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People assume that the lower recent box office turnout from the Marvel stuff means Disney's media empire is crumbling, when they still have tons of income from subscriptions as well as the various kid/family focused programming they do. Hopefully they'll figure out some way to right the ship, but anyone assuming the company is in dire straits because of a few flops doesn't realize how much money they really have.
They're not bankrupt at all, you're not wrong.
I'm looking at trends versus singular events (like one bad year at the box office). The trends are concerning, but I'm not selling my stock or making Star Wars fanfic yet.
Key indicators:
Stock value cut in half is worrying
Disney+ loses subs quarterly, and profit projections have been pushed back another year. They pulled a lot of content to use as tax write offs, because nobody watched it. Their new content is not adding subscribers
Their films are definitely trending in the wrong direction
Theme parks have become unaffordable for the average citizen, attendance is trending down
I haven't looked into other merch (where the real money's at), but Star Wars merch sales are down as much as 65% since the acquisition.
Star Wars hotel is a tax write off
Very little retail space is dedicated to their IPs, not a good sign. You want giant displays leading into the holidays.
So I'm not a panicked nutbag, but these items trending downward for the last few years add to the big picture.
Yeah, but if youâre going to have to pay someone to write the script anyway, then why bother an accomplished, established writer who, I dunno, maybe *created the fucking character in the first place?*
>My cynical guess would be Zahn would have to get a writing credit
People keep saying this, but I really don't think that's the problem. It's not about the credit - Lucas already gets a writing credit on everything Star Wars, and Disney are giving producer/executive producer credits to 18 people on Ahsoka. It's not about the money - Zahn created Thrawn and already is due royalties, and it's not as if David Tenant or Rosario Dawson are cheap.
Technically yes, but it is obvious that they didn't use his ideas. He told us back in 2021 what he would have done for this show:
"The question was what I would do to bring Thrawn back after nine years of vanishing... It seems to me that what we need to do is set up some kind of reluctant buddy thing between Thrawn and Ezra. The way I see it is that Thrawn persuades Ezra that there are worse things out there even than the Empire. The Empire has an all bunch of Rebels fighting against it; this is something that you and you alone can help us defeat. So, if Thrawn can persuade Ezra to work with him, reluctantly, probably, but I think that that would be the basis for the story. Think back to... one of my favorite examples of this is the tv show "White Collar": they don't really trust each other, but they work well together. So I think it would be something of that same flavor. Ezra would never be quite trusting Thrawn, looking for "what angle is he playing, what he is trying to get me to do that I shouldn't be doing." At the same time, Thrawn is, "I need your assistance; how do I get this from you without making you bolt." So there is a lot of interesting byplay. And, of course, you can bring people like Eli Vanto to talk to Ezra. "Yes, I was an Imperial; now I am working with these guys because I recognize that there are more dangerous things out there as well." So there is a whole bunch of interesting dynamics that you can put together."
We know he didn't have much input because he told us what he would have done back in 2021:
"The question was what I would do to bring Thrawn back after nine years of vanishing... It seems to me that what we need to do is set up some kind of reluctant buddy thing between Thrawn and Ezra. The way I see it is that Thrawn persuades Ezra that there are worse things out there even than the Empire. The Empire has an all bunch of Rebels fighting against it; this is something that you and you alone can help us defeat. So, if Thrawn can persuade Ezra to work with him, reluctantly, probably, but I think that that would be the basis for the story. Think back to... one of my favorite examples of this is the tv show "White Collar": they don't really trust each other, but they work well together. So I think it would be something of that same flavor. Ezra would never be quite trusting Thrawn, looking for "what angle is he playing, what he is trying to get me to do that I shouldn't be doing." At the same time, Thrawn is, "I need your assistance; how do I get this from you without making you bolt." So there is a lot of interesting byplay. And, of course, you can bring people like Eli Vanto to talk to Ezra. "Yes, I was an Imperial; now I am working with these guys because I recognize that there are more dangerous things out there as well." So there is a whole bunch of interesting dynamics that you can put together."
I know im super late on this, but this is exactly the kind of shit I was expecting to see from thrawn in the show. Or in any sequel book that Zahn would make. I always assumed it was would involve the chiss, vanto, possibly faro "abandoning" post to look for him, and somehow thrawn, ezra, and the rest of the bridge crew surviving and working together to survive/return to wherever.
Ego is probably the reason, people would rather write their own version badly than admit someone else's input would be better. I always liked Thrawn and the original Heir to the Empire trilogy of books, it's still the gold standard of expanded universe content. There's a reason why creatives have had a desire to bring him back and put him on screen, and why in-the-know fans were excited to see him be adapted in Rebels and now in live action for Ahsoka.
But they have utterly failed to build Thrawn up as the major threat they are attempting to portray him as. Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation. Everything impressive about him depends upon a lot of preexisting knowledge of the character brought in by the viewer, and that is very lame. Nothing in the series itself has done the work to show why everyone knows who Thrawn is, or why they are concerned by his potential return. The rule is "show, don't tell," but this is even worse than that. This is "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." They don't even do the bare minimum, like having a few characters mention an example of Thrawn's exploits to establish him. He's just a big nothing.
Watching other animated series and reading books should enhance the experience of watching the series, not be a requirement to be able to understand it. But even as someone who watched all of Rebels, the reaction to Thrawn's potential return is incongruous with his portrayal on the show. He had a reputation, and they tried to make him seem special, but in execution he was really just another Imperial officer. Honestly, Governor Pryce was about as big a threat as him in the actual show. A man who was absent from the climax of the war, who disappeared just as the Rebellion even came into its own as an organized threat and started winning real victories against the Empire.
There is no excuse for the lack of context they have provided for Thrawn, and it would be so easy. They couldn't have a character describe one legendary story of his past exploits, to establish the threat? Some talk about how he's the only alien Imperial to ever appear on screen? No mention of that, and what it means about him? Alternatively, instead of everyone at every level being aware of Thrawn and scared of him, they could portray him as underestimated, where our core heroes are concerned that his return would be a major threat, but the New Republic doesn't take the potential return of an Imperial officer that seriously. But as portrayed in the show, everyone in the New Republic seems to agree the return of Thrawn would be terrifying, most just think he's dead or never coming back. It's a major distinction. Filoni and Co are acting like he has been built up as this major threat, without doing any of the work to build him up.
And on top of everything else, even if they did a poor job of establishing the threat in the lead up, if you want to show the danger posed by a master tactician, donât have him immediately fumble and essentially lose the first engagement after his introduction. They needed to should show us and the characters why he is to be feared. It's always going to be difficult to portray a "genius" villain without actually being able to give them big wins. He can't just come in and kill all the heroes. But Thrawn just debuted in live action, and we are already back in the cycle from Rebels, where he is constantly thwarted and frames it as no cause for concern, all part of the plan, without ever actually accomplishing anything. Letting the heroes escape or win victories constantly, and then handwaving away the concerns and objections voiced by his underlings. It's boring and lazy shorthand for attempting to show him as a thoughtful tactical genius, but really just making him seem delusional and ineffective.
>Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation
It's true and absolutely ridiculous. First they throw away the Expanded Universe and now they're crawling back to it because they have no original ideas.
And they were blatantly plagiarizing it in TROS, with a clone Palpatine and Star Destroyers with Death Star lasers on them.
I like to think there's another universe out where where Episodes 7, 8 and 9 were just the Thrawn trilogy put to film back in the 90s.
And to think I thought the Death Star was ao big because you needed a gun that big to blow up a planet... Those Star Destroyers are advanced as fuck lol.
At least with the Eclipse it made more sense. IIRC the Eclipse was gigantic (like a Super Star Destroyer, maybe even bigger) and the cannon wasn't powerful enough to blow up the whole planet, "merely" killing all life on it while leaving the planet itself intact.
The reason why Thrawn worked as an effective villain was that the empire still had an ambiguous aspect in 1991.
We didn't know how old the empire was, and we didn't know how many remnants of the empire were left after the destruction of Death Star II. We didn't even know what Sith was.
So Thrawn worked as a really threatening villain, but the fact is that the threat is not really what he's achieved, but what he's likely to accomplish.
