5 hours ago, NotBatman said:

The cherry would be Thrawn getting a promotion out of it - he's not a Grand Admiral yet, right?

actually he is. it is specifically mentioned in dialog when he is introduced. the Governor introduces him as Grand Admiral Thrawn, and the other Admiral we've had for awhile goes "grand admiral?", to which responds he was recently promoted by the Emperor for one of his recent victories. (which kallus points out involved civilian casualties higher than the casualties to the rebels during its early phases)

6 hours ago, NotBatman said:

The cherry would be Thrawn getting a promotion out of it - he's not a Grand Admiral yet, right?

He is already a Grand Admiral.

Ninja'd

I hope to god that he, Thrawn, doesn´t get a wimpy exit from the show. He needs to go out victorious, for better things.

Otherwise this is just a cheap SW show for kids, and a betrayal of all that came before

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Wait, you never read the old EU book that details his origins, and you call yourself a Thrawn fan?

If it came out after New Jedi Order, then no. I pretty much checked out of Star Wars books entirely at that point.

Just now, DarthEnderX said:

If it came out after New Jedi Order, then no. I pretty much checked out of Star Wars books entirely at that point.

Agreed, actually, about the later books. I think the last book I read when it was new was... Wraith Squadron? Yeah, that sounds about right. "Okay, so you're telling the same exact story that you told four books ago, but this time I'm supposed to care because..?" Then I tried to pick up the NJO a few years later and just got pissed about it.

But I did make an exception for a Zahn book about Thrawn, and I'm glad I did. It wasn't earth-shaking writing, but it was good, and gave some nice insights to the character and the Chiss, along with some (now obsolete) early Palpatine machinations. Even if the subtle hint that this is how Palpatine found out about the Vongs made me vomit a bit. *sigh*

8 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

But I did make an exception for a Zahn book about Thrawn, and I'm glad I did.

Honestly, I wasn't even aware that it existed, because when I stopped reading Star Wars novels, I stopped even keeping track with what was coming out.

I have some vague awareness of the fact that Jacen becomes a Sith at some point, and then the books get to some point 100 years later where Fel's descendant rules the Empire for some reason. But I mostly only know that from looking at wookieepedia pages about starships.

8 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

Then I tried to pick up the NJO a few years later and just got pissed about it.

I forced myself to get all the way to the end of that story arc, just for the sake of closure.

But I'll be honest, it wasn't even THOSE books that made me stop reading Star Wars books. It was when they started releasing prequel novels. Those were the first books that came out where I was like, "I don't really need to read these." and then for whatever reason my brain went, "If I'm not reading all these books, I don't really need to be reading ANY of them."

And that was that.

1 hour ago, Larky Bobble said:

I hope to god that he, Thrawn, doesn´t get a wimpy exit from the show. He needs to go out victorious, for better things.

Otherwise this is just a cheap SW show for kids, and a betrayal of all that came before

I wouldn't write of the entire show for sake of one character, but I do think that a victory is measured by the magnitude of the challenge overcome. We know the rebels will win in the end, so really it's only the prestige of the rebels that suffers if Thrawn is not dangerously close to victory or something like that.

Yes, Thrawn would seem wimpy too if he just puttered out, but it would mostly rob the rebels of a meaningful victory. We're kind of writing backwards here you see: we know who's going to win, what matters is how much it meant for them to win.

How close was it? What did they have to overcome? Did any of them give up along the way or lose themselves in the battle?

Thrawn is the current representative of their struggle, and it makes sense after the relatively easy challenges of the Inquisitors for him to be crueler, harder, and more deadly. He is the one currently driving the story, without the villain the story just ends and the heroes go home, their challenges over; he must be harsh for their sake as characters.

He must hurt them.

He must make them afraid.

He must push them back so that in order to win they must be truly heroic .


It is for certain that you can't be a hero, if you don't have a dragon to slay. You can pretend, prop up, inflate a monster, but people know a true hero when they see one. The true hero is the one standing on the mountain of dead dragon meat, not the one standing on the deflated pool toy.

In the end Thrawn will either be the mountain of dead meat or the pool toy, and that is what will make the heroes heroes, or not.

6 hours ago, Larky Bobble said:

I hope to god that he, Thrawn, doesn´t get a wimpy exit from the show. He needs to go out victorious, for better things.

Otherwise this is just a cheap SW show for kids, and a betrayal of all that came before

Given how popular Thrawn is,I think a ton of people will be up in arms if Rebels Thrawn doesn't live up to book Thrawn.

Now that I have seen the Season´ s finale trailer again and froze the image of where I thought I saw the Light Carrier of Phoenix Squadron explode....

I am wondering about whether the exploding ship actually is the Triangular light carrier.

The exploding ship looks far to boxy instead of triangular. Might it be a Gladiator-class Destroyer?

Is this the destoyer being attacked by the Y-wings earlier in the trailer?

Might it be the ship carrying Thrawn´ s TIE Defenders?

The build up to Zero Hour be like "Thrawn is going to have his waaaayyyyyy tonight!"

