I think Rebels is okay; not great, but okay. (Despite the flaws therein, I still prefer the Force Unleashed for my Rebel Alliance origin story, as long as we ignore the second one...)

What it has done, however, is give us more ships to play with, while not scraping the bottom of the EU barrel any more. (The TIE Punisher is something I really wish they hadn't made; it would have been a good slot for the XG-1.)

IMO rebels has its good aspects and bad aspects. It's not an animation masterpiece by any means, but it's fun and easy to watch.

Regarding the ships from Rebels, if FFG CAN pull from there it's great, but if FFG MUST pull from there and the movies before they can pull from Legends (insert evil Mouse conspiracy theory here) then it'sless great.

Watamote failed for me because of how predictably banal each interaction was going to be - she'd try to blend in, fail miserably, feel humiliated, and retreat to try again without learning any real lesson.

That was the point of Watamote though. Tomoki isn't supposed to really grow in any substantial form becasue you lose the appeal of the show if she becomes competent at things.

No, the whole point of the first season is that Watamote learns not to care so much about trying to be what she isn't. She's also an anti-hero, and is quite realistic in that change for a person like her is hard. Unfortunately because she is not "cute" the series didn't get a second season. The OVA hints at what lies in store for her though.

The manga continues the story, and she actually makes friends other than Yuu-chan . She is by no means normal, though (and her friends/enemies/victims aren't either).

One interesting fact about the show is that it was its success with foreign audiences - and especially with 4chan - that made sales go through the roof instead of it just fading into obscurity. This is why you have Western animation influences in the show, and why she explains things like the roof is actually never open to students. It never would have been popular in Japan at first because it picked at the underbelly of Japanese life.

imho, it falls short because it rehashes too many main points from the OT and uses animations that range from good to mediocre.

Where would Rebels fit?

A solid 5 on Keffisch's Subjective Scale of CG animation.

What would be your ten?

Tough call. I am torn between Apleseed Alpha and Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

Those are full-lengths though but for a recent series, I'd say Netflix's Knights of Sydonia (the cell shading takes some getting used to but man, those animations). For very old stuff I'd say Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles, it has not aged well but when it came out (late 90s iirc) it was top-notch.

To further elaborate on my comment on Rebels' rehash of the OT.

Young kid runs away to become a jedi.

Finds a crass alien brute, a charming roguish fellow that takes him under his wing and a stern and capable woman.

Now where have we seen that before..

Harlock I'll give you on animation, especially the smoke effects. You're getting nothing for the story, which was about as good as the plot of the 3D Startroopers anime remake.

"What do we sail for!?! . . . . FOR FREEEDOM!!!", "I loved my sister, but hated my brother; and now she loves him more than me.... soraticide time.", "Teh Earth was destroyed all along, but there are flowers so it's o.k.."

(Plus the dear Captain is the Maryyiest of all O.P. Sues. Nothing even scratched that ship because they always had more lasers or a hidden jump drive.")

Knights of Sidonia had a fair story, executed nicely. (Young boy is trained by the old master, old master dies and the boy akwardly finds his place as the sole hero of his people while an evil-cause-I'm-evil villain tries to steal his glory and the magic girl he fell in love with." Where have we seen this before? )

The animation was pretty good effects-wise, and they did a really cool thing with their 2D-3D look.

However, they do do the shaky-cam-flash-movement thing in the fight scenes, and the character movement does the "non-speaking-characters-are-twitchy-statues" thing that most anime does to save animation time.

Here's a nice test to see if the "animation" is good or not: watch it with the volume muted. (And no subtitles, cheater. ) If you are intrigued by the character action (Fights don't count.) without even without knowing what the words are, it's good animation.

(Edit. To contrast.)

If you like this show, don't watch the 3rd season when it comes out. Tanikaze's harem grows, every single Mary Sue-ism and plot armour is activated and all the fascinating questions are left unanswered. Just like Battlestar Galactica (which it really is just a clone of - and yes, I started out loving the show). Also: holy JJBrams lens flare. Every. Single. Show.

For me, a really good cel-shaded 3D animation is Wakfu. I had no idea that they used 3D figures until the camera spun around a character. It's a kid's show but has actual adult themes (being French and all). I would rather Rebels used that particular style rather than this hand-drawn texture for walls which looks like a cheap 1999 game.