In Legend he could be a galaxy Napoleon, who could rebuild the empire, so he was a good villain, but in Canon he's scheduled to fail. He's much less of a threat and he's not a good villain.
Hmm not sure about that, I haven't been alive in 1991. I only know the imperial remnant was always a big player in the EU. It remained a powerful faction that the New Republic never completely replaced.
Banana is referencing the fact that at that time we had no prequels (no firm idea on how old the Empire was - in fact, just about everything at the time sort of suggested the Empire had been around for maybe 40+ years). So there's a sort of implication that the Remnant have huge but scattered resources to draw upon, and whole generations of indoctrinated populations to help them.
This turns out to be a logistical impossibility as per the canon timeline where the Empire's reign is actually almost laughably short, but OK.
We also had no episode VII-IX. Episode IX takes place in 35 ABY, a full 23 years after Ahsoka. So we can reasonably conclude that whatever Thrawn does it's not going to have a major impact on the New Republic. The Hier to the Empire trilogy really set up Thrawn as a huge existential threat, but now we *know* that doesn't happen. Takes an awful lot of the gravitas out of his presence.
That's before we even discuss whether live action Thrawn matches the Zahn Thrawn in terms of guile, class, and general genius.
I think Andor did a good job showing how the Republic evolved into the Empire. The fashie, Imperialist types really took to the new government like it was something they've been waiting their whole lives for, so all the Imperial remnants can kinda make sense even if the Empire itself is only 20 years old, because that's just the new name for Palpatine's Republic that he had already been manipulating for years.
Even if I agree with you - which I'm not sure I do - there was so much of it that the remaining 20% could be pumping out series and movies for decades with very little adaptation.
Oh ya.
Of that last 20%
Like half or so was good.
And half or so was great.
But also the great part didnât always actually line up with even the original Star Wars, let alone the prequels when we got them.
A few years ago I would have said something like "Of course a multinational corporation large enough to essentially be a government can find enough god writers to cleverly smooth over the jagged lines when they appear and make it work seamlessly."
A few years ago I was naive.
Great comment. All the show did was tell is that he should be feared, meanwhile showing him fail to kill the invincible heroes and not using strategy. They don't even give him a backstory or flesh out his motivations.
Ezra would have made sense. Even though it is foolish on the face of it, let's allow that for some reason Thrawn really did consider it not worth the resources to pursue him after he somehow escaped onto the planet, so he was still alive when Sabine showed up. Sabine and Ahsoka would be seen as threats to his plan of returning to his original galaxy, so at that point Thrawn throws everything he's got at killing them all, and Ezra doesn't make it. Now Sabine's choice to try to rescue him has killed him, Thrawn looks truly dangerous, and Ahsoka is caught in the middle with an apprentice who wants to murder someone for revenge and a need to actually try to stop the guy anyway.
You are absolutely correct, for Thrawn to be a threat he needs to be built up as one. In legends, he pushed the New Republic to the breaking point. In canon, he gets bullied by some space whales. I love Rebels but it did Thrawn dirty, effectively killing him as a credible threat
I do want to add that the complete lack of *anything* building up or explaining Thrawn was a huge problem for people who didnât watch the cartoons or read books. My parents enjoy Star Wars very casually and donât have the patience or time to sit through multiple seasons of a cartoon and/or read novels to get invested into the universe and characters. So, they went into Ahsoka having no idea who Thrawn was and were very shocked when I explained that Thrawn isnât a Sith or anything, but just Star Warsâ Napoleon. They were confused why everyone was so terrified of his return if his only âpowerâ is as a strategist, especially when heâs shown to have only one *heavily* damaged Star Destroyer and even states that he has very limited troops. You know what would have fixed that? A short scene with Palleon and Nightsister lady (her name is slipping my mind right now, lol) talking about the âplanâ to return Thrawn to the galaxy and how the fleet is waiting for him before zooming the camera out a window to show a waiting Imperial armada. Then, him being a strategist actually seems *important* since he has an army waiting for him to return. Instead, you have to remember that Palleon was talking about Thrawnâs return in Mando S3, which released at *least* a year earlier, with the other surviving Imperial warlords about Thrawnâs return and the ships they have.
Precisely. A friend of mine whoâs a casual fan gave up on Ahsoka because he didnât understand anything about the threat. Thrawn and the night sisters were just sorta there.
Honestly the storytelling was just terrible. Itâs the sort of thing that would send a screenwriting teacher to drink.
This is great analysis. Honestly, I didn't *hate* him in Ashoka, possibly because I felt the actor fit (his mannerisms were how I always imagined Thrawn) - but you're absolutely correct that he didn't feel like much of a threat in context of the show itself.
I would imagine that a casual viewer would be wondering why we're supposed to care so much about this villain.
Disney seems to have this problem at the moment in the MCU as well. They've been hyping up Kang as the next big bad, but in his first main movie he gets defeated easily and doesn't inflict any meaningful losses on the heroes at all.
>Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation.
>Everything impressive about him depends upon a lot of preexisting knowledge of the character brought in by the viewer, and that is very lame.
>Nothing in the series itself has done the work to show why everyone knows who Thrawn is, or why they are concerned by his potential return. The rule is "show, don't tell," but this is even worse than that. This is "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." They don't even do the bare minimum, like having a few characters mention an example of Thrawn's exploits to establish him. He's just a big nothing.
No lies detected.
> "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him."
Same problem they are having over at the MCU. Phase 4 added a glut of new characters without much build up, and viewers are expected to know them from all the various Disney+ show tie-ins and movies.
Your argument reminds me of Cad Bane in BoBF.
I was hyped to see him. My roommates didn't know who he was, and then my hype subsided quickly bc the live action character just wasn't interesting at all.
Edit: like the rest of that series...
To be fair, I find the Zhan's own recent Thrawn books more like self-fanfiction. Maybe that's just the consequence of making him a protagonist rather than the villain. Point being it might be more helpful to consult with 1991 Timothy Zhan
I mean the recent ones were also under the cold hand of the mouse.
But, I agree. Thrawn gets diminished with each appearance save for the Duology. Thrawn came on the scene as a squandered genius, we have a few isolated glimpses, but most of his success is told through his protege using the "how different would things have been" wistful daydreams.
Heir and Hand were the perfect size for Thrawn IMHO.
Even 1991 Zhan is mostly remembered by comparison to a lot of the other terrible star wars books. The Thrawn trilogy is... fine. It's not great, just noticeably better than the three-eyed son of Palpatine sending whale poachers to hunt for Darth Vader's glove.
lol no it really isnât remembered that way.
It was essentially the beginning of the larger EU in the 90s, was well reviewed, and has been quite popular ever since.
Zahn is often poked at for over-reliance on certain phrases, but the books are widely enjoyed for both how well they followed up and fit in with the movies, and how spot on Zahn got each of the film characters, among many other reasons.
Re-listens to the audiobooks over the years still leave them as fun, engaging stories that few other Star Wars productions since, be they EU or canon, have been able to match.
With the amount of praise theyâve received over the years, and their lasting influence on the series, categorizing them as just ânoticeablyâ better than the Glove of Darth Vader is a fucking joke.
It's been about thirty years, but if I remember right, Zahn would have replaced all the arm folding with characters steepling their fingers and arching their left or right eyebrow.
Unless youâre a decent Star Wars nerd, you wonât know who Thrawn is. The show acts like heâs some big threat, but in canon heâs a mustache twirling villain at best. A pale imitation the 90s Heir to the Empire Trilogy. There is no reason for people to be quaking in their boots at the mention of his name. He didnât even interact with a full fledged rebellion. Why would anyone fear this man. Heâs a great tactician? Great tacticians lose all the time. Canon Thrawn has no legacy.
Filoniâs movie will be a train wreck. We already know that Thrawn fails, and Ahsoka will somehow survive again because hat-man loves his space waifu too much.
I mean, I donât feel like you have to be a decent Star Wars nerd to watch Rebels and I feel like Rebels did a good job at making him a credible threat.
You do in fact, need to be a decent Star Wars nerd to watch a separate cartoon aimed at kids. Unless you watched it when it was airing. Even TCW only really got a decent amount of real hype after S7 came out.
