Star Wars Books Thread

[publiusr]

Books aren't all that is of interest:
Nice RC drone http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=33427

I'd love to see a book of line drawings of ships to scale.

 

[JD]

In that case summarise away!


Actually you can. Just open his profile and click "ignore". I've found threads to be a lot less irritating since I did it. Indeed, it says a lot that I knew exactly who you guys were arguing with, without even seeing his side of the exchange.

I've thought about that, but I don't want to miss half of the conversations when other people are talking to him.

 

[WebLurker]

So, its less "stupid leap in logic" then "extremely contrived plot point"? At least with the leap in logic explanation it felt like they were trying to make him seem "smart". If the Rebels character only caught Hera because the writer(s) invented a stupid item that literally only one person in the entire universe cares about so even a brain dead mynock could have caught Hera based on it, then that's actually more insulting. So, at most, the fake Thrawn is "smarter" then other imperials because he read about Twi'lek customs one time, while most imperials wouldn't have bothered, and that let him notice blatantly obvious evidence of someone's identity. Rebels keeps managing to find ways to be worse. I'd be impressed if I wasn't infuriated.

I get the feeling that you've made your mind up and will not change it, regardless of what the show actually does in the future.

People can state anything. Since he's not even remotely like the real Thrawn, they were obviously lying. That's what they do, lie and make a terrible show. I honestly question whether the people on the show have even seen the movies sometimes, much less care about Thrawn. Their blue guy is not Thrawn created by Zahn. Its generic "smart" villain from every garbage cartoon for the last 30+ years with a Thrawn paint job.

Hold that thought.

It won't effect the movies or main books. It already has completely ruined a classic EU character, and will probably continue doing so. It won't effect any main stories, but it will still ruin great things.

I still don't understand what your original point was.

My biggest fear is that the idiots might be allowed to use the Mara Jade name on one of their characters. If you think I rant about Rebels now, having them steal Mara Jade's name would probably drive me to complete incoherent screaming. I just hope they either keep her in limbo or a book writer grabs her before the Rebels hacks do.

I doubt the Mara character will be used in canon, since her backstory would have to be radically changed, while Thrawn's basic character (a smart navy commander) can be carried over with minimal changes. But I'm only guessing.

I doubt Rogue One had planned itself around using a TCW character. They probably had a character written in that slot, and then some story group doofus thought it sounded like an obscure TCW character and had them change the character to fit.

Either way, my point still holds.

Its called marketing.

You market stuff to the target audience and the people who will buy. YA stuff is being marketed to adults. Why is that? Maybe because the target audience goes beyond the kids?

Also, I'd say the level of quality and complete lack of anything important in the non-GA books shows that the people in charge of the books know what's important and what is fluff.

So that's why we've gotten so many GA books that are fluff and so many YA books with close ties to the movies and TV shows that are the main facets of the franchise now? If anything, YA is more important right now. That's where the bulk of the direct movie tie-ins are being produced. And in either case, all books are equally canonical, so putting one above the other -- esp. since Star Wars book fans are in the minority -- doesn't really work.

To be fair, the Young Jedi Knights books were good. they weren't written like YA books, they were mostly just shorter GA books. The Boba Fett chapter books were as worthless and unimportant as any of thew new canon kids books, though.

Since you admit to not reading them on principle, I don't really trust your assessment. Having read both, I can say that the average YA Star Wars book today is better written than the Young Jedi Knights ones were and actually are much closer, if not indistinguishable from, the GA books in many cases. I will agree that Boba Fett hasn't aged well, though.

Its fluff because if they thought it was important for people to know, it would be in a real novel. Since its not, I'd argue it doesn't even count.

You really don't understand how Star Wars canon works, do you? All the books, unless designed to be non-canon or to take liberties, are on an equal footing. That's the way it's always been. Nothing has changed and simply denying this won't change that fact.

Again, the end result shows they're lying. Also, its completely acceptable to insult people. I find it a bit ridiculous that people are so offended by it. Filoni and his minions are liars who say one thing then make a terrible, insulting show. They deserve every insult I can throw at them.

