Star Wars Books Thread

[Ithekro]

I would point out that Ezra and Kanan have to run away from every encounter with the two Inquisitors and Darth Vader. They cannot and do not hold their own against them without outside help. Even near the end of the second season, when Ezra gets more experience with a lightsaber, the two of them barely can hold out for a few minutes against the two Inquisators, only long enough to come up with a plan (usually a reckless plan) to escape. Against Vader, they barely got away the first time, mostly because Vader wanted them to lead him to the other Rebels. The second time, the only thing that stopped Vader was Ahsoka. Vader beat down Erza in seconds, cutting his blaster/saber combo in half with a flick of his wrist. Ezra and Kanan barely escaped thanks to Ahsoka confronting her former master. Who defeats the two Inquisitors? Ahsoka and Maul.

There is only one person left who has the authority to Knight anyone into the Jedi Order. He is the same one who could declare if Luke was to be a Jedi or not. Yoda. Kanan is knighted by this person. I'm not one to argue with Yoda on such matters. Even then, Kanan still is not skilled enough to take on the likes of Darth Vader. He can only sometimes barely hold out against Inquisitors, having defeated the Grand Inquisitor only when Kanan thought he had nothing left to lose, taking the Inquisitor by surprise just enugh to gain a victory. But this victory was costly, as that is was brings Vader into the picture.

The Rebel cells spent a lot of time in the Second season running from the Empire. And losing ships. Lots of A-wings. The Rebel's flagship, some Blockade Runners and some transports. Their victories against the Empire tend to be small or at most setback the Empire a little. Most of which would fit in well with the old West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying game from the late 1980 and early 1990s, which they have cited a few times in Rebel Recon as a source for some of the things they use, such as the Empire's Interdictor starship and the Gravity Well Projectors on it.

As for the Mandalorians in the present canon, the ones they have in Rebels seem to conform with the pre-Traviss versions of that group. Fitting in with the older pre-1999 materials on Boba Fett.

 

[kirk55555]

I would point out that Ezra and Kanan have to run away from every encounter with the two Inquisitors and Darth Vader. They cannot and do not hold their own against them without outside help. Even near the end of the second season, when Ezra gets more experience with a lightsaber, the two of them barely can hold out for a few minutes against the two Inquisators, only long enough to come up with a plan (usually a reckless plan) to escape. Against Vader, they barely got away the first time, mostly because Vader wanted them to lead him to the other Rebels. The second time, the only thing that stopped Vader was Ahsoka. Vader beat down Erza in seconds, cutting his blaster/saber combo in half with a flick of his wrist. Ezra and Kanan barely escaped thanks to Ahsoka confronting her former master. Who defeats the two Inquisitors? Ahsoka and Maul.

I'm sure ezra and Kanan would have beaten them, but they probably had to set up Ahsoka being their for the Vader fight, so they also had her defeat some bad guys before she died.

There is only one person left who has the authority to Knight anyone into the Jedi Order. He is the same one who could declare if Luke was to be a Jedi or not. Yoda. Kanan is knighted by this person. I'm not one to argue with Yoda on such matters. Even then, Kanan still is not skilled enough to take on the likes of Darth Vader. He can only sometimes barely hold out against Inquisitors, having defeated the Grand Inquisitor only when Kanan thought he had nothing left to lose, taking the Inquisitor by surprise just enugh to gain a victory. But this victory was costly, as that is was brings Vader into the picture.

I'm pretty sure Obi-Wan had as much authority as Yoda (minus any senority, obviously), so there was more then one person around. Even then, didn't Kanan just meet a force illusion of Yoda? Regardless, the jedi don't exist during Rebels time, and there were no jedi knights appointed between the fall of the Republic and Luke defeating Vader and the emperor.

Plus, one jedi master doesn't just go around declaring padawan's jedi. I'll grant that Luke basically became a jedi by being really good and defeating his big trial of taking down Vader/Palpatine, but Kanan wasn't at that level.

The Rebel cells spent a lot of time in the Second season running from the Empire. And losing ships. Lots of A-wings. The Rebel's flagship, some Blockade Runners and some transports. Their victories against the Empire tend to be small or at most setback the Empire a little. Most of which would fit in well with the old West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying game from the late 1980 and early 1990s, which they have cited a few times in Rebel Recon as a source for some of the things they use, such as the Empire's Interdictor starship and the Gravity Well Projectors on it.

Even in kiddie cartoons nameless grunts can die, and space ships exploding is barely any worse then robots exploding when it comes to showing the good guys losing in shows like Rebels. Really, you'd expect that kind of thing even in a show like rebels.

As for the Mandalorians in the present canon, the ones they have in Rebels seem to conform with the pre-Traviss versions of that group. Fitting in with the older pre-1999 materials on Boba Fett.

The only mandalorians I've seen in the current SW canon are Jango and Boba Fett (possibly, some of the pre-2000s stuff had Boba as a merc who just took Mandalorian armor, and even the old EU had Boba know basically nothing about mandalorians as a people, so he might not even count as one in the current continuity) and the racist pacifists in TCW. I don't think they even had an armored warrior Mandalorian in TCW cartoon, although I didn't watch their mandalorian episodes, except the part where the duchess died, because of how badly I hate their mandalorians.

So, the armored warriors could have been there, or in some random episode I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure they were officially ancient history and had been replaced by the racist idiots ruled by the duchess. If Sabine is a real mandalorian, she'd have to be one of the idiot racists.

 

[WebLurker]

For everyone's convenience, spoilered for length

Spoiler: length

We might have different opinions on what qualifies a story as being about Ezra.

IMHO, if Ezra is the central character or the plot revolves around him or only advances him in some fashion.

Like i've said, I didn't see any characters grow and change, except that Ezra got too powerful in the force (but that's not a the kind of character growth we're talking about).

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.

Yeah, the growth is what matters. But, Rebels doesn't have that. It sticks with the basic character tropes, and that's all it has.

That's what we seem to be disagreeing on.

His power is growing at a ridiculous rate. His character is the same as it was in episode one, he's just better with the force now.

He was an out for himself character in the pilot. That was something he overcame over the course of the show. That means he isn't the same character in episode one. (It would also count as character development, but since Rebels doesn't have that, it must be something else that only looks like it.)

I'm hopeful the book will be good, and as long as it doesn't have to just be a prologue to the Rebels episode and is allowed to use the real Thrawn, it could be great.

I can't speak for Zahn, but I'm going to guess that its going to explain how Thrawn earned his grand admrial's stripes (something I don't recall ever being documented in Legends). I doubt they're going essentially end it with an aide coming in saying: "The Rebels crew are harassing us. Please use your awesome mind to destroy them," and then having an ad saying: "Watch Rebels season three to get the rest of the story.

Its not like Rebels gets much deeper then the teaser. Its longer, but I'd say they have the same level of story/character content on average.

Can't say I agree with that, but whatever.

The Rebels should never defeat him, and I mean nothing from a little victory to a "final" confrontation.

Why is that? And I'm hoping for something beyond: "Because the Rebels suck"; I'm curious why you think that beating Thrawn shouldn't happen in a story. For reasons I'll explain below, I hope they do.

In the end, the real Thrawn wasn't defeated by Luke or any of the main heroes (except maybe Leia, but it was indirectly).

He certainly wasn't outfought or out planned by the good guys.

In the first book, they force him to retreat without his prize in the final battle. In the third book, they took out Delta Source all on their own, which he had been depending on for his campaign. Finally, they were able to find and were in the process of destroying his clone factory, despite Thrawn's best efforts to mislead them. While Thrawn might've been able to regroup had he lived, he was blindsided and lost his most important tool in the war.

As Han Solo pointed out in Spectre of the Past, Thrawn was very smart and dangerous, but he was hardly omniscient and could be beaten. (I think the the post-Last Command books -- like Outbound Flight and Choices of One -- forgot this and made him into a Mary Sue of sorts who always won, was planning for the Vong and and was some noble warrior, none of which meshes with the core story.

(Now, I do like those books and I agree that TV Thrawn should be as close to the books in characterization as possible, but I don't really want the revised version we got at the end. I'd like the original one; the morally compromised one who was loyal to the Empire, a master at his job, but not perfect at it.)

So, why do I think that the Rebels should beat Thrawn in the end? A.) Because part of the original books is how he takes some losses along with his wins (and at the end, he had lost plenty), and B.) once they introduce the character, they should see him to the end and not leave his fate floating around. Now, I want him to be the biggest boss yet (not conting Vader). I want to see the Rebels beat him, but I want to be hard-earned victory, where Thrawn doesn't go out like punk, but has an end fitting for the mastermind he is.

I think firing Filoni and the writers/producers would solve most of the problems that don't directly come from the premise and the younger demographic.

You'd also have the new people trying to find their feet. Replacing the main heads of a TV show is a huge gamble.

To use Star Trek as an example, The Next Generation thrived after Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley were gone. TNG never would have been the show it became, and it would never have been as high quality or popular, if the people in charge weren't sacked and/or replaced.

There was a documentary on that, think it was called Chaos on the Bridge. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Maybe. I will say this for Hurley; he did invent the Borg, who are arguably the only post-TOS aliens to achieve the same level of fame in pop culture as the Klingons and Vulcans (actually, the only post-TOS aliens to be household names even among non-viewers). The aforementioned documentary has him discussing his time on the show. It's pretty interesting how he saw his job and what he was trying to do.

Now, I'll admit to this being a personal issue. To me, all mandalorians in The Clone Wars/Rebels are fake. There were no racist pacifist Mandalorians, no Mandaloran queen/duchess/whatever. I consider it all illegitimate, and not just because it completely contradicts Karen Traviss's books.

Wow, okay. As I said before, the Traviss books didn't quite click with me (I did like her Clone Commando stuff a lot better than her Legacy of the Force Mandalorian stuff). My favorite TCW story arc to date is the Darth Maul and Death Watch story from season five, so I do have more of a connection to the canon version of this stuff, but fair enough. I don't like the changes the Kelvin timeline movies made to Star Trek (although Beyond was awesome), so I can understand where you're coming from.

It was just a bunch of terrible story decisions that I actually do hate more then anything on Rebels except the use of Thrawn...

May I ask why you didn't like it, beyond the Traviss books issue (just curious)?

...(I swear to god I legitimately cheered when the "Mandalorian Queen" died in TCW, it was a very satisfying moment).

I didn't cheer, but I can follow the feeling. In the second Amazing Spider-Man movie, when Gwen Stacy died, rather than feeling grief, I was thinking: "You know, you were really asking for that." While Emma Stone brought her A game, I think she was wasted in a cardboard-thin character, who was nothing more than a plot device in a creepy, unhealthy, and underwritten relationship. (I find it hysterically funny that Gwen was considered better than Mary Jane was in the original movie, given that the latter had more depth, is arguably one of the best-written girlfriend characters in the genre, had almost as much character development as the lead, and the on-screen relationship actually evolved over the course of the series and had more substance than just physical attraction.)

But, anyways, when you describe the Rebels characters as being flat with no development, my first thought is Gwen Stacy. (I will argue to the end that the Rebels characters are better than Gwcne, since there is at least the show writiers attempt to evolve them, regardless of whether it works or not. Gwen was given nothing.)

So, I really don't consider there to be any canon mandalorians except Boba Fett at this point in the SW timeline.

The ironic think that in the new canon, neither Jango or Boba Fett are Mandalorians. This wasn't started in new canon, though, but extrapolated from one of those TCW episodes, where Duchess Satine informs the Jedi that Jango Fett is not Mandalorian, but just a bounty hunter using Death Watch gear, or something like that. While Legends chose to assume she was wrong, canon decided she was right. (As I understand it, canon Jango claimed to come from the Mandalorian world Concord Dawn, but is lying about that, so he may have been passing himself off as a Mandalorian.) So, yeah, canon considered Sabine to be a real Mandalorian, but not the Fetts, the most famous characters to wear the armor. Weird, right?

At least I don't consider them mandalorians. So, I call them the "fake mandalorians", even though I understand those abominiations are treated like mandalorians in the new canon. With Sabine it doesn't help that grafitti mandalorian is almost as bad as racist pacifist mandalorian, but I'm not just calling her specifically a "fake mandalorian".

Okay. So, you wish that Sabine was not Mandalorian. Is that just because of your distaste of the current iteration of the culture, or is there other reasons in play? (And how where the New Mandalorans racists? I did miss a few of those TCW episodes and don't recall anything about racism from the ones I did catch.)

(Weird thing, is that Sabine ranks in my favorite characters from the series.)

