Random Star Wars Thoughts

[The Cat]

Well the letter really has everything...​

 

[The Cat]

Something I realized that I'm not happy about with regards to The Acolyte is how they killed off anything that was cool about the Jedi. In trying to be cute and "deconstruct" things, they broke the OT. The prequel trilogy showed a Jedi Order that was remote and distant but I never thought they were capable of what we see depicted in this series. In this series the Jedi straight up murder people, and then the other Jedi cover it up to "protect norms," essientially. I get the impression that this is far from an isolated incident and that events like this happen all the time. If they did the twist with Master Sol and that green Jedi didn't try to cover up the truth, I'd feel very differently about it. That would just be about individual Jedi failing to live up to their standards; but the way they wrote this damns the whole order.

What the Jedi do in The Acolyte isn't just challenging our assumptions about the story, but is actually evil in my book. This means that the Empire is actually sort of in the right to destroy the order, and that they're actually kind of the good guys. That's some bullshit.

Is it so hard to have our tyrannical space fascist faction actually be the bad guys? I wonder why people are so uncomfortable with that. Legends did this crap where the Imperial military buildup was justified because Palpatine learned about this evil race of aliens from beyond the galaxy called the Yuuhzan Vong. I hate this kind of thing so much.

Dark Empire

The Dark Empire, also referred to as the Empire Reborn,[4] was a rebuilt Sith Empire located in the Deep Core and led by the reborn Emperor Palpatine, also known as the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, following the Battle of Endor. The Dark Empire itself was headquartered at the dark side...

starwars.fandom.com

This was the original return of the Emperor Story. We get to see Luke Skywalker go to the Dark Side for a while, which ends up making him a better trainer of jedi.

The Vong were the original galaxy shake up. R.A. Salvatore should have stayed in Menzoberanzen with Drizzt. The Imperial Remnant, The New Jedi Order, and the New Republic had to join forces because the Vong just came into the galaxy with their living technology, poisoned Mara Jade Skywalker, killed Chewbacca by dropping a moon on him, and just a whole bunch of stuff I *used to think was the worst thing that could happen to Star Wars. Boy was I wrong.

 

[The Cat]

There's always been diversity in Star Wars
This vid goes through some of the awesome ladies who have been with Star Wars since the beginning.
I guess they all got decannonized when Kathy started using the Pander Stone.​

 

[The Cat]

This has just been a rabbit hole and a half
In some ways its felt like watching a war play out in comments, clicks, and content, rather than mud blood and shit. I personally think that if the they hired writers who could actually translate the gist of what they want to say into an actual Star Wars story written to be an actual star wars story instead of just another link in the corporate profit chain, we could get a really good trilogy out of the real life drama of behind the scene Star Wars. You'd have to set it old republic, like the video game old republic, at least a few decades(preferably centuries) before Palps was an innocent boy from Naboo.

Kathy as the basis for a long suffering Jedi, Kata Kayleen who sets out on a mission, that doesnt go as she forsaw. An the galaxy...does not respond as well as the Jedi hoped. As time goes on and more and more jedi, sith, and regular galactic citezens get involved and things eventually escalate(as they do) into a Star War. By the end of it, who in the galaxy can tell the difference between a Jedi and a Sith? Rather than listening to the Force, the Jedi continues to try to shape it into their image, and the next thing they know, their eyes are going gold, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Kata Kayleen lets the hate flow through her...how could the galaxy think she, a Jedi, was the enemy? Fine, she would show them what it means to be an enemy...
A long time ago...
(slow star wars theme plays on the strings)
In a galaxy...
(soft rising action)
divided...
"What is it?"
"I think it's an old holochron?"
(That weird harsh trailer chord change thats not so much music as a bunch of gradually more tense and tramatic chords digitally encanced, BWAAAA)
"LOOK OUT!"
(BWAAAAAAAA)
*Space fighting explosions*
(BWAAA)
*Robed figures walking down a hall lit from behind casting sinister hooded shadows as they walk and talk about "The plan"*
(The music changes to the choral orchestral suit like duel of the fates and battle of the heroes, but slightly different)
"Others would teach you only how to harness the power of the force..."
(The laughter of a single sinister voice in the darkness with a shot of the temples on Yavin IV)
"I am called Exar Kun, and I can teach you how to MASTER it."
(Bum bum ba ba da da da...da da dee da da doo doo dee daa...)
Star Wars: The Battle for the Force.


