Vladius

The Lucas idea that crime bosses fill the power vacuum left by the empire is a really good one. I could take or leave everything else, but that would at least be a unique enemy that isn’t just more of the empire (though some stories with the imperial remnant are cool too,) and it makes a lot of logical sense.
I think some of that bled into The Mandalorian, at least in season 1. It starts with all frontier bounty hunting stuff because this is the aftermath of the empire’s defeat, though fragments of it are still there.

Thanks for the suggestions.
To keep going with my idea, I rewatched unedited Phantom Menace and then started watching unedited ROTS immediately after. There’s some huge whiplash but I really like it. The most jarring things are:

1. TPM’s mostly restrained aesthetic with lots of beige and mostly practical-looking stuff, three planets > ROTS everything brightly colored, complicated CG, many planets
2. child Anakin and young teen Padme > fully adult, lusty married Anakin and Padme who are hiding their marriage for some reason, Padme is a blossoming butterfly compared to how monotone she was as queen
3. There are clones
4. the Trade Federation guys are loose and they’re now part of a much bigger army that includes previously unseen characters Count Dooku and General Grievous
5. The humor is still cornball sometimes but after Jar Jar and the gungans, it feels like a deadly serious adult drama

However, 1 and 2 are just as jarring in AOTC, and Grievous doesn’t appear at all in AOTC either. I think it’s so much better to fill in the blanks yourself.
You can extrapolate how Anakin and Padme got together, and you wonder maybe if they’re just hiding their marriage because it would be scandalous, not necessarily because the Jedi are banned from marriage.
You can assume that Anakin did in fact go back to free his mom at some point but that she later got killed by sand people and he took revenge, because Palpatine alludes to it.
Anakin took C3PO with him and finished him, gave him to Padme.
Anakin and Obi Wan’s relationship is so much more natural without having seen them hate each other for a whole movie. Same with Anakin’s personality in general. He is much more sympathetic and his complaints seem much more legitimate. You can tell that he’s jealous of Obi Wan without him resenting Obi Wan himself, which is some nice subtlety.
The Jedi look a lot less bad, except for Windu, who looks worse since we just saw him try to keep Anakin from getting trained in the first place.
Palpatine being chancellor for a really long time also stands out more.
The Plagueis story reference to midichlorians works better right after midichlorians are explained in TPM. So does all the Chosen One stuff.

I’ll come up with more when I finish watching ROTS but overall I really like it. I think I was right that for a potential fan edit, the parts that would need fleshing out relate to the clone wars situation.

benroberts79 said:

I’m enjoying the show so far and personally enjoying the connection to Rebels, but I keep finding myself asking the question of where do these people go between now and the sequel trilogy?

I think it was mentioned earlier by someone else, but where’s Ashoka and Ezra in those movies. The takeaway from those was that Luke is the only one left and there is no other Jedi’s left and he’s the only hope.

Where as the Ashoka show implies that there is at least 3 other Jedi if you count Sabine. What becomes of them not to show up in the sequel trilogies.

Connecting all of this is what I’m most intrigued by and maybe we come to learn that through either this, The Mandolorian or the BoBF.

What’s very funny is that all of these problems also apply to these same characters being present during the original trilogy.

Peter Pan said:

Honestly, the battle droids and general evilness alone should be enough to connect the Separatists and the Trade Federation. Both organizations are hilariously generic in the sense that we learn practically nothing about their precise motivations. All that is given in the movies is that the Trade Federation doesn’t want to pay taxes because they are greedy, and the Separatists? Well, they are characterized by their dislike for the Republic and the Jedi. Based on the abundance of big companies present at Dooku’s meeting, we can infer that they share the same bland motivation as the Trade Federation, money.

So, I think the distinction between the two can be put in the crawl of ROTS, without losing anything.

Actually, the bigger question is why Dooku is on their team. His supposed motivation to leave the Jedi and the Republic is the corruption of the senate, but the first thing he does after leaving is founding the League of the Uber-corrupt, super-capitalist of the galaxy. It just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what greater good could justify this absurd action against his actual beliefs?

Yeah, visually it’s a no brainer. All the battle droids, droidekas, and neimodians are there from the start of ROTS. I just mean if I’m putting the episode 2 stuff at the end of TPM. When Palpatine says that he’s making an army to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists, it should be established that the Trade Federation is one of the groups of Separatists he’s talking about. They’re part of a trend. If anything I think it would make sense to put it in the crawl of TPM that the Federation is a Separatist group, and then reference it at least once or twice somewhere else.