Its pretty impressive to be knighted when there is basically no one with the authority to declare a padawan a jedi left. From what I remember, it was a decision the whole council made, so even if Kanan went to Dagobah or Tatooine, Yoda and Obi-Wan couldn't really declare him a jedi, at least not in any legitimate way.

It's implied that the Force itself did it, so I see no reason to question it's judgement.

The fact that he's not skilled enough to be a jedi is really a secondary issue.

He did defeat the Grand Inquisitor and Maul. He's not Master-level, but I think he's advanced from his Padawan days.

The generic genius villain and one of TCW biggest mistakes really don't add stakes. One is just a (technically) smarter version of the average imperial and the other is basically the same level of threat as an inquisitor. Now, the real Thrawn would add stakes, but this is the Rebels version.

Well, regardless of if it works, they are trying. And we don't know what Thrawn will be like yet, so we don't know if he'll be a boon to the show or the worst thing yet.

Maul might have been a threat before he got chopped in half, but Vader is much stronger and Kanan/Ezra easily survived him, so even an intact Maul isn't a big deal on the show.

Maul seems to be trying to corrupt Ezra (he wanted him as a apprentice), and season three makes it look like he might be able to pull it off.

Maul wasn't even threatening in TCW cartoon, and the Rebels Thrawn is just generic bad guy trope #45. No villain on Rebels has been threatening or particularly effective anyway, and it certainly won't be changed by the Rebels versions of these two characters.

I want to see how things end up before deciding if it was a success or a failure.

Because Rebels needs to only screw up its own characters. Even if all the people in charge and the writers got replaced, Rebels is too screwed up. It needs to have as little impact on the SW franchise as possible if the show was being "fixed". Leave the established characters to the books, where they don't have to be saturday morning cartoon versions of themselves.

Were Princess Leia and Lando "ruined," too?

Rex is a terrible soldier in hiding if he doesn't know every time a communication is made from his hiding place. TCW rex wouldn't make that mistake, but it makes sense for a Rebels character.

Eh, whatever.

I disagree, I think her death was all about Ezra, like usual. It was all to save him, even though he already proved Vader couldn't kill him or Kanan.

Vader had Ezra at his mercy, so Ezra proved Vader could and would kill him. Listen to what Ahsoka tells Vader. That's they key to her reason for fighting and staying behind.

I remember very clearly those two inquisitors, and they were basically Stormtroopers who were slightly more dangerous when it comes to how effective they were against the good guys. Even then they were more a danger to Zeb and the non jedi then they were to Kanan or ezra.

No.

I'll give you that, although even then it all ended up being about Ezra.

Not really. The bulk of the episode is them learning to work together on a mission. Ezra doesn't factor into it beyond that first scene.

This is really subjective, but I hated every episode of Rebels more then I hated Bombad Jedi, or any other bad episode of TCW (and it had a good deal of bad episodes/stories, even if the show was solid overall).

Fair enough.

I paid a decent amount of attention. The majority of the first 25 or so episodes are mostly stand alone, generic stories you'd see in any kiddie show, and don't add up to anything. Even the few I mentioned were about as bare minimum an ongoing story as you can get.

Look, all of season one's episodes set up something for a future episode or continued plot threads from previous shows. Even stuff like "Fighter Flight" and "Idiot's Array," became important later on. Heck, the "Art Attack" short secretly foreshadowed Sabine's past as an ex-cadet and was referred to in the finale.

The formation of the Aliiance seems to have already happened in every way but officially naming the group anyway. Ezra on the jedi path is just something to drive the plot of individual episodes, its not growth its just his reason to join in the action and not just stay home on Lothal. Like how the old Incredible Hulk show was technically about (David) Banner trying to find a cure, but he never did because the show wasn't planning to cure him, it was just an excuse to get him to do things.

Hmm. I might have to think this over a bit.

There wasn't another part of an ongoing plot that I saw. The story episodes of Rebels are, as far as I'm concerned: They meet Ahsoka, they meet Rex, Ahsoka dies. I saw the first two, read about the last one so that's about two story episodes in the first 25, and one after the first 25.

Well, you also have the fate of Ezra's parents, Fulcrum, Sen. Trayvis's plan, the integration into the larger rebellion, their quest for ships and bases, the dealing with the Inquisitors, not to mention a new story arc set up for Maul. There's stuff going on here.

Random imperials getting killed is a bit dark for a show aimed at such a young audience, but isn't really a consequence.

It shows that the Empire is taking the threat seriously and escalating their response. First they send in Tarkin,. He then calls Vader when things don't work, who unleashes more Inquisitors and keeps tabs themselves. With the Rebels surviving all that (and killing off the Inquisitors), they're now bringing in Thrawn to clean the mess up.

Ezra barely brushed the dark side, and it was mostly just for a dramatic moment. Its not a real thing in any of the episodes I saw, and even if it became a thing he's so obviously never becoming really evil its pointless.

The season three trailer begs to disagree with you.

Leaving Lothal was all about the writers moving the weekly adventures to a different "hub"...

Maybe, although the Rebels seem to be on the move mostly during season two.

...and Lothal was a very unimportant planet anyway.

There was the five-year plan that the Empire had for Lothal, set up in "Empire Day." So, Lothal may be more important that we realize.

The team is together and will keep having weekly adventures unless one of them dies, which is about the biggest change I think there is even a chance of Rebels making.

Interestingly, one of the clips in the trailer has Sabine's jet back get shot up and Ezra trying to catch her before she falls. It could be a fake-out and she lives, but they're at least hinting that a lead could die. The trailer also indicates that the series is going in a darker direction (whether it does successfully we'll know when we can actually watch it).

(In regards, to Sabine's possible fall in the trailer, if they did chose to kill her, that could factor into the idea of Ezra falling to the dark side; the early seasons showed that he had a crush on her. While that was kind of phased out of the show -- although it's unclear if Ezra grew out of it or still has it, but is less vocal to Sabine how he feels about her -- if he still likes her, her dying would probably not help him staying in the light. Now, I myself hope Sabine lives, since I do like the character, but I'm just thinking out loud.)

He has no character to develop, but he is a lame "character" who probably needs a new gimmick to sell toys.

Considering how few Rebels toys they've made, I kind of doubt it.

Plus, Filoni might be a big fan of the Netflix Daredevil show.

"Might" is not proof. Also, Star Wars has had a long history with blind Force users.

In TCW a regular character being blinded would lead to character development. In Rebels its a gimmick, like how Transformers would kill off robots not because of story reasons, but to make room for new toys.

Well, the season three trailer seems to show Kanan meeting with other Force-using traditions. He has an encounter with an entity calling itself the Bendu (which identifies with walking between the dark side and the light, instead of going to one side, like the Sith, Jedi, Lasat, Nightsisters, or other Force groups we've seen in canon. There's also a clip where he seems to be having Nightsister mist coming from his eyes.

While we won't know for sure until the series airs, he seems to be going on some kind of spiritual search, which may or may not be triggered by his blindness. I'm also really curious what he and Hera will do now that he can't see. (As mentioned before, it's been hinted for awhile that the two are in love with each other and the last couple episodes of season two were pretty blatant about it.)

I don't think they even had an armored warrior Mandalorian in TCW cartoon, although I didn't watch their mandalorian episodes, except the part where the duchess died, because of how badly I hate their mandalorians.

So, the armored warriors could have been there, or in some random episode I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure they were officially ancient history and had been replaced by the racist idiots ruled by the duchess.

There were armored Manalorians. TCW had the Death Watch, a group that rejected the New Mandalorian's pacifism and preferred to live the traditional warrior lifestyle. (The were also villains, like they were in Legends.) Also, the Rebels show "The Protector of Concord Dawn" established that there were other colonies that continued the "Fett" armor Mandalorian lifestyle, without the Death Watch connection and considered them enemies (like Jaster Mereel's Mandalorian faction from Legends).

If Sabine is a real mandalorian, she'd have to be one of the idiot racists.

Sabine is Mandalorian by birth but not a New Mandalorian. From "The Protector of Concord Dawn:

Concord Dawn Mandalorian 1: "Where'd you steal that armor from, bounty hunter?"

Sabine: "'Bounty hunter'? Not lately. I forged this armor with my family."

Mandalorian 2: "'Family'? That a bold claim. What's your house?"

Sabine: "I'm Clan Wren, House Viszla."

Mandalorian 3 [to comrade]: "'House Viszla'?"

Mandalorian 4 [to Mandalorian 3]: "She's Death Watch! [to Sabine] Traitor!"

Sabine: "My mother was, but I'm not."

 

[WebLurker]

Accidental double-post

 

[kirk55555]

Once again, spoilered for length:

Spoiler: length

He was an out for himself character in the pilot. That was something he overcame over the course of the show. That means he isn't the same character in episode one. (It would also count as character development, but since Rebels doesn't have that, it must be something else that only looks like it.)

He was about as "out for himself" as any standard "streetwise kid" character. He wasn't particularly bad or greedy. He joined the group very quickly, and nits not like it took him much time to adjust to being on the team. He didn't really overcome anything.

I can't speak for Zahn, but I'm going to guess that its going to explain how Thrawn earned his grand admrial's stripes (something I don't recall ever being documented in Legends). I doubt they're going essentially end it with an aide coming in saying: "The Rebels crew are harassing us. Please use your awesome mind to destroy them," and then having an ad saying: "Watch Rebels season three to get the rest of the story.

I hope they don't do that, although I'm sure that;s what Filoni would prefer.

Why is that? And I'm hoping for something beyond: "Because the Rebels suck"; I'm curious why you think that beating Thrawn shouldn't happen in a story. For reasons I'll explain below, I hope they do.

I want him to survive Rebels. At most, I want him to ride off to the Unknown regions to regroup, and be avaliable for books and stories set later. he's an alien, so he could age slower and not be too old to appear in books set during or especially after the original trilogy. I definitey don't want his entire New Canon existence to be based around, and end, on Rebels.

As Han Solo pointed out in Spectre of the Past, Thrawn was very smart and dangerous, but he was hardly omniscient and could be beaten. (I think the the post-Last Command books -- like Outbound Flight and Choices of One -- forgot this and made him into a Mary Sue of sorts who always won, was planning for the Vong and and was some noble warrior, none of which meshes with the core story.

(Now, I do like those books and I agree that TV Thrawn should be as close to the books in characterization as possible, but I don't really want the revised version we got at the end. I'd like the original one; the morally compromised one who was loyal to the Empire, a master at his job, but not perfect at it.)

I really like Spectre of the Past, although I did like the Luke/Mara stuff better then the Clone Thrawn stuff.

So, why do I think that the Rebels should beat Thrawn in the end? A.) Because part of the original books is how he takes some losses along with his wins (and at the end, he had lost plenty), and B.) once they introduce the character, they should see him to the end and not leave his fate floating around. Now, I want him to be the biggest boss yet (not conting Vader). I want to see the Rebels beat him, but I want to be hard-earned victory, where Thrawn doesn't go out like punk, but has an end fitting for the mastermind he is.

I want his fate to be left open. Filoni and his kiddie cartoon should not get to decide the final fate of the best Star Wars villain.

You'd also have the new people trying to find their feet. Replacing the main heads of a TV show is a huge gamble.

They're at rock bottom. Unless the hire people who only worked on shows like Teletubbies, there is nowhere to go but up, even if its barely an improvement.

There was a documentary on that, think it was called Chaos on the Bridge. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Maybe. I will say this for Hurley; he did invent the Borg, who are arguably the only post-TOS aliens to achieve the same level of fame in pop culture as the Klingons and Vulcans (actually, the only post-TOS aliens to be household names even among non-viewers). The aforementioned documentary has him discussing his time on the show. It's pretty interesting how he saw his job and what he was trying to do.

I saw the documentary, it was pretty good. To be fair to Hurley it seems like it was Roddenberry and his...lawyer friend (I think that's who it was) that hurt TNG the most, but Hurley definitely wasn't a good fit.

May I ask why you didn't like it, beyond the Traviss books issue (just curious)?

I didn't like that they were racist (and they definitely were, but its been a long time and I skipped a lot of their stuff, so I can't give you a specific example). I hated their bizarre pacifism, and the fact that they had nothing in common with any mandalorians in any Star Wars work up to that point, except they took their name.

The ironic think that in the new canon, neither Jango or Boba Fett are Mandalorians. This wasn't started in new canon, though, but extrapolated from one of those TCW episodes, where Duchess Satine informs the Jedi that Jango Fett is not Mandalorian, but just a bounty hunter using Death Watch gear, or something like that. While Legends chose to assume she was wrong, canon decided she was right. (As I understand it, canon Jango claimed to come from the Mandalorian world Concord Dawn, but is lying about that, so he may have been passing himself off as a Mandalorian.) So, yeah, canon considered Sabine to be a real Mandalorian, but not the Fetts, the most famous characters to wear the armor. Weird, right?