It'll have everything, heroes, villains, nerf herders, colored lightsabers, a decent amount of pew pew, some decent dialogue, weird ass names, ships that make different sounds in space, green lasers red lasers, furries. I'm tellin ya, folk would watch it.​

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

This has just been a rabbit hole and a half
In some ways its felt like watching a war play out in comments, clicks, and content, rather than mud blood and shit. I personally think that if the they hired writers who could actually translate the gist of what they want to say into an actual Star Wars story written to be an actual star wars story instead of just another link in the corporate profit chain, we could get a really good trilogy out of the real life drama of behind the scene Star Wars. You'd have to set it old republic, like the video game old republic, at least a few decades(preferably centuries) before Palps was an innocent boy from Naboo.

Kathy as the basis for a long suffering Jedi, Kata Kayleen who sets out on a mission, that doesnt go as she forsaw. An the galaxy...does not respond as well as the Jedi hoped. As time goes on and more and more jedi, sith, and regular galactic citezens get involved and things eventually escalate(as they do) into a Star War. By the end of it, who in the galaxy can tell the difference between a Jedi and a Sith? Rather than listening to the Force, the Jedi continues to try to shape it into their image, and the next thing they know, their eyes are going gold, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Kata Kayleen lets the hate flow through her...how could the galaxy think she, a Jedi, was the enemy? Fine, she would show them what it means to be an enemy...
A long time ago...
(slow star wars theme plays on the strings)
In a galaxy...
(soft rising action)
divided...
"What is it?"
"I think it's an old holochron?"
(That weird harsh trailer chord change thats not so much music as a bunch of gradually more tense and tramatic chords digitally encanced, BWAAAA)
"LOOK OUT!"
(BWAAAAAAAA)
*Space fighting explosions*
(BWAAA)
*Robed figures walking down a hall lit from behind casting sinister hooded shadows as they walk and talk about "The plan"*
(The music changes to the choral orchestral suit like duel of the fates and battle of the heroes, but slightly different)
"Others would teach you only how to harness the power of the force..."
(The laughter of a single sinister voice in the darkness with a shot of the temples on Yavin IV)
"I am called Exar Kun, and I can teach you how to MASTER it."
(Bum bum ba ba da da da...da da dee da da doo doo dee daa...)
Star Wars: The Battle for the Force.


It'll have everything, heroes, villains, nerf herders, colored lightsabers, a decent amount of pew pew, some decent dialogue, weird ass names, ships that make different sounds in space, green lasers red lasers, furries. I'm tellin ya, folk would watch it.​

I finally figured out what I want to do with a specific character in my story. Perhaps that will remove the writer's block.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Dark Empire

The Dark Empire, also referred to as the Empire Reborn,[4] was a rebuilt Sith Empire located in the Deep Core and led by the reborn Emperor Palpatine, also known as the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, following the Battle of Endor. The Dark Empire itself was headquartered at the dark side...

starwars.fandom.com

This was the original return of the Emperor Story. We get to see Luke Skywalker go to the Dark Side for a while, which ends up making him a better trainer of jedi.
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I hated that. Why that's better than him having a bad thought one time, I'll never fathom.

 

[Totenkindly]

The Very Obvious Reason Disney Canceled ‘The Acolyte’ — It Wasn’t ‘Toxic Dudebros’

There's a very simple reason why The Acolyte was canceled and it had nothing to do with the culture wars.

www.forbes.com

This is a really interesting table because it shows us lots of important details about each of these series’ success or lack thereof. The Acolyte is the second most expensive show on the list ($180 million) after Andor ($250 million) but that’s only the total spent. If you look at cost-per-minute of footage, The Acolyte cost a whopping $671,641 per minute to produce. Andor cost just $529,661—about $150,000 less per minute—thanks to its longer, meatier episodes and 12-episode count. No other Star Wars show received a 12-episode season and very few episodes across all of Star Wars were as long. As you can see in the chart, Andor runs two-and-a-half hours longer total than Ahsoka and is not much shorter than the first two seasons of Mandalorian combined. And at least with Andor, you can tell where the money went.

