Finally watched some episodes. Plus side, I like the animation much better than Clone Wars or Rebels. The characters are mostly painful to listen to, especially the nikto. Is he supposed to be a dumb stereotype of someone on the autism spectrum??

Hopefully the show will grow the beard at some point in the future.

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

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

I know who the character is...

Well, I have to admit watching this has been some kind of torture. I like the animation, not necessarily the shading and textures, but the underlying character movement, camera views, and animation space. But every time there's a good scene it's practically ruined when the main character talks, and his sidekick literal-minded Nikto is beyond redemption. The animation and backdrops are really the only reason I watch.

So the episode "Dangerous Business" was a bit of a nice surprise. The Nikto has only a bit role, and the main character shows development and actually accomplishes something. And the bird flight animation is the best I've seen yet in the industry, most animators make them like floaty floppy rag dolls (...okay, I'm a bit of a bird-watching nut, so I notice...)

The stories are still too simplistic, it makes me wonder if the whole purpose of this show is to work out new animation technology...because they sure aren't driving any new ground in the storytelling department...

I agree with that this is difficult to watch. This weeks episode gave me hope. It's the first one where the main character didn't come off as a complete imbecile and incompetent. the rest of the story held its own so there may be hope for the future.

I also agree with you on the animation behind the celshade rendering. I commented that when watching this episode

I too agree, it's both beautiful and painful to watch. And I agree this last episode was better than normal.

I don’t find it painful...but it seems to suffer from an identity crisis. Is it a simmering spy story that’s rolling inevitably towards The Force Awakens? Or is is a story about citizens of a galaxy no longer embroiled in constant war (also rolling inevitably towards The Force Awakens)?

There’s a lot of potential in the characters that have been set up, but alternating between those two identities does all of the World building a disservice. From the trailer for the second half of the season, it looks like that identity crisis will come to an end once we do hit TFA. That can only be a benefit to the show as a whole.

My GM recently sat down and watched the entire first half straight through, and found it seemed to work better in long form than in weekly installments.

4 hours ago, whafrog said:

The stories are still too simplistic, it makes me wonder if the whole purpose of this show is to work out new animation technology...because they sure aren't driving any new ground in the storytelling department...

I agree it feels like LFL painted themselves into a corner on this one. They wanted to get a new-trilogy themed series off the ground, but at the same time they can't have the story do anything that might impact the new trilogy until said trilogy is done so as not to have to retcon anything. So the story is pretty limited in where it can go, what it can do, and how big it can get. Toss in a retargeting of the younger audience (fine, you have to do that for stuff like this, it's the biz, I'm ok with it) and you're pretty limited on the storytelling you can do.

That's one thing both Clone Wars and Rebels had going for them, the "future" of each was already set in stone, so they had more clearly defined limitations, which by extension gave them ample wiggle room to do almost anything else.

I'm kinda curious if once the Streaming Service is solidified, and if The Mandalorian and Cassian Andor Live do well, if the Mouse will up to attempt a more "Adult Swim" Star Wars animated series. Doesn't have to be anything harder than PG-13 equivalent in overall content, just something that takes advantage of an older audience that sees cartoons an just another medium and benefits from being able to tell live action stories on an animated budget...

4 hours ago, whafrog said:

Well, I have to admit watching this has been some kind of torture. I like the animation, not necessarily the shading and textures, but the underlying character movement, camera views, and animation space. But every time there's a good scene it's practically ruined when the main character talks, and his sidekick literal-minded Nikto is beyond redemption. The animation and backdrops are really the only reason I watch.

So the episode "Dangerous Business" was a bit of a nice surprise. The Nikto has only a bit role, and the main character shows development and actually accomplishes something. And the bird flight animation is the best I've seen yet in the industry, most animators make them like floaty floppy rag dolls (...okay, I'm a bit of a bird-watching nut, so I notice...)

The stories are still too simplistic, it makes me wonder if the whole purpose of this show is to work out new animation technology...because they sure aren't driving any new ground in the storytelling department...

You might be on to something about breaking ground in animation.