For Dooku I won’t get into any detail. He’s just Sidious’s apprentice next in line after Maul. It’s a shame to leave out all the subtlety but as you said it’s not well put together anyway. His identity is tied too much to the AotC bonkers mystery plot and I’m trying to cut out 98% of that movie.

Luke!

One idea I had was to use Dooku and Sidious meeting at the end of AotC:

Phantom Menace ends, either with Qui Gon’s funeral or the giant peace ball. Possibly flip the order of the two somehow.

Dooku and Sidious meet mysteriously on Coruscant. The audience thinks oh crap, who’s this guy. Sidious had another backup apprentice all along and Maul getting killed didn’t end anything. Following right up from “Which was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?” Also Dooku was on some unspecified mission, and Sidious says everything is proceeding as planned, so clearly everything that happened was how he wanted it even though the Trade Federation was beaten. Very ominous.

Next we see Palpatine, obviously Sidious in case the audience didn’t get it before, announcing the creation of an army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists. Maybe include the part with Windu and Yoda up there like they saw this coming.

Shots of the clones on Kamino.

I think this is still missing some connective tissue putting the Trade Federation and Separatists together.

Peter Pan said:

How would you pull that off, and how would the structure benefit from that change?

I haven’t thought about it too much, but maybe show a shortened version of Ahsoka getting the map with no self-destructing droids, she takes it to the New Republic to entrust them with it, then they raid the ship and take it. There’s no footage of them taking it from there so it will have to be implied. I don’t know. But there is footage of Ahsoka having it on Home One I think.

Fan_edit_fan said:

Other than “memmber berries” I can’t see why this show would be exciting to the average viewer…or any fan who was wanting something that stands on its own. People are crying over Hayden showing up,.flashing into Vader or just SEEING Thrawn. What else is being highlighted? Where’s the story that had to be told? Fans are declaring it the best thing ever just because they saw Hayden in Clone Wars armor. THAT gets a 10/10??? Like…even if he didn’t say anything all that important or really serve a necessary purpose for being there…it automatically gets high praise?

I’ve been wondering this myself. I think there’s a few other things that give people the feeling of novelty:
*a bunch of lightsaber duels in live action, consistently
*white lightsabers and orange lightsabers
*some dark jedi that look cool and are mysterious in what they think (so far)
*going to another galaxy (even though it’s very similar to the normal one)
*weird looking gold tech
*focusing on the nightsisters a little more
*the main characters are mostly aliens (even though they’re basically human) and are much more brightly colored than most SW main characters
*there are a bunch of Jedi that apparently survived order 66 including Ahsoka and Baylan and we’re hearing slightly more about them
*Sabine is a Jedi who apparently can’t even use the Force
*cool looking zombie Thrawn troopers

All of this could be neat, it’s just executed poorly. But people don’t notice the execution, just the novelty. There’s always that thing now, “At least it did something different!”

Does Morgan Elsbeth get imprisoned by the New Republic during Mando S2? I’m pretty sure that just happens offscreen and all we see is Ahsoka asking about Thrawn, without seeing her answer either. Could we just say that she was always loose and Baylan and Shin are attacking the ship to steal the map?

I agree, the biggest stuff to remove is mostly at the beginning. Anything around the map being in the possession of our heroes is just silly and bad and takes too long. Especially Ahsoka giving it to Sabine, Sabine leaving without telling Ahsoka for no reason, going to her house to work on it because she needs “space,” and it getting taken by droids who conveniently leave one of their number behind, then Sabine getting stabbed with a lightsaber to no effect. Baylan and Shin on the New Republic ship should be started in medias res with them already on the ship, because the explanation of how they got there is really dumb.

Virtually every shot and line of dialogue should have at least 1-5 seconds cut. Also consider cutting some of the pointless fight scenes like Ahsoka getting out on the ship.

I keep coming back to my idea of deleting Attack of the Clones and just having a big timeskip between TPM and ROTS. It would get rid of everything I really don’t like in the prequels. TPM and ROTS are easily improved or even perfected with edits but AotC much less so. The 3-in-1 edits tend to cut everything from TPM except for duel of the fates, but I think that’s a mistake, and duel of the fates doesn’t really work as well out of context anyway.

For this to work, some of the material in AotC would need to be added to the end of TPM or at the beginning of ROTS. I favor the ending more.
This mainly includes the clone army, Palpatine announcing the creation of the army, and something establishing who the separatists are. The most essential, trickiest part would be making a strong connection between the Trade Federation and the Separatists, showing how the events with Naboo led directly to the creation of the clone army. The groundwork is already there because Palpatine got elected off the back of the Naboo events. When he says “as my first act with this new authority” he could be referring to just getting elected as chancellor, not necessarily because Jar Jar said he should have emergency powers. But even that moment would work better right after a whole movie of Jar Jar! (maybe) Visually, the Separatists are already an extension of the Trade Federation, so that’s not too big of a reach either. If there were some way to put Dooku somewhere in this, that would be great too.

