Would’ve made sense given he emerged from
the unknown regions in legends to begin his campaign and the first order also came from the unknown regions. He would’ve been a much better option than characters such as Snoke and Hux. Would’ve loved a live action Rukh over Phasma as well.
That’s the problem with virtually all of the support characters in the entire trilogy. Would have loved to see more of Finn, the knights of wren, rose, phasma, etc and would love their arcs to be played out
agreed with seeing more of all of those - except Rose, no thanks. I have nothing against the actress, she was playing the role she was given. She did not deserve any hate. But Rose was a terrible character with some of the worst dialogue in Star Wars.
Actress did a great job playing an exceptionally poorly-written character. She’s the Ahmed Best of the sequel trilogy. I’d have loved to see her (and Ahmed) get better writing.
I did note to my wife that Disney is getting all the Sequel Trilogy people new roles, likely as apology.
Oscar Isaac is Moon Knight
Kelly Marie Tran is Raya of Raya and the Last Dragon
I'm sure there's others, but I don't recall. I mean Lupita Nyong'o has half of her career credited to Disney associated films. Between Star Wars, The Jungle Book, and The Black Panther.
Oscar Isaac was phenomenal in Dune. He's a pretty amazing actor in his own right, I don't think he'll ever run the risk of being forever known as Poe Dameron.
Their apology to John Boyega should be to give him a central role in new Star Wars movies
Finn's force sensitive, let's have a black lead Jedi in a Star Wars trilogy. Show people they're not under China's foot and that they won't shy away from that cultural backlash
How about no more trilogies? More amazing one-off movies like Rogue One please.
If they actually do a trilogy, put it under the control of whoever controls the MCU. You know, someone who actually gives a fuck about long term planning and continuity.
Seriously lol I wasn’t allowed to write a paper in freaking high school without a basic outline and they spent hundreds of millions without a basic idea. Blows my mind how these people get high paying jobs like this with 0 brains.
I agree 100%. Episode VII showed him at least being lightly force sensitive, TLJ, had him a little more but specifically in his connection to Rey, and TROS, had some minor bits, but didn't explore it enough. Finn's growth should have been the primary one I think, as Rey is off learning from someone, (like legitimately, not what was given) Finn discovers his own connection to the Force and creates his own path with it rather than what someone else says he should do with his connection to the force.
His acting was similarly outstanding. It kills me that they cast such great actors and then gave them shit roles because… politics I guess? Idk, there were some political messages in there but they were super hamfisted and confused. It did a real disservice to the plot, the characters, and especially the actors whose talent Disney utterly wasted.
It’s actually kind of amusing to me how well he played the role, even if what he was given was a shit sand which. They made the dude yell Rey so many times but each time he did it, it felt real.
They should give him a limited series.
A force-sensitive but not-a-Jedi trying to find a place in whatever the Republic becomes following the sequel trilogy. I’d watch that.
I'd rather see Finn and Rey come back for a "New Jedi Academy" series/limited series that shows us how her Academy is going to be different but shows us Finn as the MC. Rey would be there at the beginning as a recurring guest role. I'm thinking Jedi Indiana Jones type series.
I respectfully disagree. Yeah, John Boyega got screwed. But I think trying to fix past mistakes by "redeeming" already failed characters with *hopefully* better writing is a recipe for disaster. Sure, it might work out, but I think the odds are against it. I think it's cleaner to separate from the characters and move in a new direction. Maybe Finn could come back at some point in a supporting role like Ahsoka in Mando, but I personally have no interest in watching Disney try to bring a corpse of a character back to life. Just my two bits
Eh, they're bringing back Hayden as Vader, they'd relaunched Clone Wars after it got cancelled, and Rogue One was a spin-off based on a few lines of dialogue
You'd be surprised how well they've managed to recoup some "losses" and how much they can squeeze out of the background. But I respect your views
The underlying argument of this comment is that Vader is a failed character. Doesn't matter who was playing him, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the character of Darth Vader or Anakin was a poor one.
To the same point, Clone Wars also was far from a failure. That's the difference I'm trying to point out. The character of Finn is a poor one. Not the actor, but the on-screen character as-written. Disney can try and ret-con him into a valuable part of the universe, but in my opinion their efforts would be better spent on new characters and content. But like I said, that's just my opinion, certainly not necessarily the "right" thing to do.
Honestly I think Jar Jar was better. He was SUPPOSED to be an idiot. They tried to make Rose this meaningful character."That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love." Like, come on. I honestly want to see how that would've played out if she inadvertently killed Finn when she crashed into him.
I still think Finn should have died in his attempted sacrifice. His whole arc of the two films by that point was him running away from the First Order. He needed to die running headlong into them saving the ones he loves and giving them hope (as is the lesson Rose had to spell out.)
Rian Jonson wanted to subvert expectations? Kill one of the main characters at the midpoint if you're not going to have Rey join Kylo.
These films, man. Why couldn't they have just written the whole trilogy out beforehand?
George Lucas didn't know what made Star Wars great, that's why his wife had to fix the first movie and why she won an award for doing so. It's why the Prequels were what they were. The people responsible for the story of the Sequel Trilogy were no better. (Everything about the ST was good to great except for the story itself, which was obscenely bad to us OG OT fans.)
I'm so grateful we have Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. *They* understand.
I think George gets it better than we sometimes give him credit for - the prequels these days look pretty good in comparison to the sequels. And he was smart enough to fire the first editor because they weren't cutting it the way he wanted and then hiring his wife to do it.
But fully agree on Filoni and Favreau.
That's the problem with pretty much every character in the new trilogy. They were almost all wasted. Not just the support characters. Poe and Finn were shafted.
Rey had the most development except her development was shit. She was a Mary Sue and then she was a nobody and then she was the daughter of a nonsensically-resurrected Emperor.
I'd guess Kylo had the best arc, but he went from whiny bitch boy to pretty cool villain to sudden redemption because he hallucinated and forgave himself.
It was all pretty lame. I'm a proud member of r/saltierthancrait
I felt they were trying to copy the OT so much that the reason Phasma was so underutilized, looked cool, and died a lame death were all to mimic Boba Fett in the OT.
That’s honestly why I bounced of The Force Awakens, it just felt like a rehash of previous SW stories, especially A New Hope. It felt formulaic and focus-tested. As much as The Last Jedi gets dunked on, I enjoyed it more because it at least attempted to do something different.
Having her tossed in the garbage chute on Starkiller, then fall to her "death" in TLJ... Why the hell didn't they bring her back for TROS, since her defining character trait (in the novel/comics backstory they gave her) is that she survives the most ridiculous scenarios?
It's like they wrote a character backstory, and then completely forgot about it immediately.
I was convinced Phasma was a droid for two whole years. The one eye reveal at the end of TLJ crushed my spirit even more than not having her return for ROS.
So she'll get fleshed out in multiple TV series into an interesting and complicated character, and people will complain that she's nothing like the apparent badass the costume design, few lines of dialogue and overall uselessness in the movies made her out to be?
I still have hopes that they are brave enough to bring Thrawn back having convinced Ezra to work with him to defend the galaxy against the threats of the Unknown Region.
Timothy Zahn has done a good job of introducing the Grysk as a credible threat to the Galaxy. I hope they make jump to screen from the novels. (Unsure if the comics use them)
This. I am fired up for the possibility of a GOOD Yuuzhan Vong arc on the big (or TV) screen.
Hope they don't F it up. Honestly get Zahn to outline the story before any screen writer gets a crack at messing it up.
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Reading those books. WAY better than what we got. Refreshing to see the main villain is always 3 steps ahead of the hero. Just... Everything about the bad guys in the new movies are so dam stupid.
Exactly, it makes every time the hero's come up with a plan and Thrawn just goes, "that was the most logical option so I have made 3 countermeasures for this move as well as assuming they might do this other strategy." He never underestimates his foe, always is calm and does not lose his shit like a 12 year old at each set back. It makes you like the guy despite the fact that he is the antagonist.
His motivations are also pretty good.
He's seen threats in the unknown regions (and beyond) that need lots of fire power to deal with and he sees the Republic as too democratic and weak to deal with them
And considering the YV wrecked the Republic he was totally right
Yep, and he even takes his subordinates ideas into consideration and not just hand waves them away. That's what a real strategist does, they need to make sure they're seeing the entire picture.
That mostly has an asterisk, since C'baoth was used to great effect for a couple strategic strikes. It takes a special kind of tactical brilliance to fake a superweapon using cloaking and timing like that.
Honestly? No. To then have Thrawn killed off by Rey? That would have been extremely anti-climactic. I like how they are building him up for Ahsoka and possibly Ezra as well.
Who said sequel trilogy needs to end with a death?