Re:Zero also uses 3D animation quite well for crowd scenes. It is a little obvious, but they actually took the time to make some dino-person merchant in the background, blink, yawn and look around. Subtle attentions to detail like that really make animation look "real." If you look at crowd scenes in Rebels, you'll usually see a lot of NPC interaction and activity, not just randomly populated with a "random NPC + movement" paintbrush.

I think Rebels is okay; not great, but okay. (Despite the flaws therein, I still prefer the Force Unleashed for my Rebel Alliance origin story, as long as we ignore the second one...)

What it has done, however, is give us more ships to play with, while not scraping the bottom of the EU barrel any more. (The TIE Punisher is something I really wish they hadn't made; it would have been a good slot for the XG-1.)

What Force Unleashed do you like? I haven't looked into the book, because the horrible PC-version of the game sucked out all of my enjoyment of the story. That stupid Star Destroyer scene should have been awesome, but it is just the worst thing in the history of video games.

My main complaint, if you can't see the eyes of the character they die, guaranteed. All officers look the same albiet two variances. All rebel pilots are the same (gender being the only difference).

Then most of the space combat always feels one sided, never actually back and forth, don't get me started on how much the whole mandalorian protectors episode showed that they can't give good feeling to a space fight, felt like a carousal.

That said, it is enjoyable and has its moments, but definitely not a great show. The season two finale was great outside of the saber helicopters.

My main complaint, if you can't see the eyes of the character they die, guaranteed. All officers look the same albiet two variances. All rebel pilots are the same (gender being the only difference).

Thats sadly due to budget cuts coming from the overly expensive TCW :/

My main complaint, if you can't see the eyes of the character they die, guaranteed. All officers look the same albiet two variances. All rebel pilots are the same (gender being the only difference).

Thats sadly due to budget cuts coming from the overly expensive TCW :/

Eyes are easy to do, and there is software to make individual variations at the click of a mouse.

Thing is, it's a kid's show with a high body count - they probably do this to slip past censorship (like the way Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum and Marceline's past lesbian relationship is only ever hinted at).

My main complaint, if you can't see the eyes of the character they die, guaranteed. All officers look the same albiet two variances. All rebel pilots are the same (gender being the only difference).

Thats sadly due to budget cuts coming from the overly expensive TCW :/

Eyes are easy to do, and there is software to make individual variations at the click of a mouse.

Thing is, it's a kid's show with a high body count - they probably do this to slip past censorship (like the way Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum and Marceline's past lesbian relationship is only ever hinted at).

That was less about the eyes and more about the models being all the same.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Where did you get the idea that Disney would plan anything like that? Everything speaks against that when they specificaly stated that all movies and the Clone Wars series are canon back when they announced the reset.

My main complaint, if you can't see the eyes of the character they die, guaranteed. All officers look the same albiet two variances. All rebel pilots are the same (gender being the only difference).

Thats sadly due to budget cuts coming from the overly expensive TCW :/

Eyes are easy to do, and there is software to make individual variations at the click of a mouse.

Thing is, it's a kid's show with a high body count - they probably do this to slip past censorship (like the way Adventure Time's Princess Bubblegum and Marceline's past lesbian relationship is only ever hinted at).

That was less about the eyes and more about the models being all the same.

Every single crowd scene ant in Antz is individual, randomised model created from an algorithm. And it's a film made nearly 20 years ago. Hell, there are free plugins for Blender that do this. There are whole games that create random models. Therefore it's a stylistic choice, done for whatever reasons they have.

The main character heads are sculpted as clay maquettes, based on concept drawings. The makers have to be satisfied that the character design can be used in a 3D medium (as opposed to Knights of Sidonia's uncanny valley horror puppets). Only then is the sculpt scanned translated to a 3D mesh. The same guy was used for the Clone Wars and Rebels' main character maquettes.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

:D

Every single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.

The same applies to TCW.

ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Wait... what?

:D

Every single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.

The same applies to TCW.

ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

Actually it does, if FFG's licence does not cover TCW and the prequels. The mere fact that it is there means that it is fair game as far as licensing goes.