My offense is that your reasoning is flawed. You're making huge character assessments based on art, which means different things to different people. There's no one way to interpret art and storytelling. Different things mean different things to everyone who views it. You can make sound arguments on Rebels being a good or bad show based on the episodes themselves. Some stuff just doesn't work for people. I like Spider-Man, but don't like Dan Slott's run on the series. Doesn't mean that it's badly written (although I haven't heard good things about it), but some of the storytelling decisions aren't ones that I want to read about personally. Other fans do like those and can offer good reasons why they do.

Because of that, how can we trust the TV show to be an accurate reflection of the people who work on it, esp. since creators are skilled at telling stories that may not reflect how they personally view the world or their sense of ethics? People who make pirate movies don't believe that armed robbery is okay, for example. What they say and do outside the show is a better judge of that. And you know what, the Rebels team is consistent on what they say and there's a lot of reaching out to the fans over social media and in conventions.

Whenever you bring this point up, you never offer any evidence, you just state your opinion that the show is awful and use that as proof. That's not proof, and attacking the producers over an opinion is honestly quite cruel. If you have anything solid, present it and let the rest of us take a look.

Also, your reasoning doesn't make sense in and of itself. If the makers hated Star Wars, they wouldn't be working on the show. If they were incompetent, Disney would've fired them.

That's like saying you won't accept my opinion that stabbing myself in the eye would hurt without seeing me actually stab myself in the eye. Stabbing myself in the eye, coincidentally, would also be more entertaining then watching any more of Rebels. I'm not going to watch the abomination using Thrawn's name. The normal Rebels episode is terrible enough, much less watching more of the fake "Thrawn".

Bad analogy. We can infer that through other sources of information. In the case of the show, there is no other source of information to get the full picture. Refusing to accept or analyze that information means that your assessment of Thrawn is inaccurate, at best, since you do not have all the facts. You're qualified to say that you don't like what you see, but as of yet, you're not qualified to say whether the adaption of Thawn was good or not, since you refuse to give it a fair assessment.

 

[Ithekro]

I generally don't put people on 'ignore' as I don't like to censor the context of a thread. And I sometimes find differences of opinion interesting to read, as long as I can figure out where the other person is coming from. In this case I'm not understanding the amount of hatred involved nor the spite leveled at the production staff for things they don't appear to have done.

Sure there have been bad novels, or episodes, even poorly executed movies, but I've not found a terrible Star Wars media production out of Lucasfilm in the last 40 years. The closest was one of the ground combat computer games of the 90s that had graphics issues, rather than gameplay issues. The story was fine, the models were fine, the interface was messy and cluttered the playing field. Even the Ewoks films have a certain charm to them given their age. Admittedly my memory of the old Droids and Ewoks cartoons is fuzzy now. I remember watching them, though I sort of remember some plotlines and elements from Droids, Ewoks is much fuzzier (in several ways). Rebels feels a lot better than I remember Droids being, and seems to be telling a longer story than TCW did due to the show having a smaller cast rather than jumping all over the galaxy with different groups of people. How it is received will be for later as TCW wasn't as well received early either, but the pendulum shifted as it went on, and story ideas from earlier seasons bore fruit in later seasons. The same appears to be happening in Rebels.

There were a few bad novels were not much is really happening in the galaxy, and it is mostly just Luke searching for Jedi or lore someplace in the galaxy, or some random enemy tries to make or steal of superweapon while the New Republic is rebuilding after the events of Dark Empire and Thrawn's invasion. Some of those were good and others were not. Similarly, some books seem dull until taken in context with other books were the plotline is expanded on, changing the context of the earlier novel and making it interesting. Or having knowledge of an earlier novel will make the newer novel make more sense, while not having it makes you lost since the universe was so connected back before the PT. But it would get sloppy if the authors tried to link events and people read them out of order. So it is a balancing act, one that the present day Story Group seems to be attempting to address across the board.

