So The Force Unleashed is no longer canon? That's fair enough I guess - liked the story (but not its execution), but am glad it's canon/non-canon status is finally determined. Means I can treat it as I do with most non-canon material: take what I like (Kota and his resistance, Juno Eclipse), and remove what I don't (Starkiller and his ability to throw everything and its mother around).

Maelora,

Wow, you really are determined to hate this series sight unseen based on a lot of presumptions on your part. I didn't get anywhere near as negative summary of the main cast as you did off what's been released before. But if you're determined to hate the series without giving it a fair chance, nothing anyone can say that will get you to change your mind.

I've always been of the "I'll at least give it the benefit of the doubt" before dismissing something as trash/garbage. Probably why I didn't have the knee-jerk "this sucks!" reaction that a fair number of older Star Wars fans did when the Prequels came out. I don't think they're cinematic masterpieces (if anything, they proved that Lucas is not a good director, particularly when surrounded by yes-men), but I don't think they're anywhere near as bad as some folks make them out to be.

As much as I might bash the CGI Clone Wars series, I at least watched the movie and first season to give the show a chance. Same when several friends of mine got big into MLP:FiM; I tried watching it, and it just wasn't for me. But I at least gave those shows a chance. I'll do the same with Rebels; I'll watch the first few episodes, and if it's not for me, then I'll stop watching.

You regularly cite me as being "prickly" but frankly you're coming across as being nearly as close-minded as ErikB when it comes to the topic of "new Star Wars stuff." Since the general tone seems to be one of enthusiasm, maybe this isn't a thread for you. No shame in that, as there are a bunch of threads over in the EotE section that I don't pay attention to simply because the topic is of little interest and I've nothing useful or meaningful to contribute.

So The Force Unleashed is no longer canon? That's fair enough I guess - liked the story (but not its execution), but am glad it's canon/non-canon status is finally determined. Means I can treat it as I do with most non-canon material: take what I like (Kota and his resistance, Juno Eclipse), and remove what I don't (Starkiller and his ability to throw everything and its mother around).

Not having seen Pablo Hidalgo's exact tweet, I suspect the main part that's non-canon is Starkiller's role in helping to form the Rebel Alliance and that the Alliance Starbird is actually the Marek family crest, adopted to honor Starkiller's sacrifice to save the leaders of the burgeoning Alliance. Then again, being a tweet he's only got 140 words to say what he wants to say, so it might have been simply to just say "Events of Force Unleashed are no longer considered canon," which makes sense as the newer material (Rebels TV show) had a higher canon rating under the old system (T-canon vs. C-canon), and it's been established that anytime there's a conflict, the source with the higher canon rating takes precedence.

Hooray for FU being retconned. (I never thought those initials were a coincidence, either...) It neatly encapsulates everything I hate about the last 20 tears of SW.

That said, the new show looks pretty awful too (but in another post on the EoE boards, I point out how I'm perfectly okay with that!)

The characters seem a bit like 'EU Bingo' to me:

female twi'lek - check

Chewbacca expy - check -

fanservice Mandolorian - check

Liam Neeson expy who gets killed only to pass the torch on to the designated Mary Sue - check

Order 66 survivors * - check

Obnoxious brat who ends up being the Special Snowflake 'saviour of the universe' - check

That's pretty much a full house there. What are we missing?

plucky droid (that wants to be human)

Lolita love interest for the 'Jedi Prince' brat

cute pet

a small, cutesy alien (probably an ewok or one of those rabbity things) that's actually badass

The gang's all here!

* (my personal pet peeve. I retconned Order 66 because I detested 'Revenge of the Sith', but even if I'd somehow liked it after Kevin Smith did, I'd have still retconned it. Honestly, in every EU story you can't throw a lightsaber without hitting half-a-dozen Order 66 survivors hiding in the bushes. If they somehow got together,. they'd easily outnumber the stormtroopers...)

Ok what's your issue with a Twi'lek female being one of the mains? There weren't that many Twi'lek female minor characters in TCW unless you count the ones that had a single line or less, and fewer major or main ones. I personally think its nice they are including a non-sterotype Twi'lek female as a main now if they would just give us more non-sterotype Hutts. And yes I know there were non-sterotype Twi'lek females and Hutts in the novels, comics, video games, and as minor TCW characters but fail to see how more of them is a bad thing.