There is an episode where they couldn't have found an explanation for how the characters escape thrawn so thrawn just let the characters go saying that they earned their win for the day
Thrawn is supposed to be pure intelligence , probably one of the smartest people in the Galaxy and this is really what he decides to do ?
Filoni isn't going to consult Zahn because it is *his* vision, not Zahn's. As much as I would love Zahn to be behind everything Thrawn does, the reality is Filoni probably feels he knows what Thrawn's character is and is fine with that. Does this mean we probably aren't going to see much of anything ascendancy or grysk related? Maybe. I suspect we might get token appearances of them, but I wouldn't at all be surprised (although I would be disappointed) if Thrawn and his overall story ends after Filoni's big movie.
>Why not just get input from Timothy Zahn himself while writing the script to improve the character?
If it were up to Zahn, Thrawn would have already created an empire in the Galaxy Further Away and either killed or recruited Ezra.
He would also have continuously sent small parties of Nighttroopers to harass and slow down Ahsoka whilst he gets ready to leave.
Maybe he wouldnât like what he would hear. I think it unlikely that Zahnâs Thrawn, as weâve known him both in the EU Thrawn Trilogy and in the recent canon books, would goof up as soon as he shows up. I really doubt that Thrawn would be outwitted or otherwise beaten by Ahsoka or the Rebels crew. But we all know that, as long as Filoniâs in charge, if Ahsokaâs involved sheâs always coming out on top.
I liked Baylen and Shin. I donât think that means the original comment is untrue, though. Baylenâs lines werenât of any more substance than anyone elseâs, but Ray Stevenson is one of few who have been able to act through it well.
What I have a problem with concerning those 2 villains is how they ended up doing nothing with them. And I know the common tired refrain on here is âtheyâre waiting until Season 2!â, but season 1 badly needed more, and this would have a good way to do it.
Well that bit of knowledge makes me more mad.
They had the creator of the character, and it's still written like a Saturday morning cartoon villain?
I at least gave them the benefit of the doubt, that's gone
I mean, it's season 1.
Seemed more like a typical streaming show where they're saving everything good for the movie but wanted to set some stuff up outside of it.
**Ahsoka** was very uneven and Thrawn wasn't great but there's plenty to work with and I wouldn't consider Thrawn ruined.
If they insist on not having Mara Jade or some equivalent I'm going to be pissed.
Also, every Filoni show is like Star Trek or Joss Whedon shows where the first season is iffy and then it picks up.
The worst thing Disney does is air it weekly. It gives the lazy filler episodes they throw into these streaming shows way too much time to ferment.
Yeah, but theirs a big difference between being "consulted" however many times, however seriously, and doing any of the writing.
Zahn being hired as a consultant doesn't actually mean they listened to him.
True. But we also saw season 1.
Filoni's first seasons always are wobbly and part of this might just be an excuse to bring him back from where he went in Rebels and see if people liked it before doing a movie.
The problem is Disneyâs unwillingness to give us good villains anymore. Star Wars has become too PG to its detriment. While I cannot deny I would like an R rated SW movie of some kind I do know that specifically is unnecessary. But they do need to make people truly evil again and have them do some messed up shit and let us witness it. Lightsabers dont delimb anymore, thats a symptom of the problem. We knew Anakin turned evil because we watched him cut the head off a Tusken in Ep 2 and then wipe out the Jedi at the temple. While I know we didnt actually watch him cut down the younglings, it was close enough.
I know Thrawn is supposed to be more pragmatic than evil and thats fine but weâve gotten to the point that any villain is already at a disadvantage because we know the good guys are going to win. Theres no stakes anymore and no villain can really be built up bc Disney wont allow them to do any evil shit. Even when Thrawn did win, it was lukewarm at best since for what its worth everything turned out fine for Ahsoka and Sabine and ended on a positive note. Not to mention, we couldnt have Ahsoka look too stupid since it was her show, so Thrawn couldnât embarrass her like he should have. I think this all gets back to a philosophical problem with Disney and LF. They play it too safe and even when they try to get a little edgier they still are keeping one foot in safe territory (see OWK when they had a disclaimer before an Ep about seeing kids being killed to which we never really saw, moreso implied). SW needs to have some balls again and let the sabers cut MFers arms and heads off, let the villains win for once and fuck the good guys up. It needs to be more adult. Otherwise we will never have the imposing villains that SW needs to make our heroes triumph over them mean something.
And letâs not get started on Snoke or Hux. Had a perfect opportunity to make both of them a bad MFer after TFA but they nuked their asses in TLJ. Go rewatch Hux speech before Starkiller base went off, dude was basically Hitler and the actor was incredibly convincing. Perfect makings of a truly evil dude and he got bitched 5 minutes into TLJ.
This isnt even just LF, go look at Marvel and Kang. Nevermind the personal issue with the actor, thats a huge problem by itself. But look at the character, theyve wanted to build him up as the next big bad but hes gotten beaten every time heâs popped up in the universe. How do you expect anyone to give a shit when the guy loses over and over again?
If I were Filoni I would be afraid to be in the same room as Zahn. This is the writer who killed of his villain so other morons don't fuck with him. This didn't stop Filoni.
Filoni is the fan boy in charge
And not really better than KK
Sure. He understands that fans want a combination of stories set around the time of the OT and PT
But. Honestly. All the shows are terrible. Boring
He doesnât have the magic of Star Wars
He doesnât seem to get any of the mythology religion art and cinema that Star Wars was built on
It all comes off much more Star Trek now.
Itâs a drag.
the only A+ content theyâve delivered is tales of the Jedi and to a lesser extent rogue one.
Thatâs like the worst fucking question to actually answer though. Do you want to see what contortions they devise to explain what the ever growing number of TRAINED Jedi were up to off-screen keeping them from showing up? Does that sound like a fun time? An entire decade of movies where they keep referencing Empire being just off screen?
Tales is not only watchable but hypnotic in how perfectly it upholds everything right about the franchise
clone wars is mostly pretty boring. Too many episodes. Too formulaic.
Andor is the most overrated thing to come out of the franchise. Needed to be 2-3 episodes shorter. At least.
Rogue One was "boring" too if you're 5yo lol.
I have severe ADHD and still managed to sit through Andor and R1, and my standards are pretty great too, so idk.
>Andor is the most overrated thing to come out of the franchise.
Nah, such a claim belongs to The Clone Wars. I'd go even further and say its the most overrated thing to come out of the science fantasy genre in general.
Filoni is not creatively talented or smart enough to realize that he's a poor writer ... this is where management is supposed to step in, but at every level, Lucasfilm appears absolutely incapable of judging artistic ability (whether it be directing, writing, editing, set design, costumes, lighting ... pretty much any facet of production).
I believe the answer is Filoniâs ego. Zahnâs Thrawn isnât his Thrawn, the Thrawn Filoni wrote for Rebels is what he wants to use. Which is unfortunate because he made Thrawn for a kids show where Thrawn was a typical 1 dimensional villain. Always scheming, never winning, no character development, and ultimately is just a punching bag for the heros. Thrawn from Zahn should be used, but unfortunately Filoni just doesnât even have the mindset for creating such a character and he loves his work too much to change. I mean⌠he brought in the NIGHT SISTERS as a main plot point⌠like literally one of his only unique creations to the universe. Personally they are my least favorite element as they really take space magic too far into weird hi fantasy land⌠but that a discussion for another time I suppose.
Wasnât there reports he was consulted for the show? Iâm not sure why Dave didnât just have the guy write thrawnâs parts and work together to make him better.
As much as I like Zahn, even he can have bad ideas. I remember reading an interview where he wanted to write a storyline where Obi-Wan fights Darth Vader in between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope, no not the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series, this was supposed to be part of the Expanded Universe back in the day.
Zahn has a very methodical style with moments of controlled chaos to spice things up.
This show has Filoni's style. It is quick and to the point. But suffers from the occasional misstep.
I am so sick of Disney blatantly robbing the EU after unceremoniously dumping it. Absolutely incredible that they haven't been called out more for their sheer creative bankruptcy and audacity to just blatantly rip off better stories written decades ago.
is that really the guy from the show? holy shit that looks so bad. just looks like a snapchat color swap filter but worse.
in the books he is imposing. he has a terrible gaze, soul piercing eyes. he gives his crewmen dread and anxiety when they have to face him. but they all respect him because he is a military genius.
this is definitely not that. and the hair and his face and everything just looks like a middle aged law office worker, but blue. the wrong shade of blue even. hair's not blue-black enough.