 

[JD]

I watched a couple episodes of Droids a few months back, and they really weren't that bad. Obviously due to the era they weren't anywhere near what we are getting now with Rebels and TCW, but they were still pretty fun.

 

[fireproof78]

I generally don't put people on 'ignore' as I don't like to censor the context of a thread. And I sometimes find differences of opinion interesting to read, as long as I can figure out where the other person is coming from. In this case I'm not understanding the amount of hatred involved nor the spite leveled at the production staff for things they don't appear to have done.

I have to commend this idea as well as agree. I, as a general rule, refuse to put people on an ignore list because I believe everyone needs to be heard, no matter how much I disagree with it.

In this instance, I have no idea where the person is coming from, but that's fine. I'll listen.

Sure there have been bad novels, or episodes, even poorly executed movies, but I've not found a terrible Star Wars media production out of Lucasfilm in the last 40 years. The closest was one of the ground combat computer games of the 90s that had graphics issues, rather than gameplay issues. The story was fine, the models were fine, the interface was messy and cluttered the playing field. Even the Ewoks films have a certain charm to them given their age. Admittedly my memory of the old Droids and Ewoks cartoons is fuzzy now. I remember watching them, though I sort of remember some plotlines and elements from Droids, Ewoks is much fuzzier (in several ways). Rebels feels a lot better than I remember Droids being, and seems to be telling a longer story than TCW did due to the show having a smaller cast rather than jumping all over the galaxy with different groups of people. How it is received will be for later as TCW wasn't as well received early either, but the pendulum shifted as it went on, and story ideas from earlier seasons bore fruit in later seasons. The same appears to be happening in Rebels.

There were a few bad novels were not much is really happening in the galaxy, and it is mostly just Luke searching for Jedi or lore someplace in the galaxy, or some random enemy tries to make or steal of superweapon while the New Republic is rebuilding after the events of Dark Empire and Thrawn's invasion. Some of those were good and others were not. Similarly, some books seem dull until taken in context with other books were the plotline is expanded on, changing the context of the earlier novel and making it interesting. Or having knowledge of an earlier novel will make the newer novel make more sense, while not having it makes you lost since the universe was so connected back before the PT. But it would get sloppy if the authors tried to link events and people read them out of order. So it is a balancing act, one that the present day Story Group seems to be attempting to address across the board.

I think the Story Group has a very difficult ask because there is o much material that has gone on before, that there really is going to be some who want that to be represented, or represented in a specific way. No one anticipated things like Mara Jade or even Qui-Gon Jinn as part of the lore, and the life that they would take. The idea that the Story Group has to somehow meld that all together should be cause for pause, to see just how much they are tasked with in terms of expectations.

The fact is, nothing could meet all expectations-even TFA falls short on some fronts. So, I'm not going to be "insulted" when something comes out that I didn't expect.

 

[Ithekro]

I've not found a terrible Star Wars media production out of Lucasfilm in the last 40 years.

I just remembered one, that most people, including Lucas, are trying to forget....the Holiday Special. Some good came out of that, but it was not very well done.

 

[Reverend]

I just remembered one, that most people, including Lucas, are trying to forget....the Holiday Special. Some good came out of that, but it was not very well done.

I tried watching the Holiday Special once...couldn't even make it five minutes. Just fast forwarded it to the Boba Fett cartoon and ejected. Some things are so bad they're good but this is just weapon's grade *bad*.

The Ewok movies are pretty bad too. But then I really enjoyed the second one as a kid (didn't see the first until much-much later.)
Not sure how well the Ewok and Droids cartoons hold up after all this time. But considering the bar for cheesy 80's cartoons is already pretty low, they can't be *that* bad by comparison....right?

I've thought about that, but I don't want to miss half of the conversations when other people are talking to him.

It can actually be fairly entertaining. From my POV the four of you have been basically shouting at nothing for the last page and a half.

 

[USS Firefly]

I would like to read a serie of novels with Luke having a big jedi order like TPM era.
And having send the Jedi on missions as diplomats, guardians, and spy's etc.
And to expand the universe and new characters like star trek did with "new frontier" and "Vanguard".