The Acolyte cost far more and performed far worse than any other Disney+ Star Wars series and this is why it was canceled. If it had been hugely popular, with viewership numbers closer to The Mandalorian than to Andor, it almost certainly would have been renewed. But the critical reception was lukewarm and fan reception was largely very negative and viewers didn’t show up to watch it. I don’t believe this was due to the show’s diversity or new setting in the High Republic, but rather to the overall sense that this show was poorly executed, with a gimmicky twin storyline that never worked, some truly abysmal moments like the witch chants, and its biggest star killed off in the first five minutes.

I do think The Acolyte had potential and perhaps its second season would have realized that potential, but I remain baffled at Disney placing this much trust and this kind of budget in the hands of someone with very little experience. It reminds me of the trainwreck that is Amazon’s Rings Of Power, also a series with a huge budget and showrunners that have very little experience.

Disney does need to try new things, and Star Wars does need to continue to be diverse—Andor is a great example of a very diverse Star Wars show that worked remarkably well—but the company also needs to be smart and judicious about who it puts in charge of projects. I’ll discuss this more in a future post, but the main problem with Star Wars since Lucasfilm joined Disney is a lack of a clear vision or strategy for the franchise. That’s been obvious since the frustrating sequel trilogy and continues to haunt all things Star Wars to this day.

 

[The Cat]

I hated that. Why that's better than him having a bad thought one time, I'll never fathom.

You're gonna have to reword that if you want me to understand your meaning, please and thank you. *tosses you the ball back with some catcher banter.* You got the pepper on it kid that's for sure, but you were a bit high and to the left, *taps the center of my glove* Just wind up and pitch again, but this time put it right into the center of the old mit.

 

[The Cat]

The Very Obvious Reason Disney Canceled ‘The Acolyte’ — It Wasn’t ‘Toxic Dudebros’

There's a very simple reason why The Acolyte was canceled and it had nothing to do with the culture wars.

www.forbes.com

Come to think of it, I aint heard nothing but nothing but praise for Andor, and Rebel Moon(except they killed all the characters because they mistook the line from return of the jedi where all the spies died, and decided to make that happen in rebel moon so they could complete the seven samurai bit, but the only people were super pissed about that is because the team was genuinely interesting, complex, diverse, and likeable. The NS Trilogy sort of failed to make the characters stay...likable.

 

[The Cat]

As far as I can tell Andor is what everyone thinks is the best SW since SW was just three movies and a lot of love.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

You're gonna have to reword that if you want me to understand your meaning, please and thank you. *tosses you the ball back with some catcher banter.* You got the pepper on it kid that's for sure, but you were a bit high and to the left, *taps the center of my glove* Just wind up and pitch again, but this time put it right into the center of the old mit.

I'm referring to the flashbacks with Luke in The Last Jedi.

 

[The Cat]

I'm referring to the flashbacks with Luke in The Last Jedi.

regarding Dark Empire vs flashback in Last Jedi: because there were actual stakes, a ticking clock to doom, it was an interesting mystery, there was real tragedy, Luke's reasons for doing it, his struggles with coming to terms with who his father was. Han Solo has a pretty cool hero moment when he gets through to Luke. And it helps Luke become a better Teacher for new Jedi, and lays the ground work for him to begin to heal the scism between the dark side and the light side of the force, which iirc helps the
jedi order survive the Yuzang Vong, though I was less into that part of the Star Wars Timeline, I might enjoy it more now that im older, but time will tell.
In last Jedi, Luke gets paranoid and nearly kills his nephew and his nephew just goes ape shit into the dark side. It was a flashback so imo we didnt get to see the lead up to that mistake, nor the fall out, they relagated it to a cutaway. When it was arguably a better plot than the one the Sequel Trilogy gave us. Im not saying they didnt have something worth going with. But it certainly seems to me that they didnt believe they had anything with it, or if they did, they didnt know what to do with it.