I just re-watched the Obi-Wan / Maul duel. It was freaking amazing. So brilliant of the show-runners not to turn that into a spinning ballet leaping force pushing joke. So elegant. Two blocks and a flawless strike. THAT'S a Jedi.

Just now, BlodVargarna said:

I just re-watched the Obi-Wan / Maul duel. It was freaking amazing. So brilliant of the show-runners not to turn that into a spinning ballet leaping force pushing joke. So elegant. Two blocks and a flawless strike. THAT'S a Jedi.

Amen!

Just on a Sidenote, going back to the Lightsaber disscussion:

I've just finished the canon novel "Heir of the Jedi", a great book 9/10, would read again (but beware: the feels are strong with this one)

However Luke finds a Lightsaber and takes it appart to studi it's workings (so he could one day build his own Lightsaber)
Every Lightsaber has a Energycell (which was apparently uninteresting) Furthermore it had multiple Crystals, one of whichwas called the Focussingcrystal (giving the Blade the colour) and multiple smaller ones (I think it was 3) which could be missplaced easily and needed precision force use to get in the right position.
Since the Kybercrystal turns the Energy from the Blade into a Plasmabeam that loops back into the emitter, the missplacement of the crystals had unforseeable consequences, rendering the Lightsaber basically useless.
Furthermore there was a knob to regualte the Intensity of the Blade, so the Practice mode of the Lightsaber seems to not be as far off as some have speculated

The novel also gave a nice insight into how the Dark Side feels.
For one it is cold, like a rage, but the Force seems to support you and give you a feeling of power and invincibility, whilest it also seems to actually increase the abillities quite a bit. (while the light side kinda is just there, but does nothing to you, except that you feel warm and calm when you connect to it)

It's my personal speculation that the Dark Side is kind of like a power-amping drug at first, greatly increasing your powers the first few times you use it; but the more you use the Dark Side, the less of a boost you get from it, until the point comes where you HAVE to use it just to reach the base level of a Light Side user. The abilities it gives Sith (Force choking, lightning, expositing about its power) are AVAILABLE to non-Sith (a Padawan force-choked a Trandoshan in TCW), but wouldn't be used because they're not in keeping with an outlook about balance and quickly ending the lives of anyone opposing you.

People are saying the Rebels will win. just because they escape does not mean they win... just saying. If they escape but only have the Ghost, a GR75, and a handful of Y-Wings thats not winning. But it does explain why the Lothal group joined Mothma's group and we don't see much of the lothal assets in place.

If they manage to destroy the TIE Defender factory before getting routed, they could technically count that as a win. Even if it ends up being a pyrrhic victory.

5 hours ago, Forresto said:

The build up to Zero Hour be like "Thrawn is going to have his waaaayyyyyy tonight!"

Thrawn is bringing out the fleet tonight-
the Rebels gonna taste defeat tonight!

He strung em' all along in his insidious plot-
they tried to keep away but now a battle'll be fought!

Thrawn didn't need a cape tonight-
the Rebels won't escape tonight!

He has an interdictor and he's turning it on-
those rebels should have thought twice before battling Thrawn!

Heeeee's Thraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwn!
Da-da-da-da-da-dum-dad-dum-dum. (He's Thrawn!)

Hmmm that, my friends, is an Interdictor blowing up.

I could be wrong, maybe its just splitting in half, but there is more mass in that explosion to the left of the interdictor? Again either the ship split in half or that's a third ship in that mess.

The Interdictor does look like it's splitting in half and the series of white lights in between the split pieces looks like the hangar lights of the Quasarfire carrier. Looks to me that the Rebels had to sacrifice one of their most valuable assets in order to make their escape. Maybe Sato sacrifices himself here, that would lead Hera to later assume the position of General and leader of Phoenix cell.

Interesting.... Sato's carrier doing a kamikaze against an Interdictor.

Would fit as heroic defeat. ...

Wow, that episode.

That entire engagement was beautifully done.

34 minutes ago, MPG said:

Wow, that episode.

That entire engagement was beautifully done.

Sato's sacrifice was great, he wasn't afraid to do what needed to be done. I'm pretty sure the two pilots are the ones we've seen with him before, and the fact they were willing to go down with him shows that he was a great commander. (I assume Konstantine dies as well, we never hear about him again.)

Phoenix squadron seemed rather competent. The new green squadron seems to have taken the role of redshirt.

Bendu seemed more like a deus ex-machina moment (I guess I can let it slide, as he seems to be the SW equivalent of a god). It still felt a bit cheap.

I was also sad to see that the Mcquarrie corvette died at the last second, it having one of my favorite hull patterns of all ships.

Best of all...

THRAWN DIDN'T DIE

May I ask were did you watch the episode? Kisscartoon website seems to be down.

So much Braha'tok goodness in the finale.

37 minutes ago, Wraithdt said:

May I ask were did you watch the episode? Kisscartoon website seems to be down.

DisneyXD

If you have a cable package with Disney (or a Verizon account) it should be view able.