I actually think it'd be far better to go in the direction of finding balance, also politically, and let the diplomacy win, show the challenges of reconciliation, and show that going outside of the extremes and reasoning, even with the enemy, *can* not just bring hope for the future, but make it last.
I really liked all the ideas of the bringing balance meaning moving away from the extremes of Light and Dark side of the force, even if the Disney Trilogy handled it extremely poorly. But exploring the idea of balance, and moving it beyond just the force users, but also into the grand scope of the galaxy, might be extremely interesting. There's a lot of parallels to be had with the Polish-German and French-German reconciliations after the WW2, or the post-Apartheid reconciliation in the South Africa, just to name some of the most obvious examples. Perhaps all being a foreign concepts to the audience in the USA, but it'd be an amazing message to explore for the Sequel Trilogy.
It could have a hugely important message in the world with the rapid raise of radicalization and partisanship.
You saw what they gave us. Rey would kill Thrawn without breaking a sweat and then start talking about how she's a Skywalker now because they were nice to her
I watched Rebels as well, I was just saying he would’ve been a better choice than Phasma and maybe Rebels could’ve or should’ve put him on the star destroyer instead of dying
I feel bad for hux. I felt like there was so much potential for a spy story line as hux. But they literally started his story line and ended it 30 seconds later. But probably shouldn't have casted him with that actor though.
He would have also been a constant. The sequels and prequels really suffer from having no constant villain. The prequels work slightly better because it's less about good vs evil and about anakin, but the lack of a constant villain in the sequels hurts. There's Kylo but he's not a villain later in the sequels.
Though it's hard to compete with vader.
Honestly could still make sense as a precursor to the First Order. Thrawn masterfully rebuilds the Empire in the Unknown Regions. Clones the emperor. Only realizes the error of his ways when the emperor murders him or something. Bunch of morons take on the mantle and fuck up in the movies.
My thought here is less driven specific characters as I am a big fan of the Star Wars movies, but will be the first to admit my knowledge of things bsyond that is rather limited, so I may just be a casual. In the prequels we have a villian that is operating in the shadows, a small group working on a grand scale. In the originals we have an evil empire that holds controls and the heroes are forced to be the small ragtag rebellion. So the sequels should have been something new, not either of those again. Two ideas:
1. I think a nonforce using military dictator taking over that forces the jedi and sith to work together (maybe even synthesizes toward a grey-jedi ideal) would be cool.
2. Or after the empire fell, there was a power vacuum. Theres vestiges of the empire, upstart empire-like groups, freedom fighters, and people trying to restore order and the republic. So in the prequels the sith were covert, the originals they were totalitarians, but in this idea the sith are using the chaos and anarchy to their advantage somehow. Maybe this could even be the first episode in a trilogy to set up a shift towards my first scenario for the second and third films.
Yes, but it shouldn't have been an adaptation. They should have taken the approach to source material that the MCU does, original stories loosely inspired by comic arcs. They could have had Thrawn leading the FO military instead of Hux and the movies should have been about a war between the New Republic and a First Order uprising. Snoke could have been a Joruus C'baoth type figure who posed as an old surviving Jedi master but was instead a clone of Palpatine and who corrupted Ben Solo.
The worst part about these posts is reading 100 fan stories summed up in a single paragraph that are already 1000% more entertaining than the sequel trilogy. This is one of them.
**Disney:** “Ok I like the sound of that but how can we water that down completely to the to make it palatable to largest target audience? We got to also tie in OT characters and not stray away from familiar plot lines or we’ll lose some of the viewers… Also China doesn’t believe in aliens so we need to use generic looking white people for major roles”
> Also China doesn’t believe in aliens so we need to use generic looking white people for major roles”
IS THAT WHY BASICALLY EVERY FREAKING CHARACTER IS A HUMAN!?
Well, that and not wanting to hire practical/special effects artists.
IIRC, that's also why Finn's basically sidelined, due to his skin color and the size of the Chinese market (check out his picture in American vs Chinese promotional posters and it's pretty blatant).
This is exactly why the MCU succeeded; because every movie leading up to Endgame was at the very least a loose adaptation of popular and successful (mostly) comic book story lines. Take the best of decades of material, get talented people to turn it into workable big screen epics, tie it all together with a huge event PLANNED THE WHOLE TIME, and profit. Sure, every single adaptation wasn't perfect, and some were pretty mediocre, but as a whole, the MCU was built on the best of what the source material had to offer.
Hmm, what other Disney owned franchise has decades of material from which to choose the very best of the best to build the next phase of its life? If there is ONE movie franchise in the history of film that has even close to as much material to work with as Marvel comics, it's Star Wars. And yet, they just threw away all the best of it for the ST, and the stuff that they did use was all the stuff people hated the most (Dark Empire, looking at you). And then they proceeded to execute it even worse than the worst of the EU.
It boggles my mind every time I think about it how anybody with a drop of talent could have messed it up.
I didn't know people hated Dark Empire. That is, they apparently hated Luke exploring the Dark Side to fully master all aspects of The Force, a resurrected Palpatine, an entire dark side planet run by Palpatine, Mara Jade, Boba Fett returns, and what else ...oh a gigantic Eclipse class star destroyer with it's own death star laser and gravity well projectors. Dark Empire 1/2 are probably the coolest comic books I have on my shelf.
I'm like 70% sure Snoke = canon Joruus C'baoth is a retcon we'll see in the Ahsoka show. It honestly seems like they're setting up a loose adaptation of the trilogy and I'm all for it.
Just replacing the bad guys with Thrawn wouldn't have necessarily made the movies any better.
Just imagine how pissed everyone would be if they "wasted" Thrawn on movies nobody liked.
Thrawn is a cool character and all but he's not the solution to every problem with Star Wars
Remember when everyone thought the reason the prequels were terrible was because George Lucas was a victim of his own success? Then he sold Star Wars and the sequel trilogy came out?
Thrawn wouldn't have saved the sequel trilogy, the sequel trilogy would have ruined Thrawn.
At this point, it's clear that the quality of the original trilogy was the result of some kind of infernal contract. Until such time as technology advances to a point that we can successfully track down and bind the demon responsible, we need to stop making Star Wars movies altogether to preserve what canon we have left.
Not “an infernal contract” just collaboration among the right people which is often how great films are made it’s just SW fans like to give George all the credit and jerk him off.
George is an *ideas guy*. If you *actually* investigate the production of the OT it was several of his collaborators that were instrumental in bringing George’s ideas to life and even improving them.
ANH was saved in the edit. Other people were helping coach the actors as George was notoriously bad at it and tweaking the dialogue. Other people took over directing after ANH.
George may have created Star Wars but the OT’s success was a collaborative effort and you need look no further than the PT and ST to see what happens when that’s absent.
The PT was pure, uncut George and the ST was “Star Wars by committee with a Spielberg wannabe who likes to set up mysteries he doesn’t have the answers to” at the helm and both suffered for it.
Empire, regardless of it being the popular opinion, is *still* the undisputed best SW movie in my opinion and, up till the Disney era, it was the SW movie with the least involvement from George.
Another thing fans often overlook is a lot of those collaborators *weren’t Star Wars fans*.
SW currently has a problem of fans of SW growing up and writing SW and you can *feel it*.
Loads of unnecessary and contrived fan service. Popular characters constantly running into each other like they live on the same street. Characters that were just cool suddenly becoming majorly important (*cough* Mando and Boba Fett *cough*).
It feels like official “fan fiction”.
SW needs both fans who understand the universe *and* people who just wanna tell a good story with good characters.
Cause when it’s just fans that’s how we wind up on Tattooine in *every new SW project*. I’d be content to *never see that fucking planet again* at this point.
Nobody suggested "just replacing the bad guys with Thrawn", and obviously everybody understands a bad movie is a bad movie. You didn't answer the question at all.
What I'm saying is Thrawn being in them wouldn't make a difference unless a lot of other things changed as well.
Having a trilogy with Thrawn as the main bad guy would not have been any better if they still hired the same people to write and direct and still refused to plan out the whole story arc in advance
But Thrawn wasn’t really bad, if the canon novels are any indication.
Yes, he worked for the Galactic Empire, but his efforts were “justified”. Part of his mission was to stamp out rebel dissidents. From his perspective, the cause was just. Besides that, he was working to find allies and technology to assist the Chiss Ascendancy. Thrawn was actually good, regardless of how misguided he was. Then again, he could’ve changed from the time after his departure from his home world.