Dark Empire was a more coherent story in general. It was a graphic novel, so it would have been very easy to story board break up the three acts of the novel into three movies and supplement some of the new things they wanted to explore and add to the franchise for a modern audience, cultivate new fans, whilst not alienating the old, seeming like they wanted to give us star wars instead of just marketing us star wars. There was a lot in Last Jedi worth exploreing, they obviously mined Dark Empire for the sequel trilogy, but they didnt seemingly want to pay royalties to the author, so they half assed something at the last minute and hoped wed be too floored by the twist, or too young or not into the lore enough to notice. Or so it seems to this little black duck. It would have also removed the ham fisted killing off the old guard to make room for the new kids(Those new kids deserved a better trilogy to star in, and none of the old guard had to be killed off. That's marketing strategy, not storycraft. It would have been a great story, a real win in diplomatic terms because a true winning strategy isnt one where somebody wins, its where no one feels like they've lost.

Opening Crawl from dark empire makes a perfect place to start the new sequel trilogy

APPROXIMATELY TEN YEARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN...

Following the deaths of Darth Vader and the Emperor at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance formed a New Republic over much of the galaxy. Long years of struggle have ensued. Remnants of the Empire have regained strength and reclaimed the majority of worlds, including the city-world of Coruscant. Now a civil war within the resurgent Empire has erupted, and the New Republic has seized the opportunity to increase confusion. A recent raid over Coruscant has left Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian stranded on the war-torn planet, but help is on the way...

That help could be Ben Solo, Poe Dameron and Rose, Lando and Luke could have met Rey on the planet they crashed in, and Finn could have been part of the Imperial remnant and for the most part they could stay the main characters of the movie. Then when Luke goes Darkside that really leaves a mark on Ben, who inexorably begins to question the force if his own uncle who he looks up to, his teacher, can fall, and have good reason for it...It starts to get inside his head, then while training on yavin, he stumbles across a holocron belonging to a sith lord, exar kun, or darth traya, hell even plagius that everyone is so keen on these days, and by the end of the trilogy in the moments where everything is back to seeming normal again Luke is training Ben, Rey, and Finn as jedi, and they feel a disturbance in the force. The Sith spirits across the galaxy are waking up, and the new jedi order are prime targets for recruitment....And that would open doors for more solo projects, series, and trilogys not to mention games galore.

I maintain the new kids were well cast and had a LOT of potential they deserved better than they got. We all did. We all do.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I maintain the new kids were well cast and had a LOT of potential they deserved better than they got. We all did. We all do.

I agree with you on this. I still hate Dark Empire, though, which I've never read.

A dumb thing about the sequel trilogy is that the really interesting stuff is in the backstory that is barely touched upon.

 

[The Cat]

I agree with you on this. I still hate Dark Empire, though, which I've never read.

A dumb thing about the sequel trilogy is that the really interesting stuff is in the backstory that is barely touched upon.

You should read it. You might even enjoy your avatars trip to the dark side. I know I did. The back story is where all the interesting stuff is in the sequel trilogy.

But tell me, why do you hate it without having read it? Im always curious about this.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

You should read it. You might even enjoy your avatars trip to the dark side. I know I did. The back story is where all the interesting stuff is in the sequel trilogy.

But tell me, why do you hate it without having read it? Im always curious about this.

I thought bringing the Emperor back was cheap and lazy and diminished the ending of Return of the Jedi. I was glad when they declared it non-Canon, and then Disney just ended up doing the same thing. Go figure.

 

[The Cat]

I thought bringing the Emperor back was cheap and lazy and diminished the ending of Return of the Jedi. I was glad when they declared it non-Canon, and then Disney just ended up doing the same thing. Go figure.

