Even if the story is about another character, if he shows up it still ends up being about him somehow.
How does that work? For example, I don't see how the "Out of Darkness" episode (Sabine and Hera trapped on the deserted base) was about Ezra.
Everything in the first season set him up as the unbeatable child prodigy. I was honestly surprised he didn't beat him into scrap metal.
He doe have quite the learning curve and doesn't get his lessons that well at first. Still not convinced he's that unusual in his Force abilities.
Its rebels. Nothing based on it has development, because cardboard doesn't develop.
Since you're of the opinion that the show doesn't have developing characters, what do you think character development would look like, had the show utilized it?
Just average cliched episode plots. An episode can be about a character but not be character development.
I wasn't actually talking about development. I was explaining that I think the base personalities of the characters have enough details and quirks to be more than cardboard. That's a different thing, right?
I watched around 25 episodes of the show and they're exactly the same in episode 25 as they are in episode one.
I don't think Ezra is. The others may not be as different, but I think they've had to examine themselves in different ways over the course of the show.
Star Wars has always put the cartoons over the books (like how TCW screwed over fans of Karven Traviss's clone/mandalorian books, like me).
True, the TV shows are of higher canonicity. (I frankly found Traviss's work to be overrated, but I think that had more to do with the subject matter not being in my wheelhouse, the books feeling like the existed in their own little universe more, and the books seeming to cross the fine line between writing the books from the perspective of a different worldview to proselytizing -- all IMHO, to be clear. It wasn't like the writing was bad or anything.)
Filoni gets power over the books just by being in charge of the cartoon.
To an extent, as he and his team have put together puzzle pieces that the book can't contradict. However, Zahn is in charge of creating the plot (per the Story Group's approval) and actually writing it. So, I think Zahn will bear most of the responsibility if the book is bad, but also if it's good.
If I didn't know who was working on the show, I'd never guess anyone who works on Rebels had worked on tCE. The differences in quality are way to severe.
I don't see the differences, but fair enough.
I went in thinking that Ezra's design was terrible and hearing rumors the show was aimed at a much younger audience then TCW, but I was willing to give it a chance. I hated Episode one, but I decided to give it a chance (since a lot of shows get off to a bad start).
That's fair of you.
Pure stuborness kept me going with every episode, most worst then the last, until Space Whales ended up being my breaking point.
What about the purrgil episode made it the end of the line.
I thought I had. I've never even heard of whatever Rebels "Recon" videos are. I figured it was something new, which is why I mentioned the trailer as the last thing I watched.
Sorry, I didn't understand that you didn't know what I was talking about.
On the official
Star Wars website, there's a episode guide section to their TV shows. On the
Rebels section, each episode gets a page devoted to it with a video clip, some slides of behind-the-scenes stuff, and a few other goodies. One regular feature in the collection is a "Rebels Recon" video that takes a brief look behind the scenes of the episode in question, usually by having brief interviews with a couple of people who worked on or acted in it. There's also always a brief joke scene with a animatronic Chopper interacting with the staff in the offices (
very hit or miss in regards to how funny it actually is), Pablo Hidalgo will usually answer one question about a previous show from a viewer (usually related to continuity in some fashion), and a sneak peak at the next episode.
They've been doing them since season one, actually.
I just rewatched the trailer to be sure (and god it was painful), and Thrawn in the trailer gives the most generic villain monologue I've heard in a long time. That's all he does. Doesn't say much, except serve as another example of Rebels terrible writing.
Okay, I double-checked the trailer myself to refresh my memory. Relevant lines to the character:
Gov. Pryce (explaining how she's going to deal with the rebels): "I need someone who sees a bigger picture."
Cham Syndulla (about one of Thrawn's attacks): "The Empire is getting better as anticipating our moves. I underestimated their commander. Previous attacks were clumsy, but this one was swift. Precise."
Thrawn: "To defeat an enemy, you must know them. Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy, art."
Thrawn: "I will pull the rebels apart piece by piece. They will be the architects of their own destruction."
We didn't see anything like that in the trailer. He just talked over explosions. No strategy or anything, he just did what every hack "genius" villain has done in cartoons for a long, long time.
I would submit that, first of all the trailer doesn't have room to show everything. It's an overall coverage of season three, and also needs to set up Ezra's treading closer to the dark side (character development), the Bendu (Tom Baker sounds great), the escalation of the conflict, Maul's agenda, etc. Thrawn was just one piece of the trailer, not the main point.
Also, they're not going to want to spoil too much. All they need to set up is that Thrawn's one of the best in his business and that the heroes are in big trouble if he's gunning for them. The actual methods he goes about doing that will be the focus of the episodes, so they're going to want to have the audience surprised about that. I don't want to know everything. I'd like there to be some surprises.
Also, Thrawn's lines seemed reasonably in character: "To defeat an enemy, you must know them. Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy, art." Sounds like Thrawn (albeit adding other stuff to his art analysis, which can only be a good thing; imagine Thrawn -- book version, if you prefer -- examining movies and speeches and literature and historical databases and cross-comparing them with cool computer screens). In the books, Thrawn's MO was figuring out what made his enemies tick through non-military knowledge and exploiting that in combat, which is what the animated version ascribes to.
The "I will pull the rebels apart piece by piece. They will be the architects of their own destruction" line I will admit could be given to any mastermind character as is, but we don't know the context of the scene, it's there mostly to underscore the sense of doom, and, for what it's worth, I could imagine book Thrawn saying that. (Also, the other lines introducing him by the other characters could've been used in the books for him and still feel right.)