And you badly exaggerate how many Jedi survived Order 66, unless I mis-added somewhere less than one percent of the Jedi Order survived Order 66 even with the new survivors. Yeah I wish there were fewer Jedi and Dark Siders in Rebels but I still hold on to the hope that there will a better balance between the force and Jedi focused stories and the non-Force focused ones than in the latter Clone Wars seasons.

Maelora,

You regularly cite me as being "prickly" but frankly you're coming across as being nearly as close-minded as ErikB

Wow, I'm like ErikB now?

Is that, like, the FFG equivalent of Goidwin's Law of something?

Whatevers.

See ya all around.

I, for one, love the Jedi and believe without them you don't have Star Wars. Don't get me wrong, the other careers are very important but without the Jedi it's just another space Sci-fi show. Any other role in the SW Universe could/does exist in other Sci-fi shows except the Jedi/Sith. They MAKE it Star Wars.

You see, I think it's The Force that makes Star Wars special.

The Jedi, especially as the Asgardian-God anime superheroes they have become, are really overdone.

EoE has been a breath of fresh air in that regard. Even mundanes can be important.

I'm not interested in the superman Jedi approach at all either.

I was indifferent on the cast announcements up until the tagger bomber mando girl, that lost me quick.

I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but if it ends up being them flying around blowing up one place after each other each week with the obligatory teen relationship sap that is so painfully evident in other genre lately, it will fall off my viewing list quickly.

As much as I might bash the CGI Clone Wars series, I at least watched the movie and first season to give the show a chance.

Except it only really kicked into gear in season 3...

As much as I might bash the CGI Clone Wars series, I at least watched the movie and first season to give the show a chance.

Except it only really kicked into gear in season 3...

Matter of opinion. I personally think Season 3 is when it started going downhill though all of the seasons had at least some episodes I enjoyed

Maelora,

You regularly cite me as being "prickly" but frankly you're coming across as being nearly as close-minded as ErikB

Wow, I'm like ErikB now?

Is that, like, the FFG equivalent of Goidwin's Law of something?

Whatevers.

See ya all around.

On the off chance you happen to see this.

The ErikB comparison is an extreme example, as I've found those generally work very well for getting a point across.

Looking objectively at your post, it reads as though posted by someone that doesn't care what the actual facts might be, and instead are simply going to "fill in the blanks" with their own notions based on a dismissive stance towards the material simply because it's an animated series on a Disney network. You're obviously nowhere near as rabid about doing so as he was prior to his vanishing; he'll probably be back when the Force & Destiny Beta comes out, likely proclaiming that he "told us so!" when starting Jedi PCs don't turn out to be the gods-amongst-mortals that some folks think they should be.

Then again, I'm fairly open-minded when it comes to new material for a franchise that I pretty much breath and bleed, and am willing to wait until I have all the information before making a conclusion instead of making presumptions based on minimal info. Currently, my only complaint with the cast of the show is that they waited to reveal the two female leads for last, rather than placing at least one of them in the midst of the release schedule, or that neither lady got a toy previewed at the recent NYC Toy Fair, but instead have to wait for San Diego Comic Con. But that's more an issue with Hasbro's marketing procedures and them labeling the Star Wars: Rebels toyline as a "for boys" rather than acknowledging that there are girls who love Star Wars just as much would love to have Star Wars toys that aren't primarily pink/pastel or based around dress-up dolls. I think Sabine and especially Hera have the potential to be very strong leading characters in this series, and it'd be nice for them to have equal footing with the boys instead of being relegated to second-tier status simply because they have breasts.

As I've said before, I am a big fan of Greg Weisman's work, and he's proven able to provide interesting and nuanced characters many times, taking even one-note villains from Spider-Man's rogues gallery and adding a level of depth to them in the (sadly short-lived) Spectacular Spider-Man series. Whether or not he's allowed to flex his creative skills and give us those interesting and nuanced characters remains to be seen.

TCW suffered in the first 2 seasons from the still new engine and style, later episodes are technically much better. They however focused less on the big battles but more on the small but important stuff like politics, subterfuge and sabotage. And padawan adventures, but those i do not consider important.

As for The Rebels:

I will give it a shot, but sadly Maelora has a rather fitting description of the clichés they are running in it.

Sorry, i'm too old for those, especially those i've seen so far in the little prewies about how stupid the Imperials handle things.

And i fear that the main cast will fulfil its share of bad clichés.