Ugh, that ticks me off. In the old EU, Jango was a real mandalorian and Boba fett eventually embraces the culture and becomes their leader. Having Sabine be a legitimate in canon mandalorian over Boba just makes the new canon "mandalorians" worse.

Okay. So, you wish that Sabine was not Mandalorian. Is that just because of your distaste of the current iteration of the culture, or is there other reasons in play?

Well, I don't like the new canon mandalorians, and honestly she is just rubbing salt in the wound at this point. She's not too good for the group (I really dislike her), I just don't like that the spunky, graffiti loving explosive woman going around being called a mandalorian, when she's really anything but if she was compared to the pre-TCW mandalorians.

It's implied that the Force itself did it, so I see no reason to question it's judgement.

If there is anything worse then mandalorians, its a story implying the force is sentient. I consider it to be like gravity, it doesn't choose anything. At most those terrible force family characters from TCW use it to manipulate events. But even if you give it a little sentience, I really refuse to acknowledge it as being able to crown someone a jedi knight.

He did defeat the Grand Inquisitor and Maul. He's not Master-level, but I think he's advanced from his Padawan days.

Obi-Wan chopped Maul in half, and he was almost a jedi. Maul is perfectly fine after his fight with Kanan, so its obviously not that hard to fight the half robot Maul.

Well, regardless of if it works, they are trying. And we don't know what Thrawn will be like yet, so we don't know if he'll be a boon to the show or the worst thing yet.

The show really hasn't "tried" at anything its done, unless its actively trying to be terrible.

Maul seems to be trying to corrupt Ezra (he wanted him as a apprentice), and season three makes it look like he might be able to pull it off.

The half robot failed apprentice will probably have a few episodes trying to tempt Ezra, before Ezra turns on him and finishes him off with no lasting repercussions.

I want to see how things end up before deciding if it was a success or a failure.

I tried that for about 25 episodes. After the 25th failures (and space whales), it was pretty obvious nothing was going to change.

Were Princess Leia and Lando "ruined," too?

Lando did absolutely nothing so there wasn't a chance to ruin him, and I didn't watch the Leia episode but if its Rebels she either did nothing or was ruined.

Vader had Ezra at his mercy, so Ezra proved Vader could and would kill him. Listen to what Ahsoka tells Vader. That's they key to her reason for fighting and staying behind.

I didn't watch the episode obviously, but I'm sure she just said something about the power of love or something equally stupid. That's the normal type of "good guy talking to bad guy" speech a show like this does.

Look, all of season one's episodes set up something for a future episode or continued plot threads from previous shows. Even stuff like "Fighter Flight" and "Idiot's Array," became important later on. Heck, the "Art Attack" short secretly foreshadowed Sabine's past as an ex-cadet and was referred to in the finale.

I don't agree. You could cut basically any episode out of Rebels and it wouldn't effect any other episode (outside of the pilot, the season finales, and the episodes where they met Ahsoka/the clones, obviously).

Well, you also have the fate of Ezra's parents, Fulcrum, Sen. Trayvis's plan, the integration into the larger rebellion, their quest for ships and bases, the dealing with the Inquisitors, not to mention a new story arc set up for Maul. There's stuff going on here.

Most of that was barely addressed, and none of it was particularly deep story stuff. As for Maul, the show hasn't had a real story arc yet so I doubt he'll get more then Ahsoka did (an intro, a middle episode, then an ending).

It shows that the Empire is taking the threat seriously and escalating their response. First they send in Tarkin,. He then calls Vader when things don't work, who unleashes more Inquisitors and keeps tabs themselves. With the Rebels surviving all that (and killing off the Inquisitors), they're now bringing in Thrawn to clean the mess up.

I think it shows that the Empire is so incompetent in Rebels I'm surprised they didn't fall decades before Endor. They can't defeat a bunch of incompetent "rebels", mostly because of how over powered and unbeatable Ezra is, and now they're just flinging random people at them instead of just going out and laying waste to places like Lothal. At this point, I'd be cheering for the Empire to take out the cast of Rebels if they weren't somehow more incompetent then the Rebels characters.

The season three trailer begs to disagree with you.

If the Season 3 trailer is the Thrawn trailer, then its just a bunch of things blowing up with a painfully bland villain monologue playing over it.

Well, the season three trailer seems to show Kanan meeting with other Force-using traditions. He has an encounter with an entity calling itself the Bendu (which identifies with walking between the dark side and the light, instead of going to one side, like the Sith, Jedi, Lasat, Nightsisters, or other Force groups we've seen in canon. There's also a clip where he seems to be having Nightsister mist coming from his eyes.

While we won't know for sure until the series airs, he seems to be going on some kind of spiritual search, which may or may not be triggered by his blindness. I'm also really curious what he and Hera will do now that he can't see. (As mentioned before, it's been hinted for awhile that the two are in love with each other and the last couple episodes of season two were pretty blatant about it.)

Oh god, not a "grey side of the force user". I'm getting flashbacks to that terrible EU story about a woman who used basically magic powers and who thought her super special people might be where Luke's mother came from (the story came out before Episode 1, so Luke's mother's identity was not known). There are two sides of the force, and the people who say they're "inbetween" are just dark side force users who are fooling themselves (like Jacen Solo before he went full Darth, and his teacher Vergere).

There were armored Manalorians. TCW had the Death Watch, a group that rejected the New Mandalorian's pacifism and preferred to live the traditional warrior lifestyle. (The were also villains, like they were in Legends.) Also, the Rebels show "The Protector of Concord Dawn" established that there were other colonies that continued the "Fett" armor Mandalorian lifestyle, without the Death Watch connection and considered them enemies (like Jaster Mereel's Mandalorian faction from Legends).

Sabine is Mandalorian by birth but not a New Mandalorian.

So, are all those mandalorians fans of graffitti and wearing a painted helmet with three or four random pieces of colorful armor like Sabine? I'll admit, when it comes to mandalorians I'll never accept what TCW did to them. Rebels could be the greatest show on television and I'd hate the mandalorians on it. So,so besides irritating me that the mandalorian name is being dragged through the mud more by Rebels, I can't say Sabine's origins matter to me,besides the fact that she's an embarrassment to the old mandalorians, just like the racist paacifists and presumably the splinter armored mandalorians of the new canon are.

 

[Ithekro]

I'm sure ezra and Kanan would have beaten them, but they probably had to set up Ahsoka being their for the Vader fight, so they also had her defeat some bad guys before she died.

Not a chance. Vader was tossing them both like ragdoll the first time. The second time, Kanan was blind and Ezra lasted seconds against Vader, with absolutely no chance at going anything against the Sith Lord. Maul might be overconfindent, but Vader is not. He is practical about the whole thing. The only reason he wants Ezra and, or Kanan alive the second time, is that he hopes to use them to find other hiding Jedi. Specifically he want to find Obi-wan Kenobi.

So, are all those mandalorians fans of graffitti and wearing a painted helmet with three or four random pieces of colorful armor like Sabine? I'll admit, when it comes to mandalorians I'll never accept what TCW did to them. Rebels could be the greatest show on television and I'd hate the mandalorians on it. So,so besides irritating me that the mandalorian name is being dragged through the mud more by Rebels, I can't say Sabine's origins matter to me,besides the fact that she's an embarrassment to the old mandalorians, just like the racist paacifists and presumably the splinter armored mandalorians of the new canon are.

Your hatred is blinding you. "The Protector of Concord Dawn" presents Mandalorians as presented in the pre-1999 EU versions of Boba Fett's backstory. Meaning before the Prequels ever happened. Before Boba Fett was a clone. Before there was ever a Jango Fett.

 

[WebLurker]

Once again, spoilered for length:

Spoiler: length

He was about as "out for himself" as any standard "streetwise kid" character. He wasn't particularly bad or greedy. He joined the group very quickly, and nits not like it took him much time to adjust to being on the team. He didn't really overcome anything.

I don't understand that position, esp. since the pilot was about him developing.

I hope they don't do that, although I'm sure that;s what Filoni would prefer.

I wouldn't pretend to know what Filoni thinks about the book.

I want him to survive Rebels. At most, I want him to ride off to the Unknown regions to regroup, and be avaliable for books and stories set later. he's an alien, so he could age slower and not be too old to appear in books set during or especially after the original trilogy. I definitey don't want his entire New Canon existence to be based around, and end, on Rebels.

Maybe. There could be possibilities, there, I will admit.

I really like Spectre of the Past, although I did like the Luke/Mara stuff better then the Clone Thrawn stuff.

I want his fate to be left open. Filoni and his kiddie cartoon should not get to decide the final fate of the best Star Wars villain.

Considering that Rebels created this version of the character, I think they deserve dibs on writing the conclusion of his story.

They're at rock bottom. Unless the hire people who only worked on shows like Teletubbies, there is nowhere to go but up, even if its barely an improvement.

I think you're the first person I know (outside of some of the Legends extremist groups) who thinks that.

I saw the documentary, it was pretty good.

To be fair to Hurley it seems like it was Roddenberry and his...lawyer friend (I think that's who it was) that hurt TNG the most, but Hurley definitely wasn't a good fit.

I like the part how Hurley saw himself as trying to keep TNG faithful to Roddenberry's vision, when even Roddenberry himself was getting away from that. It goes to show how a TV program can evolve over time.

I didn't like that they were racist (and they definitely were, but its been a long time and I skipped a lot of their stuff, so I can't give you a specific example).

They were racist, but you can't tell me why. I'm extremely skeptical of this opinion right now.

I hated their bizarre pacifism, and the fact that they had nothing in common with any mandalorians in any Star Wars work up to that point, except they took their name.

Well, ignoring Legends, it was all internally consistent. Also, how many real-world cultures are exactly the same?

Ugh, that ticks me off. In the old EU, Jango was a real mandalorian and Boba fett eventually embraces the culture and becomes their leader. Having Sabine be a legitimate in canon mandalorian over Boba just makes the new canon "mandalorians" worse.

For what it's worth, Boba was never intended to be a Mandalorian, and I personally thought it was extremely forced. I find this version makes more sense.

Well, I don't like the new canon mandalorians, and honestly she is just rubbing salt in the wound at this point.

Okay.

She's not too good for the group (I really dislike her), I just don't like that the spunky, graffiti loving explosive woman going around being called a mandalorian, when she's really anything but if she was compared to the pre-TCW mandalorians.

She's pretty good in a fight and was a product of her upbringing (per "The Protector of Concord Dawn"). Just because her personality is different from the cliche Mando doesn't mean she's doesn't fit the role. (Besides, didn't the Legends Mandalorians pretty much let anyone -- except Jedi -- who wanted to join their ranks have a chance to prove themselves?)

If there is anything worse then mandalorians, its a story implying the force is sentient. I consider it to be like gravity, it doesn't choose anything.

There is the will of the Force, we know of. Also, as early as ANH, we knew that it could give specific directions to Force users. I was also suggesting that the Force did it. For all we know, Yoda was the one who did and used the Temple Guard as an avatar.

At most those terrible force family characters from TCW use it to manipulate events. But even if you give it a little sentience, I really refuse to acknowledge it as being able to crown someone a jedi knight.

I don't know.

Obi-Wan chopped Maul in half, and he was almost a jedi. Maul is perfectly fine after his fight with Kanan, so its obviously not that hard to fight the half robot Maul.

I don't think the episode supports that idea.

The show really hasn't "tried" at anything its done, unless its actively trying to be terrible.

Give the devil his due here. You can get a lot lazier in your show. I should know.

The half robot failed apprentice will probably have a few episodes trying to tempt Ezra, before Ezra turns on him and finishes him off with no lasting repercussions.

You don't know that.

I tried that for about 25 episodes. After the 25th failures (and space whales), it was pretty obvious nothing was going to change.

I see.

Lando did absolutely nothing so there wasn't a chance to ruin him, and I didn't watch the Leia episode but if its Rebels she either did nothing or was ruined.

Considering you never even saw the show, you don't really have any evidence to back your claim. (I saw it, and she was central to the story and not ruined, so there's that.)

I didn't watch the episode obviously, but I'm sure she just said something about the power of love or something equally stupid. That's the normal type of "good guy talking to bad guy" speech a show like this does.

Wait a sec. You never saw the episode, and yet am telling me, who actually saw it, that I'm wrong about it, wrong about how Vader beat Ezra so easily, how it actually went etc.?! Wow, that's disingenuous.