Have you seen Netflix’s The Dragon Prince? Feels like that’s a step too far in detail for computer animation, since they have so much detail the frame rate actually suffers. So maybe Resistance is doing a scaling up approach with the cell shading? You know, just to see how much detail you can get before it’s too much

I like the set-up with the location and the overall plot, but the actual episodic stories are pretty terrible. Of course, I wasn't a fan of Rebels either, so I'm coming at this from starting point quite different than some.

6 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I like the set-up with the location and the overall plot, but the actual episodic stories are pretty terrible. Of course, I wasn't a fan of Rebels either, so I'm coming at this from starting point quite different than some.

I feel pretty much the same. The writing definitely feels geared towards a very young audience. I like the setting and concept, but the characters, their dialog, and their predicaments just don't endear them to me. The ancillary characters have more depth than the protagonist it seems.

I had hoped this series would pick up - I felt like Rebels started off shakey and quickly found good footing, so by the end of the first season I was hooked. This series, not so much. I might as well be watching Lego Star Wars for Toddlers. But man it's pretty.

1 minute ago, themensch said:

I feel pretty much the same. The writing definitely feels geared towards a very young audience. I like the setting and concept, but the characters, their dialog, and their predicaments just don't endear them to me. The ancillary characters have more depth than the protagonist it seems.

I had hoped this series would pick up - I felt like Rebels started off shakey and quickly found good footing, so by the end of the first season I was hooked. This series, not so much. I might as well be watching Lego Star Wars for Toddlers. But man it's pretty.

I grew to like Rebels less and less. The more they made it about Force magic, the less I liked it. The stupid magical Lothwolves annoyed me. The helicopter sabers were awesomely stupid. The dimensional/time travel thingy was just too much outside of what I like in my Star Wars. In truth, I would have preferred if Ezra never advanced to the level of Force proficiency he had and was killed off before Kanan. Then have Kanan die in the last episode against Thrawn.

1 minute ago, HappyDaze said:

I grew to like Rebels less and less. The more they made it about Force magic, the less I liked it. The stupid magical Lothwolves annoyed me. The helicopter sabers were awesomely stupid. The dimensional/time travel thingy was just too much outside of what I like in my Star Wars. In truth, I would have preferred if Ezra never advanced to the level of Force proficiency he had and was killed off before Kanan. Then have Kanan die in the last episode against Thrawn.

Hnm true, they did bungle a lot of things towards the end there, many of which you mention. I did like the deeper dive into the Force, but not at the expense of heli-sabers and dubious survival in open vacuum (NO LET'S NOT GO THERE AGAIN) but I kinda just forget about that stuff conveniently.

1 hour ago, Flavorabledeez said:

he Dragon Prince? Feels like that’s a step too far in detail for computer animation, since they have so much detail the frame rate actually suffers.

Half the problem is also feeling out the frame rate. They're trying to go for a lower framerate to better replicate traditional animation. Problem is traditional animation can do little things that help them look right when operating at a lower framerate. CG can't. So it looks weird. I'm curious to see if Season 2 comes tries to go higher.

Interestingly The Hobbit suffered from the opposite problem. A nice high framerate to compensate for details otherwise lost in 3D, which ended up making it look like television, which typically operates at a higher framerate than film...

39 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I grew to like Rebels less and less. The more they made it about Force magic, the less I liked it. The stupid magical Lothwolves annoyed me. The helicopter sabers were awesomely stupid. The dimensional/time travel thingy was just too much outside of what I like in my Star Wars. In truth, I would have preferred if Ezra never advanced to the level of Force proficiency he had and was killed off before Kanan. Then have Kanan die in the last episode against Thrawn.

Honestly, I would’ve preferred if only Kanan had any ability with the force in that series. The idea of having Ezra learn how to be a better leader using Jedi philosophy without their abilities would’ve been a good premise to see unfold each season.

Would’ve made more sense too, given Kanan only being a padawan when the order fell apart lends more credit to him knowing more about Jedi ideals and beliefs than actual abilities.

As it is, I’m getting bored with all the force users in Star Wars. I know, I know, “it’s not Star Wars without Jedi,” so this would’ve satisfied that whole thing while showing something new.