof of concept.

Finally, we have to deal with making the factories. Sure you can retrofit a TIE/LN facility but how much is that gonna cost you? Quite a bit. Then, on a remote world like Lothal, fuel is precious. You have a small garrison and that depot is something that needs to be protected. Now, why can't we just get more fuel? The Empire is responsible for ten thousand planets. Lothal does not need its fuel, only The Empire needs that stuff to supply its garrison.

When it comes down to it, Thrawn is barely getting by with this project. The Rebels have just barely knocked each one out of commission, which is not at all proving their marked effectiveness against the standard, cheaper, and already being produced TIE/LN, but it is apparently somewhat easily threatened.

Is it a better fighter? No question.

Is it worth retrofitting every single TIE/LN production facility when, as threatening as they are, they consistently fail to eliminate more Rebel forces than the TIE/LN?

Probably not.

There is little doubt that the TIE/D could easily have made the difference at Yavin IV and Endor, zero doubt. But its performance, cost and so on, right now? It is not doing itself any favors. Especially when Director Krennic's "Stardust" project is taking up so many resources.

And one of the projects is a very well kept secret.

Also, based on the episode, required special fuel.

Well, that was rough. At least I got to see them kiss once. But only once, stupid Filoni...

3 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

At least I got to see them kiss once.

At least they were not brother and sister.

20 hours ago, AtomicFryingPan said:

Sorry I have to disagree this season has just been awful and these 2 episodes are just continuing the long line of disappointments. I'm honestly glad Filoni won't be continuing the show and I hope he doesn't head up anymore projects in the star wars universe.

Sadly, I have to agree. I mean, the 'key moment' was fine - that was a good way to end the character (even though it's Filoni, so we all know dang well it's not really over) - the trappings around it were just kind of...'meh'.

And I don't know why? I suppose the notes you needed to have hit were hit - Hera grieving (although that felt somewhat mis-fired), Sabine and Zeb going agro (although extremely stupidly and unsatisfyingly), and Ezra doing...actually, that part I liked least. Filoni's thing with animals/familiars is just...I dunno, it feels off . Sort of outside of the typical Star Wars setting.

Also: man, are they wasting Rukh. I can't see nearly as interesting an end to the Thrawn/Rukh arc, here, which means they are either going to totally blow it and rush the conclusion (SURELY they aren't going to have Rukh come back from that encounter and suddenly be changed because he was spared, right? SURELY not ?!?!? ) or leave that arc to some undefined future point. Which...I wouldn't hate , but, geez, you'd better have the finale episode alongside Disney's announcement of the follow-up Thrawn-centric series that DOES resolve it - otherwise, that's going to make the ending of this series feel very weak.

24 minutes ago, xanderf said:

Sadly, I have to agree. I mean, the 'key moment' was fine - that was a good way to end the character (even though it's Filoni, so we all know dang well it's not really over) - the trappings around it were just kind of...'meh'.

And I don't know why? I suppose the notes you needed to have hit were hit - Hera grieving (although that felt somewhat mis-fired), Sabine and Zeb going agro (although extremely stupidly and unsatisfyingly), and Ezra doing...actually, that part I liked least. Filoni's thing with animals/familiars is just...I dunno, it feels off . Sort of outside of the typical Star Wars setting.

Also: man, are they wasting Rukh. I can't see nearly as interesting an end to the Thrawn/Rukh arc, here, which means they are either going to totally blow it and rush the conclusion (SURELY they aren't going to have Rukh come back from that encounter and suddenly be changed because he was spared, right? SURELY not ?!?!? ) or leave that arc to some undefined future point. Which...I wouldn't hate , but, geez, you'd better have the finale episode alongside Disney's announcement of the follow-up Thrawn-centric series that DOES resolve it - otherwise, that's going to make the ending of this series feel very weak.

Consider that in the S4 trailer there is footage of a Zeb rukh fight that we have not seen yet, so no turn for him in the near future.

Thrawn won't die. You don't announce a book furthering his story and kill him prior to release. People won't really care about knowing more about him if his story ends shoddily.

With the focus on the force next week, theres no way they will have time to develop Rukh's betrayal. There was no attempt by the rebels to turncoat Rukh and the Noghri doesn't have motivation to betray his master, if anything his humiliation and Sabine and Zeb's hands will only fuel his venom towards the Rebels.

Thrawn's safe, guys. Don't worry about that. I think we'll have him around for a good long time.

17 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

The way I see it, Stardust has been going for almost 30 years at that point, with nothing but promises.

20 not 30. Construction for it began part-way through the Clone Wars, the Clone Wars ended some 19 years before ANH, and we are currently a year or so before ANH, give or take a few months.

There was no attempt by the rebels to turncoat Rukh and the Noghri doesn't have motivation to betray his master, if anything his humiliation and Sabine and Zeb's hands will only fuel his venom towards the Rebels.

It's possible. Still, it's also possible that he will be conscious of them having shown mercy to him by not killing him.

9 hours ago, Sithborg said:

Also, based on the episode, required special fuel.

Well, that was rough. At least I got to see them kiss once. But only once, stupid Filoni...

The moment Hera said it, I thought "well that's Kanan dead..."

16 minutes ago, Stryker359 said:

The moment Hera said it, I thought "well that's Kanan dead..."

I thought it when he lost his lightsaber.