Out of curiosity, what did you think of the voice acting for Thrawn in and of itself? (If you can't divorce that from the show, say the actor'd been hired to do a dramatic reading of the original novel and performed as as he did in the trailer.)
From my perspective, it is. Rebels "Thrawn" is terrible because everything on the show is terrible.
To lay the cards out on the table, even if they got the character right, do you think the show would still drag him down, or could the character (done right) bring the show up to some extent?
He'll be a generic "smart" villain. He'll make an overly complicated plan that will work, until the super awesome kid somehow foils it (probably through the villain's arrogance).
Did he ever loose to arrogance in the original books? I know he lacked some important info that was costly and he came to some very wrong conclusions (albeit ones that made sense from what he knew, so it wasn't like his brain had to take a vacation for him to be beat). ___
He'll barely escape the heroes, and vow revenge before returning again and again with even more complicated plans that will always fail, but he'll always escape the good guys.
He comes across as cold-blooded as he was in the books, so I'm not sure we'll have the declaring vengeance part (I hope not). The trailer looks like its going to be mostly the rebels on the run from him, so we'll see how well they escape his traps. IMHO, the best best would be to create stories where Thrawn wins even if he looses. E.G,., the rebels escape with their lives, but at the loss of needed supplies, heavy casualties, or other setbacks.
The Rebels went back to Lothal just fine, and kept winning in everything they did even when they couldn't go back to Planet Bland.
If I recall correctly, they had to sneak in with more trouble than they had in season one.
Tarkin did absolutely nothing important.
He did retake the com tower, captured Kanan and was the one who brought Vader in. Tarkin did play a role in the events that lead to the rebels needing to leave Lothal. It also remains to be seen where they go with him next season, given that he's still on their case.
So, the show was a second away from killing one of its terrible characters, but obviously didn't. It feels like the show is just taunting me at that point.
I like Sabine, personally, and am curious where they take her in season three. I will concede that she needs more character development (regardless of whether you believe she's had any or not yet).
If Rebels reversed in quality, we'd know that pigs were sprouting wings and people in hell were ice skating. Its an impossibility.
As Captain Picard once said, "Things are only impossible until their not." Or, as another saying I like but can't cite goes: "if you don't like the answers you're getting, it's time to start asking different questions." So, what do you think the show needs to do to make itself good (assuming that the cast were to stay the same, just be improved)?
I HATE Hondo. I hate him more then any Rebels character. He was my most hated TCW character who wasn't Jar Jar. If he was in a good TCW episode, the episode was good despite him.
Fair enough. (I personally really like the character, but your mileage may vary).
As for those episodes, the ones I saw (I don't remember the individual episode titles, I just remember that I got to the space whales) were all terrible.
The show did nothing good at all?
Anything? I find that a little hard to believe.
And then couldn't kill a failed padawan and a brat who had less combined force ability then he did almost two decades before Rebels.
Wait a minute, I thought Ezra was over-powered and, based on that, would've kick Vader's heinie? I'll concede it's been awhile since I've seen the shows, so I may not be remembering very well how they justified Vader not getting them.
What more is there? I mean, she also worked with Ezra's cardboard companions, which means she had poor judgement. Really, she never did anything on Rebels that wasn't stupid.
He doesn't know when one of his idiot troops calls the empire, and he agreed to work with Ezra and the cardboard boxes. Definitely stupid things.
Can we leave the meta stuff, like wether the
Ghost crew were cardboard, out of it and focus with what the intent was? I mean, how could Rex have known that Wolf would make the call or to be watching out for something like that?
As far as I'm concerned, every "character" on Rebels is terrible. So, Thrawn is automatically on the list of ruined characters.
Okay, I really don't know what to say to that.
If they only used their own original characters, I'd be ignoring them.
I see.
Ezra and Kanan constantly showed how superior they were to the characters from TCW...
Then why did they treat them with utmost respect (or learn to give them respect)?
...and in the end they were the ones who survived Vader, not the character who was much more powerful and skilled then them.
As I recall in the season two finale, Ezra and Kanan would've been killed by Vader if Ahsoka wasn't there. She stayed to take on Vader partially to buy them time (thus a sacrifice move of sorts) and partially for other reasons:
Ahsoka: "I was beginning to believe I knew who you were behind that mask, but it's impossible. My master could never be as vile as you!"
Darth Vader: "Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him."
Ahsoka: "Then I will avenge his death!"
Vader: "Revenge is not the Jedi way."
Ahsoka: "I am no Jedi!"
The fact that both of them were caught under a crumbling ruin, while the others were not, could've shifted the odds of survival to Ezra and Kanan's favor and away from Ahsoka's.
I have no idea who those are. If they're the inquisitors, then those two were already made fools of my Ezra and his friends time and time again.
Those are the ones. In the episode in question, though, the Inquisitors had just finished thrashing the others before Ahsoka soundly beat them, so I think it counts in that case.
If he taught him anything, it was the generic "character learns newq ability to make him awesomer" trope.
The question was if Ezra should be learning to approach things as a solider or from the Jedi view.
TCW showed more character and potential in its first episode then Rebels ever has.
Is that right?
It was also obvious that the show had potential and was more then a saturday morning cartoon.
Two words for you: "Bombad Jedi." (I think there were some growing pains and that the earlier seasons are more kiddie than the later ones.)
Rebels has embraced its identity as the next Droids or Ewoks for modern kids from day one.
I could point out that
Rebels has an overarching story, is dealing with some dark stuff (they had a woman cut in half
on-screen and the kiddie hero playing with black magic, in effect), has been lean with the filler, and has consequences for big events, but I'm suspicious that that's not going to count for much here.
It was over before episode 1 aired.
Even the shorts were that awful?