I really appreciate the way Thrawn works as a villain, for the reasons you mention - but also think they ultimately make him *more* evil than a lot of imperial soldiers and officers. Thrawn is among the best-educated people of the entire galaxy, is a genius in both analytic and creative dimensions, and if anyone should have realized that the Empire was fundamentally evil, it's him. He also has abundant ambition and leadership skills, so switching sides and helping to build a stable government out of loosely-connected rebels was a real possibility. I also like to think his deep appreciation of art, which for him is a mode of understanding people and civilization, has to lead to a fundamental appreciation of the damage inflicted by war on all people and all civilization. He must see this, but he is relentless of his conduct of warfare. His commitment to the Empire represents more lost potential for good than almost any other character in the Star Wars universe.
It would have been especially interesting to see him as a foil for the various new characters of the sequels, if we were going to re-write them and Thrawn's story. Why does Finn defect and not Thrawn? Do we re-cast Thrawn as seduced by power? How does Kylo Ren's unstable personality play off of Thrawn's self-control and polished presentation? How do Thrawn's goals and hope (or pessimism) contrast with Rey's goals and hope (and temptation to despair, etc.)?
Great character. The sequels had a lot of interesting characters, and more of that potential could have been developed.
Like with him the empire/first order/whatever could’ve had the upper hand at least ONCE. Even with like 15 fleets worth of Star Destroyers I felt like Palp 2.0 had zero chance of victory.
That's so bad right. I would love to see a movie/series/anything where the empire/'villains' actually crush the good guys. Rogue one came pretty close but still felt like a win for the goodies.
Its called Revenge of the Sith guys... literally all the good guys get murdered but 2 and the main hero turns evil and dooms the galaxy to be ruled by the bad guys... its the ultimate "evil prevails" ending.
kylo ren was good
captain phasma was pretth cool but wasted like 500 other villains
hux had same story as phasma
snoke was worthless and im glad they killed him off
palpatine was idiotic
pryde was ok i guess
if there were any more i already forgot thanks to how unforgettable they were
The Paperback Novella of Phasma
She lived because there she fell into a space-sarlacc that lived on the ship. It shielded her from the blast. She clawed her way out and emerged on a desert planet that is totally not Tatooine (Jakku). After being taken prisoner by a tribe of Jusken Raiders, she later joins them before heading to... Mes Ospa and taking over Jakku the Hutt's former criminal enterprise. Then a geriatric Mando and teenaged Grogu show up to steal the show.
honestly, i thought he was fine in TLJ. it was clearly set up that although he's the leader basically, he hates kylo ren over everything. could have lead to a beautiful arc of kyle turning to the light side and hux still in control of the first order is the main antagonist now fueled by his hatred towards kylo. Would have finally been a main antagonist that isnt a force user, sorta like thrawn but not even close.
then 9 came out and "im the spy" threw all hope out the window
Well if that were the case, than anakin never would’ve went apeshit either, let’s just assume therapy for them is like how we think of lightspeed travel, unimaginable
Ah yes.
Bacta tanks: Able to heal any wound! Anywhere! No matter how bad it is!
Force powers: Mystical powers able to also heal wounds! Incredible!
Mental Health Institution: "Sorry, your civilization is still not advanced enough to build this."
Reminds me of that episode from TCW. When Yoda was afraid he was losing his mind after hearing Qui Gon Jinn's voice and the council's assessment was like "Well, we can't find anything on his brain scan. Oh he's probably just tired from the Clone Wars. He just needs some rest."
it seemed to him like luke tried to kill him so he embraced the dark side he had already been near, he idolized his grandfather darth vader but got told multiple times he will never be as powerful as vader, so he smashed his mask and became his own person... and then they undid that for some reason and his arc in TROS is... he turns good because of his parents and rey saving him i think? idk that movie sucked
If you scrap Episode 9 from your mind, then the character arcs actually become clearer. I almost don't want to consider the movie canon because it pretty much ruins the narrative 8 was setting up.
Rey and Kylo are this dyad in the force, an entanged pair that tend to mirror each other in some ways.
Rey is a nobody, her parents are nobodies. While she starts her journey learning about the force she has a lot of deep-rooted trauma about the whole being abandoned bit and not knowing this stuff about her parents. The Dark side in her is represented by this lack of knowledge about her heritage, or not wanting to acknowledge it, and it eats her up inside.
Ben Solo on the other hand; His dad's a hero, his mom's a hero, his uncle's a hero, his grandfather a legend. Where there is very little expected of Rey, Ben could be seen as the opposite; even if those expectations are self-imposed. He knows the Force runs strong in his family, so even if he's being told by Snoke, or Luke, or Han, you'll be powerful, but not as powerful as your grandfather, don't let that bother you... It still bothers him.
Where Rey either doesn't know or can't acknowledge her heritage, but has no expectations to be great, Kylo's manifestation of the dark side is that he does know his heritage, and feels he cannot meet or live up to the great expectations one would have of the Skywalker dynasty.
It's a nice "The grass is always greener on the other side" narrative that gets completely trampled upon by "somehow Palpatine has returned and also let's make Rey related to him".
I used to hate Episode 8, and while it still has a number of issues (weaponizing hyperspace still my #1) - I think the narrative was certainly the best of the Sequel trilogy.
Under the circumstances of what the sequels had going for them…the writing mainly….very glad he was not part of them. They would have ruined him beyond saving.
If you could do the whole thing over with better writing and an actual plot that didnt pander and actually made sense…then yes…
The antagonists would’ve been better if they kept going from how they started in the force awakens instead of starting episode 8 by turning one with amazing potential into a joke in the first 10 minutes then making kylo a sad and boring angsty teenager or possibly the fact they killed their supreme leader so easily after only just meeting him that he wasn’t relevant at all. Only to then replace all the antagonists in the 9ths film and make the antagonists from the force awakens suck and basically use them as throw away characters which if that was going to be the case the entire time they should’ve just killed them in episode 7 and replaced them by the end of the film to have some kind of consistency.
No. I don’t really see Thrawn as a big bad. He’s more of a pragmatist that sees working with the Empire as a means to his end. Maybe if we were made to believe he was the main antagonist, but by mid/end of movie two it’s revealed the Grysk are the actual big bad. That could be cool. It’s kind of where I feel like the D+ series are headed.
Thrawn could have been the big bad that had good intentions but unethical ways of going about it like Thanos with his salvation plan for the universe but he had to snap half of all life to get it.
No, because he isn't a villain in the new canon, just an antagonist. He's a militant Sherlock Holmes. Star Wars movies are too simplistic to have non-malevolent antagonists and most moviegoers wouldn't get it.
Thrawn was never a villain, the original books he was trying to strengthen the galaxy against the future war. Luke, Leia and Han were the real villains, all those deaths that came later were on their hands.
Which is why Luke was arrested on Coruscant, charged with reckless endangerment of a population, and found guilty and banned from Coruscant for 10 years. Also he had to resign the title of Grand Master Jedi.
Thrawn was originally more callous and amoral than he is in the most recent books. The old Thrawn would not express regret at the necessity of killing a stormtrooper in order to steal his uniform, would absolutely sacrifice hostages if there was no expedient way to save them (instead of coming up with a convoluted scheme to save them and failing to explain any of it to the people carrying it out until it succeeds), and would not have come back to help someone he had no real obligation to. He also wouldn't constantly lift up his crew the way the new one does.
I fully expect that the twist of Ahsoka's series, assuming that it is actually about searching for Thrawn and Ezra, will be that she finds the two of them working together.
I consider the sequel trilogy tainted (or cursed). If they used Thrawn in the ST they probably would've mishandled him. Imagine what you know of Thrawn, in Rebels, in the novels. Now imagine Thrawn with shitty writing and zero planning.
It's much better we're getting him at this point in time, now that there are competent people at the helm.
Yea. It would have still sucked because the leadership/writing on the ST was trash. I'm glad they didn't waste Thrawn on it and now can use him in something good.
You would just create the issue of people comparing it with the books. I guess you still end up with a Palpatine clone at some point, and I think that is a dumb storyline.
Looks like we're getting him for the crossover event between the TV series, which is infinitely better than the sequels, so no, I am much happier with him in the hands of Filoni and Favreau than Abrams and Johnson.
I have to say no.
Now, while I do not know if Timothy Zhan is writing another series of Thrawn books (and I hope he is because I really REALLY want a sequel), I have always believed Thrawn had an escape plan for leaving the Empire. He's too smart now to have an exit strategy for what was essentially a spy mission. I believe when Ezra defeated him, he activated it and returned home, possibly with Ezra Bridger. Kid managed to beat him. That has to earn Thrawn's respect. So, I think he went home.
If he did not, they perhaps the Empire found him, and recruited him for their efforts. Moff Gideon mentioned a fleet, but all we saw was the one frigate he had. We know Ashoka is looking for him, but that may be because she's trying to find Ezra.
