On 2/21/2020 at 7:42 PM, whafrog said:

Star Wars at its best. Animation at its best. Story is good, pacing, framing, colour palette, lighting, camera angles all top notch. Those long sweeping shots of endless screen real-estate... by the Force I missed that in Rebels. And the background details were a visual feast...bugs, animals, unique foliage and terrain... nobody does that anymore. Great descriptive fodder for GMing.

The new animation style has me on the back foot a bit. I still like it, but the bump in technology for the character models weirds me out. This will pass soon enough.

Just now, Desslok said:

The new animation style has me on the back foot a bit. I still like it, but the bump in technology for the character models weirds me out. This will pass soon enough.

Are you comparing to Rebels or the original Clone Wars?

I'm absolutely loving having the Clone Wars quality animation back.

Both actually - I've been going through the old episodes of Clone Wars since D+ went live, so I've seen that more recently, but I'm more familiar with Rebels (which admittedly is a similar but totally different art style). So this more fluid and naturalistic animation with the Clone Wars style is taking a bit of getting used too.

Don't get me wrong - I still liked the first episode, so this isn't a knock on the show. Just that it's like getting use to a new Doctor Who when the incumbent Doctor was your favorite.

The new battle droids on skako minor, are especially weird, if I remember correctly they have wings in the previously released animatics.

Just now, Eoen said:

The new battle droids on skecko minor, are especially weird, if I remember correctly they have wings in the previously released animatics.

Yeah, and I think they still do.

5 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yeah, and I think they still do.

I kept expecting one of the characters to mention the weird droids. But maybe new droid models aren’t that unusual in the Star Wars galaxy.

3 minutes ago, Eoen said:

I kept expecting one of the characters to mention the weird droids. But maybe new droid models aren’t that unusual in the Star Wars galaxy.

Certainly no weirder than new species popping up all the time.

So is it just me, or did Disney sanitize the latest episode? I have this recollection of seeing the Bad Batch's ship, and they had a logo of Padme in a seductive pose on the nose of the ship, Anakin was kind of irritated, and Rex had to nudge him away from confronting it. I thought it added a great sense of flavour to the characters and the scene, but it wouldn't surprise me if Disney drew a weird line.

Yeah, I noticed that too. When I didn't see that scene I went, "Whoops! There Disney goes again..." I though that was a funny scene, and a nice bit of flavor, but I understand why they'd take it out.

Also, pretty sure they're sticking with the new sound for the DC-17s. Still wondering why ?

19 hours ago, whafrog said:

So is it just me, or did Disney sanitize the latest episode? I have this recollection of seeing the Bad Batch's ship, and they had a logo of Padme in a seductive pose on the nose of the ship, Anakin was kind of irritated, and Rex had to nudge him away from confronting it. I thought it added a great sense of flavour to the characters and the scene, but it wouldn't surprise me if Disney drew a weird line.

It was replaced in favor of the scene with Anakin calling Padme in the barracks. In their episode discussion, Star Wars Explained speculated that it was a change made not because the original was a little racy, but because the episode now falls firmly in the last season to tie things closer to the ending and the state of affairs in Revenge of the Sith. It more firmly establishes that Rex knows the secret...and so does Obi-Wan.

2 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

It was replaced in favor of the scene with Anakin calling Padme in the barracks. In their episode discussion, Star Wars Explained speculated that it was a change made not because the original was a little racy, but because the episode now falls firmly in the last season to tie things closer to the ending and the state of affairs in Revenge of the Sith. It more firmly establishes that Rex knows the secret...and so does Obi-Wan.

I liked the new scene, it was definitely a good replacement, but it would've been nice if they could have slipped it in there for the laughs. It was a funny scene.

7 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I liked the new scene, it was definitely a good replacement, but it would've been nice if they could have slipped it in there for the laughs. It was a funny scene.

The episode was pretty serious overall, for being a pulp action cartoon. The tone might just not have fit after the rework from the story reels.