 

[kirk55555]

I get the feeling that you've made your mind up and will not change it, regardless of what the show actually does in the future.

Well, it doesn't matter what the show will do. It won't be a good show unless it fires literally everyone but the voice actors from the show, and I doubt it will do that. Unless that happens, Rebels is Rebels, it is literally impossible for it to become a good show. It could get worse I guess, but that's the only direction it can go with the people running it.

You market stuff to the target audience and the people who will buy. YA stuff is being marketed to adults. Why is that? Maybe because the target audience goes beyond the kids?

I really don't think its being marketed at adults at all. Besides adults reviewing the books, they're not trying to sell books for kids to adults. They know some obsessive adult SW fans will buy them, but its not like they're spending any money trying to get adults to read the kiddie books.

So that's why we've gotten so many GA books that are fluff and so many YA books with close ties to the movies and TV shows that are the main facets of the franchise now? If anything, YA is more important right now. That's where the bulk of the direct movie tie-ins are being produced. And in either case, all books are equally canonical, so putting one above the other -- esp. since Star Wars book fans are in the minority -- doesn't really work.

There isn't one fluff book that I've read in general audience. The books are supposed to be about the universe in general, not neccessarily tie in to the movies. The YA books are the fluff trying to "add" things to the movies, things that don't actually count or don't matter.

Since you admit to not reading them on principle, I don't really trust your assessment. Having read both, I can say that the average YA Star Wars book today is better written than the Young Jedi Knights ones were and actually are much closer, if not indistinguishable from, the GA books in many cases. I will agree that Boba Fett hasn't aged well, though.

The YJK books were pretty good, and were just small GA books, and they were pretty important to several EU characters development. The new canon YA books are in a much different (and inferior) style, and don't do anything except add barely canon fluff to a movie (seriously, the movie writers are never going to be made to match what the terrible YA books "add" to the movie characters). Well, ok, some are also angsty teen romances, because Twilight exists and must be copied.

You really don't understand how Star Wars canon works, do you? All the books, unless designed to be non-canon or to take liberties, are on an equal footing. That's the way it's always been. Nothing has changed and simply denying this won't change that fact.

There is canon, and technically canon. Some canon is pretty important and set in stone, some is fluff that can and will be retconned away at a moments notice with no real effect on anything else. I don't know what stupid stuff specifically they added to junk like Rey's "survival guide" or the little kid TFA adaptation, but I can pretty much guarantee that the movie writers haven't read those and won't take anything from them into account while writing the movies.

Also, your reasoning doesn't make sense in and of itself. If the makers hated Star Wars, they wouldn't be working on the show. If they were incompetent, Disney would've fired them.

Both untrue. People work on jobs they don't like all the time, and (to use a cartoon writer as an example) Paul Dini in an interview said he really didn't like working on He-Man, or at filmation in general. Yet, he did it. So, even in the cartoon industry people will work jobs they dislike for franchises/companies they don't like.

As for Disney, companies employ incompetent people all the time. As long as the people turn in their work on time and enough 5 year olds watch the show, they don't care about quality (their Marvel cartoons are also a great example of this).

Bad analogy. We can infer that through other sources of information. In the case of the show, there is no other source of information to get the full picture. Refusing to accept or analyze that information means that your assessment of Thrawn is inaccurate, at best, since you do not have all the facts. You're qualified to say that you don't like what you see, but as of yet, you're not qualified to say whether the adaption of Thawn was good or not, since you refuse to give it a fair assessment.

Its Rebels, I have a season and a half of suffering to qualify me when it comes to speaking about the show. I don't even need the Thrawn clips to comment on what they did to him, they just give me specific examples.

In that case summarise away!


Actually you can. Just open his profile and click "ignore". I've found threads to be a lot less irritating since I did it. Indeed, it says a lot that I knew exactly who you guys were arguing with, without even seeing his side of the exchange.