Not that they won't be able to whip up some good stories (I love Spectacular Spiderman, Gargoyles and the other series of Weisman), but I'll wait and see how hard it will be to stomach the thus shown stereotypes.

Hopefuly Weisman can keep the show away from them as he did in Gargoyles.

TCW suffered in the first 2 seasons from the still new engine and style, later episodes are technically much better. They however focused less on the big battles but more on the small but important stuff like politics, subterfuge and sabotage. And padawan adventures, but those i do not consider important.

Imo if they had cut a few arcs like the Mandalorian Kids arc, The Mortis Arc, the horrible season 5 finale arc, the Gathering Arc, and the Fett vengeance Arc to put in some more battle focused arcs and episodes the series would have been much better IMO. I would have also cut the Maul and brother of Maul focused arcs because I think reviving Maul is stupid but many probably disagree with me.

I also think they did a horrible job of showing that there were heroes and villains on both sides. The only Separatists we saw portrayed as supporting the CIS based on idealism rather than greed were civilians or politicians rather than CIS military personal. The comics did a great job of showing separatist soldiers and officers who were fighting the Republic because they honestly felt the Republic was evil but the cartoon never even tried to do that MO.

I think Sabine and especially Hera have the potential to be very strong leading characters in this series, and it'd be nice for them to have equal footing with the boys instead of being relegated to second-tier status simply because they have breasts.

My thoughts exactly with regards to females.

Since EOTE came out, I've made one proper character: she began as a fourteen year old wanderer who became a Force-Sensitive Emergent rebel; it's very likely she'll become a Jedi in the future, if such an opportunity presents itself - and if her friends can convince her to start trusting the Force rather than fearing it.

It feels good to be placing a female in the spotlight. It doesn't happen nearly enough.

As much as I might bash the CGI Clone Wars series, I at least watched the movie and first season to give the show a chance.

Except it only really kicked into gear in season 3...

Yeah, it was a slow burn of a series that took some time to get going. And even then, it never got beyond "Eh, not bad" - at least in my eyes. Still, I was willing to waste half a hour of my life watching it, so it couldn't have been all that bad.

I'd say that I'll give the new one a fair shake - but even if it turns out to be pretty terrible, I'll still probably watch. Hell, if I could make it through season one of Torchwood, I can make it through anything!

Made the mistake of buying the individual dvds instead of the season compilations was left wondering how they would be handled in game albeit the story changed a bit of course!

Got the bug after ordering a few dvds for a my nephew whilst his mother my sister and her family was still living abroad now they're back and I now have a few too many dvds on star wars the clone wars and batman brave and the bold than she's willing for him to bring home with him!

Darn now I'm wondering how to create a character with Aquaman's behaviour in game... a Mon Calamari BBATB Aquaman anyone?!

As for Rebels well I'd rather they not go all force intensive right from the start but that's their strategy so oh well I just hope it turns out great!

In regards to clichés, Star Wars has always been full of them. Does anyone remember where the plucky young hero goes on a quest to save a princess?

Here's what I find potentially interesting about Sabine.. rather than a mandalorian no nonsense hardened mercenary villain, we have a character that is on the heroic side, and is an artist (of sorts) - though the art side may, unfortunately, be confined to the spraying of the rebel phoenix, it would be nice if a character had a hobby, of interests outside of killing bad guys.

As for Hera, I'm happy she's in charge and not the Jedi. I'm happy that she's a fully clothed female twi'lek.

Time will tell if the show does well. Some oc the best animated shows aimed at kids have had an adult following because of good writing and willing to not play down to a younger audience, such as Gargoyles, Batman: the animated series and Last Airbender/Korra.

In regards to clichés, Star Wars has always been full of them. Does anyone remember where the plucky young hero goes on a quest to save a princess?

Exactly.

If one were to read a basic summary of the Original Trilogy cast, you'd get a pretty negative impression of them as well, with Luke being the "chosen Marty Stu youth to save the galaxy," Obi-Wan the "old pro that only exists to die and pass the torch to the chosen Marty Stu," Han the "sarcastic jerk with a hidden noble streak," and Leia as the "sassy yet beautiful princess that inspires the Marty Stu youth to embark on the quest." And yet, from watching the movies, we know that those descriptions don't even begin to due those characters justice.

Regarding Sabine, there's been at least a couple promo images of what seems to be the Ghost's lounge area... and it's covered in graffiti of all sorts. There's also been mention by one of the folks in charge of the show's design that one of the things she's looking forward to is expanding on the sorts of artistic works that Sabine does in the course of the series. So at least the intent is that she's not limited to the starbird motif.