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

The episode was pretty serious overall, for being a pulp action cartoon. The tone might just not have fit after the rework from the story reels.

It would be kinda funny for him to go straight from talking to Padme to seeing the noseart though.

I liked the have Kenobi suspecting Anakin and Padme are seeing each other. The Clone wars introduced Satine Kraze and Kenobi’s past romance. Kenobi would definitely sympathize with the couple and turn a blind eye to it.

52 minutes ago, Eoen said:

I liked the have Kenobi suspecting Anakin and Padme are seeing each other. The Clone wars introduced Satine Kraze and Kenobi’s past romance. Kenobi would definitely sympathize with the couple and turn a blind eye to it.

Yet another way that Kenobi failed Anakin, the Jedi, the Republic, and the rest of the galaxy too.

3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Yet another way that Kenobi failed Anakin, the Jedi, the Republic, and the rest of the galaxy too.

Hindsight is 20/20. Anakin made his choices he didn’t have to cut off Mace Windu’s hand, and he lost Padme and three limbs because of it, but gained an Empire.

1 hour ago, Eoen said:

Hindsight is 20/20.

So is Farseeing. Too bad none of the Jedi seemed proficient in it. They blamed the Dark Side, but blame doesn't absolve them of failure.

29 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

So is Farseeing. Too bad none of the Jedi seemed proficient in it. They blamed the Dark Side, but blame doesn't absolve them of failure.

You just have a pro-Sith bias, 😎 it’s known that the Sith did some dark side mojo in the Coruscant Sith temple to mess with the Jedis Force visions, and they assassinated Master Sifo Dias the order premiere living seer.

2 hours ago, Eoen said:

...but gained an Empire.

More like he gained an Emperor, not an Empire. He never actually got anything for all his sacrifices, other than the "honour" of being a servant.

49 minutes ago, whafrog said:

More like he gained an Emperor, not an Empire. He never actually got anything for all his sacrifices, other than the "honour" of being a servant.

Really, being Caesar to the Emperor isn’t a bad gig for a space monk. Besides he got a personal dreadnaught, custom starfighters, billions of credits, a planet and all those sweet tracheas to crush.

2 minutes ago, Eoen said:

Really, being Caesar to the Emperor isn’t a bad gig for a space monk. Besides he got a personal dreadnaught, custom starfighters, billions of credits, a planet and all those sweet tracheas to crush.

There were a lot of drawback to being Darth Vader. He got everything except what he really wanted.

Isn't there also something about, you know, selling your soul to gain the world ?

5 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

There were a lot of drawback to being Darth Vader. He got everything except what he really wanted.

Isn't there also something about, you know, selling your soul to gain the world ?

Yeah that’s why the prequel is the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.

Just now, Eoen said:

Yeah that’s why the prequel is the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.

Even if TPM and AotC had some... issues ... I really, really like the prequels. The story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is easily my favorite character arc of all time.

38 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Even if TPM and AotC had some... issues ... I really, really like the prequels. The story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is easily my favorite character arc of all time.

Except for the dialogue, I actually prefer the prequels, at least as far as the movies go. Even though everything is handled hastily, it's kind of impressive how much world-building, history, and byzantine politics are there to support the character arc. Game of Thrones in Spaaacce... Hard to do all that in 6 hours, so it definitely has weaknesses, but at least the broad strokes are there. And not a death star to be found... The OT is fun, but it's basically bad vs good fairy tale without much depth.

17 hours ago, whafrog said:

The OT is fun, but it's basically bad vs good fairy tale without much depth.

It's been really bugging me that I said the above, so just to clarify: the OT had (and still has) more *implied* depth than almost any other tale in cinema. All that implied depth is the reason we are here today. It's stunning how much implied depth can be created by strong archetypes and a few off-hand comments.

It's just that, for a historical-political-anthropological junkie, the PT is far more satisfying, and still contains all the above. And the lightsaber battles are way cooler