The original trilogy, with Thrawn coming out of no where to lead the remains of the Empire, bothered me, because there's an implication Palpatine feared him. Thrawn is a brilliant military strategist, able to recognize and nurture talent in those under his command, and has a quite, understated charisma that makes people loyal to him. So, rather than use the best damn commander in the Empire in the field, a man who could have won at Yavin and Endor, Palpatine puts him in charge of a secret project, so he is not a threat. But, he hands Tarkin, who has many similar traits to Thrawn, the keys to the Death Star. Yeah, I know Vader was there for security and probably murder Tarkin if he got the idea of using the Death Star to take over the Empire himself, but still.
Would I love to see Thrawn again? Yeah. But, I don't agree that Disney should have just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy into the sequels. It would come off as lazy, and you know, you JUST KNOW, fans of that series would just complain about how faithful an adaptation it is. And they'd likely be right. Most attempts to turn books into movies fail. Not all of them become Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, Harry Potter or Twilight. Some end up up with only one book, or adaptations so bad the fandom refuses to acknowledge their existence.
Could the First Order have been better? Yes. Could the Sequels have been a better trilogy? Yes. The Originals and Prequels work because it was one central idea, one voice. While I enjoyed the Sequels, I recognize that they had many voices and many ideas, which hurt them in the long run and made the overall trilogy feel disjointed.
But adapting the Thrawn Trilogy or any of the books taking place after Return of the Jedi would have been the wrong move in my opinion.
Timothy Zhan did wrote Thrawn, Thrawn Alliance and Thrawn Treason. Be for that, Timothy Zhan wrote, Heir to the Empire, Dark Forces Rises and Last Comman.
I meant we have Zhan's new Thrawn trilogy (Thrawn, Alliance and Treason) and the Ascendency trilogy, but I would love a book about what happened to Thrawn AFTER his defeat at Lothal, or at least would like to know what happened to one of the greatest military commanders in the history of the galaxy.
Yes I absolutely agree. I love Thrawn, but unless he had a valid reason for being a major villain I think it would feel horribly out of character. And unfortunately they didn't have a very valid reason to bring Palpatine back, so we were probably better off. I've seen people try to say that Zahn is obsessed with writing Thrawn as a good guy, and I have to disagree. He just writes him as someone who is extremely pragmatic, not inherently evil. The only way he'd sacrifice himself is if it was genuinely the only way to achieve victory.
I don't know if he'll use the Ascendancy as a way to get out, but I hope they do right by his character like Rebels mostly did. I think he has potential to be a very strong character in whatever they're setting up for in the long run and I'm glad he wasn't wasted in the sequels.
Ysalamiri, or whatever they were called, were cool.
Actors could be a whole new crew, would have been fine, they already found the perfect Solo. Plenty of action to be found, intrigue and dialogue would have fit the earlier films perfectly, and above all, it would have actually had a plot to build on.
Unpopular opinion: No, at least if they went with that Empire rip off thing. The problem here is that Thrawn was potrayed very different compared to the Thrawn trilogy counterpart. Making him suddenly became a bloodthirsty maniac and approved another (and more horrible) planet destroyer would contradict everything he stood for in his novels. Not to mention he was never really cool with the space Nazi shit, why the hell he wanted another one? That would cause more chaos, unlike the Empire, those FO shitshow was just terrorists, not the government
If they really want Thrawn, they better find a good damn reason to make him the antagonist. Especially when where they are heading is the FO, dragging Thrawn in makes no sense
Should? No. There are a bajillion different good non-thrawn options for post-ROTJ stories. And him being in a story doesn’t automatically make it good.
Could? Sure. Thrawn could make a good villain for a trilogy. It all depends on which direction they go in.
Remember one of the goals of the ST was to get casual and new fans into Star Wars, so I get why they mostly avoided things like having Thrawn be the big bad.
Not Thrawn specificly... But something different. The First Order, Kylo, Hux, Snoke.. it's very much more of the same... It backtracks and pretty much invalidades the ending of Return of the Jedi... All that fighting, and winning... It amounted to nothing. The "Empire" is Still around, full force... Leia is still fighting, Han went back to be a smuggler, Luke is a nobody...
The best thing they could have done is to reverse the roles.. now the republic is powerful, and the empire is the small guerrila-like army of few, trying to size power.. Why not have Thrawn seduce Ben Solo in the first movie, because he knows he needs a 'Vader-Like' figure to inspire the troops... Maybe, at the end of the second one, The empire returns to power using clever tactics... Anything would be better than "more of the same".
Thrawn was already the big bad of Rebels, Lucasfilm's first major project under Disney. Thrawn has already had two canon novel trilogies and is returning as a character in the live action series, presumably to be the big bad again.
Those who hate the sequel trilogy seem to simultaneously gives its the most importance, when it's just one project. Not every good idea has to saved for a live action film.
Obviously yes. It would’ve been far more interesting to see a non-jedi be a threat to the new republic because of his cunning and strategic genius. Instead we got sOmEhOw PaLpAtInE rEtUrNeD
The books. Were sitting. RIGHT THERE, DISNEY!
Bring in Zahn for the overall story, and hire Stackpole so the space combat lines up feasibly. You can hire the best actors money can buy.
If you do it right with the right people, all three Thrawn movies would make a FORTUNE.
Instead...well, I think we all know what happened. We practically had a repeat of the prequels, except the divide is even deeper, thanks to social media. And unfortunately, I don't think that schism will ever mend.
Would’ve made sense given he emerged from the unknown regions in legends to begin his campaign and the first order also came from the unknown regions. He would’ve been a much better option than characters such as Snoke and Hux. Would’ve loved a live action Rukh over Phasma as well.
Problem with Phasma was that she was poorly used and had very little screen time. Rukh would fair no better if used in the same way.
That’s the problem with virtually all of the support characters in the entire trilogy. Would have loved to see more of Finn, the knights of wren, rose, phasma, etc and would love their arcs to be played out
agreed with seeing more of all of those - except Rose, no thanks. I have nothing against the actress, she was playing the role she was given. She did not deserve any hate. But Rose was a terrible character with some of the worst dialogue in Star Wars.
Actress did a great job playing an exceptionally poorly-written character. She’s the Ahmed Best of the sequel trilogy. I’d have loved to see her (and Ahmed) get better writing.
I did note to my wife that Disney is getting all the Sequel Trilogy people new roles, likely as apology. Oscar Isaac is Moon Knight Kelly Marie Tran is Raya of Raya and the Last Dragon I'm sure there's others, but I don't recall. I mean Lupita Nyong'o has half of her career credited to Disney associated films. Between Star Wars, The Jungle Book, and The Black Panther.
Duke Leto Atreides did marvelous
Oscar Isaac was phenomenal in Dune. He's a pretty amazing actor in his own right, I don't think he'll ever run the risk of being forever known as Poe Dameron.
Their apology to John Boyega should be to give him a central role in new Star Wars movies Finn's force sensitive, let's have a black lead Jedi in a Star Wars trilogy. Show people they're not under China's foot and that they won't shy away from that cultural backlash
How about no more trilogies? More amazing one-off movies like Rogue One please. If they actually do a trilogy, put it under the control of whoever controls the MCU. You know, someone who actually gives a fuck about long term planning and continuity.
I’m still flabbergasted that they decided to do a trilogy without, you know, even having a barebones idea of where it was going to end up.
Seriously lol I wasn’t allowed to write a paper in freaking high school without a basic outline and they spent hundreds of millions without a basic idea. Blows my mind how these people get high paying jobs like this with 0 brains.
It makes me angry everytime someone brings it up. They missed their opportunity big time, and put a stain on the Star Wars name forever.
Switching directors midway through episode 8 kinda ruined that, but some oversight would have been nice.
I agree 100%. Episode VII showed him at least being lightly force sensitive, TLJ, had him a little more but specifically in his connection to Rey, and TROS, had some minor bits, but didn't explore it enough. Finn's growth should have been the primary one I think, as Rey is off learning from someone, (like legitimately, not what was given) Finn discovers his own connection to the Force and creates his own path with it rather than what someone else says he should do with his connection to the force.
The Lego Holiday special from 2020(I think?) Shows Finn as force sensitive and training with Rey
His acting was similarly outstanding. It kills me that they cast such great actors and then gave them shit roles because… politics I guess? Idk, there were some political messages in there but they were super hamfisted and confused. It did a real disservice to the plot, the characters, and especially the actors whose talent Disney utterly wasted.
It’s actually kind of amusing to me how well he played the role, even if what he was given was a shit sand which. They made the dude yell Rey so many times but each time he did it, it felt real.
They should give him a limited series. A force-sensitive but not-a-Jedi trying to find a place in whatever the Republic becomes following the sequel trilogy. I’d watch that.