This also gives a much longer timespan for the clone army to be grown. Maybe the war doesn’t fully start until they’re finished or almost finished.

Mocata said:

Well… they’re dumb. Like real people. Which means that this is all a very clever comment on bureaucracy and government oversight within the military industrial complex.

It’s not a good comparison because of what’s involved. As incompetent as the US and its intelligence agencies are, they are extremely paranoid when it comes to anything to do with extremism or separatism or a big enemy like Russia. If the Jedi are standing in for the FBI or something, if anything they would be overzealous in following leads and conducting sting operations to find treasonous behavior and enemy agents. They might take the free army or the missiles or whatever weapon it is (like the scientists from Operation Paperclip) but they would be absolutely sure of where they came from. They wouldn’t ignore that part.

If they were just dumb (which still wouldn’t be a good, satisfying story) there wouldn’t be so much dialogue about the dark side clouding everything and the Sith knowing the Jedi’s secret weakness.

lol that it came down to “somehow, Chewbacca returned”

I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to just consider anything you like canon and anything you don’t like noncanon.

Yeah I’ll never forgive what they did by making the TOR MMO instead of 3, and having Revan and the Exile go down like weak punks in a tie-in book. One of the biggest betrayals or mistakes in the EU other than maybe Jacen Solo becoming a Sith.

KOTOR 2 having a mysterious open ending is interesting in its own way anyway.

I also love how when you criticize the show people come out of the woodwork to tell you you don’t get it because you haven’t seen Clone Wars or Rebels. I have seen those shows. I like about half of Clone Wars and a quarter of Rebels. It doesn’t make this show any better either way.

Even if Clone Wars and Rebels were explicitly required viewing, which they’re not, they’re still doing those characters dirty. I don’t even like Ahsoka, Sabine, Ezra, or Hera, and I still think they’re not getting them right except for maybe Ezra.

I don’t get why people are saying “oh people are going to hate the turtle aliens for sure!” They are easily the least offensive, most normal thing in the show lol. I loved the porgs in TLJ too. I’m much more concerned with everything else going on.

The main issue I see with it is that if Anakin had a vision like that, he would stay as far away from somewhere like Mustafar as possible.

Darth Tremor said:

Vladius said:

Darth Tremor said:

Sideburns of BoShek said:

Darth Tremor said:

What is ironic is how The Rise of Skywalker was billed as “The End of Skywalker Saga” and ever since it’s the Skywalkers who get all the attention with Luke’s return in Mando S2 and BOBF and Anakin’s return in Kenobi and now Ahsoka.

The reality is the center of AGFFA is the Skywalker Family. Proof of that is no IP has been able to stand without Anakin/ Vader or a Skywalker.

I think this is why I enjoy Visions series, just fun Star Wars stories about anything and everywhere in the GFFA, that don’t really feature known or legacy characters. If we didn’t like one episode, there is always another. I wish there were more, and look forward to the 3rd season.

It could be why some of us are looking forward to Acolyte, and even Skeleton Crew? That it isn’t made or has input by Filoni or have that “Volume look”, and that is will be crafted by different talents, a different approach and look as well, I hope. Acolyte should definitely be free of the fan service or Skywalkers, and Mangold’s film too.

The Acolyte is on my watch list solely because I have wanted a treatment or story from the dark side or “larger view of the Force.”

I love Visions, and I agree they are refreshing in that they do not depend on any Major Legends characters or Legacy ones; in a way they go back to he fresh blank slate ANH gave us, when all was new and big reveals and secret bloodlines weren’t the focus.

I am crossing my kyber crystals that at some point Visions and The Acolyte will be the norm. New characters and points of view. That said I would be a liar if I said I have not enjoyed Hayden’s return as Anakin & Vader. He was the Tragic Hero I most connected with in the prequels, his duality and learning to accept it is something I aspire to; to come to terms with the Ashla and Bogan in myself.

It’s unclear what exactly all the dark Anakin stuff in Ahsoka means (if there is any meaning) but that’s not how the dark side works and you shouldn’t try to integrate it into yourself in real life.

Many interpretations believe it shows Anakin’s Spirit has accepted both light and dark sides of himself, that like The Father in Mortis, he keeps the Son (dark) and Daughter (light) in balance in himself.