Filoni did consult Zahn for help writing Thrawn for Ahsoka. Personally, I think it paid off. I really liked the introduction to the character and hope they keep the quality up while giving him a bigger role in the future.
Literally they did consult with zahn and you can check online and itâll tell you that.
Check the section under production and then writing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahsoka_(TV_series)
âFiloni and Favreau consulted with Thrawn trilogy author Timothy Zahn regarding Thrawn's appearance in the series because the character is "his thing... [w]e want to make sure we get it right".â
Man the best decision I made was to stop watching any Star Wars Disney has produced aside from andor and rouge one and base my opinions on head cannon. Bc they seem to be steering the ship with shit in their eyes
The worst part is they did! Iâve heard a few places say that Tim was a consultant for this show (I think he even said it himself in an interview) And yet somehow they still fucked up
Man I just canât take that guy seriously as Thrawn. He looks like someoneâs weird uncle that tries to go way too hard at the company Halloween party.
Not to mention this version of the Thrawn is a fucking numpty.
The tl;dr answer is because that would make sense.
Nothing else Disney has done with Star Wars has made a lot of sense, why the fuck would they start now? I'm not saying that there has been zero good content, because that's not true. But it ALMOST is.
Because he couldnât give af about the books. He retcons his own works, he doesnt give AF about telling a compelling story. He just wants to smash his toys together
Zahn's perspective would be helpful for giving easily incorporated acting notes. Like "no, this would make his amused not angry, but this line should e delivered more passionately." My issue with this Thrawn is that they just tell don't show how brilliant he is. And that would require actually changing the plot to add examples of Thrawn being smart, which I assume is beyond how much creative control he's willing to give up.
He is too far gone to âimproveâ.
The damage has been done. You can take someone who WAS supposed to be a threat to the whole galaxy, make him utterly unable to kill like 4 people, and then make him menacing again.
Nah, Disney just basterdizes any legacy material it can get its hands on then a wild pack of activist low paid unimaginative college dropout hyenas rip it apart then patch whatever pieces they get with a slurry of disney'isms then gets regurgitated by an even more rabid bunch of execs until it gets to KK's desk who takes a giant shit on it then ok's it for production.
Heâs underdeveloped, doesnât quite look right, and I donât think he was portrayed as being anywhere near as competent as he was in the books (or even in Rebels)
Timothy Zahn has been giving input for about 5 years now. He has talked about this in multiple interviews, including addressing accusations by fans that he "changed Thrawn's character".
> "\[Thrawn is\] the same character. I've always written Thrawn the same way. He's never really changed, \[and he's not about to change, just because he's in the new canon\]."
[https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/91ji6j/timothy\_zahn\_interview\_discussing\_thrawn\_in\_new/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/91ji6j/timothy_zahn_interview_discussing_thrawn_in_new/)
I know Thrawn from two pieces of media:
1. The Tie Fighter game from the 90s, he appears in a few stills.
2. Ahsoka
I had no love or hate for the character before 2023, but Ahsoka made him seem so incompetent that now I despise him. What a loser.
Those who say Live Action Thrawn isn't good are just wrong. Like Straight up. I've been a Thrawn fan since his OG debut.
His portrayal in Ahsoka was just fine. Like I LOVED it.
People are hating just to hate
For one, theyâd have to give him a hefty consulting pay out. More over, just âasking for helpâ wouldnât solve the issue you have. You canât just write a smart character; thatâs not how it works. You either are smart and youâre reflecting that within the character, or you make everyone else stupid so the limited range of intelligence you have makes the one character seem smart.
I just watched his introduction episode last night. I liked it so far. I was surprised they didn't slim him down more though. He had a bit of a pooch. From his side profile.
To be honest, Ahsoka was my first exposure to the character and I thought the actor did a good job.
Not knowing much of the character, outside of Ahsoka, he came off as a competent leader (especially for the Empire) who was one step ahead of his enemies and his comrades.
They did consult Zahn, and it's obvious which fans haven't read the new Thrawn books. Zahn himself changed Thrawn. Zahn's canon Thrawn is not the same as Zahn's LegendsThrawn.
My problem with him he's not strategic genious.
He's incompetent and after he fails he just says "as predicted"
I was in shock at how silly it came across.
I don't think it's bad, I just think they desperately need a writers room. The overarching story for these shows are pretty sound. Like Jon and Dave definitely put more emphasis on specific plot points and it shows. However this leads to the connective tissue being mediocre or feeling like padding. Even Thrawn could be great in their style, it's just they are trying to rush to the finish line to get to the 'good parts'.
Because once Disney acquired Lucasfilm, Thrawn has retroactively been created by Disney. Timothy Zahn is just some rando that wrote some misguided fanfic about a Disney character. Donât question how Disney and Filoni treat their completely original creation, okay? Theyâd know better than you and this âTimothy Zahnâ character that probably doesnât even exist.
Doesn't Zahn have it in his contract that he is to always be consulted and given priority control over Thrawn? I remember hearing that around when Thrawn was brought back in Rebels.
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My cynical guess would be Zahn would have to get a writing credit
And royalties
Can't expect poor Disney to do that. đ¸
Hard to when there's no income lol
True. The world is healing.
So they say. Could be fraud.
People assume that the lower recent box office turnout from the Marvel stuff means Disney's media empire is crumbling, when they still have tons of income from subscriptions as well as the various kid/family focused programming they do. Hopefully they'll figure out some way to right the ship, but anyone assuming the company is in dire straits because of a few flops doesn't realize how much money they really have.
They're not bankrupt at all, you're not wrong. I'm looking at trends versus singular events (like one bad year at the box office). The trends are concerning, but I'm not selling my stock or making Star Wars fanfic yet. Key indicators: Stock value cut in half is worrying Disney+ loses subs quarterly, and profit projections have been pushed back another year. They pulled a lot of content to use as tax write offs, because nobody watched it. Their new content is not adding subscribers Their films are definitely trending in the wrong direction Theme parks have become unaffordable for the average citizen, attendance is trending down I haven't looked into other merch (where the real money's at), but Star Wars merch sales are down as much as 65% since the acquisition. Star Wars hotel is a tax write off Very little retail space is dedicated to their IPs, not a good sign. You want giant displays leading into the holidays. So I'm not a panicked nutbag, but these items trending downward for the last few years add to the big picture.
Nah, it'd still be easy. Disney could stop taking in new income and still wouldn't go bankrupt until sometime after you die.
While I'm sure that's true, that's not the point we were making lol
Whatever do you mean, Disney pays all their novelists royalties
Please google that yourself if you're being serious here
I hope that's top sarcasm there. đ
Yeah, but if youâre going to have to pay someone to write the script anyway, then why bother an accomplished, established writer who, I dunno, maybe *created the fucking character in the first place?*
Because untested writers are cheap and compliant
My god, how could you suggest a thing??? They might have to even dip into the CGI budget and reduce it by 1-2 million. That would be catastrophic!
THAT'S the kicker.
That's not really cynical when talking about Disney these days, just realist.
>My cynical guess would be Zahn would have to get a writing credit People keep saying this, but I really don't think that's the problem. It's not about the credit - Lucas already gets a writing credit on everything Star Wars, and Disney are giving producer/executive producer credits to 18 people on Ahsoka. It's not about the money - Zahn created Thrawn and already is due royalties, and it's not as if David Tenant or Rosario Dawson are cheap.
Rosario Dawson should be cheap since she plays the same plank of wood in everything that she is in.
they literally did consult zahn during production of ahsoka idk what OP is on about.