If I ignored everyone I disagreed with on some topic, I'd probably be talking to myself (Note: I'm aware he can't see this post, but I'm just giving a general response anyway)

To say I'm confused is to putting it lightly. You haven't seen the show but you conclude it's back which makes the production team liars because they show is bad.

I saw a Season and a half of the show. That's much more then enough to basically know the show inside and out, at least when it comes to knowing how it does things and its general lack of quality. I call them liars because they constantly lie.

Finally, they are not "ruining" anything, any more than GL ruined the PT. He made the films he wanted and doesn't owe me anything in terms of my expectations. Similarly, The Rebels team isn't "insulting" or "ruining" anything for me. They are making a product which I can accept or dismiss for me. I don't "hate" anything about it.

Well, while I've hated it since episode one, I was content to just ignore it. I'm much prefer to do that, and if it only effected itself, I would. But, then it brought in Ahsoka, and the clones and Vader and "Tarkin". I can't ignore what its done to those characters. I honestly don't care or even feel particularly angry/irritaited about what it does with its own characters. If it was just space Aladdin and a bunch of cliches having poorly written adventures, I'd just ignore it. It was bringing in the real SW characters that crossed the line for me. They can write terrible TV with their own characters all they want, and I'd wouldn't care about it anymore then I care about those old Ewoks/Droids cartoons. But, ruining good SW characters, most created by people with no association with Rebels, is infuriating. That is the reason I can't and will never just ignore the show or pretend like I think the people working on it aren't terrible hacks.

 

[The Wormhole]

I just remembered one, that most people, including Lucas, are trying to forget....the Holiday Special. Some good came out of that, but it was not very well done.

Disney totally needs to do a new holiday special with the TFA cast. With maybe a flashback scene to tie in with Rogue One.
Galen Erso: Happy Life Day, Jyn!
Child Jyn: Happy Life Day Daddy!
Director Krennic walks in, flanked by Death Troopers.
Krennic: Happy Life Day, Erso Family!
Galen: Oh shit!
No, I don't care if Life Day was only meant to be a Wookiee holiday.

 

[Ithekro]

You have not shown how the show is terrible beyond it following troupes that Star Wars itself follows by its very nature as science fantasy based on 1930s serials of the like of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordan. Star Wars itself could easily be seen by all ages, as can Rebels or TCW. These aren't meant to be R-rated materials or for Mature Audiences only. Neither are most of the novels.

I have found no evidence of the show ruining any existing characters, but rather treating them with respect. This includes: Darth Vader, Tarkin, Ahsoka, Thrawn, Rex, Hando, Yoda, Leia, and Lando. C-3PO and R2-D2 are just themselves in about everything, and the way they were presented harkened back to their appearances in Droids as well as reminded people they still belonged to Bail Organa.

One thing to remember about this forum is that while it is unlikely the Star Wars writers are here, there are plenty of authors on this board (Star Trek mostly) as well as production end people. While it if fine to not like something, it is another to outright insult them for something they likely haven't done.

I would like to read a serie of novels with Luke having a big jedi order like TPM era.
And having send the Jedi on missions as diplomats, guardians, and spy's etc.
And to expand the universe and new characters like star trek did with "new frontier" and "Vanguard".

The later part is happening a bit with the likes of Rebels and some of the other novels and comics.

The part with the Jedi is unlikely with the addition of The Force Awakens. At least at this point in the canon. Depending on what they do with Episodes VIII and IX will likely determine just hope far Luke had gotten before he disappeared. There may have been a small number of Jedi around a decade or two after Return of the Jedi, but nowhere near the scale of the Jedi Order in TPM ear. Even in the old EU the New Jedi Order wasn't much more than a hundred Jedi 30 years after the Battle of Endor.

 

[Mr Light]

I watched the Holiday Special for the first ever time last December. And it was even worse than I had expected. Not only was it terrible, it was SLOW and BORING. There were entire 5-10 sequences of just music or dancing. Really, really weird and terrible music and dancing.

