Humby

oojason said:

Episode 4 was probably my favourite episode yet. Pleasing to see both plot and character progression, yet was its own little adventure in itself… with some welcome world-building (of sorts)… and still the overall story pulls me in more with passing week.

Kudos to the young actors in this once again.

Funny I have like the exact opposite opinion of Episode 4 but I’m still loving the show. I just found the main plot far more interesting than that children-at-war subplot. It just felt too glossed over and simplified for such an intense topic. I get that it was intended more as a vehicle for Neel’s character development (and that this is a kids show) but I was hoping for more context and weight and maybe even relevance from that whole sequence, but it never really came. And as quickly as it started, we’re back to the main plot and heading up the tower. I think Neel’s character development could have been easily written into one of the two subsequent episodes while At-Achrann just becomes a dead planet and the arrival and tower sequences gets pushed back to the ending of the previous episode. Hmm, I’m getting ideas… maybe I’ll have to attempt an edit.

The cast is all great, the plot is keeping me invested, its fun, and it offers a different glimpse into the GFFA. This show goes right up there with Mando S1-2 and Andor for me.

This Rotta the Hutt stuff really worries my that we’re going to end up getting a scene where Ahsoka shows up (if not in this movie, then further down the line) and solves some disagreement by reminding him that she saved him as a baby.

Rebel Scummm said:

Hello. Any news on this wonderful project?

Every time I see this thread get upped a small part of me gets super excited as though “IT’s FINALLY OUT!!!”

But nope, no updates on any of his socials in a while I believe. A comment (maybe on reddit?) that he’s still working on it from a few months ago.

He seems like a good-faith fan editor, and he’s been pretty honest about his progress & delays. I’d bet, at this point, that he’s just planning on waiting a few months for holiday season. Until another update, I’m crossing my fingers for sometime in December.

Not to mention humans have been around on earth for nearly 200 millennia and we didn’t even crack the bronze age until about 5 millennia ago.

Would love a link when possible, pumped to watch!

Channel72 said:

I’ve seen lots of people online complaining about the supernatural conception of Mae/Osha via the Force, because they feel it detracts from the uniqueness of Anakin’s story.

I guess this is another symptom of the widespread “reevaluation” of the Prequels online over the past 10 years. But from my perspective, the whole virgin birth and “Chosen One” aspect of Anakin’s story was a completely stupid idea in the first place, so I really don’t care if some later story messes with it. Maybe the Acolyte writers will actually do something interesting with the concept, but I doubt it. The whole concept is just dumb.

Preach brother, I’ve been of the same opinion on that since TPM came out, and I was only 11 at the time haha. Turning the Jedi into a messianic state affiliated religion and making Anakin into the chosen one was easily one of the least interesting story choices in the prequels (at least how it was written), and ironically, it’s also almost entirely inconsequential to Anakin’s character development. The Osha/Mae thing doesn’t bother me at all, and frankly, anything that makes Anakin less special is IMO actually an improvement in the lore. But anyways, yeah, fingers crossed they do something interesting with it in this show.

Caston said:

Why Ahsoka Lost Nearly 40% Of Its Viewers From Debut To Finale - a 16 minute YouTube video by John Campea

(I’ve no idea who he is, but he seems fair and reasoned, with some good points made in this video)

I find Campea to be a tad annoying and a bit of a know-it-all, but truthfully I tend to agree with a lot of his takes. This a good analysis by him.

Overall, thumbs-up, but not enthusiastically. Feels at least as good as Mando S2, but below Mando S1 and Andor.

My only complaints acting wise are, (ironically) Ahsoka herself, and Hera. I don’t even know if it is the acting so much as the unnatural and stilted dialogue they have. Could even be the heavy make-up and prosthetics affecting either their performance or my perception of it. None of it is bad enough to take me out of the experience though. I also hope we get a little more of a human personality out of Ahsoka- the stoic pondering thing she’s got going on gets old fast. I felt virtually everyone else was on point, especially the villains. Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised with how Sabine turned out, dialogue and performance-wise.

All my other complaints are small potatoes, but there’s more of them than I would’ve preferred. A handful of moments of convenient plot, poor character choices, and dumb in-world logic, but nothing stood out as blatantly egregious- at least not on first watch (except the stab, facepalm iykyk). There are some overly indulgent slow scenes that go on for a little too long, some wonky action and vfx, but none of it is earth shattering. And the overall look and design of the visuals feels much more stylized and thematic (much like Rebels) than anything else from the Mandoverse, which is something I appreciate. Though sometimes it does come across as a little too clean and sterile.

These first 2 episodes had a lot of work to do get audiences up to speed with all of the characters and plot lines (new and old), and it is not very elegantly done, but it suffices. By the end of episode 2, my wife essentially said “I don’t understand how all the background stuff fits together, but I get what the goal is and I’m invested in the characters.” She knows ‘of’ Rebels and Clone Wars, but she’s only interested in & familiar with the live action stuff. I didn’t fill her in on anything so I think she made a good test subject. Lastly, the opening crawl was unnecessary and overly complicated for her. She said it made her feel like she was expected to know the backstory and how everything fits together, but followed that by saying the show itself did a well enough job of establishing that through context and just jumping into the plot.

Looking forward to more, cautiously optimistic for what the potential is here once the plot really starts to get going.