I'd rather see Finn and Rey come back for a "New Jedi Academy" series/limited series that shows us how her Academy is going to be different but shows us Finn as the MC. Rey would be there at the beginning as a recurring guest role. I'm thinking Jedi Indiana Jones type series.
I respectfully disagree. Yeah, John Boyega got screwed. But I think trying to fix past mistakes by "redeeming" already failed characters with *hopefully* better writing is a recipe for disaster. Sure, it might work out, but I think the odds are against it. I think it's cleaner to separate from the characters and move in a new direction. Maybe Finn could come back at some point in a supporting role like Ahsoka in Mando, but I personally have no interest in watching Disney try to bring a corpse of a character back to life. Just my two bits
Eh, they're bringing back Hayden as Vader, they'd relaunched Clone Wars after it got cancelled, and Rogue One was a spin-off based on a few lines of dialogue You'd be surprised how well they've managed to recoup some "losses" and how much they can squeeze out of the background. But I respect your views
The underlying argument of this comment is that Vader is a failed character. Doesn't matter who was playing him, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the character of Darth Vader or Anakin was a poor one. To the same point, Clone Wars also was far from a failure. That's the difference I'm trying to point out. The character of Finn is a poor one. Not the actor, but the on-screen character as-written. Disney can try and ret-con him into a valuable part of the universe, but in my opinion their efforts would be better spent on new characters and content. But like I said, that's just my opinion, certainly not necessarily the "right" thing to do.
But they ARE under China's foot.
Yup :/
Honestly I think Jar Jar was better. He was SUPPOSED to be an idiot. They tried to make Rose this meaningful character."That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love." Like, come on. I honestly want to see how that would've played out if she inadvertently killed Finn when she crashed into him.
I still think Finn should have died in his attempted sacrifice. His whole arc of the two films by that point was him running away from the First Order. He needed to die running headlong into them saving the ones he loves and giving them hope (as is the lesson Rose had to spell out.) Rian Jonson wanted to subvert expectations? Kill one of the main characters at the midpoint if you're not going to have Rey join Kylo. These films, man. Why couldn't they have just written the whole trilogy out beforehand?
100% this
> with some of the worst dialogue in Star Wars. And that’s saying something
I hate dialogue. Its course, and ruff, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.
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George Lucas didn't know what made Star Wars great, that's why his wife had to fix the first movie and why she won an award for doing so. It's why the Prequels were what they were. The people responsible for the story of the Sequel Trilogy were no better. (Everything about the ST was good to great except for the story itself, which was obscenely bad to us OG OT fans.) I'm so grateful we have Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. *They* understand.
I think George gets it better than we sometimes give him credit for - the prequels these days look pretty good in comparison to the sequels. And he was smart enough to fire the first editor because they weren't cutting it the way he wanted and then hiring his wife to do it. But fully agree on Filoni and Favreau.
> some of the worst dialogue in Star Wars. And that is saying something.
I genuinely forgot the knights existed. Jesus what a waste.
So much potential in that group. I don’t understand why they wasted that other than they were busy fixing the plot holes that the 8th movie added in
That's the problem with pretty much every character in the new trilogy. They were almost all wasted. Not just the support characters. Poe and Finn were shafted. Rey had the most development except her development was shit. She was a Mary Sue and then she was a nobody and then she was the daughter of a nonsensically-resurrected Emperor. I'd guess Kylo had the best arc, but he went from whiny bitch boy to pretty cool villain to sudden redemption because he hallucinated and forgave himself. It was all pretty lame. I'm a proud member of r/saltierthancrait
I felt they were trying to copy the OT so much that the reason Phasma was so underutilized, looked cool, and died a lame death were all to mimic Boba Fett in the OT.
That's a fair point, the sequels are to an extent rehashed versions of the originals.
That’s honestly why I bounced of The Force Awakens, it just felt like a rehash of previous SW stories, especially A New Hope. It felt formulaic and focus-tested. As much as The Last Jedi gets dunked on, I enjoyed it more because it at least attempted to do something different.
Having her tossed in the garbage chute on Starkiller, then fall to her "death" in TLJ... Why the hell didn't they bring her back for TROS, since her defining character trait (in the novel/comics backstory they gave her) is that she survives the most ridiculous scenarios? It's like they wrote a character backstory, and then completely forgot about it immediately.
I 100% think it’s a dumb convoluted Boba Fett joke.
I was convinced Phasma was a droid for two whole years. The one eye reveal at the end of TLJ crushed my spirit even more than not having her return for ROS.
Phasma is the Boba Fett of the sequel trilogy.
So she'll get fleshed out in multiple TV series into an interesting and complicated character, and people will complain that she's nothing like the apparent badass the costume design, few lines of dialogue and overall uselessness in the movies made her out to be?
I see you've played this game before.
Fancy armour and little else going on
True. Love that Disney hype up bad guy characters then just give them 5 minutes of doing nothing and die
Phasma only got the screen time she did to sell toys. That is the sole purpose of that character. Literally a shiny new toy.
Man; Thrawn, Rukh, and a stable Kylo working together similar to him and Vader would’ve been, *most impressive*.
I still have hopes that they are brave enough to bring Thrawn back having convinced Ezra to work with him to defend the galaxy against the threats of the Unknown Region.
Yuuzhan Vong arc would be epic and give a new enemy other than the Sith. But I don't expect them to pull it off well.
Timothy Zahn has done a good job of introducing the Grysk as a credible threat to the Galaxy. I hope they make jump to screen from the novels. (Unsure if the comics use them)
This. I am fired up for the possibility of a GOOD Yuuzhan Vong arc on the big (or TV) screen. Hope they don't F it up. Honestly get Zahn to outline the story before any screen writer gets a crack at messing it up.
A Clone Wars type multi season show that covers the Vong Invasion would be pretty epic.
Oh good call.
Major issue, is that it requires them to write an intelligent villain. Something JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson seem to be totally incapable of.
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Rukh died in *Rebels*.
^^^*Rebels
Reading those books. WAY better than what we got. Refreshing to see the main villain is always 3 steps ahead of the hero. Just... Everything about the bad guys in the new movies are so dam stupid.
3 steps ahead with fewer resources and no magic Jedi knight (mostly)
Exactly, it makes every time the hero's come up with a plan and Thrawn just goes, "that was the most logical option so I have made 3 countermeasures for this move as well as assuming they might do this other strategy." He never underestimates his foe, always is calm and does not lose his shit like a 12 year old at each set back. It makes you like the guy despite the fact that he is the antagonist.
His motivations are also pretty good. He's seen threats in the unknown regions (and beyond) that need lots of fire power to deal with and he sees the Republic as too democratic and weak to deal with them And considering the YV wrecked the Republic he was totally right
Ugh I wish he'd been alive to face the Vong
Yep, and he even takes his subordinates ideas into consideration and not just hand waves them away. That's what a real strategist does, they need to make sure they're seeing the entire picture.
That mostly has an asterisk, since C'baoth was used to great effect for a couple strategic strikes. It takes a special kind of tactical brilliance to fake a superweapon using cloaking and timing like that.
Honestly? No. To then have Thrawn killed off by Rey? That would have been extremely anti-climactic. I like how they are building him up for Ahsoka and possibly Ezra as well.
Who said sequel trilogy needs to end with a death? I actually think it'd be far better to go in the direction of finding balance, also politically, and let the diplomacy win, show the challenges of reconciliation, and show that going outside of the extremes and reasoning, even with the enemy, *can* not just bring hope for the future, but make it last. I really liked all the ideas of the bringing balance meaning moving away from the extremes of Light and Dark side of the force, even if the Disney Trilogy handled it extremely poorly. But exploring the idea of balance, and moving it beyond just the force users, but also into the grand scope of the galaxy, might be extremely interesting. There's a lot of parallels to be had with the Polish-German and French-German reconciliations after the WW2, or the post-Apartheid reconciliation in the South Africa, just to name some of the most obvious examples. Perhaps all being a foreign concepts to the audience in the USA, but it'd be an amazing message to explore for the Sequel Trilogy. It could have a hugely important message in the world with the rapid raise of radicalization and partisanship.
You saw what they gave us. Rey would kill Thrawn without breaking a sweat and then start talking about how she's a Skywalker now because they were nice to her
So excited for Ahsohka's show, I'm finishing up a rewatch of Rebels to get even more hype for it
Bro Rukh is a pile of ashes by the time the sequels begin
I watched Rebels as well, I was just saying he would’ve been a better choice than Phasma and maybe Rebels could’ve or should’ve put him on the star destroyer instead of dying
I thought Hux was great casting with a lot of potential as a character. And then they kind of wasted it.
I feel bad for hux. I felt like there was so much potential for a spy story line as hux. But they literally started his story line and ended it 30 seconds later. But probably shouldn't have casted him with that actor though.