 

[Ithekro]

It was the late 1970s and it was I suppose standard to have a variety show feeling with musical numbers in a holiday special. Doesn't make it good, just a product of its times. My mind it trying to remember some other holiday or christsma specials of that era and I can't recall one that didn't have musical numbers in them.

Star Wars Holiday Special things that remained afterwards. The Wookiee's homeworld. That the Empire does a lot of checking for clearances and identification. They do that still in Rebels. And Boba Fett. Also the art style of the cartoon short was similar to that used in Droids and Ewoks. It is unclear if Chewbacca's family survive the Disney change over, but they were around for the old EU. We know he still has a family, just not if it is the same as before.

 

[kirk55555]

You have not shown how the show is terrible beyond it following troupes that Star Wars itself follows by its very nature as science fantasy based on 1930s serials of the like of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordan. Star Wars itself could easily be seen by all ages, as can Rebels or TCW. These aren't meant to be R-rated materials or for Mature Audiences only. Neither are most of the novels.

SW would be terrible if it was some "Rated R "series, its a general audiences thing. But, its ridiculous to say Rebels is made for the same audience as the movies. Even if it wasn't terrible it would still not be made for the average SW movie fan.

I have found no evidence of the show ruining any existing characters, but rather treating them with respect. This includes: Darth Vader, Tarkin, Ahsoka, Thrawn, Rex, Hando, Yoda, Leia, and Lando. C-3PO and R2-D2 are just themselves in about everything, and the way they were presented harkened back to their appearances in Droids as well as reminded people they still belonged to Bail Organa.

And I see absolutely no real similarities between the real Thrawn and the fake one except some superficial stuff. As for the others, they're all either incompetent or stupid (Ahsoka being both by not being able to sense that Vader is Anakin) and none of them have anything important in common with the actual characters. I'll give them a pass on R2 and C-3P0 because even TCW never got the droids right (although Rebels does it even worse with Chopper, the worst droid in the enitire franchise).

But, you know what? I've made a decision. Its almost Halloween, and I suppose watching something terrible is almost the same as watching something terrifying. So, I'm going to go watch Steps Into Shadow. Then, at the very least, people won't be able to say that I'm judging Rebels "Thrawn" without context.

One thing to remember about this forum is that while it is unlikely the Star Wars writers are here, there are plenty of authors on this board (Star Trek mostly) as well as production end people. While it if fine to not like something, it is another to outright insult them for something they likely haven't done.

While I'd never go and harass people whose work I hate like some online nutjob, if (speaking very hypothetically, obviously) Dave Filoni asked me what I thought about Rebels I'd say everything I've posted here. Besides, I don't consider people that make stuff to be anything more then just people. I don't change my opinions or the way I express them because someone unrelated to anything might not like me saying bad things about TV people. In the end, the people behind the show are the show, and if the show is terrible, they are the ones responsible. I'm not insulting production people in general, I'm insulting the people behind the worst official SW production ever made. Insulting the people working on one thing doesn't mean I'm insulting everyone in a certain profession.

 

[Reverend]

It was the late 1970s and it was I suppose standard to have a variety show feeling with musical numbers in a holiday special. Doesn't make it good, just a product of its times. My mind it trying to remember some other holiday or christsma specials of that era and I can't recall one that didn't have musical numbers in them.

I can't speak for American TV at the time, but it was certainly the standard over here. Of course, they were generally of much better quality.

Star Wars Holiday Special things that remained afterwards. The Wookiee's homeworld. That the Empire does a lot of checking for clearances and identification. They do that still in Rebels. And Boba Fett. Also the art style of the cartoon short was similar to that used in Droids and Ewoks. It is unclear if Chewbacca's family survive the Disney change over, but they were around for the old EU. We know he still has a family, just not if it is the same as before.

From what I gather most of that stuff regarding the Wookiees actually originated from Lucas himself prior to film's release. He wrote up a bunch of background information of various characters for the marketing & merchandising people. I think it's also where we get the notion that both Chewie & Threepio are over a century old, that Darth Vader was a Dark Lord of the Sith, Han being Corellian and other similar things that weren't in the movie but cropped up in the early picture books, theatre brochures and the like.