In regards to clichés, Star Wars has always been full of them. Does anyone remember where the plucky young hero goes on a quest to save a princess?

Exactly.

If one were to read a basic summary of the Original Trilogy cast, you'd get a pretty negative impression of them as well, with Luke being the "chosen Marty Stu youth to save the galaxy," Obi-Wan the "old pro that only exists to die and pass the torch to the chosen Marty Stu," Han the "sarcastic jerk with a hidden noble streak," and Leia as the "sassy yet beautiful princess that inspires the Marty Stu youth to embark on the quest." And yet, from watching the movies, we know that those descriptions don't even begin to due those characters justice.

Regarding Sabine, there's been at least a couple promo images of what seems to be the Ghost's lounge area... and it's covered in graffiti of all sorts. There's also been mention by one of the folks in charge of the show's design that one of the things she's looking forward to is expanding on the sorts of artistic works that Sabine does in the course of the series. So at least intent is that she's not limited to the starbird motif.

I said that it's full of cliches from Star Wars (specifically Star Wars RPGs). The original series may have used cliches, but they weren't internal to the material (they really couldn't have been at the time). It's not possible to be entirely original, but Rebels looks too predictably repetitive to me.

Presumptions, prejudice and prejudging. I love it. Going with "repetitive" and "predictable" why watch any TV show? It's not like there's much being produced these days that actually surprises or excites if going by some of the descriptors alluded to in this thread. I've enjoyed many recent tv-shows, but they're all repetitive, all predictable, all boring if you de-construct it like this.

Fair enough, if people don't want to give it a shot, or don't want to even be open to the idea of liking the show, which seems to be the case some places, then don't.

I for one think this show is going to be colourful at the very least, with some cool animation and action - and perhaps a tolerable script, story and voice acting. I cannot know this of course... no one can. Yet so many are ready to judge based on flimsy evidence and no data. No wonder the environment is going crazy, the world economy collapsing and so on ad nauseam.

Well, any negativity aside, my kids are so exited that there is more star wars cartoons coming. My boy was disappointed when I told him that clone wars was finished. And that there are jedi included. And my daughter is excited that there is a female pilot.

My only issue with this is access to Disney channels. But then here in Australia, cartoon network showed clone wars about 6 to 12 months after U.S. release.

1st world Problems.

I'd imagine it will be available to buy at least on Amazon sooner.

Can anyone point to another story in which a similar group of protagonists exist, let alone fights the Empire?

The only thing that I could see that makes them "cliche" is "this describes every Star Wars RPG group I've played in."

Can anyone point to another story in which a similar group of protagonists exist, let alone fights the Empire?

The only thing that I could see that makes them "cliche" is "this describes every Star Wars RPG group I've played in."

That was pretty much my feeling on it.

Can anyone point to another story in which a similar group of protagonists exist, let alone fights the Empire?

The only thing that I could see that makes them "cliche" is "this describes every Star Wars RPG group I've played in."

Yeah I don't that many Twi'lek female pilots in this era. I think there were a couple of minor Twi'lek female X-Wing pilots in the comics and novels and one in Wraith squadron but that's all I recall off the top of my head.

The only thing that I could see that makes them "cliche" is "this describes every Star Wars RPG group I've played in."

I'd generally call this a good thing. A lot of what makes those RPG groups fun is the diverse array of characters, and in comparison to The Clone Wars or even the prequels, SW:Rebels certainly has a far more diverse main cast.

But then again, I'm apparently not the pessimist that some others on these forums are when it comes to new Star Wars material.

Edit: And it seems a couple of folks that worked on the FFG RPG agree with your sentiment Doc, and that it's a good thing.

Can anyone point to another story in which a similar group of protagonists exist, let alone fights the Empire?

The only thing that I could see that makes them "cliche" is "this describes every Star Wars RPG group I've played in."

Does Firefly count?

Admittedly for them the war is technically over but the movie showed there was still resistance!

Starchaser the Legend of Orin?

Luke alike character the Han character is more mercenary with a love interest in a captured human female similar droid, the feisty daughter of a noble don't remember the rest except for the sword thats apparently psionic in nature!

Hmm I wonder if the Last Starfighter would work in a Star Wars game...?

Is Power Rangers excluded on grounds the Empire never lasts long enough to be relevant?