Watch the episode and then we'll talk. Until then, let's limit the discussion to stuff you're qualified to examine, okay?

I don't agree. You could cut basically any episode out of Rebels and it wouldn't effect any other episode (outside of the pilot, the season finales, and the episodes where they met Ahsoka/the clones, obviously).

No.

Most of that was barely addressed, and none of it was particularly deep story stuff. As for Maul, the show hasn't had a real story arc yet so I doubt he'll get more then Ahsoka did (an intro, a middle episode, then an ending).

That remains to be seen.

I think it shows that the Empire is so incompetent in Rebels I'm surprised they didn't fall decades before Endor. They can't defeat a bunch of incompetent "rebels", mostly because of how over powered and unbeatable Ezra is, and now they're just flinging random people at them instead of just going out and laying waste to places like Lothal. At this point, I'd be cheering for the Empire to take out the cast of Rebels if they weren't somehow more incompetent then the Rebels characters.

Okay, that's one way of looking at it.

If the Season 3 trailer is the Thrawn trailer, then its just a bunch of things blowing up with a painfully bland villain monologue playing over it.

Which has nothing to do with the material of Ezra and the dark side. Can we stay on topic here, please.

Oh god, not a "grey side of the force user". I'm getting flashbacks to that terrible EU story about a woman who used basically magic powers and who thought her super special people might be where Luke's mother came from (the story came out before Episode 1, so Luke's mother's identity was not known). There are two sides of the force, and the people who say they're "inbetween" are just dark side force users who are fooling themselves (like Jacen Solo before he went full Darth, and his teacher Vergere).

I actually like this Force model. We'll have to see what the show does with the Bendu first, though. He could turn out to be a hidden enemy.

So, are all those mandalorians fans of graffitti and wearing a painted helmet with three or four random pieces of colorful armor like Sabine?

Nope, that's just her personal style and hobby.

I'll admit, when it comes to mandalorians I'll never accept what TCW did to them. Rebels could be the greatest show on television and I'd hate the mandalorians on it. So,so besides irritating me that the mandalorian name is being dragged through the mud more by Rebels, I can't say Sabine's origins matter to me,besides the fact that she's an embarrassment to the old mandalorians, just like the racist paacifists and presumably the splinter armored mandalorians of the new canon are.

For the record, the splinter Mandalorians are actually pretty faithful to the Legends version. Season three will also be dealing with them more, for what it's worth.

[/quote]

 

[kirk55555]

Your hatred is blinding you. "The Protector of Concord Dawn" presents Mandalorians as presented in the pre-1999 EU versions of Boba Fett's backstory. Meaning before the Prequels ever happened. Before Boba Fett was a clone. Before there was ever a Jango Fett.

Were the mandalorians even a thing before then? I've read a lot of old EU books, and I don't remember mandalorians showing up in any. Karen Traviss's books were the first time I remember the mandalorians getting a big roll in a story. besides that, the KOTOR mandalorians were in the games and KOTOR comics. But, as far as I can tell Boba Fett was the only Mandalorian in the EU until the 2000s, and Traviss was the first one to tell a story featuring them as a people. If they showed up before that, it was either a comic (I'm not super familiar with a lot of older SW comics), or it was one of the very, very few EU books I might not be aware of. So, basically, before the prequels happened the mandalorians weren't really a thing, outside of Boba Fett and maybe one or two characters so obscure that I'm not aware of them. It was just one guy in armor, so I guess in Rebels Mandalorians are just a bunch of people in armor (who possibly love graffitti, based on Sabine).

Spoilered for length:

Spoiler: length

Considering that Rebels created this version of the character, I think they deserve dibs on writing the conclusion of his story.

By that logic, they should get to show the fate of Vader. They didn't create Thrawn, and they shouldn't control his fate..

I think you're the first person I know (outside of some of the Legends extremist groups) who thinks that.

I seriously doubt I'm the only person who thinks the Rebels writers/producers are incompetent idiots.

They were racist, but you can't tell me why. I'm extremely skeptical of this opinion right now.

Looking it up in various places online, the pacifist mandalorians are extremely Xenophobic, and were designed to be nordic (which was outright stated by TCW people) so most of the ones you see are blonde haired blue eyed humans. Since mandalorians originally could be any species, all the stuff combined to give the pacifist mandalorians a reputation as being racist. So, it might not have been extremely blatant or something TCW writers did on purpose so much as a reputation gained by an unfortunate combination of factors. It doesn't really matter to me because even without the racism I still loathe TCW mandalorians, but I'll admit the racism of the group might be more subtext then anything.

Well, ignoring Legends, it was all internally consistent. Also, how many real-world cultures are exactly the same?

Its a futuristic galaxy full of aliens, they don't have to be what we in real life would consider "realistic". Also, Legends was the mandalorians. The term wasn't even in any other context for decades. The mandalorians are warriors who wear armor, period. You can argue about the details of their culture (whether they were a family focused people who accepted anyone who could be one of them like Traviss's version, or the brutish violent thugs of other versions) but they aren't pacifists ruled by idiot royalty.

For what it's worth, Boba was never intended to be a Mandalorian, and I personally thought it was extremely forced. I find this version makes more sense.

He'll always be a mandalorian to me.

She's pretty good in a fight and was a product of her upbringing (per "The Protector of Concord Dawn"). Just because her personality is different from the cliche Mando doesn't mean she's doesn't fit the role. (Besides, didn't the Legends Mandalorians pretty much let anyone -- except Jedi -- who wanted to join their ranks have a chance to prove themselves?)

At least two jedi became Mandalorians in the old EU (well, one knight and a padawan and kind of a second knight but she died before it became official). That said, mandalorians aren't into street art or wearing less then half their armor while painting it ridiculous colors. They're a varied group, but Sabine just isn't one. But, again, I don't consider any canon mandalorian as an official mandalorian, so in the end while I find her a bit insulting everything that the new canon calls "mandalorian" is insulting.

There is the will of the Force, we know of. Also, as early as ANH, we knew that it could give specific directions to Force users. I was also suggesting that the Force did it. For all we know, Yoda was the one who did and used the Temple Guard as an avatar.

There is no way Yoda can project himself. That's not an ability living jedi have.

Give the devil his due here. You can get a lot lazier in your show. I should know.

I guess some of the older Filmation shows were lazier, but for a show made in the 2010s I haven't seen a lazier one personally.

You don't know that.

Its rebels, their "story arcs" are extremely predictable, and the "fake out evil" arc with Maul is poretty obvious.

Considering you never even saw the show, you don't really have any evidence to back your claim. (I saw it, and she was central to the story and not ruined, so there's that.)

I don't need evidence, Rebels ruins everything. Either that or the character does nothing important. If Leia was central to the plot of an episode, she was done horribly, because that is literally the only way Rebels does anything.

Wait a sec. You never saw the episode, and yet am telling me, who actually saw it, that I'm wrong about it, wrong about how Vader beat Ezra so easily, how it actually went etc.?! Wow, that's disingenuous.

Watch the episode and then we'll talk. Until then, let's limit the discussion to stuff you're qualified to examine, okay?

I'm qualified to talk about the Vader vs Ezra/Kanan stuff. I watched clips of the fight online, I just didn't watch the actual story of the episode(s) or the fight between Ahsoka and Vader. I even suffered through rewatching the clip of the first Kanan/Ezra vs Vader fight just now, and they did so much better then Luke did his first time its ridiculous. Lulke in RotJ couldn't have slammed walkers down on Vader, and it took everything he had to fight Vader to a standstill. Kanan and Ezra escaped pretty easily.

No.

I still think of Rebels as extremely episodic, and I think you could just watch the pilot and the intros of Ahsoka and the clones to be caught up with any "story" the show had.

For the record, the splinter Mandalorians are actually pretty faithful to the Legends version. Season three will also be dealing with them more, for what it's worth.

They can't be faithul to them, because 1) TCW made sure the core aspects of the EU mandalorians were incompatable with their versions and 2) its Rebels, their mandalorians will just be the average thugs the more unoriginal pre-Traviss stories portrayed them as at best. At worst, they'll just be the pacifist ones but without the pacifism (so arrogant idiots who are ruled by a terrible monarchy). So, really, its not worth anything.

 

[Ithekro]

I'm qualified to talk about the Vader vs Ezra/Kanan stuff. I watched clips of the fight online, I just didn't watch the actual story of the episode(s) or the fight between Ahsoka and Vader. I even suffered through rewatching the clip of the first Kanan/Ezra vs Vader fight just now, and they did so much better then Luke did his first time its ridiculous. Lulke in RotJ couldn't have slammed walkers down on Vader, and it took everything he had to fight Vader to a standstill. Kanan and Ezra escaped pretty easily.

They did not slam a walker onto Vader. They Force shoved Vader under a toppling walker that had be blown up via bombs. Two Force users Force shoved another about ten feet or so while he was distracted identifying the explosion. Team work. And it still does basically nothing to Vader. It just given them an opening to run.

As for the Mandalorians, no culture remains static for that many thousands of years without even minor hiccups. If one looks at the layers under surface of TCW era civilization, you can see that it was not always pacifist, and that their modern pacifism was a new things even for Mandalorians, and a reaction to getting their butts handed too them one too many times by the Jedi over the last several thousand years. Death Watch is shown as an extremist group that is trying to go back to their old ways, but are going about it using extremes. The Rebels era Mandalorians, at least so far are no longer pacifists, and no longer extremists. They follow the old ways. Codes of honor and of the warrior. Family ties and clans mean a lot to them. They have to deal with being under the eye of the Empire. The Protector of Concord Dawn relates directly to one of the old backstories given to Boba Fett prior to the Prequels. The armor used in the Season Three trailer is similar to the concept of the Madalorian super soldiers mentioned in Boda Fett's original presented character establishment before he even made it on screen in either the Empire Strikes Back, or the Holiday Special. Several old comics and the old Tales of the Bounty Hunters novel gave bits and pieces of backstory from Boba Fett. While most don't give much of a picture of Mandalorian civilization, they give some ideas that can be used. One such concept that prior to being a bounty hunter either Boba or his mentor was from Concord Dawn and something like the local police or marshal. Other backstory tales suggest super soldiers who train to take out Jedi. This is also covered in various comics from both Marvel and Dark Horse, with a few mentions in older EU novels. In most old EU versions prior to the Prequels, the Mandalorians had been more or less wiped out by the Jedi, likely during the Clone Wars. There would generally considered a mercenary organization rather than race by modern times, though there were a lot of conflicting backstories in the old EU, and this was complicated by the Prequels, and then even more so by Traviss, so that when TCW started and Lucas wanted to do something on Mandalore, they brought out all that material to show Lucas. What we got was what we got from that, even pre-Disney. They didn't trash everything, but they had to do something with all these conflicting ideals of "what is a Mandalorian?", so they did.

If one looks at the details in TCW episodes based on Mandalore, you can see the planet has been devastated by war. Everyone is living in sealed cities. Everything outside is a wasteland. There is artwork and murals of battles between the Mandalorians and the Jedi suggesting that they have a long history of warfare. The details suggest that the Duchess's family managed to sway public opinion in her lifetime...probably within the last 10 to 15 years to turn away from the old ways because the old ways devastated their planet and left at least one of their moons or colony planets shattered with only about three-quarters of the planet still existing. (As an aside, we have seen how loose Star Wars is with monarchal titles. Having elected Queens and all that. A Duchess could be a granted title or even elected for all we know, as I don't think the origin of her title was presented at all.) As shown by the end of TCW and now in to Rebels, her idealism didn't hold. The old ways returned, but at great cost. Civil War, followed by what started as aid from the Republic, became occupation by the Empire.

As for Sabine, she is young and rebellious, so she is also a graffiti artist, as that is one of our present day ideals of what some people do when they rebel against the system (Mandalore as a culture seems to have embraced something similar to cubism as an artform, if Thrawn was to study them). No culture is monolithic and remains entirely believable. Even the Klingons have people that are not warriors, or have hobbies that are outside the realm of combat arts. The rest of the presented Mandalorians in Rebels were soldiers wearing armored flight suits similar in color to Jengo Fett. They were not in full armor like Boba Fett as they were fighter pilots that defended local space. Sabine's armor is incomplete as it is suggest that a Mandalorian needs to earn the right to wear the whole suit. She's earned the right to wear what she has via her family and deeds, only starting to paint it after she left the Academy and rebelled against the Empire. It is suggested she was a prodigy, and got in early, but left, becoming a bounty hunter for a short time before finding purpose with Hera's group, not long before the series started. Sabine's family was tied to the leadership of Death Watch, which also might be another reason to paint her armor like she does, to hide that connection, as that clan's colors or symbols might be considered traitorous still on Mandalore due to their actions bringing not only the Civil War, but also the Republic/Empire down on their heads. Because while it was Death Watch that brought Darth Maul and the criminals to Mandalore in an effort to sway public opinion to Death Watch as defenders of the planet (because the pacifists certainly couldn't stop Black Sun and the others), it was also their loyalist element (the traditionalist) that broke down and asked for the Republic to come to defeat Maul, as he'd taken over Death Watch via single combat, but the traditionalist would not accept an outsider as their ruler. Breaking down after the death of the Duchess, they asked for the Jedi to bring the Republic in. It was admittedly them swallowing their pride, but they knew that they needed the Republic to deal with Black Sun and Maul. They could traditionally handle whatever the Republic or Jedi would do, and they didn't count on the Empire rising out of the Clone Wars. The criminal element supported by extremist majority of Death Watch was more than they could handle alone.