IIRC I think some of the deeper Kashyykk lore regarding the Wookiees' beliefs regarding the force and their connection to the trees was due to feature in one of the unproduced 'Bad Batch' episodes of TCW.

 

[fireproof78]

Well, it doesn't matter what the show will do. It won't be a good show unless it fires literally everyone but the voice actors from the show, and I doubt it will do that. Unless that happens, Rebels is Rebels, it is literally impossible for it to become a good show. It could get worse I guess, but that's the only direction it can go with the people running it.

Hardly. By that argument, TNG was terrible and never going to get better.

I really don't think its being marketed at adults at all. Besides adults reviewing the books, they're not trying to sell books for kids to adults. They know some obsessive adult SW fans will buy them, but its not like they're spending any money trying to get adults to read the kiddie books.

I must be in the wrong demographic then, because I see adds for kids books alongside adult books that I am looking at. And I read both equally and enjoy them.

I saw a Season and a half of the show. That's much more then enough to basically know the show inside and out, at least when it comes to knowing how it does things and its general lack of quality. I call them liars because they constantly lie.

I have yet to see a specific example of this, and have heard several examples to the opposite effect. So, you'll forgive me if I find your statements lacking credibility.

Well, while I've hated it since episode one, I was content to just ignore it. I'm much prefer to do that, and if it only effected itself, I would. But, then it brought in Ahsoka, and the clones and Vader and "Tarkin". I can't ignore what its done to those characters. I honestly don't care or even feel particularly angry/irritaited about what it does with its own characters. If it was just space Aladdin and a bunch of cliches having poorly written adventures, I'd just ignore it. It was bringing in the real SW characters that crossed the line for me. They can write terrible TV with their own characters all they want, and I'd wouldn't care about it anymore then I care about those old Ewoks/Droids cartoons. But, ruining good SW characters, most created by people with no association with Rebels, is infuriating. That is the reason I can't and will never just ignore the show or pretend like I think the people working on it aren't terrible hacks.

Since I keep hearing the show being written off as "inconsequential" I would say that they are far from "ruining" the characters, because what happens, apparently, doesn't matter.

The only way for them to ruin anything is if it matters to the viewer. It doesn't have to. It just isn't worth the emotional energy for me to "hate" a show. A TV show cannot change or ruin the experience I had of watching ANH, reading about Thrawn, etc, etc. Those experiences are my own.

tl:dr-

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[WebLurker]

(Can't believe I have to retype this because of a blasted computer problem. Guess I'll have to shorten it this time around.)

Well, it doesn't matter what the show will do. It won't be a good show unless it fires literally everyone but the voice actors from the show, and I doubt it will do that. Unless that happens, Rebels is Rebels, it is literally impossible for it to become a good show. It could get worse I guess, but that's the only direction it can go with the people running it.

My experiences with a movie called Star Trek Beyond and a comic book called Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows by Dan Slott, are why I don't believe you.

There isn't one fluff book that I've read in general audience.

Tell that to Heir to the Jedi and Aftermath.

The books are supposed to be about the universe in general, not neccessarily tie in to the movies. The YA books are the fluff trying to "add" things to the movies, things that don't actually count or don't matter.

Sounds to me like you've got them mixed up, if that's the case.

The YJK books were pretty good, and were just small GA books...

I don't think those books were GA level at all.

... and they were pretty important to several EU characters development. The new canon YA books are in a much different (and inferior) style, and don't do anything except add barely canon fluff to a movie (seriously, the movie writers are never going to be made to match what the terrible YA books "add" to the movie characters). Well, ok, some are also angsty teen romances, because Twilight exists and must be copied.

Have you even read any of the modern YA books?

There is canon, and technically canon. Some canon is pretty important and set in stone, some is fluff that can and will be retconned away at a moments notice with no real effect on anything else.

Where's that written?

I don't know what stupid stuff specifically they added to junk like Rey's "survival guide" or the little kid TFA adaptation...