I believe Dark Anakin / Mustafar Vader that Ahsoka battled was her working out her pain and trauma over His fall, and choosing to “live.”

I also add Jedi Lore that the last trial to become a Jedi Knight is to face the dark side. Anakin tells Ahsoka, “I am going to finish your training.” So Ahsoka had to face Lord Vader to become a Jedi Knight like Luke did in ROTJ, Kenobi faced Lord Maul in TPM to become a Jedi Knight, and etc. One has to face the dark side in themselves and without in a vision or fighting a Sith or Acolyte of Darkness in the flesh.

Of course embracing the dark side in real life is ill advised, unless you interpret “There is Only Passion,” (Sith Code) and “From Passion I gain Strength,” (Sith Code) to mean the definition of passion that is “ardent affection” (5a of Webster Dictionary) or sacrificial love as in the Passion of Christ. Most people use the definition of passion that is “uncontrolled emotion,” but there is also uncontrolled conviction in passion too, “he is passionate to end injustice.”

Anakin clearly turned away from the dark side at the end of ROTJ. That was the point. The interpretations that he was using the imagery to confront Ahsoka and scare her a little bit make a lot more sense, though the show itself doesn’t really say. I absolutely despise all the Mortis stuff and I think it did a lot of damage because it’s nonsense.

I agree with the Jedi trial idea but if we’re basing all of this on Clone Wars and Rebels, didn’t she fight Darth Maul, and then Darth Vader himself already?

I don’t interpret it that way. I think these are the worst ideas that people came up with over the years:
*the “light side” means no emotion and the dark side means all emotions
*“balance in the Force” means equal light and dark sides in the galaxy and so it always ends with the Jedi and Sith wiping each other out over and over and this is the Force’s fault (unironically agreeing with Kreia’s philosophy without questioning her at all)
*you’re supposed to be “balanced” in yourself by having equal light and dark sides and this just means having normal emotions instead of no emotions or too strong emotions
*there are “Gray Jedi”

The dark side is a perversion of nature. That’s why it tends to result in people becoming cyborgs or hideous pale monsters with yellow eyes. It backs the Empire and the destruction of the natural world. The Force and the Jedi already encompass the entire spectrum of normal emotions. The Force already has Yin and Yang in it or however you express that.

Darth Tremor said:

Sideburns of BoShek said:

Darth Tremor said:

What is ironic is how The Rise of Skywalker was billed as “The End of Skywalker Saga” and ever since it’s the Skywalkers who get all the attention with Luke’s return in Mando S2 and BOBF and Anakin’s return in Kenobi and now Ahsoka.

The reality is the center of AGFFA is the Skywalker Family. Proof of that is no IP has been able to stand without Anakin/ Vader or a Skywalker.

I think this is why I enjoy Visions series, just fun Star Wars stories about anything and everywhere in the GFFA, that don’t really feature known or legacy characters. If we didn’t like one episode, there is always another. I wish there were more, and look forward to the 3rd season.

It could be why some of us are looking forward to Acolyte, and even Skeleton Crew? That it isn’t made or has input by Filoni or have that “Volume look”, and that is will be crafted by different talents, a different approach and look as well, I hope. Acolyte should definitely be free of the fan service or Skywalkers, and Mangold’s film too.

The Acolyte is on my watch list solely because I have wanted a treatment or story from the dark side or “larger view of the Force.”

I love Visions, and I agree they are refreshing in that they do not depend on any Major Legends characters or Legacy ones; in a way they go back to he fresh blank slate ANH gave us, when all was new and big reveals and secret bloodlines weren’t the focus.

I am crossing my kyber crystals that at some point Visions and The Acolyte will be the norm. New characters and points of view. That said I would be a liar if I said I have not enjoyed Hayden’s return as Anakin & Vader. He was the Tragic Hero I most connected with in the prequels, his duality and learning to accept it is something I aspire to; to come to terms with the Ashla and Bogan in myself.

It’s unclear what exactly all the dark Anakin stuff in Ahsoka means (if there is any meaning) but that’s not how the dark side works and you shouldn’t try to integrate it into yourself in real life.

Spartacus01 said:

If the Force did not exist, the inhabitants of the Star Wars Galaxy would have experienced not even half of the wars they experienced through Galactic history. The Force is the real problem of the Star Wars Galaxy. The more I look at the Saga, and the more I realize that this is the case. If Kreia had managed to extinguish the Force and make everyone insensitive to the Force, then the Star Wars Galaxy would have been much better for the next millennia. Sure, some of my favorite characters would never have been born, but it would have been worth it

This is straight up wrong. Our own universe doesn’t have the Force and is full of cyclical violence and suffering. This idea comes from another false idea, the one that “balance in the Force” means equal power between “light side” and dark side, and that the Force is “self-correcting” when it’s imbalanced. This makes all the stories boring because they’re meaningless - anything that happens will just get undone.