Rebels is ok. Yes, in a way it's "Star Wars for kids", but I see nothing wrong in that.

Some episodes are a bit thin, mostly following the pattern:

1. Characters get into trouble.

2. Problem miraculously solved.

But in season 2 the story starts progressing a little bit better and the episodes start linking up better with each other.

Isn't this pretty much the formula for just about every TV show ever though?

Not every show. But yes, it is very common. That does not mean it's a good thing, however.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Wait... what?

:D

Every single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.

The same applies to TCW.

ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

Actually it does, if FFG's licence does not cover TCW and the prequels. The mere fact that it is there means that it is fair game as far as licensing goes.

TCW-only characters have appeared in the game before.

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Wait... what? :D :DEvery single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.The same applies to TCW.ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

Actually it does, if FFG's licence does not cover TCW and the prequels. The mere fact that it is there means that it is fair game as far as licensing goes.

That's just BS, do you really think there is a licence that restricts to a certain time frame? They either have Star Wars license or not.TCW-only characters have appeared in the game before.

That's way too huge of an assumption for you to make assuredly, especially if dismissing someone's claim as 'BS' within the same breath.

We don't have access to FFG's legal contracts. We do know that nothing exclusive from the prequels has touched X-Wing until it has appeared in Rebels, along with a handful of other Rebels ships.

Just because a ship's inclusion in the episode is seemingly meaningless to the plot, artists creating its 3D design had to put just as much work modeling it as they would have with other ships featured more prominently.

To get this back on topic, one of the other things I like about Rebels is that none of the characters quite fit what they are or what their species usually is.

idk, sabine's got the boba-fett bounty hunter esque resemblance down

why?

We do know that nothing exclusive from the prequels has touched X-Wing until it has appeared in Rebels, along with a handful of other Rebels ships.

We do not however know why.

As you say we don't have access to their contract so we don't actually know that they can't make prequel ships, we only know they haven't. We know that FFG said they wanted to stick to the Galactic Civil War period and beyond. We also know that all ships have to be approved of by LFL.

We also know that they started working on Wave 9 around 18 months ago... Which is I believe a good ways before that episode was aired.

But there is one thing I do know... I couldn't care less why the ARC is in wave 9, and I can't see why it matters to anyone else either.

@raptor, go away, people are wrong on the Internets, I must show them

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Wait... what? :DEvery single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.The same applies to TCW.ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

Actually it does, if FFG's licence does not cover TCW and the prequels. The mere fact that it is there means that it is fair game as far as licensing goes.

That's just BS, do you really think there is a licence that restricts to a certain time frame? They either have Star Wars license or not.TCW-only characters have appeared in the game before.

That's way too huge of an assumption for you to make assuredly, especially if dismissing someone's claim as 'BS' within the same breath.

We don't have access to FFG's legal contracts. We do know that nothing exclusive from the prequels has touched X-Wing until it has appeared in Rebels, along with a handful of other Rebels ships.

Just because a ship's inclusion in the episode is seemingly meaningless to the plot, artists creating its 3D design had to put just as much work modeling it as they would have with other ships featured more prominently.

It is BS.

The Clone Wars-exclusive pilots are already in game.

The "cameo" in question was a wrecked ARC, without wings. Wouldn't that mean the "ARC-170" is still illegal for FFG, but they can use the "Wrecked ARC-170"? Maybe it wasn't a ARC-170 at all but for example an ARC-112, a firefighting variant? We don't see the armament, so we can't be sure.

How do you think such license would look like?
"You cannot touch Episode I-III and TCW stuff, unless it appears in a material approved by us?"

It just sounds ridicolous. There are things like Tarkin novel full of prequel references, does that mean that FFG got access to 15 ships, 27 characters and 8 planets they couldn't use before, just because they were mentioned once in a random novel?

What about the old EU? They clearly had access to that and there are loads and loads of prequel era books and OT era books with prequel references. Where do you put the border? The "Death Star" novel is clearly OT era but features a Lucrehulk.

What about planets? Can't FFG use for example Utapau in their RPGs because it's prequel-exclusive? But this planet still exist in the universe during the OT and Jar Jar Abrams era.