It wasnt a main part of the story. It was a one off in a time of book trilogys. SW novels came out in trilogies and single books. The emperor coming back in Dark Empire was tied to the way the Clone Wars were handled before the prequel trilogy back when it was an espionage war as much as a star war. It was handled better. It did not diminish the end of return of the jedi. That sort of thing used to be taboo in the Expanded Universe. The best I can tell you is, if you try it, you might like it. The EU was not declared non cannon because they didnt plan on mining it for ideas, they made it non cannon so they didnt have to pay royalties to the old authors and publishers.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It wasnt a main part of the story. It was a one off in a time of book trilogys. SW novels came out in trilogies and single books. The emperor coming back in Dark Empire was tied to the way the Clone Wars were handled before the prequel trilogy back when it was an espionage war as much as a star war. It was handled better. It did not diminish the end of return of the jedi. That sort of thing used to be taboo in the Expanded Universe. The best I can tell you is, if you try it, you might like it. The EU was not declared non cannon because they didnt plan on mining it for ideas, they made it non cannon so they didnt have to pay royalties to the old authors and publishers.

That's obvious to me now. They also used many parts of the story about how the Millenium Falcon ran the Kessel Run in Solo. There's even a Maw.

At the time, though, I was excited by the prospect of a blank slate and I was excited to see what they would come up with. It's too bad so much of it wound up being lazy or stupid.

Sweet summer child....

 

[The Cat]

All right here's one Ive been dying to know. @Totenkindly ,@Julius_Van_Der_Beak , @Doctor Cringelord , and any other star wars fans who want to weigh in. Drawing from all the lore out there that you know of, and whatever you've put a lot of thought into from your own headcannon... What kind of Force user would you be? What kind of Jedi, what kind of Sith? I'll answer with my own, but I've really been curious as to y'all and Ive been trying to figure out how to word the question.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Very well. I apologize that this is self-indulgent crap. This is set in some vague time before the prequels; the chancellor isn't Palpatine.

I would be the Jedi the other Jedi have problems with or don't mesh with. I would be dedicated to the light side and serving the citizens of the galaxy, but the other Jedi don't like the questions I have about the Republic and the Force. When I first became a Knight I requested a mission to live in the lower levels of Coruscant for two years, which they granted. I requested another mission to live in a largely uninhabited Outer Rim planet, which they granted. I learned a great deal about the citizens of the galaxy and how they actually lived, and about the Force itself, but the Jedi Council did not understand the purpose of these missions. For this reason, they refused my requests to live among the Aing-Tii monks; they were tired of indulging me. They told me it was about time I took a Padawan, but this did not interest me at the time.

The council refused to allow me to take any other missions off-world until I took a Padawan, but I was content to just study texts in the Temple library. I was often interested in what I found, but most other Jedi I spoke with had no interest in discussing it. Often they would encourage me that it would be more productive to study "the living force," and I told them that I actually learned much about the living force when I was in the Outer Rim. I asked them what things they could have learned about the living force that I didn't already know on a planet that barely had any plants. Awkward silence ensues.

I occasionally discuss current affairs with the other Jedi and usually end up pissing a lot of people off because I usually end up saying something that contradicts what the Chancellor of the Republic said. These remarks or opinions make the other Jedi react as though I decided to trade my green lightsaber in for a red one. People are shocked by me and wonder why I don't trust that the Chancellor has everyone's best interests at heart and is always making the best decision at any given time.

Eventually, after many years, I take a Padawan who reminds me of a younger version of myself. I use this as an excuse to go out and see more of the galaxy. We try to help the citizens of the galaxy, and we are proud of what we do. We succeed where other Jedi have failed. I sometimes lie in my transmissions back to the Council if I think I'd get a lecture about violating some dogma that I decided was trivial bullshit. I keep them in the loop about what I think are important goings-on, but it seems like they are always dismissing these reports as unimportant, or that "the Republic field office on the planet would let the chancellor know about it if there was a problem, and he would either take care of it or have a very good reason for not taking care of it."

I imagine if I were to become a Sith, it would be out of a desire to do good, hoping to find more effective means of doing so. Perhaps it would be similar to Jacen Solo in Legends. It wouldn't be because of something like saving my hot wife when ordinary medical care could probably do that anyway.

 

[The Cat]

Lore about the original Witches of Dathomir
From the Courtship of Princess Leia
By Dave Wolverton
Published by Bantam Spectrum.

The Nightsisters came from here.

The Witches all rode Rancor.
They were bad ass force women warriors.
It was one of the more enjoyable EU books I read.
Well received by Star Wars fans.​