This seems to be what Ahsoka and Rex were doing when Order 66 happened. They were on Mandalore, dealing with a returned Maul, Black Sun, and the extremists of Death Watch. They managed to drive Maul and Black Sun off, but then the clones turned on Ahsoka (save for Rex it seems). The Seige of Mandalore, Rex's last battle in the Clone Wars, before the coming of the Empire.

I believe some of that was to be covered in the Ahsoka novel.

 

[WebLurker]

Were the mandalorians even a thing before then? I've read a lot of old EU books, and I don't remember mandalorians showing up in any. Karen Traviss's books were the first time I remember the mandalorians getting a big roll in a story. besides that, the KOTOR mandalorians were in the games and KOTOR comics.

But, as far as I can tell Boba Fett was the only Mandalorian in the EU until the 2000s, and Traviss was the first one to tell a story featuring them as a people. If they showed up before that, it was either a comic (I'm not super familiar with a lot of older SW comics), or it was one of the very, very few EU books I might not be aware of. So, basically, before the prequels happened the mandalorians weren't really a thing, outside of Boba Fett and maybe one or two characters so obscure that I'm not aware of them.

Not sure.

It was just one guy in armor, so I guess in Rebels Mandalorians are just a bunch of people in armor (who possibly love graffitti, based on Sabine).

Sabine, so far, has been unique in her painting.

Spoilered for length:

Spoiler: length

By that logic, they should get to show the fate of Vader. They didn't create Thrawn, and they shouldn't control his fate..

They did not create the canonical version of Vader. They did create the canonical version of Thrawn. Vader's full story is already known. Thrawn's is a complete mystery.

I seriously doubt I'm the only person who thinks the Rebels writers/producers are incompetent idiots.

Probably not, but I think you are in the minority.

Looking it up in various places online, the pacifist mandalorians are extremely Xenophobic, and were designed to be nordic (which was outright stated by TCW people) so most of the ones you see are blonde haired blue eyed humans.

Didn't know that.

Since mandalorians originally could be any species, all the stuff combined to give the pacifist mandalorians a reputation as being racist.

Since the any species thing was Legends only, it has no bearing on the New Mandalorians, as seen in canon. (I think in Legends, they outright said that Death Watch chose to limit their membership to humans only, to account for it being all-human in the Legends version of TCW, while Mandalorians in general were multi-species.

So, it might not have been extremely blatant or something TCW writers did on purpose so much as a reputation gained by an unfortunate combination of factors. It doesn't really matter to me because even without the racism I still loathe TCW mandalorians, but I'll admit the racism of the group might be more subtext then anything.

That's what I think.

Its a futuristic galaxy full of aliens, they don't have to be what we in real life would consider "realistic".

Also, Legends was the mandalorians. The term wasn't even in any other context for decades. The mandalorians are warriors who wear armor, period. You can argue about the details of their culture (whether they were a family focused people who accepted anyone who could be one of them like Traviss's version, or the brutish violent thugs of other versions) but they aren't pacifists ruled by idiot royalty.

The point of the New Mandalorians is that they came from the ones you're describing, but chose to go a different way. Anyways, who to say that "Mandaloran" can only refer to the bucketed warriors and terrorists, and, say, a person who lives on Mandalore?

He'll always be a mandalorian to me.

Okay.

At least two jedi became Mandalorians in the old EU (well, one knight and a padawan and kind of a second knight but she died before it became official).

Okay.

That said, mandalorians aren't into street art or wearing less then half their armor while painting it ridiculous colors.

Says who?

They're a varied group, but Sabine just isn't one.

This from the guy who loved the inclusive iteration of the Mandalorians.

But, again, I don't consider any canon mandalorian as an official mandalorian, so in the end while I find her a bit insulting everything that the new canon calls "mandalorian" is insulting.

Huh.

There is no way Yoda can project himself. That's not an ability living jedi have.

Then what do you think the Force Yoda we saw was?

I guess some of the older Filmation shows were lazier, but for a show made in the 2010s I haven't seen a lazier one personally.

What about most of the Nick shows that are not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Its rebels, their "story arcs" are extremely predictable, and the "fake out evil" arc with Maul is poretty obvious.

Do you mean that "Old Master" turned out to be Maul, or are you talking about the clues to Maul's future episodes?

I don't need evidence, Rebels ruins everything. Either that or the character does nothing important. If Leia was central to the plot of an episode, she was done horribly, because that is literally the only way Rebels does anything.

Hyperbole, at best.

I'm qualified to talk about the Vader vs Ezra/Kanan stuff. I watched clips of the fight online...

I see.

...I just didn't watch the actual story of the episode(s) or the fight between Ahsoka and Vader.

So, why were you telling me what the latter scene was about, when you don't have any frame of reference for it?

I even suffered through rewatching the clip of the first Kanan/Ezra vs Vader fight just now, and they did so much better then Luke did his first time its ridiculous. Lulke in RotJ couldn't have slammed walkers down on Vader, and it took everything he had to fight Vader to a standstill. Kanan and Ezra escaped pretty easily.

Ezra and Kanan also had more training, experience, and more objects to work with.

I still think of Rebels as extremely episodic, and I think you could just watch the pilot and the intros of Ahsoka and the clones to be caught up with any "story" the show had.

I don't think so.

They can't be faithul to them, because 1) TCW made sure the core aspects of the EU mandalorians were incompatable with their versions and 2) its Rebels, their mandalorians will just be the average thugs the more unoriginal pre-Traviss stories portrayed them as at best. At worst, they'll just be the pacifist ones but without the pacifism (so arrogant idiots who are ruled by a terrible monarchy). So, really, its not worth anything.

I do think that the Traviss novels have become so contradicted, that they should've been pulled from canon when TCW started doing its thing with them.

The canon Mandalorians seem to draw most of their experience from the stuff that pre-dated Karen Traviss, like Open Seasons, where you get stuff like the Death Watch. So, to that, they're reasonably close, as far as I can tell.

 

[kirk55555]

They did not slam a walker onto Vader. They Force shoved Vader under a toppling walker that had be blown up via bombs. Two Force users Force shoved another about ten feet or so while he was distracted identifying the explosion. Team work. And it still does basically nothing to Vader. It just given them an opening to run.

As for the Mandalorians, no culture remains static for that many thousands of years without even minor hiccups. If one looks at the layers under surface of TCW era civilization, you can see that it was not always pacifist, and that their modern pacifism was a new things even for Mandalorians, and a reaction to getting their butts handed too them one too many times by the Jedi over the last several thousand years. Death Watch is shown as an extremist group that is trying to go back to their old ways, but are going about it using extremes. The Rebels era Mandalorians, at least so far are no longer pacifists, and no longer extremists. They follow the old ways. Codes of honor and of the warrior. Family ties and clans mean a lot to them. They have to deal with being under the eye of the Empire. The Protector of Concord Dawn relates directly to one of the old backstories given to Boba Fett prior to the Prequels. The armor used in the Season Three trailer is similar to the concept of the Madalorian super soldiers mentioned in Boda Fett's original presented character establishment before he even made it on screen in either the Empire Strikes Back, or the Holiday Special. Several old comics and the old Tales of the Bounty Hunters novel gave bits and pieces of backstory from Boba Fett. While most don't give much of a picture of Mandalorian civilization, they give some ideas that can be used. One such concept that prior to being a bounty hunter either Boba or his mentor was from Concord Dawn and something like the local police or marshal. Other backstory tales suggest super soldiers who train to take out Jedi. This is also covered in various comics from both Marvel and Dark Horse, with a few mentions in older EU novels. In most old EU versions prior to the Prequels, the Mandalorians had been more or less wiped out by the Jedi, likely during the Clone Wars. There would generally considered a mercenary organization rather than race by modern times, though there were a lot of conflicting backstories in the old EU, and this was complicated by the Prequels, and then even more so by Traviss, so that when TCW started and Lucas wanted to do something on Mandalore, they brought out all that material to show Lucas. What we got was what we got from that, even pre-Disney. They didn't trash everything, but they had to do something with all these conflicting ideals of "what is a Mandalorian?", so they did.

If one looks at the details in TCW episodes based on Mandalore, you can see the planet has been devastated by war. Everyone is living in sealed cities. Everything outside is a wasteland. There is artwork and murals of battles between the Mandalorians and the Jedi suggesting that they have a long history of warfare. The details suggest that the Duchess's family managed to sway public opinion in her lifetime...probably within the last 10 to 15 years to turn away from the old ways because the old ways devastated their planet and left at least one of their moons or colony planets shattered with only about three-quarters of the planet still existing. (As an aside, we have seen how loose Star Wars is with monarchal titles. Having elected Queens and all that. A Duchess could be a granted title or even elected for all we know, as I don't think the origin of her title was presented at all.) As shown by the end of TCW and now in to Rebels, her idealism didn't hold. The old ways returned, but at great cost. Civil War, followed by what started as aid from the Republic, became occupation by the Empire.

As for Sabine, she is young and rebellious, so she is also a graffiti artist, as that is one of our present day ideals of what some people do when they rebel against the system (Mandalore as a culture seems to have embraced something similar to cubism as an artform, if Thrawn was to study them). No culture is monolithic and remains entirely believable. Even the Klingons have people that are not warriors, or have hobbies that are outside the realm of combat arts. The rest of the presented Mandalorians in Rebels were soldiers wearing armored flight suits similar in color to Jengo Fett. They were not in full armor like Boba Fett as they were fighter pilots that defended local space. Sabine's armor is incomplete as it is suggest that a Mandalorian needs to earn the right to wear the whole suit. She's earned the right to wear what she has via her family and deeds, only starting to paint it after she left the Academy and rebelled against the Empire. It is suggested she was a prodigy, and got in early, but left, becoming a bounty hunter for a short time before finding purpose with Hera's group, not long before the series started. Sabine's family was tied to the leadership of Death Watch, which also might be another reason to paint her armor like she does, to hide that connection, as that clan's colors or symbols might be considered traitorous still on Mandalore due to their actions bringing not only the Civil War, but also the Republic/Empire down on their heads. Because while it was Death Watch that brought Darth Maul and the criminals to Mandalore in an effort to sway public opinion to Death Watch as defenders of the planet (because the pacifists certainly couldn't stop Black Sun and the others), it was also their loyalist element (the traditionalist) that broke down and asked for the Republic to come to defeat Maul, as he'd taken over Death Watch via single combat, but the traditionalist would not accept an outsider as their ruler. Breaking down after the death of the Duchess, they asked for the Jedi to bring the Republic in. It was admittedly them swallowing their pride, but they knew that they needed the Republic to deal with Black Sun and Maul. They could traditionally handle whatever the Republic or Jedi would do, and they didn't count on the Empire rising out of the Clone Wars. The criminal element supported by extremist majority of Death Watch was more than they could handle alone.

This seems to be what Ahsoka and Rex were doing when Order 66 happened. They were on Mandalore, dealing with a returned Maul, Black Sun, and the extremists of Death Watch. They managed to drive Maul and Black Sun off, but then the clones turned on Ahsoka (save for Rex it seems). The Seige of Mandalore, Rex's last battle in the Clone Wars, before the coming of the Empire.

I believe some of that was to be covered in the Ahsoka novel.

I saw the Zeb and Sabine doing something to the walkers, but I didn't connect that to them exploding, I thought it was all Ezra/Kanan and the other two were just fighting stormtroopers. As for the Mandalorian stuff, like I've said I'll admit to not being remotely objective on the subject and I have no desire to change that. The TCW and Rebels mandalorians are terrible, and really only mandalorians by name. I'll never have to deal with them in a movie or book, and I obviously won't be watching any more of Rebels, so I can easily pretend they don't exist.