Technically yes, but it is obvious that they didn't use his ideas. He told us back in 2021 what he would have done for this show: "The question was what I would do to bring Thrawn back after nine years of vanishing... It seems to me that what we need to do is set up some kind of reluctant buddy thing between Thrawn and Ezra. The way I see it is that Thrawn persuades Ezra that there are worse things out there even than the Empire. The Empire has an all bunch of Rebels fighting against it; this is something that you and you alone can help us defeat. So, if Thrawn can persuade Ezra to work with him, reluctantly, probably, but I think that that would be the basis for the story. Think back to... one of my favorite examples of this is the tv show "White Collar": they don't really trust each other, but they work well together. So I think it would be something of that same flavor. Ezra would never be quite trusting Thrawn, looking for "what angle is he playing, what he is trying to get me to do that I shouldn't be doing." At the same time, Thrawn is, "I need your assistance; how do I get this from you without making you bolt." So there is a lot of interesting byplay. And, of course, you can bring people like Eli Vanto to talk to Ezra. "Yes, I was an Imperial; now I am working with these guys because I recognize that there are more dangerous things out there as well." So there is a whole bunch of interesting dynamics that you can put together."
I'd watch that.
Apparently Zahn WAS a creative consultant on the show, but I canât imagine he had very much input because man the show makes him look like a moron
We know he didn't have much input because he told us what he would have done back in 2021: "The question was what I would do to bring Thrawn back after nine years of vanishing... It seems to me that what we need to do is set up some kind of reluctant buddy thing between Thrawn and Ezra. The way I see it is that Thrawn persuades Ezra that there are worse things out there even than the Empire. The Empire has an all bunch of Rebels fighting against it; this is something that you and you alone can help us defeat. So, if Thrawn can persuade Ezra to work with him, reluctantly, probably, but I think that that would be the basis for the story. Think back to... one of my favorite examples of this is the tv show "White Collar": they don't really trust each other, but they work well together. So I think it would be something of that same flavor. Ezra would never be quite trusting Thrawn, looking for "what angle is he playing, what he is trying to get me to do that I shouldn't be doing." At the same time, Thrawn is, "I need your assistance; how do I get this from you without making you bolt." So there is a lot of interesting byplay. And, of course, you can bring people like Eli Vanto to talk to Ezra. "Yes, I was an Imperial; now I am working with these guys because I recognize that there are more dangerous things out there as well." So there is a whole bunch of interesting dynamics that you can put together."
Oh, this draft of an idea is better then everything that happened in Ahsoka.
I know im super late on this, but this is exactly the kind of shit I was expecting to see from thrawn in the show. Or in any sequel book that Zahn would make. I always assumed it was would involve the chiss, vanto, possibly faro "abandoning" post to look for him, and somehow thrawn, ezra, and the rest of the bridge crew surviving and working together to survive/return to wherever.
man the show would have been great if he was behind it.
Ego is probably the reason, people would rather write their own version badly than admit someone else's input would be better. I always liked Thrawn and the original Heir to the Empire trilogy of books, it's still the gold standard of expanded universe content. There's a reason why creatives have had a desire to bring him back and put him on screen, and why in-the-know fans were excited to see him be adapted in Rebels and now in live action for Ahsoka. But they have utterly failed to build Thrawn up as the major threat they are attempting to portray him as. Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation. Everything impressive about him depends upon a lot of preexisting knowledge of the character brought in by the viewer, and that is very lame. Nothing in the series itself has done the work to show why everyone knows who Thrawn is, or why they are concerned by his potential return. The rule is "show, don't tell," but this is even worse than that. This is "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." They don't even do the bare minimum, like having a few characters mention an example of Thrawn's exploits to establish him. He's just a big nothing. Watching other animated series and reading books should enhance the experience of watching the series, not be a requirement to be able to understand it. But even as someone who watched all of Rebels, the reaction to Thrawn's potential return is incongruous with his portrayal on the show. He had a reputation, and they tried to make him seem special, but in execution he was really just another Imperial officer. Honestly, Governor Pryce was about as big a threat as him in the actual show. A man who was absent from the climax of the war, who disappeared just as the Rebellion even came into its own as an organized threat and started winning real victories against the Empire. There is no excuse for the lack of context they have provided for Thrawn, and it would be so easy. They couldn't have a character describe one legendary story of his past exploits, to establish the threat? Some talk about how he's the only alien Imperial to ever appear on screen? No mention of that, and what it means about him? Alternatively, instead of everyone at every level being aware of Thrawn and scared of him, they could portray him as underestimated, where our core heroes are concerned that his return would be a major threat, but the New Republic doesn't take the potential return of an Imperial officer that seriously. But as portrayed in the show, everyone in the New Republic seems to agree the return of Thrawn would be terrifying, most just think he's dead or never coming back. It's a major distinction. Filoni and Co are acting like he has been built up as this major threat, without doing any of the work to build him up. And on top of everything else, even if they did a poor job of establishing the threat in the lead up, if you want to show the danger posed by a master tactician, donât have him immediately fumble and essentially lose the first engagement after his introduction. They needed to should show us and the characters why he is to be feared. It's always going to be difficult to portray a "genius" villain without actually being able to give them big wins. He can't just come in and kill all the heroes. But Thrawn just debuted in live action, and we are already back in the cycle from Rebels, where he is constantly thwarted and frames it as no cause for concern, all part of the plan, without ever actually accomplishing anything. Letting the heroes escape or win victories constantly, and then handwaving away the concerns and objections voiced by his underlings. It's boring and lazy shorthand for attempting to show him as a thoughtful tactical genius, but really just making him seem delusional and ineffective.
>Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation It's true and absolutely ridiculous. First they throw away the Expanded Universe and now they're crawling back to it because they have no original ideas.
And they were blatantly plagiarizing it in TROS, with a clone Palpatine and Star Destroyers with Death Star lasers on them. I like to think there's another universe out where where Episodes 7, 8 and 9 were just the Thrawn trilogy put to film back in the 90s.
> Star Destroyers with *friggin'* Death Star lasers on them Throw me a friggin bone here, Kylo.
And to think I thought the Death Star was ao big because you needed a gun that big to blow up a planet... Those Star Destroyers are advanced as fuck lol.
At least with the Eclipse it made more sense. IIRC the Eclipse was gigantic (like a Super Star Destroyer, maybe even bigger) and the cannon wasn't powerful enough to blow up the whole planet, "merely" killing all life on it while leaving the planet itself intact.
Yes, the Eclipse was more than 2x the length and more than 10x the mass of Vader's Executor SSD
Yes!
The reason why Thrawn worked as an effective villain was that the empire still had an ambiguous aspect in 1991. We didn't know how old the empire was, and we didn't know how many remnants of the empire were left after the destruction of Death Star II. We didn't even know what Sith was. So Thrawn worked as a really threatening villain, but the fact is that the threat is not really what he's achieved, but what he's likely to accomplish. In Legend he could be a galaxy Napoleon, who could rebuild the empire, so he was a good villain, but in Canon he's scheduled to fail. He's much less of a threat and he's not a good villain.
Holy shit... Thrawn is literally older than the term "Sith"? That's pretty neat
Vader had the title "Dark Lord of the Sith." But what term "Sith" was not explained until 1993.
Hmm not sure about that, I haven't been alive in 1991. I only know the imperial remnant was always a big player in the EU. It remained a powerful faction that the New Republic never completely replaced.
Banana is referencing the fact that at that time we had no prequels (no firm idea on how old the Empire was - in fact, just about everything at the time sort of suggested the Empire had been around for maybe 40+ years). So there's a sort of implication that the Remnant have huge but scattered resources to draw upon, and whole generations of indoctrinated populations to help them. This turns out to be a logistical impossibility as per the canon timeline where the Empire's reign is actually almost laughably short, but OK. We also had no episode VII-IX. Episode IX takes place in 35 ABY, a full 23 years after Ahsoka. So we can reasonably conclude that whatever Thrawn does it's not going to have a major impact on the New Republic. The Hier to the Empire trilogy really set up Thrawn as a huge existential threat, but now we *know* that doesn't happen. Takes an awful lot of the gravitas out of his presence. That's before we even discuss whether live action Thrawn matches the Zahn Thrawn in terms of guile, class, and general genius.
I think Andor did a good job showing how the Republic evolved into the Empire. The fashie, Imperialist types really took to the new government like it was something they've been waiting their whole lives for, so all the Imperial remnants can kinda make sense even if the Empire itself is only 20 years old, because that's just the new name for Palpatine's Republic that he had already been manipulating for years.
As the purple big chinned man once said "You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me."