Kreia was written as a wakeup call to indicate that this was the way that people were starting to interpret Star Wars, and that it was a problem. It wasn’t intended that she was right and that the setting should just continue that way. Her character is a hypocrite, a liar and a master manipulator. Everything she says is suspect.

The other issue is that we only see the big wars because the setting is Star Wars. There aren’t hundreds of movies, shows, video games, comics, etc. about the times when the setting is tranquil and happy with no conflicts. People think Jedi turn to the dark side constantly, so the Jedi rules clearly don’t work or are overly dogmatic, but it’s actually pretty unusual. Just going by the backstory of the Lucas movies, only 20 Jedi masters total including Dooku have left the order in its entire history of thousands of years. And that’s not turned to the dark side, just left. In Kreia’s time they experienced Exar Kun, Ulic Qel Droma, the Mandalorian Wars, then Malak and Revan one right after the other, so to them it would look very cyclical and inevitable even though it wasn’t.

SparkySywer said:

I liked the fight from TFA. The choreography and set(ting?) were really cool, and Kylo Ren beating his gunshot wound was awesome.

I agree with this. TFA is still a good movie, it’s just impossible to get invested in anymore because of what happens afterwards.

I just don’t trust the people making this stuff with those characters. I thought I might like Ahsoka or (recent) Mandalorian more because they’re not movie characters so there’s less to “ruin” but I still think they did them dirty. So I have even less faith that they’ll do something good with Thrawn, Mara Jade, Revan, Plagueis, or whoever. I don’t get it when fans hate the existing stuff coming out and then turn around and say, “Give us KOTOR! Give us Mara Jade!” etc. as though just having those characters technically in something makes it good.

Quality is quality. It’s been said a lot but Andor went with a completely original story with almost all new characters, and receives almost universal praise. Would I trust the people making that show with making a clone wars show? Yes. Would I trust them to make a cool show with Kyle Katarn in it? Yes. Another completely original concept? Yes.

But if you hand the same stuff over to the people that made and approved Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan show, Mandalorian season 3, then no. Dave Filoni, no.

DZ-330 said:

But it does have those characters… so your argument isn’t really valid. The slower story is a welcome change. Not everything needs to be a rush to finish line.

Put it another way - imagine this show didn’t have the Star Wars name on it or even just that you haven’t seen an episode of any of the animated shows. Imagine you didn’t know who prequel Anakin was or that Hayden Christensen coming back was some major event. Would you still like it? Why?

I don’t mean that the story is taking its time, I mean every single part of the story is filmed and edited in a way where it takes too long. Shot by shot, dialogue by dialogue. It’s not like it’s lingering on big vistas or striking imagery, it’s lingering on characters saying
“We need to do this.”
…
…
…
…
“Yeah.”
or the visual equivalent.

Fan_edit_fan said:

Vladius said:

Fan_edit_fan said:

Vladius said:

SWOTFAN25 said:

So far I love the show. The portrayal of Sabine is EXCELLENT!

Does anyone else get the sense that Ahsoka seems like one of the least interesting aspects of the show so far? Maybe it’s just because I feel like all of the other aspects shine so bright, but to be honest, I think Rosario Dawson’s portrayal seems a little dull compared to how we’ve seen Ahsoka in other series. Maybe that’s on purpose? This version of Ahsoka seems a bit more jaded after everything she’s been through. It seems like she has a lot of growing to do in terms of being a master and as a person. Maybe Sabine will bring back her more lively and youthful optimism? I hope so…

What do you guys think?

It’s the direction. For whatever reason, she’s being told to act like that.

Maybe…or maybe Rosario is doing her thing and Dave isn’t the kind of director to question her takes at this point. 🤷‍♂️. We don’t know for sure, but she is boring in her own show.

It’s certain because every character in the show is acting the same way. Everyone is rightfully singing the praises of Ray Stevenson but even he is clearly getting told not to show a lot of emotion.

Well, I mean it’s not “certain” because there is no quote or direct proof to the matter…merely fan conjecture. We do not know the behind the scenes of this show.

It’s just process of elimination. If someone is a skilled actor (ie. Rosario Dawson and Ray Stevenson) who knows how to show emotion, and they don’t do that, it’s because someone has told them that’s how their character is. The person who tells the actors what to do is the director.