Star Wars: Resistance (The next animated series)

By Desslok, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I have seen 2 eps so far, and I like it. It as I expected, kid like, much like Rebels was in the first season.

I am sure as the story line develops, and gets more complex, I have no doubt it will seem less kid like.

For those that are waiting for a more "adult" show, I suggest you lower expectations. This wasn't a bad show at all.

I'm cautiously optimistic so far. The cel shading looks good and the environments look a bit more crowded and varied than rebels. And as with rebels I took an instant shine to the supporting cast and want to strangle the main character. Then again, bonus point for the show not pushing him to be cool and likable but is willing to be patient and have the audience warm up to him over time.

At least that's what I hope they're doing.

The new starship designs have been pretty cool so far as well.

I enjoyed it. :ph34r:

Oh crap - this is out? I thought it was closer to Halloween. Off to the Bittorrents!

I'm digging it thus far, it has that Star Wars je ne sais quoi all right. I really like the animation style, much more so than Clone Wars and Rebels. It definitely seemed to be youth-oriented but it wasn't overly trite. There seems to be a lot brewing already for future plot development.

42 minutes ago, themensch said:

I really like the animation style, much more so than Clone Wars and Rebels.

While I am truly happy that this style has fans, I cannot count myself as one of them. Otherwise, I currently have no complaints and am genuinely interested to see where it goes.

"Clone Wars" was painterly, "Rebels" was dynamic but "Resistance" just feels bright but bland to me (see below).

I tried to find pictures that were representational and roughly analogous (most specifically posture and faces) to each other so as not to cherry-pick "best against worst" examples.

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Edited by Aluminium Falcon

Honestly I don't like any of these three styles, but I agree that clone wars is the best.

2 hours ago, Aluminium Falcon said:

There's that bright outline effect that I found so distracting. It's like they went out of their way to make sure that light & shadow looked totally off.

I actually am enjoying the art style too. Not as much as Clone Wars, but at least it's a little less "plain" than Rebels. And I will say it looks far better in motion than it does in screen shots. As most things that use cell shading do. Like look at Wind Waker as an example.

40 minutes ago, onebadveggie said:

I actually am enjoying the art style too. Not as much as Clone Wars, but at least it's a little less "plain" than Rebels. And I will say it looks far better in motion than it does in screen shots. As most things that use cell shading do. Like look at Wind Waker as an example.

You can really tell it's 3D when you see the shadows moving over the pilots in the race shots there's no way a low budget hand drawn show could afford that kind of animation. Compared to the cartoons I watched as a kid such as Starblazers, Simba, GIJoe, Transformers, this is really high quality animation.

12 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

There's that bright outline effect that I found so distracting. It's like they went out of their way to make sure that light & shadow looked totally off.

In Disney's The Illusion of Life it talks about how they tried to get away from the hard black outline in their animations and went for various width outlines with shades that matched the mood. It looks like they tried to program something like this into the rendering program and just ended up with a halo effect. I found it distracting as well.

2 hours ago, onebadveggie said:

I actually am enjoying the art style too. Not as much as Clone Wars, but at least it's a little less "plain" than Rebels. And I will say it looks far better in motion than it does in screen shots. As most things that use cell shading do. Like look at Wind Waker as an example.

Man, I just don't know who thought the animation of those wookiees in the first episode of Rebels was a good idea. I do think I too like the Clone Wars, later seasons, best. Well, technically I liked Genndy Tartakovsky best but I realize I'm probably in the minority there.

3 hours ago, themensch said:

Man, I just don't know who thought the animation of those wookiees in the first episode of Rebels was a good idea. I do think I too like the Clone Wars, later seasons, best. Well, technically I liked Genndy Tartakovsky best but I realize I'm probably in the minority there.

I loved Tartakovsky's animation, but to me that just wasn't Star Wars. As stylistic and fun to watch as it was, it was far too over-the-top to fit in with the actual movies. So far, all three of the 3D shows are more grounded and mesh better with what we see on the bug screen.

1 hour ago, Underachiever599 said:

I loved Tartakovsky's animation, but to me that just wasn't Star Wars. As stylistic and fun to watch as it was, it was far too over-the-top to fit in with the actual movies. So far, all three of the 3D shows are more grounded and mesh better with what we see on the bug screen.

Do you have a dirty car window from driving in Florida during love-bug mating season? ;)

Edited by Eoen

I have mixed thoughts about the first episode. First the bad. Decent voice acting, but the story is a bit underwhelming...how many RPG adventures follow this exact formula: you lost your money so you need to win the race, and somebody who dislikes you has a ship you can borrow, but it's not really working and you need some parts, but to get those parts you have to find a walking piranha some weird alien likes to eat...oh, and the competition is the local princess whose dad would probably kill you on sight. On the whole I found the story and the "oh no, what will we do next" kind of dull.

Then there's the protagonist, who is an imbecile. I guess all character arcs have to start somewhere low (or high, depending on the arc), but that kid has serious issues. They gave that guy an X-Wing? Military training would have drummed out all that silliness.