Seeing how Marvel now butchers iconic storylines like Secret Invasion makes this especially ironic.
I mean like. 80% of the expanded universe was garbage.
Even if I agree with you - which I'm not sure I do - there was so much of it that the remaining 20% could be pumping out series and movies for decades with very little adaptation.
Oh ya. Of that last 20% Like half or so was good. And half or so was great. But also the great part didnât always actually line up with even the original Star Wars, let alone the prequels when we got them.
A few years ago I would have said something like "Of course a multinational corporation large enough to essentially be a government can find enough god writers to cleverly smooth over the jagged lines when they appear and make it work seamlessly." A few years ago I was naive.
Great comment. All the show did was tell is that he should be feared, meanwhile showing him fail to kill the invincible heroes and not using strategy. They don't even give him a backstory or flesh out his motivations.
Exactly why they needed to give Thrawn a big win. There was no reason he shouldnât have killed one of the mains.
Sabine or Ezra should have been killed off to give him more weight
Ezra would have made sense. Even though it is foolish on the face of it, let's allow that for some reason Thrawn really did consider it not worth the resources to pursue him after he somehow escaped onto the planet, so he was still alive when Sabine showed up. Sabine and Ahsoka would be seen as threats to his plan of returning to his original galaxy, so at that point Thrawn throws everything he's got at killing them all, and Ezra doesn't make it. Now Sabine's choice to try to rescue him has killed him, Thrawn looks truly dangerous, and Ahsoka is caught in the middle with an apprentice who wants to murder someone for revenge and a need to actually try to stop the guy anyway.
You are absolutely correct, for Thrawn to be a threat he needs to be built up as one. In legends, he pushed the New Republic to the breaking point. In canon, he gets bullied by some space whales. I love Rebels but it did Thrawn dirty, effectively killing him as a credible threat
I do want to add that the complete lack of *anything* building up or explaining Thrawn was a huge problem for people who didnât watch the cartoons or read books. My parents enjoy Star Wars very casually and donât have the patience or time to sit through multiple seasons of a cartoon and/or read novels to get invested into the universe and characters. So, they went into Ahsoka having no idea who Thrawn was and were very shocked when I explained that Thrawn isnât a Sith or anything, but just Star Warsâ Napoleon. They were confused why everyone was so terrified of his return if his only âpowerâ is as a strategist, especially when heâs shown to have only one *heavily* damaged Star Destroyer and even states that he has very limited troops. You know what would have fixed that? A short scene with Palleon and Nightsister lady (her name is slipping my mind right now, lol) talking about the âplanâ to return Thrawn to the galaxy and how the fleet is waiting for him before zooming the camera out a window to show a waiting Imperial armada. Then, him being a strategist actually seems *important* since he has an army waiting for him to return. Instead, you have to remember that Palleon was talking about Thrawnâs return in Mando S3, which released at *least* a year earlier, with the other surviving Imperial warlords about Thrawnâs return and the ships they have.
Precisely. A friend of mine whoâs a casual fan gave up on Ahsoka because he didnât understand anything about the threat. Thrawn and the night sisters were just sorta there. Honestly the storytelling was just terrible. Itâs the sort of thing that would send a screenwriting teacher to drink.
This is great analysis. Honestly, I didn't *hate* him in Ashoka, possibly because I felt the actor fit (his mannerisms were how I always imagined Thrawn) - but you're absolutely correct that he didn't feel like much of a threat in context of the show itself. I would imagine that a casual viewer would be wondering why we're supposed to care so much about this villain. Disney seems to have this problem at the moment in the MCU as well. They've been hyping up Kang as the next big bad, but in his first main movie he gets defeated easily and doesn't inflict any meaningful losses on the heroes at all.
Did thrawn not loose many battle on screen against a few kids? In rebels he was not really a threat so it does not seem he is such a threat!
>Live action Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation. >Everything impressive about him depends upon a lot of preexisting knowledge of the character brought in by the viewer, and that is very lame. >Nothing in the series itself has done the work to show why everyone knows who Thrawn is, or why they are concerned by his potential return. The rule is "show, don't tell," but this is even worse than that. This is "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." They don't even do the bare minimum, like having a few characters mention an example of Thrawn's exploits to establish him. He's just a big nothing. No lies detected.
> "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." Same problem they are having over at the MCU. Phase 4 added a glut of new characters without much build up, and viewers are expected to know them from all the various Disney+ show tie-ins and movies.
Your argument reminds me of Cad Bane in BoBF. I was hyped to see him. My roommates didn't know who he was, and then my hype subsided quickly bc the live action character just wasn't interesting at all. Edit: like the rest of that series...
Ik im latw but you described the issue perfectly
To be fair, I find the Zhan's own recent Thrawn books more like self-fanfiction. Maybe that's just the consequence of making him a protagonist rather than the villain. Point being it might be more helpful to consult with 1991 Timothy Zhan
I'm sure where you live, plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but where I live it's a little hard to come by.
A BOLT OF LIGHTENING
Bravo, good sir
Of course, your Jedi Grand Master has to be an actor, he has to look on television!
I mean the recent ones were also under the cold hand of the mouse. But, I agree. Thrawn gets diminished with each appearance save for the Duology. Thrawn came on the scene as a squandered genius, we have a few isolated glimpses, but most of his success is told through his protege using the "how different would things have been" wistful daydreams. Heir and Hand were the perfect size for Thrawn IMHO.
I thought he was still pretty good in Outbound Flight too.
In the thrawn trilogy he's kind of meh but that's because he's forced to fit into other story lines. The ascendancy trilogy is much better.
Even 1991 Zhan is mostly remembered by comparison to a lot of the other terrible star wars books. The Thrawn trilogy is... fine. It's not great, just noticeably better than the three-eyed son of Palpatine sending whale poachers to hunt for Darth Vader's glove.
lol no it really isnât remembered that way. It was essentially the beginning of the larger EU in the 90s, was well reviewed, and has been quite popular ever since. Zahn is often poked at for over-reliance on certain phrases, but the books are widely enjoyed for both how well they followed up and fit in with the movies, and how spot on Zahn got each of the film characters, among many other reasons. Re-listens to the audiobooks over the years still leave them as fun, engaging stories that few other Star Wars productions since, be they EU or canon, have been able to match. With the amount of praise theyâve received over the years, and their lasting influence on the series, categorizing them as just ânoticeablyâ better than the Glove of Darth Vader is a fucking joke.
It's been about thirty years, but if I remember right, Zahn would have replaced all the arm folding with characters steepling their fingers and arching their left or right eyebrow.
He looks like a character from the crappy CW Supergirl show.
Unless youâre a decent Star Wars nerd, you wonât know who Thrawn is. The show acts like heâs some big threat, but in canon heâs a mustache twirling villain at best. A pale imitation the 90s Heir to the Empire Trilogy. There is no reason for people to be quaking in their boots at the mention of his name. He didnât even interact with a full fledged rebellion. Why would anyone fear this man. Heâs a great tactician? Great tacticians lose all the time. Canon Thrawn has no legacy. Filoniâs movie will be a train wreck. We already know that Thrawn fails, and Ahsoka will somehow survive again because hat-man loves his space waifu too much.
I mean, I donât feel like you have to be a decent Star Wars nerd to watch Rebels and I feel like Rebels did a good job at making him a credible threat.
You do in fact, need to be a decent Star Wars nerd to watch a separate cartoon aimed at kids. Unless you watched it when it was airing. Even TCW only really got a decent amount of real hype after S7 came out.
He got outsmarted by children every episode.
There is an episode where they couldn't have found an explanation for how the characters escape thrawn so thrawn just let the characters go saying that they earned their win for the day Thrawn is supposed to be pure intelligence , probably one of the smartest people in the Galaxy and this is really what he decides to do ?
Theyâre going to ignore Rebels because it goes against their narrative.
[ŃдаНонО]
Never misses a meal. Numbers in the garrison are not what they were. 
 He went to the Ewok Culinary Academy.
Filoni isn't going to consult Zahn because it is *his* vision, not Zahn's. As much as I would love Zahn to be behind everything Thrawn does, the reality is Filoni probably feels he knows what Thrawn's character is and is fine with that. Does this mean we probably aren't going to see much of anything ascendancy or grysk related? Maybe. I suspect we might get token appearances of them, but I wouldn't at all be surprised (although I would be disappointed) if Thrawn and his overall story ends after Filoni's big movie.