There is NO prequel-exclusive content, Star Wars is a single, coherent universe.

So you've actually seen the license agreement? Shouldn't you be bound by an NDA?

It's extremely unlikely the very brief appearance of an ARC-170 in an abandoned clone base is why the ship's in X-Wing.

How? what's your reasoning? With this cameo, the ARC-170 is part of new Disney canon, even if Disney hits the reset on the prequels.

Wait... what?

:D

Every single frame of the prequels is and will be canon forever.

The same applies to TCW.

ARC-170 "appereance" as a wreck in the background in the abandoned Republic base has nothing to do with its introduction to X-wing.

Actually it does, if FFG's licence does not cover TCW and the prequels. The mere fact that it is there means that it is fair game as far as licensing goes.

That's just BS, do you really think there is a licence that restricts to a certain time frame? They either have Star Wars license or not.

TCW-only characters have appeared in the game before.

Clarified that for you.

A licence tells you exactly what you can use from an Intellectual Property and how you can use it. Have you heard of the new X-Men vs. Avengers movie? No? There isn't going to be one because of licencing. Same comic book universe, two different sets of characters - who each have separate IPs. Deadpool even cracked a joke about it. I think one of the reason you never saw Rey action figures was that Lucasfilm wanted too much for a main character that the toy companies thought wouldn't sell (because she was a gurl). Licencing is a byzantine affair. When Google wanted to call their Android K-update "Kit Kat," all they did was call up Nestle and a few papers were signed. No money changed hands - Nestle made a limited edition Kit Kat and Android got to call its update Kit Kat.

For all we know, FFG has the option to use prequel era material but doesn't want to pay for it. It may be that physical models cost more in licencing fees, or that Lucasfilm wants to quietly hold a pillow over the prequels until they stop thrashing.

So, if you still want to tell us what IP licencing means, I'm going to assume you have some experience in intellectual property law?

To counter your point generally, lets go back to the ARC-170, a prequel ship therefore unlikely to be have been made had it not featured for the briefest of cameos in... You guessed it: Rebels.

Wait, there are actually people who think that the barely-noticeable cameo of a wrecked ARC in Rebels is why it's being included in X-Wing?

Seeing as the designers actually said they weren't going to do prequel ships and we have had no other prequel ships, I'd say that's a pretty likely reason.

Umm....except the Y-wing and the Z-95?

FFG said they weren't bringing in prequel ships, but that doesn't mean ships from the prequels that happen to get used in the Galactic Civil War don't count. The Rebels use whatever they can and if they happen to grab some old ARC-170's, it becomes a GCW ship, not a prequel ship.

While the ship hasn't been used in anything canon yet, it doesn't mean that it won't be. Aftermath 2 book comes out next month and it's quite possible that they use the ARC-170 in the book! Or maybe something else that will come out. That would just end the debate.

So you've actually seen the license agreement? Shouldn't you be bound by an NDA?

I'm George Lucas, I know how Star Wars works even if I don't know what exactly has Disney and FFG signed.

Clarified that for you.

A licence tells you exactly what you can use from an Intellectual Property and how you can use it. Have you heard of the new X-Men vs. Avengers movie? No? There isn't going to be one because of licencing. Same comic book universe, two different sets of characters - who each have separate IPs. Deadpool even cracked a joke about it. I think one of the reason you never saw Rey action figures was that Lucasfilm wanted too much for a main character that the toy companies thought wouldn't sell (because she was a gurl). Licencing is a byzantine affair. When Google wanted to call their Android K-update "Kit Kat," all they did was call up Nestle and a few papers were signed. No money changed hands - Nestle made a limited edition Kit Kat and Android got to call its update Kit Kat.

For all we know, FFG has the option to use prequel era material but doesn't want to pay for it. It may be that physical models cost more in licencing fees, or that Lucasfilm wants to quietly hold a pillow over the prequels until they stop thrashing.

So, if you still refute all this, I'm going to assume you have some experience in intellectual property law?

Yes! What kind of a rubbish license would expand by itself ?

The comment about holding pillow over prequels is silly. People know and love ARC because of the prequels, not because it appeared as a wreck in the background of one Rebels episode.