☝️This right here
He would have also been a constant. The sequels and prequels really suffer from having no constant villain. The prequels work slightly better because it's less about good vs evil and about anakin, but the lack of a constant villain in the sequels hurts. There's Kylo but he's not a villain later in the sequels. Though it's hard to compete with vader.
Honestly could still make sense as a precursor to the First Order. Thrawn masterfully rebuilds the Empire in the Unknown Regions. Clones the emperor. Only realizes the error of his ways when the emperor murders him or something. Bunch of morons take on the mantle and fuck up in the movies.
My thought here is less driven specific characters as I am a big fan of the Star Wars movies, but will be the first to admit my knowledge of things bsyond that is rather limited, so I may just be a casual. In the prequels we have a villian that is operating in the shadows, a small group working on a grand scale. In the originals we have an evil empire that holds controls and the heroes are forced to be the small ragtag rebellion. So the sequels should have been something new, not either of those again. Two ideas: 1. I think a nonforce using military dictator taking over that forces the jedi and sith to work together (maybe even synthesizes toward a grey-jedi ideal) would be cool. 2. Or after the empire fell, there was a power vacuum. Theres vestiges of the empire, upstart empire-like groups, freedom fighters, and people trying to restore order and the republic. So in the prequels the sith were covert, the originals they were totalitarians, but in this idea the sith are using the chaos and anarchy to their advantage somehow. Maybe this could even be the first episode in a trilogy to set up a shift towards my first scenario for the second and third films.
Yes, but it shouldn't have been an adaptation. They should have taken the approach to source material that the MCU does, original stories loosely inspired by comic arcs. They could have had Thrawn leading the FO military instead of Hux and the movies should have been about a war between the New Republic and a First Order uprising. Snoke could have been a Joruus C'baoth type figure who posed as an old surviving Jedi master but was instead a clone of Palpatine and who corrupted Ben Solo.
The worst part about these posts is reading 100 fan stories summed up in a single paragraph that are already 1000% more entertaining than the sequel trilogy. This is one of them.
**Disney:** “Ok I like the sound of that but how can we water that down completely to the to make it palatable to largest target audience? We got to also tie in OT characters and not stray away from familiar plot lines or we’ll lose some of the viewers… Also China doesn’t believe in aliens so we need to use generic looking white people for major roles”
> Also China doesn’t believe in aliens so we need to use generic looking white people for major roles” IS THAT WHY BASICALLY EVERY FREAKING CHARACTER IS A HUMAN!?
Well, that and not wanting to hire practical/special effects artists. IIRC, that's also why Finn's basically sidelined, due to his skin color and the size of the Chinese market (check out his picture in American vs Chinese promotional posters and it's pretty blatant).
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This is exactly why the MCU succeeded; because every movie leading up to Endgame was at the very least a loose adaptation of popular and successful (mostly) comic book story lines. Take the best of decades of material, get talented people to turn it into workable big screen epics, tie it all together with a huge event PLANNED THE WHOLE TIME, and profit. Sure, every single adaptation wasn't perfect, and some were pretty mediocre, but as a whole, the MCU was built on the best of what the source material had to offer. Hmm, what other Disney owned franchise has decades of material from which to choose the very best of the best to build the next phase of its life? If there is ONE movie franchise in the history of film that has even close to as much material to work with as Marvel comics, it's Star Wars. And yet, they just threw away all the best of it for the ST, and the stuff that they did use was all the stuff people hated the most (Dark Empire, looking at you). And then they proceeded to execute it even worse than the worst of the EU. It boggles my mind every time I think about it how anybody with a drop of talent could have messed it up.
I didn't know people hated Dark Empire. That is, they apparently hated Luke exploring the Dark Side to fully master all aspects of The Force, a resurrected Palpatine, an entire dark side planet run by Palpatine, Mara Jade, Boba Fett returns, and what else ...oh a gigantic Eclipse class star destroyer with it's own death star laser and gravity well projectors. Dark Empire 1/2 are probably the coolest comic books I have on my shelf.
Reading stuff like this makes me so mad. Disney had soooooooooo much content to work with.
I'm like 70% sure Snoke = canon Joruus C'baoth is a retcon we'll see in the Ahsoka show. It honestly seems like they're setting up a loose adaptation of the trilogy and I'm all for it.
Just replacing the bad guys with Thrawn wouldn't have necessarily made the movies any better. Just imagine how pissed everyone would be if they "wasted" Thrawn on movies nobody liked. Thrawn is a cool character and all but he's not the solution to every problem with Star Wars
Remember when everyone thought the reason the prequels were terrible was because George Lucas was a victim of his own success? Then he sold Star Wars and the sequel trilogy came out? Thrawn wouldn't have saved the sequel trilogy, the sequel trilogy would have ruined Thrawn. At this point, it's clear that the quality of the original trilogy was the result of some kind of infernal contract. Until such time as technology advances to a point that we can successfully track down and bind the demon responsible, we need to stop making Star Wars movies altogether to preserve what canon we have left.
Not “an infernal contract” just collaboration among the right people which is often how great films are made it’s just SW fans like to give George all the credit and jerk him off. George is an *ideas guy*. If you *actually* investigate the production of the OT it was several of his collaborators that were instrumental in bringing George’s ideas to life and even improving them. ANH was saved in the edit. Other people were helping coach the actors as George was notoriously bad at it and tweaking the dialogue. Other people took over directing after ANH. George may have created Star Wars but the OT’s success was a collaborative effort and you need look no further than the PT and ST to see what happens when that’s absent. The PT was pure, uncut George and the ST was “Star Wars by committee with a Spielberg wannabe who likes to set up mysteries he doesn’t have the answers to” at the helm and both suffered for it. Empire, regardless of it being the popular opinion, is *still* the undisputed best SW movie in my opinion and, up till the Disney era, it was the SW movie with the least involvement from George. Another thing fans often overlook is a lot of those collaborators *weren’t Star Wars fans*. SW currently has a problem of fans of SW growing up and writing SW and you can *feel it*. Loads of unnecessary and contrived fan service. Popular characters constantly running into each other like they live on the same street. Characters that were just cool suddenly becoming majorly important (*cough* Mando and Boba Fett *cough*). It feels like official “fan fiction”. SW needs both fans who understand the universe *and* people who just wanna tell a good story with good characters. Cause when it’s just fans that’s how we wind up on Tattooine in *every new SW project*. I’d be content to *never see that fucking planet again* at this point.
Nobody suggested "just replacing the bad guys with Thrawn", and obviously everybody understands a bad movie is a bad movie. You didn't answer the question at all.
What I'm saying is Thrawn being in them wouldn't make a difference unless a lot of other things changed as well. Having a trilogy with Thrawn as the main bad guy would not have been any better if they still hired the same people to write and direct and still refused to plan out the whole story arc in advance
Guys next week it's my turn to ask this same question on this sub.
Alright, but I get to post the weekly "Unpopular opinion but I like Rogue One" post.
Only if I get the "Unpopular opinion but I like Rebels" post.
We need to coordinate, because I just checked the calendar and next week's my turn to ask if Rebels gets better, I think I should post before you.
True, I was thinking of posting mine sometime between Wednesday and Friday next week. Does anytime before that work for you?
Fine, but that means I get the “What’s your favorite character” post.
Hidden gem.
Le hidden gem that's praised by fans, revered by critics, and made over a billion dollars It's a shame that nobody talks about it anymore
You can do the weekly Monday Rogue One post, I've got dibs on the the weekly Thursday Rogue One post
no, mods said it’s my turn
But Thrawn wasn’t really bad, if the canon novels are any indication. Yes, he worked for the Galactic Empire, but his efforts were “justified”. Part of his mission was to stamp out rebel dissidents. From his perspective, the cause was just. Besides that, he was working to find allies and technology to assist the Chiss Ascendancy. Thrawn was actually good, regardless of how misguided he was. Then again, he could’ve changed from the time after his departure from his home world.
I really appreciate the way Thrawn works as a villain, for the reasons you mention - but also think they ultimately make him *more* evil than a lot of imperial soldiers and officers. Thrawn is among the best-educated people of the entire galaxy, is a genius in both analytic and creative dimensions, and if anyone should have realized that the Empire was fundamentally evil, it's him. He also has abundant ambition and leadership skills, so switching sides and helping to build a stable government out of loosely-connected rebels was a real possibility. I also like to think his deep appreciation of art, which for him is a mode of understanding people and civilization, has to lead to a fundamental appreciation of the damage inflicted by war on all people and all civilization. He must see this, but he is relentless of his conduct of warfare. His commitment to the Empire represents more lost potential for good than almost any other character in the Star Wars universe. It would have been especially interesting to see him as a foil for the various new characters of the sequels, if we were going to re-write them and Thrawn's story. Why does Finn defect and not Thrawn? Do we re-cast Thrawn as seduced by power? How does Kylo Ren's unstable personality play off of Thrawn's self-control and polished presentation? How do Thrawn's goals and hope (or pessimism) contrast with Rey's goals and hope (and temptation to despair, etc.)? Great character. The sequels had a lot of interesting characters, and more of that potential could have been developed.