Next part of post, spoilered for length

Spoiler: length

They did not create the canonical version of Vader. They did create the canonical version of Thrawn. Vader's full story is already known. Thrawn's is a complete mystery.

I think that's complete BS, and something we'll have to agree to disagree on.

The point of the New Mandalorians is that they came from the ones you're describing, but chose to go a different way. Anyways, who to say that "Mandaloran" can only refer to the bucketed warriors and terrorists, and, say, a person who lives on Mandalore?

The same reason a human living on Vulcan doesn't get called a Vulcan?

This from the guy who loved the inclusive iteration of the Mandalorians.

Species doesn't matter, and even not being a warrior doesn't matter. The mandalorians in the EU actually had a big part of their culture being a farming tradition to go along with their warrior ways. The spunky teen grafitti artist is nothing but a weird attempt to make a "cool" character, although the demographic for Rebels is probably a bit young to care about street art and the people who make it.

Then what do you think the Force Yoda we saw was?

It could be anything from Kanan being delusional to a weird force illusion like the sith ghosts Yoda saw (in those terrible "lost season" TCW episodes, I think). The force can manifest weird stuff without being sentient, like the Vader with Luke's face on Dagobah.

What about most of the Nick shows that are not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Those are bad, but from the little I've seen not really worse then Rebels.

Do you mean that "Old Master" turned out to be Maul, or are you talking about the clues to Maul's future episodes?

Clues to the future. I don't recall anything about Maul being called an "old master".

Hyperbole, at best.

No, my thoughts on Rebels always sucking and what their use of Leia was like is just a difference of opinion.

So, why were you telling me what the latter scene was about, when you don't have any frame of reference for it?

I was theorizing, based on how every single episode of Rebels that I watched worked.

Ezra and Kanan also had more training, experience, and more objects to work with.

Ezra has been over powered since day one, and both him and Kanan are the shows heroes, they can't really suffer a big loss, especially since it would make Ezra look bad.

I don't think so.

Well, the vast majority of the episodes I watched were throw away episodic stuff, like you'd see from any kiddie cartoon from back in the day (and, to be fair, even until today but we have shows that break the trend more nowadays).

I do think that the Traviss novels have become so contradicted, that they should've been pulled from canon when TCW started doing its thing with them.

The canon Mandalorians seem to draw most of their experience from the stuff that pre-dated Karen Traviss, like Open Seasons, where you get stuff like the Death Watch. So, to that, they're reasonably close, as far as I can tell.

They were pulled from canon, before the EU was eliminated. Her Clone/Mandalorian series (Republic/Imperial Commando) didn't even actually end because Traviss had issues with the canon changes while she was starting on the last book in the Republic Commando series, and she has never (and from what I read, probably will never) work with Star Wars ever again because of it. Luckily she's released what she was going to do in the last book online, so fans of her book get a little closure. Honestly, while I'll always be angry they were taken out of canon, the fact that she wasn't allowed to finish the series is what really infuriates me.

With the new canon mandalorians, Since there wasn't much to mandalorians (or at least modern ones) before Traviss its not hard to use the few things established before hand. I don't particularly care, though. The pacifist idiot mandalorians killed the entire idea when it comes to new canon mandalorians, and I won't watch/read anything about any new canon mandalorians (unless they make a Boba Fett spin off movie like they're doing with Han Solo, but I doubt mandalorians would play much of a role in a movie like that). The fact that the new canon ones who aren't pacifists are generic bounty hunters/thugs and are only used on a show I hate makes it pretty easy to avoid them, anyway.

 

[Ithekro]

As for the Mandalorian stuff, like I've said I'll admit to not being remotely objective on the subject and I have no desire to change that. The TCW and Rebels mandalorians are terrible, and really only mandalorians by name. I'll never have to deal with them in a movie or book, and I obviously won't be watching any more of Rebels, so I can easily pretend they don't exist.

That is your call to make, but I think it is short sighted at best. What happens if they go to Mandalore for Episode IX and it is still based on materials from TCW and Rebels? Disney has shown they are willing to use stuff from TCW as they have Saw Gurerra, a character from one of the later seasons of TCW, in Rogue One. I would not put it past Disney to put in references to characters in either Episode VII or introduce a character for Episode VIII in Rebels.

 

[kirk55555]

That is your call to make, but I think it is short sighted at best. What happens if they go to Mandalore for Episode IX and it is still based on materials from TCW and Rebels? Disney has shown they are willing to use stuff from TCW as they have Saw Gurerra, a character from one of the later seasons, in Rogue One. I would not put it past Disney to put in references to characters in either Episode VII or introduce a character for Episode VIII in Rebels.

I think there is a better chance of Finn being Lando's kid then there is of Mandalore or mandalorians appearing in any of the main SW movies (and to be clear my opinion is that there is no chance Finn has any relation to Lando, and that the entire theory is ridiculous). A Boba Fett spin off movie might have them, but even then its unlikely.

But, if there somehow was Mandalore/mandalorians in Episode IX, etc? Then it would instantly become my most hated SW movie by default. I'd still watch it at least once (because I'm a huge nerd), but I'd rather Gungans be a main plot point in Episode IX then for the movie to have even a background cameo by a "mandalorian" (outside of Boba Fett)..

 

[WebLurker]

I saw the Zeb and Sabine doing something to the walkers, but I didn't connect that to them exploding, I thought it was all Ezra/Kanan and the other two were just fighting stormtroopers. As for the Mandalorian stuff, like I've said I'll admit to not being remotely objective on the subject and I have no desire to change that. The TCW and Rebels mandalorians are terrible, and really only mandalorians by name. I'll never have to deal with them in a movie or book, and I obviously won't be watching any more of Rebels, so I can easily pretend they don't exist.

Next part of post, spoilered for length

Spoiler: length

I think that's complete BS, and something we'll have to agree to disagree on.

Fair enough. (Without the actual episodes for viewing, I'm not sure there's anything more that can be said about Thrawn, except to hope that it proves to be so artistically done.

The same reason a human living on Vulcan doesn't get called a Vulcan?

Hmm. That's a good point. Maybe to phrase it another way, does "Mandalorian" refer to the collective cultures from the society that got it's start on Mandalore (wether it be Death Watch, New Mandalorians, or the Concord Dawn people), or only to the one sub-culture(s) that wear the T-visored helmets and follow variations of the same battle code?

Species doesn't matter, and even not being a warrior doesn't matter. The mandalorians in the EU actually had a big part of their culture being a farming tradition to go along with their warrior ways.

Makes sense.

The spunky teen grafitti artist is nothing but a weird attempt to make a "cool" character, although the demographic for Rebels is probably a bit young to care about street art and the people who make it.

So, its not that Sabine would't be eligible to join, but just that you find the character off-putting. (Sabine does do more than street art. She also decorates around the ship and likes to design bombs that have colorful explosions.)

It could be anything from Kanan being delusional to a weird force illusion like the sith ghosts Yoda saw (in those terrible "lost season" TCW episodes, I think). The force can manifest weird stuff without being sentient, like the Vader with Luke's face on Dagobah.

Okay.

Those are bad, but from the little I've seen not really worse then Rebels.

I refuse to believe that Rebels is as bad as Sanjay and Craig.

Clues to the future.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

I don't recall anything about Maul being called an "old master".

My bad. In "Twilight of the Apprentice," when Maul first finds Ezra, the ex-Sith conceals his real identity from Ezra (and the audience), only calling himself "Old Master." From what you said, I couldn't tell if you were nonplussed at where they were going to take Maul in season three, or the story where Old Master turns out to be an enemy.

No, my thoughts on Rebels always sucking and what their use of Leia was like is just a difference of opinion.

Based on what -- besides the other shows, which have little reference, since Leia is not in any of them.

I was theorizing, based on how every single episode of Rebels that I watched worked.

I see.

Ezra has been over powered since day one, and both him and Kanan are the shows heroes, they can't really suffer a big loss, especially since it would make Ezra look bad.

All untrained Force users can consciously or unconsciously use Force abilities with no prior training (and little skill, though). Ezra is not special in that regard, and the abilities he has before training are limited. Kanan being blinded is a huge loss for him, and Ezra is creeping to the edge of the dark side, so they are making him look bad.

Well, the vast majority of the episodes I watched were throw away episodic stuff, like you'd see from any kiddie cartoon from back in the day (and, to be fair, even until today but we have shows that break the trend more nowadays).

To be fair myself, I was counting any episode that had anything that came back later down the road as non-filler, which does ignore the fact that some shows can be missed and the viewer won't be lost.

They were pulled from canon, before the EU was eliminated.

The novels are still a part of the Legends continuity (even if some of the exacts have to be ignored). For example, an article on the Star Wars website describing the Legends version of Order 66 mentions the Commando's defection during the chaos alongside descriptions of the chips from the Lost Missions arc.

Her Clone/Mandalorian series (Republic/Imperial Commando) didn't even actually end because Traviss had issues with the canon changes while she was starting on the last book in the Republic Commando series, and she has never (and from what I read, probably will never) work with Star Wars ever again because of it.

Yeah, I recall that. Her detractors had a field day with that, presenting it as her throwing a hissy fit because she couldn't handle the TV show not using her work as the basis for it, or something. In actuality, while I think Traviss is not the most diplomatic author in the field and some of her Star Wars writing distorted elements of the franchise to align with her theories rather than keeping to the "facts," her reasoning for leaving actually seemed fairly logical. I thought she was unfairly flamed when she left, even though I think she wasn't the best writer the franchise had.

Luckily she's released what she was going to do in the last book online, so fans of her book get a little closure.

That was nice of her.

Honestly, while I'll always be angry they were taken out of canon, the fact that she wasn't allowed to finish the series is what really infuriates me.

All accounts agree that Traviss was offered the contract for the next Imperial Commando novel and turned it down, so she wasn't forced out. She was the one who didn't allow herself to finish the series. I wish that someone else had written it, but at least Legacy of the Force offered some closure and showed what happened.

With the new canon mandalorians, Since there wasn't much to mandalorians (or at least modern ones) before Traviss its not hard to use the few things established before hand.

Well, they didn't need to. I mean they could've followed the original intent and have Fett's armor just be a commercial model instead of being the traditional tools of a specific culture.

I don't particularly care, though. The pacifist idiot mandalorians killed the entire idea when it comes to new canon mandalorians, and I won't watch/read anything about any new canon mandalorians (unless they make a Boba Fett spin off movie like they're doing with Han Solo, but I doubt mandalorians would play much of a role in a movie like that).

They're only one faction that co-exists alongside the traditional ones that follow the Legends version. In fact, the Shadow Conspiracy story arc in TCW may imply that the New Mandalorians intended to pick up the warrior traditions, so they may have ceased to be a factor come Rebels.

The fact that the new canon ones who aren't pacifists are generic bounty hunters/thugs and are only used on a show I hate makes it pretty easy to avoid them, anyway.

Well, that is up to you.

 

[Ithekro]

The fact that the new canon ones who aren't pacifists are generic bounty hunters/thugs and are only used on a show I hate makes it pretty easy to avoid them, anyway.

Aside from Sabine, the other Mandalorians shown on Rebels have been the local space defense forces, rather than thugs or bounty hunters. They even have a particular dislike of bounty hunters that use Mandalorian armor, feeling they didn't earn the right to wear said armor, and don't follow the old ways.

 

[kirk55555]

Spoiler: Length

Hmm. That's a good point. Maybe to phrase it another way, does "Mandalorian" refer to the collective cultures from the society that got it's start on Mandalore (wether it be Death Watch, New Mandalorians, or the Concord Dawn people), or only to the one sub-culture(s) that wear the T-visored helmets and follow variations of the same battle code?

I count the entire Mandalorian culture as the armored ones. That doesn't mean they're all armored mercenaries, but that its a big part of their culture and a fairly normal thing to see. Those are the only people I call mandalorians, and they don't exist in the new canon so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't consider any of the canon "mandalorians" to actually be mandalorians.

So, its not that Sabine would't be eligible to join, but just that you find the character off-putting. (Sabine does do more than street art. She also decorates around the ship and likes to design bombs that have colorful explosions.)

If the old EU mandalorians still existed, Sabine would definitely not qualify. Also, coloring the ship and making colorful bombs doesn't make her better, in my opinion. Just because she does stuff besides graffiti doesn't change anything about her.

I refuse to believe that Rebels is as bad as Sanjay and Craig.

I like I said, based on what I've seen Rebels is really bad, and because of what its doing to Star Wars I consider it one of my most hated shows ever. I can't see a show about *googles Sanjay and Craig* a kid and a talking snake being worse. I consider Rebels worse then Uncle Grandpa, and that is a really, really terrible cartoon.