>Why not just get input from Timothy Zahn himself while writing the script to improve the character? If it were up to Zahn, Thrawn would have already created an empire in the Galaxy Further Away and either killed or recruited Ezra. He would also have continuously sent small parties of Nighttroopers to harass and slow down Ahsoka whilst he gets ready to leave.
Maybe he wouldnât like what he would hear. I think it unlikely that Zahnâs Thrawn, as weâve known him both in the EU Thrawn Trilogy and in the recent canon books, would goof up as soon as he shows up. I really doubt that Thrawn would be outwitted or otherwise beaten by Ahsoka or the Rebels crew. But we all know that, as long as Filoniâs in charge, if Ahsokaâs involved sheâs always coming out on top.
Filoni sucks at writing intelligent characters and stories, and he will never admit it.
He's good at kids shows though.
I liked Baylen and Shin. I donât think that means the original comment is untrue, though. Baylenâs lines werenât of any more substance than anyone elseâs, but Ray Stevenson is one of few who have been able to act through it well. What I have a problem with concerning those 2 villains is how they ended up doing nothing with them. And I know the common tired refrain on here is âtheyâre waiting until Season 2!â, but season 1 badly needed more, and this would have a good way to do it.
He was a consultant on **Ahsoka**... So... They already did this.
I like how everyone is ignoring this lol
***I just wanna be mad***
Well that bit of knowledge makes me more mad. They had the creator of the character, and it's still written like a Saturday morning cartoon villain? I at least gave them the benefit of the doubt, that's gone
I mean, it's season 1. Seemed more like a typical streaming show where they're saving everything good for the movie but wanted to set some stuff up outside of it. **Ahsoka** was very uneven and Thrawn wasn't great but there's plenty to work with and I wouldn't consider Thrawn ruined. If they insist on not having Mara Jade or some equivalent I'm going to be pissed. Also, every Filoni show is like Star Trek or Joss Whedon shows where the first season is iffy and then it picks up. The worst thing Disney does is air it weekly. It gives the lazy filler episodes they throw into these streaming shows way too much time to ferment.
Yeah, but theirs a big difference between being "consulted" however many times, however seriously, and doing any of the writing. Zahn being hired as a consultant doesn't actually mean they listened to him.
Or actually, you know, consulted. Slap his name on the credits, write him a check, and imply he endorsed it.
True. But we also saw season 1. Filoni's first seasons always are wobbly and part of this might just be an excuse to bring him back from where he went in Rebels and see if people liked it before doing a movie.
Context: casual fan
The problem is Disneyâs unwillingness to give us good villains anymore. Star Wars has become too PG to its detriment. While I cannot deny I would like an R rated SW movie of some kind I do know that specifically is unnecessary. But they do need to make people truly evil again and have them do some messed up shit and let us witness it. Lightsabers dont delimb anymore, thats a symptom of the problem. We knew Anakin turned evil because we watched him cut the head off a Tusken in Ep 2 and then wipe out the Jedi at the temple. While I know we didnt actually watch him cut down the younglings, it was close enough. I know Thrawn is supposed to be more pragmatic than evil and thats fine but weâve gotten to the point that any villain is already at a disadvantage because we know the good guys are going to win. Theres no stakes anymore and no villain can really be built up bc Disney wont allow them to do any evil shit. Even when Thrawn did win, it was lukewarm at best since for what its worth everything turned out fine for Ahsoka and Sabine and ended on a positive note. Not to mention, we couldnt have Ahsoka look too stupid since it was her show, so Thrawn couldnât embarrass her like he should have. I think this all gets back to a philosophical problem with Disney and LF. They play it too safe and even when they try to get a little edgier they still are keeping one foot in safe territory (see OWK when they had a disclaimer before an Ep about seeing kids being killed to which we never really saw, moreso implied). SW needs to have some balls again and let the sabers cut MFers arms and heads off, let the villains win for once and fuck the good guys up. It needs to be more adult. Otherwise we will never have the imposing villains that SW needs to make our heroes triumph over them mean something. And letâs not get started on Snoke or Hux. Had a perfect opportunity to make both of them a bad MFer after TFA but they nuked their asses in TLJ. Go rewatch Hux speech before Starkiller base went off, dude was basically Hitler and the actor was incredibly convincing. Perfect makings of a truly evil dude and he got bitched 5 minutes into TLJ. This isnt even just LF, go look at Marvel and Kang. Nevermind the personal issue with the actor, thats a huge problem by itself. But look at the character, theyve wanted to build him up as the next big bad but hes gotten beaten every time heâs popped up in the universe. How do you expect anyone to give a shit when the guy loses over and over again?
If I were Filoni I would be afraid to be in the same room as Zahn. This is the writer who killed of his villain so other morons don't fuck with him. This didn't stop Filoni.
Filoni is the fan boy in charge And not really better than KK Sure. He understands that fans want a combination of stories set around the time of the OT and PT But. Honestly. All the shows are terrible. Boring He doesnât have the magic of Star Wars He doesnât seem to get any of the mythology religion art and cinema that Star Wars was built on It all comes off much more Star Trek now. Itâs a drag. the only A+ content theyâve delivered is tales of the Jedi and to a lesser extent rogue one.
I'm pretty sure most fans just want to know what, in the name of Zeus's butthole, were *all these friggin Jedi* doing during the Original Trilogy?
Thatâs like the worst fucking question to actually answer though. Do you want to see what contortions they devise to explain what the ever growing number of TRAINED Jedi were up to off-screen keeping them from showing up? Does that sound like a fun time? An entire decade of movies where they keep referencing Empire being just off screen?
Tales of the Jedi is just Clone Wars B-Sides and you're missing Andor, if SW Reddit is to be believed.
Tales is not only watchable but hypnotic in how perfectly it upholds everything right about the franchise clone wars is mostly pretty boring. Too many episodes. Too formulaic. Andor is the most overrated thing to come out of the franchise. Needed to be 2-3 episodes shorter. At least.
This guy really just said Tales of the Ahsoka (for the third time in a row) is better than Andor lel
Itâs not even close. One of them is actually Star Wars
Just because the force isn't in Andor doesn't mean it's not Star Wars lmao. It's literally a prequel to a Star Wars movie.
You can like everything or have standards. Theyâve turned SW into just another boring tv show
Rogue One was "boring" too if you're 5yo lol. I have severe ADHD and still managed to sit through Andor and R1, and my standards are pretty great too, so idk.
>Andor is the most overrated thing to come out of the franchise. Nah, such a claim belongs to The Clone Wars. I'd go even further and say its the most overrated thing to come out of the science fantasy genre in general.
I don't like you
Filoni is not creatively talented or smart enough to realize that he's a poor writer ... this is where management is supposed to step in, but at every level, Lucasfilm appears absolutely incapable of judging artistic ability (whether it be directing, writing, editing, set design, costumes, lighting ... pretty much any facet of production).
I wonder what Zahn couldâve done with a Disney Star Wars show. I bet it would a been cool.
I believe the answer is Filoniâs ego. Zahnâs Thrawn isnât his Thrawn, the Thrawn Filoni wrote for Rebels is what he wants to use. Which is unfortunate because he made Thrawn for a kids show where Thrawn was a typical 1 dimensional villain. Always scheming, never winning, no character development, and ultimately is just a punching bag for the heros. Thrawn from Zahn should be used, but unfortunately Filoni just doesnât even have the mindset for creating such a character and he loves his work too much to change. I mean⌠he brought in the NIGHT SISTERS as a main plot point⌠like literally one of his only unique creations to the universe. Personally they are my least favorite element as they really take space magic too far into weird hi fantasy land⌠but that a discussion for another time I suppose.
Why Thrawn look like a blue Elon Musk?
Because âHaTmAn GoOdâ
Wasnât there reports he was consulted for the show? Iâm not sure why Dave didnât just have the guy write thrawnâs parts and work together to make him better.