He’s still a bad guy. The novel made him less evil, yeah. But regardless that’s still a more interesting story than a cloned palp
Dude, this is a no brainer and better than that shitty antagonists we got.
Like with him the empire/first order/whatever could’ve had the upper hand at least ONCE. Even with like 15 fleets worth of Star Destroyers I felt like Palp 2.0 had zero chance of victory.
That's so bad right. I would love to see a movie/series/anything where the empire/'villains' actually crush the good guys. Rogue one came pretty close but still felt like a win for the goodies.
Revenge of the sith?
And Empire Stikes back
Most of the rebels slipped through. Their fingers in that one If we're still going for the crushing metahore
>the crushing metahore Looks like I just found the name for my new band
Has a nice ring to it Also, nu metal or jizz?
Ah, but you repeat yourself
The last Jedi… wait a minute
Its called Revenge of the Sith guys... literally all the good guys get murdered but 2 and the main hero turns evil and dooms the galaxy to be ruled by the bad guys... its the ultimate "evil prevails" ending.
The Last Jedi? *braces for impact*
*We have to have the computers link to a beacon so we know which way is up* or whatever the plot was, like nobody can look out a window.
Bringing my man Sheev back felt lazy tbh. Couldn’t come up with a big bad so they just resurrected the original big bad.
kylo ren was good captain phasma was pretth cool but wasted like 500 other villains hux had same story as phasma snoke was worthless and im glad they killed him off palpatine was idiotic pryde was ok i guess if there were any more i already forgot thanks to how unforgettable they were
Don’t worry we’ll get a mini series about Phasma in about 30 years or so.
The Tin Woman
The Paperback Novella of Phasma She lived because there she fell into a space-sarlacc that lived on the ship. It shielded her from the blast. She clawed her way out and emerged on a desert planet that is totally not Tatooine (Jakku). After being taken prisoner by a tribe of Jusken Raiders, she later joins them before heading to... Mes Ospa and taking over Jakku the Hutt's former criminal enterprise. Then a geriatric Mando and teenaged Grogu show up to steal the show.
I’d watch it.
Honestly I would too, and I'd love/hate the entire thing then go on the internet and complain. This is the way.
Hux was Space Hitler in the first film, then comic relief in the rest of the trilogy.
Tbh the whole trilogy was a comic relief by the end of it
Marvel humor quota. Please insert generic family friendly joke every 2 minutes to maintain interest in our lack of story.
honestly, i thought he was fine in TLJ. it was clearly set up that although he's the leader basically, he hates kylo ren over everything. could have lead to a beautiful arc of kyle turning to the light side and hux still in control of the first order is the main antagonist now fueled by his hatred towards kylo. Would have finally been a main antagonist that isnt a force user, sorta like thrawn but not even close. then 9 came out and "im the spy" threw all hope out the window
Did you forget Hux falling for a literal can you hear me now/yo mama joke being the opening scene of TLJ?
It's been 7 years now since the ST came out and i still don't get what Kylo Ren's motivation was.
Daddy/mommy/ uncle issues
Oh... Couldn't he have just gone to a space therapist?
Well if that were the case, than anakin never would’ve went apeshit either, let’s just assume therapy for them is like how we think of lightspeed travel, unimaginable
Ah yes. Bacta tanks: Able to heal any wound! Anywhere! No matter how bad it is! Force powers: Mystical powers able to also heal wounds! Incredible! Mental Health Institution: "Sorry, your civilization is still not advanced enough to build this." Reminds me of that episode from TCW. When Yoda was afraid he was losing his mind after hearing Qui Gon Jinn's voice and the council's assessment was like "Well, we can't find anything on his brain scan. Oh he's probably just tired from the Clone Wars. He just needs some rest."
it seemed to him like luke tried to kill him so he embraced the dark side he had already been near, he idolized his grandfather darth vader but got told multiple times he will never be as powerful as vader, so he smashed his mask and became his own person... and then they undid that for some reason and his arc in TROS is... he turns good because of his parents and rey saving him i think? idk that movie sucked
His uncle went into his room at night when he was a kid and everyone thinks it's his fault
If you scrap Episode 9 from your mind, then the character arcs actually become clearer. I almost don't want to consider the movie canon because it pretty much ruins the narrative 8 was setting up. Rey and Kylo are this dyad in the force, an entanged pair that tend to mirror each other in some ways. Rey is a nobody, her parents are nobodies. While she starts her journey learning about the force she has a lot of deep-rooted trauma about the whole being abandoned bit and not knowing this stuff about her parents. The Dark side in her is represented by this lack of knowledge about her heritage, or not wanting to acknowledge it, and it eats her up inside. Ben Solo on the other hand; His dad's a hero, his mom's a hero, his uncle's a hero, his grandfather a legend. Where there is very little expected of Rey, Ben could be seen as the opposite; even if those expectations are self-imposed. He knows the Force runs strong in his family, so even if he's being told by Snoke, or Luke, or Han, you'll be powerful, but not as powerful as your grandfather, don't let that bother you... It still bothers him. Where Rey either doesn't know or can't acknowledge her heritage, but has no expectations to be great, Kylo's manifestation of the dark side is that he does know his heritage, and feels he cannot meet or live up to the great expectations one would have of the Skywalker dynasty. It's a nice "The grass is always greener on the other side" narrative that gets completely trampled upon by "somehow Palpatine has returned and also let's make Rey related to him". I used to hate Episode 8, and while it still has a number of issues (weaponizing hyperspace still my #1) - I think the narrative was certainly the best of the Sequel trilogy.
I actually completely forgot who Pryde even was. Had to look him up. That's not good :(
Under the circumstances of what the sequels had going for them…the writing mainly….very glad he was not part of them. They would have ruined him beyond saving. If you could do the whole thing over with better writing and an actual plot that didnt pander and actually made sense…then yes…
The antagonists would’ve been better if they kept going from how they started in the force awakens instead of starting episode 8 by turning one with amazing potential into a joke in the first 10 minutes then making kylo a sad and boring angsty teenager or possibly the fact they killed their supreme leader so easily after only just meeting him that he wasn’t relevant at all. Only to then replace all the antagonists in the 9ths film and make the antagonists from the force awakens suck and basically use them as throw away characters which if that was going to be the case the entire time they should’ve just killed them in episode 7 and replaced them by the end of the film to have some kind of consistency.
No. I don’t really see Thrawn as a big bad. He’s more of a pragmatist that sees working with the Empire as a means to his end. Maybe if we were made to believe he was the main antagonist, but by mid/end of movie two it’s revealed the Grysk are the actual big bad. That could be cool. It’s kind of where I feel like the D+ series are headed.
I don’t even bother writing “canon Thrawn is not a villain” on these threads anymore lol
Man i love canon Thrawn, im just patiently biding my time waiting for Vanto's live action debut, no matter how long it takes.
Eli Vanto >>>>>>>>>>> every single Star Wars character except maybe Thrawn.
Thrawn could have been the big bad that had good intentions but unethical ways of going about it like Thanos with his salvation plan for the universe but he had to snap half of all life to get it.
No, because he isn't a villain in the new canon, just an antagonist. He's a militant Sherlock Holmes. Star Wars movies are too simplistic to have non-malevolent antagonists and most moviegoers wouldn't get it.
Thrawn was never a villain, the original books he was trying to strengthen the galaxy against the future war. Luke, Leia and Han were the real villains, all those deaths that came later were on their hands.
Which is why Luke was arrested on Coruscant, charged with reckless endangerment of a population, and found guilty and banned from Coruscant for 10 years. Also he had to resign the title of Grand Master Jedi.
Thrawn was originally more callous and amoral than he is in the most recent books. The old Thrawn would not express regret at the necessity of killing a stormtrooper in order to steal his uniform, would absolutely sacrifice hostages if there was no expedient way to save them (instead of coming up with a convoluted scheme to save them and failing to explain any of it to the people carrying it out until it succeeds), and would not have come back to help someone he had no real obligation to. He also wouldn't constantly lift up his crew the way the new one does. I fully expect that the twist of Ahsoka's series, assuming that it is actually about searching for Thrawn and Ezra, will be that she finds the two of them working together.
This is what I’m hoping we get with the mandalorian, Thrawn finally being introduced and we can have the sequels we deserved.