It's awesome stuff, for the record. Seriously, you're missing out.

...but I can pretty much guarantee that the movie writers haven't read those and won't take anything from them into account while writing the movies.

If you're right, then the GA books will be handled in exactly the same way. They're no more important than the YA stuff.

Both untrue. People work on jobs they don't like all the time, and (to use a cartoon writer as an example) Paul Dini in an interview said he really didn't like working on He-Man, or at filmation in general. Yet, he did it. So, even in the cartoon industry people will work jobs they dislike for franchises/companies they don't like.

As for Disney, companies employ incompetent people all the time. As long as the people turn in their work on time and enough 5 year olds watch the show, they don't care about quality (their Marvel cartoons are also a great example of this).

Okay, but what evidence do we have that this's the case here? Everything points to them being happy as clams at where they are and with what they're doing.

Its Rebels, I have a season and a half of suffering to qualify me when it comes to speaking about the show.

But not the later seasons. Things have changed.

I don't even need the Thrawn clips to comment on what they did to him, they just give me specific examples.

Tell that to Jurassic World.

I saw a Season and a half of the show. That's much more then enough to basically know the show inside and out, at least when it comes to knowing how it does things and its general lack of quality.

Tell that to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Star Treks: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise.

I call them liars because they constantly lie.

Prove it (and no, your opinion that they show is awful doesn't count).

SW would be terrible if it was some "Rated R "series, its a general audiences thing. But, its ridiculous to say Rebels is made for the same audience as the movies. Even if it wasn't terrible it would still not be made for the average SW movie fan.

And I see absolutely no real similarities between the real Thrawn and the fake one except some superficial stuff. As for the others, they're all either incompetent or stupid (Ahsoka being both by not being able to sense that Vader is Anakin) and none of them have anything important in common with the actual characters. I'll give them a pass on R2 and C-3P0 because even TCW never got the droids right (although Rebels does it even worse with Chopper, the worst droid in the enitire franchise).

Having seen the shows, I can only say I've only seen old characters treated with utmost respect and presented with absolute consistency to their original appearances. I cannot think of any evidence to support your opinion.

But, you know what? I've made a decision. Its almost Halloween, and I suppose watching something terrible is almost the same as watching something terrifying. So, I'm going to go watch Steps Into Shadow. Then, at the very least, people won't be able to say that I'm judging Rebels "Thrawn" without context.

I do respect you for this. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

While I'd never go and harass people whose work I hate like some online nutjob, if (speaking very hypothetically, obviously)...

Having been conversing on this thread, I'm honestly skeptical about that.

Dave Filoni asked me what I thought about Rebels I'd say everything I've posted here. Besides, I don't consider people that make stuff to be anything more then just people. I don't change my opinions or the way I express them because someone unrelated to anything might not like me saying bad things about TV people. In the end, the people behind the show are the show, and if the show is terrible, they are the ones responsible. I'm not insulting production people in general, I'm insulting the people behind the worst official SW production ever made. Insulting the people working on one thing doesn't mean I'm insulting everyone in a certain profession.

Just because they make an allegedly bad show doesn't mean that they're dishonest or awful people. That's something you don't seem to want to accept.

 

[JD]

One thing to keep in mind with the whole YA vs adult books is that YA books are hot right now, so the publisher behind SW (is it still Del Rey?) are going to take every opportunity to call a book YA even if it could just as easily be marketed as an adult book. Really when it comes down to YA vs adult, it really isn't a creative thing, it's purely a sales thing. Sure adult books can have explicit sex and violence in them, but not every one does, and at same time some YA books push pretty far into that stuff. Even more than the content, the categorization comes down to which will get them more sales. Allowing marketing BS to prevent you from reading good books is ridiculous.

 

[Ithekro]

So, I'm going to go watch Steps Into Shadow.

That is the third season opener. "Hera's Heroes" is the face to face meeting with Thrawn. It is the follow-up of the episode "Homecoming" from the second season. The one that introduced the Quasar Fire-class ship to the current canon.