All untrained Force users can consciously or unconsciously use Force abilities with no prior training (and little skill, though). Ezra is not special in that regard, and the abilities he has before training are limited. Kanan being blinded is a huge loss for him, and Ezra is creeping to the edge of the dark side, so they are making him look bad.

Ezra's jedi skills before he was training weren't really shown because he basically became a student in episode 1. But, his training made him quickly over powered in a way that just doesn't happen outside of a kids cartoon who wants its main character to be very powerful. As for the dark side stuff, have the kids watching the show would probably cheer if Ezra used force lightning, because force lighning is cool and the shows demographic probably doesn't care so much about dark/light as they do about seeing cool looking things.

The novels are still a part of the Legends continuity (even if some of the exacts have to be ignored). For example, an article on the Star Wars website describing the Legends version of Order 66 mentions the Commando's defection during the chaos alongside descriptions of the chips from the Lost Missions arc.

The clones in the Commando books didn't have chips in their heads. From the Null Commandoes to the regular commandoes to the average Trooper Corr, none of them had mind controlling chips to make them execute Order 66. That chip storyline is the worst thing Clone Wars ever did besides the fake mandalorians (and was a huge cop out), and the Republic Commando books literally can't work with the chip storyline.

All accounts agree that Traviss was offered the contract for the next Imperial Commando novel and turned it down, so she wasn't forced out. She was the one who didn't allow herself to finish the series. I wish that someone else had written it, but at least Legacy of the Force offered some closure and showed what happened.

There was no way the last book could have been written by anyone. TCW literally made every single Commando book out of canon in a way that couldn't be fixed. Hell, TCW took a lot of Legacy of the Force completely out of continuity, too. Not one bit Karen Travis wrote in the Commando books fit into continuity as soon as the idiot pacifist mandalorians were introduced. Her books had the armored mandalorians as the only group, said Mandalore was a harsh but fertile planet, and it wasn't involved with the Republic during The Clone wars. Her stuff about clones no longer worked, either. So, there was never any chance of a final book after that, and the Star Wars people weren't going to allow an out of continuity book published just to end a series anyway. Plus, it wouldn't have been legitimate if anyone but Traviss wrote it, anyway. It would have been like having anyone but JK Rowling write the 7th Harry Potter book. Technically possible, but it wouldn't work.

They're only one faction that co-exists alongside the traditional ones that follow the Legends version. In fact, the Shadow Conspiracy story arc in TCW may imply that the New Mandalorians intended to pick up the warrior traditions, so they may have ceased to be a factor come Rebels.

No version of the new canon mandalorians are anything like the Legends version. I consider all new canon mandalorians to be the same, a bunch of people who share nothing with the actual mandalorians except a name and the fact that some of them wear armor.

Aside from Sabine, the other Mandalorians shown on Rebels have been the local space defense forces, rather than thugs or bounty hunters. They even have a particular dislike of bounty hunters that use Mandalorian armor, feeling they didn't earn the right to wear said armor, and don't follow the old ways.

Well,from my perspective no Mandalorian shown on Rebels or TCW deserve to even call themselves mandalorians, so I don't really care what the fake mandalorians think of people who wear armor they themselves don't deserve to wear. Also, being a bounty hunter wasn't a bad profession in the original mandalorian culture.

 

[JD]

So, uh, has anyone looked at the title of the thread lately?

 

[WebLurker]

Spoiler: Length

I count the entire Mandalorian culture as the armored ones. That doesn't mean they're all armored mercenaries, but that its a big part of their culture and a fairly normal thing to see. Those are the only people I call mandalorians, and they don't exist in the new canon so it doesn't really matter anymore.

Except we saw Mandalorians like that in Clone Wars (Death Watch) and in Rebels (the faction in "The Protector of Concord Dawn"). It may not be an exact translation, but it is on the same spectrum and the TV versions are clearly meant to be based on the original ones.

...I don't consider any of the canon "mandalorians" to actually be mandalorians/

An opinion is an opinion, but why do we have to assume that there can be only one kind of "Mandalorian?" Why can't there be variation with the general idea (and even subversion?).

If the old EU mandalorians still existed, Sabine would definitely not qualify.

Why? I don't recall anything from the original books that would disqualify her, esp. considering that she's Mandalorian by birth.

Also, coloring the ship and making colorful bombs doesn't make her better, in my opinion. Just because she does stuff besides graffiti doesn't change anything about her.

Fair enough.

I like I said, based on what I've seen Rebels is really bad, and because of what its doing to Star Wars I consider it one of my most hated shows ever. I can't see a show about *googles Sanjay and Craig* a kid and a talking snake being worse. I consider Rebels worse then Uncle Grandpa, and that is a really, really terrible cartoon.

Trust me, Sanjay and Craig is worse! (I've seen bits and pieces of Uncle Grandpa, and I think Rebels is far better, but your mileage may vary.)

Ezra's jedi skills before he was training weren't really shown because he basically became a student in episode 1.

His training doesn't start until after episode two, and he does pull off a few Force tricks before, like other brand-new Jedi characters have.

But, his training made him quickly over powered in a way that just doesn't happen outside of a kids cartoon who wants its main character to be very powerful.

Anything specific, besides the question if he's lightsaber skills are too advanced?

As for the dark side stuff, have the kids watching the show would probably cheer if Ezra used force lightning, because force lighning is cool and the shows demographic probably doesn't care so much about dark/light as they do about seeing cool looking things.

So far, the show has done a pretty good job of making the dark side not look cool and it being a very Bad Thing. The makers, for what it's worth, seem to be trying to be a cut above the ordinary, regardless of their actual success rate.

The clones in the Commando books didn't have chips in their heads. From the Null Commandoes to the regular commandoes to the average Trooper Corr, none of them had mind controlling chips to make them execute Order 66.

Per The Lost Missions, all clone troopers had those chips. Since the entirety of Clone Wars is also part of the Legends continuity, and the Clone Commando novels were never de-canonized from that continuity, they did have chips, too. Now, obviously, Traviss wrote her books long before it was known that the troopers had those chips, so she couldn't have written them in.

That chip storyline is the worst thing Clone Wars ever did besides the fake mandalorians (and was a huge cop out), and the Republic Commando books literally can't work with the chip storyline.

Maybe the Nulls' chips were defective and part of the reason that they were were labeled as defective on the whole. The other's could've been found and removed "offscreen," when they were looking into how their genes had been messed with and how to fix it. It is a lot of fudgework, to be sure, but Legends has been fudging things its entire existence.

There was no way the last book could have been written by anyone.

Debatable, although I think Traviss should've finished it, had things worked out.

TCW literally made every single Commando book out of canon in a way that couldn't be fixed.

Let's see, beyond the chip question, I recall one novel establishing that there were no long-term medical services for the clones, while TCW established that there were in a subplot. I suppose that Skirata and Vau running their squads as a private army would be hard to reconcile, too (although that never made sense to me in any version of the franchise). There would be some fudging, but it's not as bad as say, trying to work Strangers From the Sky back into the Star Trek timeline.

Hell, TCW took a lot of Legacy of the Force completely out of continuity, too.

How'd that work?

Not one bit Karen Travis wrote in the Commando books fit into continuity as soon as the idiot pacifist mandalorians were introduced. Her books had the armored mandalorians as the only group, said Mandalore was a harsh but fertile planet, and it wasn't involved with the Republic during The Clone wars.

This has been actually retconned in both The Star Wars Atlas and The Bounty Hunter's Code (both Legends reference works). The Atlas explained that Mandalore had parts that were inhabitable (where the factions that still followed the traditional Man'dalore-lead government lives, while the New Mandalorians established themselves in the bubble cities in the desert. The New Mandalorians were explained to have their influence wane after TCW, with the Man'dalore-lead faction then becoming the dominate one in the future (as seen in Legacy of the Force).

The Bounty Hunter book mostly smoothed over the depictions of Death Watch, providing some transition between the original Death Watch seen in Open Seasons and elsewhere and the one seen in Clone Wars (and even explaining why the later were humans-only).

Mandalore was neutral during the Clone Wars. In "The Lawless," when Satine's call for help in light of the Death Watch coup reaches the Jedi, this is the assessment of the situation:

Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Satine has been at odds with the Death Watch for years. And according to a report from Padawan Tano, they're no longer in league with the Separatists. If there was a takeover on Mandalore, it was most likely an independent act caused by the Death Watch alone."
Ki-Adi-Mundi: "Without involvement from the Separatists, this is an internal affair for the Mandalorians. I'm afraid we cannot help."
Kenobi: "We cannot just hand Mandalore over to these crime families and let Satine become a martyr."
Mundi: "I'm afraid her decision to keep Mandalore neutral makes this situation... difficult."
Yoda: "Understand your feelings I do, Obi-Wan. But to take action, support from the Republic Senate we will need."
Kenobi: "You know what the Senate will decide. They will not send aid to a neutral system."
Yoda: "At this time, nothing more can we do."

Later in the episode, when the Maul-aligned Death Watch engage in civil war with the Nite Owls and allies, we get this:

Bo-Katan: "Go back to your Republic and tell them what's happened!"
Obi-Wan Kenobi: "That would likely lead to an invasion of Mandalore!"
Bo-Katan: "Yes, and Maul will die! But Mandalore will survive! We always survive. Now go."

So, Mandalore was neutral during the war, even meaning that the Republic intervening in light of Maul's coup would be an invasion. Finally, its worth noting that the only Mandalorian factions that got drawn into the Clone Wars were the New Mandalorians and Death Watch. Kal Skirata's group weren't in the show, so their involvement was as seen in the novels.

Yes, it is a patch job, but it can be evened out, even if the seams are still visible.

Her stuff about clones no longer worked, either. So, there was never any chance of a final book after that, and the Star Wars people weren't going to allow an out of continuity book published just to end a series anyway.

Considering all the trouble they went to reconcile Clone Wars with Legends, I wonder if it was more that other projects took priority.

Plus, it wouldn't have been legitimate if anyone but Traviss wrote it, anyway.

Why not? It's part of the Star Wars series, which was written by multiple people. That's the nature of tie-ins and franchises.

It would have been like having anyone but JK Rowling write the 7th Harry Potter book. Technically possible, but it wouldn't work.

Funny you should say that...

No version of the new canon mandalorians are anything like the Legends version.

Death Watch is an evil Mandalorian faction. The Concord Dawn ones follow ancient traditions and warriors codes. They use the same gear. Sound a lot alike to me.

I consider all new canon mandalorians to be the same, a bunch of people who share nothing with the actual mandalorians except a name and the fact that some of them wear armor.

See above

Well,from my perspective no Mandalorian shown on Rebels or TCW deserve to even call themselves mandalorians, so I don't really care what the fake mandalorians think of people who wear armor they themselves don't deserve to wear.

I see.

Also, being a bounty hunter wasn't a bad profession in the original mandalorian culture.

In the Star Wars universe, "bounty hunter" is a catch-all for mercenaries who work for the highest bidder and are known as the dregs of the galaxy.[/quote]

So, uh, has anyone looked at the title of the thread lately?

Okay, about Star Wars books. I had a chance to read the new TFA junior novelization, Finn's Story (a companion piece to the similar Rey's Story junior novelization) and liked it. Anyone else looking forward to Catalyst?

 

[kirk55555]

Spoiler: length

Except we saw Mandalorians like that in Clone Wars (Death Watch) and in Rebels (the faction in "The Protector of Concord Dawn"). It may not be an exact translation, but it is on the same spectrum and the TV versions are clearly meant to be based on the original ones.

At best, the TCW/Rebels armored mandalorians (not that I can remember a single piece of mandalorian armor outside of Jango's helmet being shown in TCW, much less worn, but I did skip all the TCW BS mandalorian garbage) were based on the pre-Traviss and pre-prequels EU versions of mandalorians, just like the Death watch were. So, basically the Rebels mandalorians are based on when the mandalorians were extremely one dimensional bad guys. Just people in armor who did bad things, and were nothing but background characters to put in Boba Fett stories or to use as thugs. I'm not saying there were no bad mandalorians or mandalorian thugs (Traviss did use the Death Watch, and that's basically what they were) but pre-Traviss that was all mandalorians except Boba Fett. Then, it was all mandalorians except the pacifist idiots in TCW. Now, its every "mandalorian" on Rebels except the graffiti "mandalorian".

An opinion is an opinion, but why do we have to assume that there can be only one kind of "Mandalorian?" Why can't there be variation with the general idea (and even subversion?).