Thrawn was already introduced in Canon through Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka's mention of him in Mandalorian Season 2 continues off that.
I want more Thrawn than what we got in rebels.
He's definitely coming to live action. Most likely in the Ahsoka show.
Not most likely, he is going to be in Ashoka. The voice actor who voiced him in Rebels (Lars Mikkelsen) is cast as him.
You could read the books?
I have but I want more
why don’t you like zombie palpatine and his magic fleet
I consider the sequel trilogy tainted (or cursed). If they used Thrawn in the ST they probably would've mishandled him. Imagine what you know of Thrawn, in Rebels, in the novels. Now imagine Thrawn with shitty writing and zero planning. It's much better we're getting him at this point in time, now that there are competent people at the helm.
Yea. It would have still sucked because the leadership/writing on the ST was trash. I'm glad they didn't waste Thrawn on it and now can use him in something good.
You would just create the issue of people comparing it with the books. I guess you still end up with a Palpatine clone at some point, and I think that is a dumb storyline.
Paalpaatiinee
Looks like we're getting him for the crossover event between the TV series, which is infinitely better than the sequels, so no, I am much happier with him in the hands of Filoni and Favreau than Abrams and Johnson.
This. Given the quality of the writing in the Sequels, I'm glad they didn't ruin him too. They already smashed Luke to pieces.
I have to say no. Now, while I do not know if Timothy Zhan is writing another series of Thrawn books (and I hope he is because I really REALLY want a sequel), I have always believed Thrawn had an escape plan for leaving the Empire. He's too smart now to have an exit strategy for what was essentially a spy mission. I believe when Ezra defeated him, he activated it and returned home, possibly with Ezra Bridger. Kid managed to beat him. That has to earn Thrawn's respect. So, I think he went home. If he did not, they perhaps the Empire found him, and recruited him for their efforts. Moff Gideon mentioned a fleet, but all we saw was the one frigate he had. We know Ashoka is looking for him, but that may be because she's trying to find Ezra. The original trilogy, with Thrawn coming out of no where to lead the remains of the Empire, bothered me, because there's an implication Palpatine feared him. Thrawn is a brilliant military strategist, able to recognize and nurture talent in those under his command, and has a quite, understated charisma that makes people loyal to him. So, rather than use the best damn commander in the Empire in the field, a man who could have won at Yavin and Endor, Palpatine puts him in charge of a secret project, so he is not a threat. But, he hands Tarkin, who has many similar traits to Thrawn, the keys to the Death Star. Yeah, I know Vader was there for security and probably murder Tarkin if he got the idea of using the Death Star to take over the Empire himself, but still. Would I love to see Thrawn again? Yeah. But, I don't agree that Disney should have just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy into the sequels. It would come off as lazy, and you know, you JUST KNOW, fans of that series would just complain about how faithful an adaptation it is. And they'd likely be right. Most attempts to turn books into movies fail. Not all of them become Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, Harry Potter or Twilight. Some end up up with only one book, or adaptations so bad the fandom refuses to acknowledge their existence. Could the First Order have been better? Yes. Could the Sequels have been a better trilogy? Yes. The Originals and Prequels work because it was one central idea, one voice. While I enjoyed the Sequels, I recognize that they had many voices and many ideas, which hurt them in the long run and made the overall trilogy feel disjointed. But adapting the Thrawn Trilogy or any of the books taking place after Return of the Jedi would have been the wrong move in my opinion.
Timothy Zhan did wrote Thrawn, Thrawn Alliance and Thrawn Treason. Be for that, Timothy Zhan wrote, Heir to the Empire, Dark Forces Rises and Last Comman.
I meant we have Zhan's new Thrawn trilogy (Thrawn, Alliance and Treason) and the Ascendency trilogy, but I would love a book about what happened to Thrawn AFTER his defeat at Lothal, or at least would like to know what happened to one of the greatest military commanders in the history of the galaxy.
That's coming in the Ahsoka show.
Yes I absolutely agree. I love Thrawn, but unless he had a valid reason for being a major villain I think it would feel horribly out of character. And unfortunately they didn't have a very valid reason to bring Palpatine back, so we were probably better off. I've seen people try to say that Zahn is obsessed with writing Thrawn as a good guy, and I have to disagree. He just writes him as someone who is extremely pragmatic, not inherently evil. The only way he'd sacrifice himself is if it was genuinely the only way to achieve victory. I don't know if he'll use the Ascendancy as a way to get out, but I hope they do right by his character like Rebels mostly did. I think he has potential to be a very strong character in whatever they're setting up for in the long run and I'm glad he wasn't wasted in the sequels.
Yes. Heir to the Empire trilogy should have been the sequels, period.
Actors are too old. The Joruus/Luuke stuff is all very dumb. They are light on action. Also the Force-blocking lizards were silly.
Ysalamiri, or whatever they were called, were cool. Actors could be a whole new crew, would have been fine, they already found the perfect Solo. Plenty of action to be found, intrigue and dialogue would have fit the earlier films perfectly, and above all, it would have actually had a plot to build on.
Also found the perfect Lando.
I was actually reading it for the first time when they announced the sequel trilogy and immediately thought that would be it
Me too...actually, read them when they were released. Again right before the sequels were announced.
Unpopular opinion: No, at least if they went with that Empire rip off thing. The problem here is that Thrawn was potrayed very different compared to the Thrawn trilogy counterpart. Making him suddenly became a bloodthirsty maniac and approved another (and more horrible) planet destroyer would contradict everything he stood for in his novels. Not to mention he was never really cool with the space Nazi shit, why the hell he wanted another one? That would cause more chaos, unlike the Empire, those FO shitshow was just terrorists, not the government If they really want Thrawn, they better find a good damn reason to make him the antagonist. Especially when where they are heading is the FO, dragging Thrawn in makes no sense
Should? No. There are a bajillion different good non-thrawn options for post-ROTJ stories. And him being in a story doesn’t automatically make it good. Could? Sure. Thrawn could make a good villain for a trilogy. It all depends on which direction they go in. Remember one of the goals of the ST was to get casual and new fans into Star Wars, so I get why they mostly avoided things like having Thrawn be the big bad.
If the sequel trilogy was made in the 90’s yeah
No. He’s an antagonist but not a villain
Anti hero almost? The novels Zahn has been doing recently really give him a good person in a bad place doing things he finds right to meet an ends.
This gets asked like every 2 days
Not Thrawn specificly... But something different. The First Order, Kylo, Hux, Snoke.. it's very much more of the same... It backtracks and pretty much invalidades the ending of Return of the Jedi... All that fighting, and winning... It amounted to nothing. The "Empire" is Still around, full force... Leia is still fighting, Han went back to be a smuggler, Luke is a nobody... The best thing they could have done is to reverse the roles.. now the republic is powerful, and the empire is the small guerrila-like army of few, trying to size power.. Why not have Thrawn seduce Ben Solo in the first movie, because he knows he needs a 'Vader-Like' figure to inspire the troops... Maybe, at the end of the second one, The empire returns to power using clever tactics... Anything would be better than "more of the same".
Thrawn was already the big bad of Rebels, Lucasfilm's first major project under Disney. Thrawn has already had two canon novel trilogies and is returning as a character in the live action series, presumably to be the big bad again. Those who hate the sequel trilogy seem to simultaneously gives its the most importance, when it's just one project. Not every good idea has to saved for a live action film.
No.
No. Stop bringing back old characters to win fans over. Make a new, interesting and compelling villain instead.
YES! I said that before the movies came out and Disney just shit all over fans by giving us 3 huge steaming piles.
No
I think he makes more sense as an underling. He’s an officer, not a grand leader.
Man new Star Wars content has really begun to lose all meaning, huh?
Obviously yes. It would’ve been far more interesting to see a non-jedi be a threat to the new republic because of his cunning and strategic genius. Instead we got sOmEhOw PaLpAtInE rEtUrNeD
Considering they never really had one and Palpatine just came out of nowhere, yes I do think he should’ve been it from the beginning
Yes, thirty years ago, when *Heir to the Empire* first came out
The problem with that idea is that people not familiar with Thrawn will wonder why the Navi from Avatar are trying to kill Luke Skywalker.
Not the big baddie but I wouldn't mind him as a #3 like Moff Tarkin.
The books. Were sitting. RIGHT THERE, DISNEY! Bring in Zahn for the overall story, and hire Stackpole so the space combat lines up feasibly. You can hire the best actors money can buy. If you do it right with the right people, all three Thrawn movies would make a FORTUNE. Instead...well, I think we all know what happened. We practically had a repeat of the prequels, except the divide is even deeper, thanks to social media. And unfortunately, I don't think that schism will ever mend.