But then there's the animation. It's weird. The animation is 3D, and very well done as far as physics, gestures, etc. All the characters move and act in convincing ways. But the lighting is 2D, which makes it flat and harsh and I dislike it. On the plus side, the animation detail is actually superior to Rebels, there is a LOT of detail going on in the background, which I welcome. There are more models, more species, just all around more stuff going on, and that jazzes me up. It also looks like they can work with a bigger 3D space...I actually got a bit of vertigo during the race, and the camera pan and sweep shots were almost up to TCW level. The speed during the race felt convincing. I guess when you remove all textures from objects, only give them a flat colour and shade depending on lighting, you have more time in the render-farm to create a bigger 3D environment.

But it wasn't terrible, and I'll probably keep watching, even if only for the world-building. Hopefully it'll get a bit darker, with more at stake, and these characters can start to tell us who they really are.

51 minutes ago, whafrog said:

T hen there's the protagonist, who is an imbecile. I guess all character arcs have to start somewhere low (or high, depending on the arc), but that kid has serious issues. They gave that guy an X-Wing? Military training would have drummed out all that silliness.

Well he is the son of a senator. Chances are there was some nepotism and favoritism that went into our protagonist getting that comission. He is shown to be a decent pilot though, as well as good at darts.

A lot of his more imbecilic moments probably have more to do with being way out of his comfort zone and ocerwhelmed. Poe probably couldn't have picked a worse spy though. The Nikto that takes everything literally would probably have been better at the job.

4 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

The Nikto that takes everything literally

Look, it's Drax (GotG) without the aggression! Which is a little too bad, because that Nikto would be a whole lot more interesting to me if he showed some stereotypical Nikto aggression even if he's not physically impressive, but on a kids show it's not proper to have aggressive protagonists (especially in young males).

On 10/12/2018 at 7:42 PM, Darth Revenant said:

Well he is the son of a senator. Chances are there was some nepotism and favoritism that went into our protagonist getting that comission. He is shown to be a decent pilot though, as well as good at darts.

A lot of his more imbecilic moments probably have more to do with being way out of his comfort zone and ocerwhelmed. Poe probably couldn't have picked a worse spy though. The Nikto that takes everything literally would probably have been better at the job.

This bugs me too, and I ponder the reasoning behind making the character this way. Ezra and Ahsoka were at least thoughtful, even clever, even if their episodic "lessons learned" were a bit preachy. This young man is a moron.

I hope there is a point to it -- it just doesn't add up and it's such a slap in the face with a wet fish that it has to be intentional given then young audience they expect and not amateur writing. Perhaps they are trying to inspire thoughtfulness and consideration of one's place in a community & team with the youthful audience, given the turmoil contained in the zeitgeist right now.

Cmdr Data...er, the nikto, is probably going to get old quickly but I guess that running gag is popular with the kids, too.

Definitely aimed towards children moreso than Rebels or tcw was. Couldn't even make it through the first 5 mins due to how insufferable the main character is. Not a huge fan of Poe Dameron either, so his apoe-rance didn't help things.

No interest in this series until Butera is removed from it.

I had to be told (on here, maybe it was) that the Nikto was a Nikto. I thought he was a Rodian because all I could see of his face were the big black eyes and the chin, which I took for the long proboscis.

So actually, maybe this animation style isn't my thing...?

26 minutes ago, Mindless Philosopher said:

I had to be told (on here, maybe it was) that the Nikto was a Nikto. I thought he was a Rodian because all I could see of his face were the big black eyes and the chin, which I took for the long proboscis.

So actually, maybe this animation style isn't my thing...?

There was both a Nikto and a Rodian in the show. Hype Fazon (played by Donald Faison) is the Rodian pilot. Neeku Vozo is the Nikto.

5 hours ago, Mindless Philosopher said:

I had to be told (on here, maybe it was) that the Nikto was a Nikto. I thought he was a Rodian because all I could see of his face were the big black eyes and the chin, which I took for the long proboscis.

So actually, maybe this animation style isn't my thing...?

Have you confused the characters? He looks like a Green Nikto to me https://www.starwars.com/databank/nikto-green

nikto-green_922a0511.jpeg?region=0,101,1

resistance-db-neeku-main-image_36022e19.

1 hour ago, Andreievitch said:

Have you confused the characters? He looks like a Green Nikto to me https://www.starwars.com/databank/nikto-green

Is he the first Nikto with a speaking role? There are a lot of aliens on the Colossus. I've seen Ithorians, Nikto, Bith, Duros or a Neimoidian, Aleen, Chandra-Fan, many Pantorans, Rodian, Klatooinian, Gotal, Nautolan, Quarren, Trandoshan.

33 minutes ago, Eoen said:

Is he the first Nikto with a speaking role? There are a lot of aliens on the Colossus. I've seen Ithorians, Nikto, Bith, Duros or a Neimoidian, Aleen, Chandra-Fan, many Pantorans, Rodian, Klatooinian, Gotal, Nautolan, Quarren, Trandoshan.

He’s the one who befriends Kaz, and takes everything literally.