Because its stupid? Because that's not how it works? Because subverting the mandalorians is idiotic? Anyway, SW has its canon mandalorians, I can't argue Disney gets to determine what's canon. I'll just personally never count them as mandalorians, and will completely ignore any use of them that isn't in the movies.

Why? I don't recall anything from the original books that would disqualify her, esp. considering that she's Mandalorian by birth.

Except she's not a fighter, she doesn't have the right attitude or skills, and honestly she doesn't even resemble a mandalorian except she has a few pieces of vaguely mandalorian armor. She's about as mandalorian as Zeb, or Chopper.

So far, the show has done a pretty good job of making the dark side not look cool and it being a very Bad Thing. The makers, for what it's worth, seem to be trying to be a cut above the ordinary, regardless of their actual success rate.

I completely disagree, the makers of Rebels aren't trying for anything other then the bare minimum to make their lazy garbage count as a tv show. Again, its like old Filmation cartoons. Hire people to use minimum effort to put out something for little kids to watch (not that Filmation and studios like it didn't use some good people, Paul Dini worked on He-Man after all, but I'm talking about the corporate side of it).

Per The Lost Missions, all clone troopers had those chips. Since the entirety of Clone Wars is also part of the Legends continuity, and the Clone Commando novels were never de-canonized from that continuity, they did have chips, too. Now, obviously, Traviss wrote her books long before it was known that the troopers had those chips, so she couldn't have written them in.

Nope, her troopers didn't have chips. That's what makes her stories lnot count as canon, and its a bit BS to try to pretend they had chips when that literally goes against several big plot points in the Order 66 novel. The entire end of the damn book couldn't work if her clones were chipped.

Maybe the Nulls' chips were defective and part of the reason that they were were labeled as defective on the whole. The other's could've been found and removed "offscreen," when they were looking into how their genes had been messed with and how to fix it. It is a lot of fudgework, to be sure, but Legends has been fudging things its entire existence.

So the nulls chips, Delta squad's chips, Omega squad's chips, Corr's chip, the chip of the arc trooper who saved Jedi Master Zey, the chips of the renegade ARC troopers who defected from the army, and the chips of the Yayax Squad commandoes that defected to be with their female mandalorian teacher (Rav Bralor) on Mandalore were all defective? Several of those people I mentioned had no way of having their chips disabled even if you pretend that the Nulls deactivated the chips of the people they could, and yet none of them obeyed Order 66. You really can't fudge the chips into her story, and thank god for that. The chips were a moronic cop out for a show that wouldn't just admit that the clones were indoctrinated to follow orders and, with the exception of those very loyal to their generals (or who really thought for themselves like the nulls and Skirata's commandoes), followed the order without question. It was lazy and insulting writing, and it doesn't fit Traviss's work at all.

How'd that work?

Jaina goes to the version of Mandalore seen in Traviss's books, which was never devestated by any war or ruled by anyone except normal mandalorians, and trained by the characters from the Commando books, who really can't exist. Boba Fett also interacts with a few of the nulls. The whole mandalorian culture in the Legacy of the Force books is Traviss's version, and doesn't fit with how mandalore or the "mandalorians" of TCW and Rebels work.

This has been actually retconned in both The Star Wars Atlas and The Bounty Hunter's Code (both Legends reference works). The Atlas explained that Mandalore had parts that were inhabitable (where the factions that still followed the traditional Man'dalore-lead government lives, while the New Mandalorians established themselves in the bubble cities in the desert. The New Mandalorians were explained to have their influence wane after TCW, with the Man'dalore-lead faction then becoming the dominate one in the future (as seen in Legacy of the Force).

The book didn't retcon anything, TCW retconned and the book followed it. by the time it came out, the Commando books had been retconned out of existence. There were no pacifists on Traviss's Mandalore, and there never had been. The only "faction" that existed besides the nromal Mandalorians was the Death watchg, and they were evil warriors.

Mandalore was neutral during the Clone Wars. In "The Lawless," when Satine's call for help in light of the Death Watch coup reaches the Jedi, this is the assessment of the situation:

Yes, it is a patch job, but it can be evened out, even if the seams are still visible.

It really can't. I've read the Commando books at least five times all the way through, they don't work with the idiotic TCW stuff. You have to pretend so much stuff doesn't exist, and twist things so far beyond what the people obviously intended that its not the same story anymore. It just doesn't work.

Why not? It's part of the Star Wars series, which was written by multiple people. That's the nature of tie-ins and franchises.

It was her personal series. Saying anyone else could have finished it is like saying someone should have replaced Timothy Zahn to end the Thrawn trilogy. Technically, anyone capable of physically writing something could finish the story, but then it wouldn't be the same story.

Funny you should say that...[

The Cursed Child is a spin off and isn't a direct continuation of the story started in the first Harry Potter book. The seven main books stand together. Also, JK Rowling gave them/approved the story for The Cursed Child, so its not even a remotely similar situation.

Death Watch is an evil Mandalorian faction. The Concord Dawn ones follow ancient traditions and warriors codes. They use the same gear. Sound a lot alike to me.

Wearing armor and being fighters doesn't mean a character is one of traviss's mandalorians. There was a lot more to them then that. The armor and shooting things is all just visual similarities. Besides that, they have no connection and aren't remotely similar. One is a bunch of mindless thugs or space fighters, the other is a fairly well thought out, complex culture. They're as different as gungans and wookies, except the real mandalorians and Rebels mandalorians have similar armor.

In the Star Wars universe, "bounty hunter" is a catch-all for mercenaries who work for the highest bidder and are known as the dregs of the galaxy.

Except that wasn't really the case in the old EU, and even in movies it felt more like they just kept meeting bad people who happened to be bounty hunters. There were evil bounty hunters, but it didn't feel like they were all evil because they were bounty hunters. TCW cartoon, unfortunately, really made Bounty Hunters a blatantly evil profession (and I say that as someone who really enjoys the bounty hunter stuff in TCW).

 

[WebLurker]

Spoiler: length

At best, the TCW/Rebels armored mandalorians (not that I can remember a single piece of mandalorian armor outside of Jango's helmet being shown in TCW, much less worn, but I did skip all the TCW BS mandalorian garbage)...

Death Watch used full Mandalorian armor, as did the Concord Dawn group in Rebels.

...were based on the pre-Traviss and pre-prequels EU versions of mandalorians, just like the Death watch were. So, basically the Rebels mandalorians are based on when the mandalorians were extremely one dimensional bad guys.

Umm, no, See "True Mandalorians"

Just people in armor who did bad things, and were nothing but background characters to put in Boba Fett stories or to use as thugs. I'm not saying there were no bad mandalorians or mandalorian thugs (Traviss did use the Death Watch, and that's basically what they were) but pre-Traviss that was all mandalorians except Boba Fett. Then, it was all mandalorians except the pacifist idiots in TCW. Now, its every "mandalorian" on Rebels except the graffiti "mandalorian".

The Concord Dawn group aren't presented as being evil.

Because its stupid? Because that's not how it works? Because subverting the mandalorians is idiotic?

In all honestly, the idea of multiple Mandalorians having different subcultures makes more sense than the monolithic group Traviss came up with.

Anyway, SW has its canon mandalorians, I can't argue Disney gets to determine what's canon. I'll just personally never count them as mandalorians, and will completely ignore any use of them that isn't in the movies.

I see.

Except she's not a fighter...

Wrong, she is:

she doesn't have the right attitude or skills...

Wrong on the lack of skills, and as far as attitude, there's not only one set personality for any people group, but "The Protector of Concord Dawn" shows that she embraced her culture's customs, possible even too much.

...and honestly she doesn't even resemble a mandalorian except she has a few pieces of vaguely mandalorian armor.

"Vaguely?" It looks very Mandalorian.

She's about as mandalorian as Zeb, or Chopper.

I completely disagree, the makers of Rebels aren't trying for anything other then the bare minimum to make their lazy garbage count as a tv show. Again, its like old Filmation cartoons.

Hey, don't knock Star Trek: The Animated Series!

Hire people to use minimum effort to put out something for little kids to watch (not that Filmation and studios like it didn't use some good people, Paul Dini worked on He-Man after all, but I'm talking about the corporate side of it).

So, Rebels was lazy by putting people with a proven track record on it (Filoni was essentially running Clone Wars) and having Greg Weismann onboard for season 1?

Nope, her troopers didn't have chips.

The chips were in Legends continuity as well as canon.

That's what makes her stories lnot count as canon, and its a bit BS to try to pretend they had chips when that literally goes against several big plot points in the Order 66 novel. The entire end of the damn book couldn't work if her clones were chipped.

So the nulls chips, Delta squad's chips, Omega squad's chips, Corr's chip, the chip of the arc trooper who saved Jedi Master Zey, the chips of the renegade ARC troopers who defected from the army, and the chips of the Yayax Squad commandoes that defected to be with their female mandalorian teacher (Rav Bralor) on Mandalore were all defective? Several of those people I mentioned had no way of having their chips disabled even if you pretend that the Nulls deactivated the chips of the people they could, and yet none of them obeyed Order 66. You really can't fudge the chips into her story, and thank god for that.

Okay, I'd forgotten how many troopers defected, but

The chips were a moronic cop out for a show that wouldn't just admit that the clones were indoctrinated to follow orders and, with the exception of those very loyal to their generals (or who really thought for themselves like the nulls and Skirata's commandoes), followed the order without question. It was lazy and insulting writing, and it doesn't fit Traviss's work at all.

Jaina goes to the version of Mandalore seen in Traviss's books, which was never devestated by any war or ruled by anyone except normal mandalorians, and trained by the characters from the Commando books, who really can't exist. Boba Fett also interacts with a few of the nulls. The whole mandalorian culture in the Legacy of the Force books is Traviss's version, and doesn't fit with how mandalore or the "mandalorians" of TCW and Rebels work.

As pointed out before, Legends Mandalore was only partially devastated and the True Mandalorians came back into power after the Clone Wars ended.

The book didn't retcon anything, TCW retconned and the book followed it.

Fine, TCW retconned the novels, and the the Atlas retconned the whole thing to reconcile the two depictions.

...by the time it came out, the Commando books had been retconned out of existence.

Actually the Atlas came out before the Clone Wars ended (it uses the outdated Ventess backstory).

There were no pacifists on Traviss's Mandalore, and there never had been. The only "faction" that existed besides the nromal Mandalorians was the Death watchg, and they were evil warriors.

Changing that was part of the retcon.

It really can't. I've read the Commando books at least five times all the way through, they don't work with the idiotic TCW stuff. You have to pretend so much stuff doesn't exist, and twist things so far beyond what the people obviously intended that its not the same story anymore. It just doesn't work.

And Legends fans wonder why the total reboot was such a good idea, when problems like this would be the norm if Legends was left in canon?

(I don't make it up, I'm just reporting what the official statement is, and it is that the Clone Commando novels are part of Legends canon, just like Clone Wars is, although there are some tweaks to fit them together.)

It was her personal series. Saying anyone else could have finished it is like saying someone should have replaced Timothy Zahn to end the Thrawn trilogy.

And they could've done that, if they'd needed to or wanted to.

Technically, anyone capable of physically writing something could finish the story, but then it wouldn't be the same story.

Huh?

The Cursed Child is a spin off and isn't a direct continuation of the story started in the first Harry Potter book. The seven main books stand together. Also, JK Rowling gave them/approved the story for The Cursed Child, so its not even a remotely similar situation.

Okay, I don't read Harry Potter, so I didn't see the problems with the analogy.

Wearing armor and being fighters doesn't mean a character is one of traviss's mandalorians.

Traviss was not and is not the be-all end-all definition of what a Mandalorian is.

There was a lot more to them then that. The armor and shooting things is all just visual similarities.

Fair enough.

Besides that, they have no connection and aren't remotely similar.

Besides being based on the same source material?

One is a bunch of mindless thugs or space fighters, the other is a fairly well thought out, complex culture.

The only canon Mandalorians that are "mindless thugs" are Death Watch (which is accurate to the source material). All armored Mandalorians are capable space fighters.

mindless thugsThey're as different as gungans and wookies, except the real mandalorians and Rebels mandalorians have similar armor.

Spoiler: length

Having read the books and seen the shows, they seem quite similar to me.

mindless thugsExcept that wasn't really the case in the old EU, and even in movies it felt more like they just kept meeting bad people who happened to be bounty hunters. There were evil bounty hunters, but it didn't feel like they were all evil because they were bounty hunters. TCW cartoon, unfortunately, really made Bounty Hunters a blatantly evil profession (and I say that as someone who really enjoys the bounty hunter stuff in TCW).[/quote]

I'm not so sure about that.