1 hour ago, Cpt ObVus said:

ANYway, I’m pretty sure that Thrawn came back to the canon in Rebels because Dave Filoni likes Thrawn almost as much as he likes silly cowboy hats. Filoni was also in charge of Clone Wars, which successfully made every character in Star Wars look like they were wearing a fake plastic beard from a cheap Halloween costume. Filoni also somehow managed to direct the only episode of the Mandalorian that sucked (Episode 4, check it out, it’s unbearable fan service). But Filoni was pretty much anointed by Lucas, and Clone Wars was highly profitable, despite the horrid, jerky animation, bad writing (Darth Maul got cut in half and thrown into a bottomless pit... he’s okay, folks! And he has legs now!), terrible voice acting, weird faces and plastic hair... and he survived into the Disney era. So what Filoni wants, Filoni gets.

Just as a point of information you're not going to get anywhere with me running down Clone Wars or Rebels. I'm out of patience with prequel hate. Please, save it.

When it comes to the old EU Thrawn is the villain in the only more or less universally liked stories. It may have been Filoni's idea but it wasn't a risky one.

Your point though about not enough focus grouping for Last Jedi stands. But that is part of the problem isn't it? The focus-grouping likely showing the new girl isn't all that popular. Why else do you have to run down Luke when it isn't a story anyone really was clamoring to see? Get rid of Luke to prop up the new girl.

Rise of Skywalker suffers largely from the mess they made with Force Awakens. If Act III has problems it is most likely because Act I has problems. Act II exacerbated all of them in the Disney Trilogy.

But the "focus-grouping" in my estimation is what made the mess in Act I. The general hate-it attitude to the EU material and the prequels material is most likely why they just went with the lazy re-hash in TFA. They didn't want to turn Luke into head of a Jedi Order with a desk job at the temple as that would be too "prequel" and too "EU better put out of its misery." And you can't have the old stars upstaging the new kids. JJ turned Luke into a maguffin and then Rian didn't want to upstage the new girl either and since JJ already did the make Luke a maguffin thing...

EDIT

What I didn't get at very well in all of that is that just because Disney asked the wrong questions and took the wrong message from the focus-grouping isn't an indication that there wasn't any.

34 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Just as a point of information you're not going to get anywhere with me running down Clone Wars or Rebels. I'm out of patience with prequel hate. Please, save it.

When it comes to the old EU Thrawn is the villain in the only more or less universally liked stories. It may have been Filoni's idea but it wasn't a risky one.

Your point though about not enough focus grouping for Last Jedi stands. But that is part of the problem isn't it? The focus-grouping likely showing the new girl isn't all that popular. Why else do you have to run down Luke when it isn't a story anyone really was clamoring to see? Get rid of Luke to prop up the new girl.

Rise of Skywalker suffers largely from the mess they made with Force Awakens. If Act III has problems it is most likely because Act I has problems. Act II exacerbated all of them in the Disney Trilogy.

But the "focus-grouping" in my estimation is what made the mess in Act I. The general hate-it attitude to the EU material and the prequels material is most likely why they just went with the lazy re-hash in TFA. They didn't want to turn Luke into head of a Jedi Order with a desk job at the temple as that would be too "prequel" and too "EU better put out of its misery." And you can't have the old stars upstaging the new kids. JJ turned Luke into a maguffin and then Rian didn't want to upstage the new girl either and since JJ already did the make Luke a maguffin thing...

EDIT

What I didn't get at very well in all of that is that just because Disney asked the wrong questions and took the wrong message from the focus-grouping isn't an indication that there wasn't any.

I won’t say that the sequels don’t have some problems. They do. But honestly, there was only one truly flawless Star Wars film, and that was Empire.

I unashamedly enjoyed the sequels. All three of them. In some ways, I think TLJ was the most realistic Star Wars film of them all, daring to show that heroes are just people. Fearful, fallible, imperfect people. I also love that a Luke—finally—straight up called out the Jedi for their idiocy.

Anyway, whether you or I loved or hated any particular part of the saga isn’t quite the point. Whatever Disney is making of the Star Wars property, I’m pretty sure they’re putting precious little thought into what FFG is doing. Sure, they probably have a meeting twice a year to say, “We’re looking to push the Resistance cartoon hard, what about working some of that material in?” sure. But they’re not sitting there vetoing characters like Carnor Jax getting an update in 2.0.

This has drifted pretty far from the original topic of "X-Wing TIE Interceptors: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!" (I worry no one will know the non-star-wars reference but BAH!).

I really enjoy talking about the game, and I kinda revile hearing people arguing about divisive opinions of the movies. There's nothing I can add to that other than "my opinion is not so venomous, and I'm not interested in hearing people's complaints", which always get me in trouble. Also I don't see it as a problem that needs to be solved or processed... People angrily spat venom at each other over both the prequels and the original movies, and were it not for nostalgia, would still be fighting over the OT like it was either the greatest or worst thing every to be made in mankind's history. It's nothing new to Star Wars; I just don't enjoy that process. I'm here for the game.

If the thread has run its course on X-Wing itself, I think I'll unfollow and go my way. But if anyone has more TIE Interceptor questions, I'm happy to get back to those.

If focus groups gave us the trashfire that was Rise of Skywalker, and lack of them gave us The Last Jedi...

No More Focus Groups

4 hours ago, Wazat said:

If the thread has run its course on X-Wing itself, I think I'll unfollow and go my way. But if anyone has more TIE Interceptor questions, I'm happy to get back to those.

Fair enough. We could Siskel & Ebert this **** all day, but I’d rather learn stuff about the game. Actually, I’d probably rather argue about film, but there are other places on the internet to do that!

Loving this:

200 pts:

Alpha squadron (31) x3

Soontir fel + predator (55)

OGP Lamda + Sloane (52)

That's 4 interceptors. They are great little swarmy ships. Being able to 5 straight focus->boost can really catch your opponent offguard. Aces hate this list. This has issues with droid swarms as they dont care about stress too much.

19 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

In some ways, I think TLJ was the most realistic Star Wars film of them all, daring to show that heroes are just people. Fearful, fallible, imperfect people. I also love that a Luke—finally—straight up called out the Jedi for their idiocy.