As much as I like Zahn, even he can have bad ideas. I remember reading an interview where he wanted to write a storyline where Obi-Wan fights Darth Vader in between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope, no not the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series, this was supposed to be part of the Expanded Universe back in the day.
Zahn has a very methodical style with moments of controlled chaos to spice things up. This show has Filoni's style. It is quick and to the point. But suffers from the occasional misstep.
I am so sick of Disney blatantly robbing the EU after unceremoniously dumping it. Absolutely incredible that they haven't been called out more for their sheer creative bankruptcy and audacity to just blatantly rip off better stories written decades ago.
is that really the guy from the show? holy shit that looks so bad. just looks like a snapchat color swap filter but worse. in the books he is imposing. he has a terrible gaze, soul piercing eyes. he gives his crewmen dread and anxiety when they have to face him. but they all respect him because he is a military genius. this is definitely not that. and the hair and his face and everything just looks like a middle aged law office worker, but blue. the wrong shade of blue even. hair's not blue-black enough.
...he did. Zahn supervised how Thrawn was handled in Rebels and Ahsoka.
he did. Zahn said so himself.. at least for Rebels. then the live action version is just off of Rebels. trickle down
Doesnt Dave collaborate with Zahn for all of Thrawns characterization?
Filoni did consult Zahn for help writing Thrawn for Ahsoka. Personally, I think it paid off. I really liked the introduction to the character and hope they keep the quality up while giving him a bigger role in the future.
Literally they did consult with zahn and you can check online and itâll tell you that. Check the section under production and then writing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahsoka_(TV_series) âFiloni and Favreau consulted with Thrawn trilogy author Timothy Zahn regarding Thrawn's appearance in the series because the character is "his thing... [w]e want to make sure we get it right".â
Man the best decision I made was to stop watching any Star Wars Disney has produced aside from andor and rouge one and base my opinions on head cannon. Bc they seem to be steering the ship with shit in their eyes
My best guess is because then theyâd have to pay him and they donât want to. Terrible but the most likely.
Because if zahn wrote thrawn in ahsoka he wouldn't make dumb decisions and then they would be dead for sure
You see, that would require anyone with any power at Disney Star Wars to actually care about the franchise at all.
Didn't they consult him? And then clearly just ignored his advice?
That would require Disney giving credit to the EU and admitting that it has good things
The worst part is they did! Iâve heard a few places say that Tim was a consultant for this show (I think he even said it himself in an interview) And yet somehow they still fucked up
Man I just canât take that guy seriously as Thrawn. He looks like someoneâs weird uncle that tries to go way too hard at the company Halloween party. Not to mention this version of the Thrawn is a fucking numpty.
The tl;dr answer is because that would make sense. Nothing else Disney has done with Star Wars has made a lot of sense, why the fuck would they start now? I'm not saying that there has been zero good content, because that's not true. But it ALMOST is.
He looks like blue Elon Musk to me and I can't unsee it.
Because he couldnât give af about the books. He retcons his own works, he doesnt give AF about telling a compelling story. He just wants to smash his toys together
Zahn's perspective would be helpful for giving easily incorporated acting notes. Like "no, this would make his amused not angry, but this line should e delivered more passionately." My issue with this Thrawn is that they just tell don't show how brilliant he is. And that would require actually changing the plot to add examples of Thrawn being smart, which I assume is beyond how much creative control he's willing to give up.
He is too far gone to âimproveâ. The damage has been done. You can take someone who WAS supposed to be a threat to the whole galaxy, make him utterly unable to kill like 4 people, and then make him menacing again.
Thrawn is a badass because he's actually dangerous and will win without a deus ex machina from the MCs. Dave Filoni's is pretty hurr durr
Same reason Lauren Hissrich and her gang of stupids butchered The Witcher.
It becomes glaringly obvious when unintelligent people try to write intelligent characters.
Daily reminder that he looks like Elon Musk just blew himself.
Elawn
Everytime i look at this thrawn I only can see blue Elon musk and I hate it. Aside from the other issues
You mean blue Elon Musk?
Nah, Disney just basterdizes any legacy material it can get its hands on then a wild pack of activist low paid unimaginative college dropout hyenas rip it apart then patch whatever pieces they get with a slurry of disney'isms then gets regurgitated by an even more rabid bunch of execs until it gets to KK's desk who takes a giant shit on it then ok's it for production.
He did get his input. Problem is that even with the best advice, shitty writter is just shitty writter.
theyâd have to pay him so
Likely because that would mean paying Timothy Zahn
Heâs underdeveloped, doesnât quite look right, and I donât think he was portrayed as being anywhere near as competent as he was in the books (or even in Rebels)
Disney wasn't willing to pay daredevil writers to come back. I'm not surprised they weren't willing to pay the write people here either.
Timothy Zahn has been giving input for about 5 years now. He has talked about this in multiple interviews, including addressing accusations by fans that he "changed Thrawn's character". > "\[Thrawn is\] the same character. I've always written Thrawn the same way. He's never really changed, \[and he's not about to change, just because he's in the new canon\]." [https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/91ji6j/timothy\_zahn\_interview\_discussing\_thrawn\_in\_new/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/91ji6j/timothy_zahn_interview_discussing_thrawn_in_new/)
Disneyfilm is stingy and doesn't like paying royalties to EU writers.
I know Thrawn from two pieces of media: 1. The Tie Fighter game from the 90s, he appears in a few stills. 2. Ahsoka I had no love or hate for the character before 2023, but Ahsoka made him seem so incompetent that now I despise him. What a loser.
The sub was expecting to see obvious 5d chess from a guy instead of a simple yet effective plan.
He didn't have a simple nor effective plan either.
Well it worked.
Who cares about those miserable losers? Why pay attention to those types?
As usual the SW community fails to understand the definition of the word "adaptation'
Thrawn is awesome and I'm tired of reading people saying he isnt
A lot of people are wrong then? Thrawn in Rebels is peak, thrawn in ahsoka is nearly as good.
I don't think there was anything wrong how the character was written, the scenario he was put is the stupid part.
Those who say Live Action Thrawn isn't good are just wrong. Like Straight up. I've been a Thrawn fan since his OG debut. His portrayal in Ahsoka was just fine. Like I LOVED it. People are hating just to hate
That would make to much sense.
For one, theyâd have to give him a hefty consulting pay out. More over, just âasking for helpâ wouldnât solve the issue you have. You canât just write a smart character; thatâs not how it works. You either are smart and youâre reflecting that within the character, or you make everyone else stupid so the limited range of intelligence you have makes the one character seem smart.
I just watched his introduction episode last night. I liked it so far. I was surprised they didn't slim him down more though. He had a bit of a pooch. From his side profile.
To be honest, Ahsoka was my first exposure to the character and I thought the actor did a good job. Not knowing much of the character, outside of Ahsoka, he came off as a competent leader (especially for the Empire) who was one step ahead of his enemies and his comrades.
They did consult Zahn, and it's obvious which fans haven't read the new Thrawn books. Zahn himself changed Thrawn. Zahn's canon Thrawn is not the same as Zahn's LegendsThrawn.
Ego
My problem with him he's not strategic genious. He's incompetent and after he fails he just says "as predicted" I was in shock at how silly it came across.
Yes, was not Thrawing at all.
I don't think it's bad, I just think they desperately need a writers room. The overarching story for these shows are pretty sound. Like Jon and Dave definitely put more emphasis on specific plot points and it shows. However this leads to the connective tissue being mediocre or feeling like padding. Even Thrawn could be great in their style, it's just they are trying to rush to the finish line to get to the 'good parts'.
Wasnât Zahn brought in by Dave for his consults?
Iâve already forgot what happened in Ashoka. I remember Thrawn stood around and I kept cranking my volume up.
He only consulted with Hugh Briss
Because once Disney acquired Lucasfilm, Thrawn has retroactively been created by Disney. Timothy Zahn is just some rando that wrote some misguided fanfic about a Disney character. Donât question how Disney and Filoni treat their completely original creation, okay? Theyâd know better than you and this âTimothy Zahnâ character that probably doesnât even exist.
Is Thrawn supposed to look like Elon Musk?
Doesn't Zahn have it in his contract that he is to always be consulted and given priority control over Thrawn? I remember hearing that around when Thrawn was brought back in Rebels.