Tobar said:

The text in the trailer can be looked at in two ways. First, it can be seen as lazy marketing. Or second, they’re descriptors of things she’s been throughout her life. For example, the war is already over so she’s no longer a Rebel either.

I would say less that it’s lazy and more so just targeting the general audience. To the GA, lightsaber + force = jedi (or evil jedi).

But man, this trailer has a vibe about it that just perfectly captures the tone of the video games and old EU of the 90s and I am totally here for it. Fingers crossed it doesn’t drop the ball like Boba/Obi-wan/MandoS3 did.

Superweapon VII said:

Darth Tremor said:

The issue is Ahsoka. I like her, but Vader’s line, “when I left you I was a learner, now I am the Master,” indicates Vader was never a Jedi Master as Anakin.

Or a full knight for that matter. Just another bit of OT continuity Lucas either forgot or ignored when writing the prequels.

I’ve always been of the mindset that we fans can often take dialogue too literally. This is a case of that for me. After 20 years of experience, a medical doctor would certainly acknowledge that they were still a learner in their first few years out of med school, even though they may still hold the same title. The line is just meant to establish the dynamic of the characters in the scene, it’s not meant to be expository.

To make the case for this particular topic, you’d be better off using Obi-Wan’s line to Luke that Vader “was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil.” Because that IS meant to be expository. But for me personally, even that is vague enough to allow for some wiggle room, as many young (and even older) professionals in the real world have pupil/mentor relationships with others in their field who simply have more experience.

I think we often need to give character dialogue the freedom of having been generalized, abbreviated, obfuscated, etc… because that’s just how humans communicate. We use shorthand, we leave out unnecessary details, we avoid painful discussions. And it doesn’t always paint an accurate picture of our experiences. Just my 2 cents.

Juno Eclipse said:

If they are going to do Heir Of The Empire, or a riff of it, as part of this “climactic story event” I really hope they don’t bring back Luke, Leia and Han for it. Be it through Deepfakes, CGI, a mixture of both, or a recasting.

I would imagine that this will be a weird conglomeration of legends and canon material with the original characters being sidelined to focus more on the Filoni & Favreau characters. I think at most they will make cameo appearances, but it will likely be through deepfake and/or de-aging. Once Ahsoka is out we’ll be in much better place to speculate whether or not this will actually be an Heir to the Empire adaptation - but I definitely hope it will be to some degree.

Fullmetaled said:

Are the childish moments being removed like lines like bantha poodoo and other similar scenes making it less prequel like?

I guess it’s a silly sounding word, but it’s subtitled as fodder, and considering it’s being used by a gangster in the context of “we’re gonna feed you to the fishes” it never really came off as childish to me. Even in Phantom Menace it’s only used, what… twice maybe? It only really sounds childish to me when it’s used as a curse word because it’s hard to escape the poodoo -> poo -> sh|t connection. And since it means fodder, using it as a curse word doesn’t even make sense. Am I putting too much thought into this? hahaha

Anyways, when it’s being used as a threat, it works for me, even if some people think the word sounds childish. So I think it should definitely stay in ROTJ.

But when it’s being used as a curse, it doesn’t work for me. So, unrelated this is thread, I would cut out the scene of Sebulba shouting poodoo after he crashes in TPM.

Mocata said:

So this guy was a mega genius and the dumbest idiot in the galaxy… and it took that long for them to reveal what everyone will have seen coming. Great stuff. Why was this not a five minute scene and why should we care about the troubled conscience of a tertiary character?

I thought the previous cliffhanger was leading to a good second half of THAT journey but no. I thought there would be some trouble with the magic water, or some delay, or … something. Instead it was an artificial ‘to be continued’ which suggests the episode ending and starting points are totally arbitrary, or have been played around with so that people aren’t bored.

This episode should have been spliced up (and shortened slightly) and used as a B-plot for episode 1 & 2. Those episodes had wonky pacing, and this stuff would have given those events some room to breathe.

rocknroll41 said:

So with the leaks that Ashoka and Skeleton Crew take place in what might be a new galaxy with more “magical” force-users, etc… What do we think this means for the film side of things?

The rumor claims that force users in this new space are more like magic wielders, and that we may have seen some of their species before. I think the original source frames ‘magic’ as a red herring, hinting at the night sisters, but I think it would actually make sense that this is where Yoda’s species comes from, and ultimately ties back into Mando returning Grogu to his (literal) kind later down the line.

Would love a link! Intrigued by and looking forward to seeing the inclusion of the fan films. Thanks!

I’m really curious what the deal is with character ages in this series.

Katie Sackoff is 40 and Pedro Pascal is 45. Bo-Katan seemed to be at least in her 20’s during the clone wars, meanwhile Din looked like he was barely 10 in his flashback (though I guess they haven’t confirmed when that took place). They probably could have aged her up a bit with make-up and some grey hair mixed in. Not a big issue for me personally, but it’s kind of funny to compare and contrast how characters in the Star Wars Universe age.

jonh said:

I don’t know if it has been discussed … but suddenly an idea occurred to me …
and if king, instead of palpatine’s granddaughter, is a being created by palpatine with the dark side (like the legend of darth plegueis).

the way to fix it, would be a voice impersonator of kylo ren, eliminating the granddaughter’s, and adding new lines.

even if we had a palpatine impersonator too hahaha, we could add lines at the end of the movie, in exegol, like these:

First I created Anakin skywalker, but his body burned, then I tried with his son, but his father killed me.

And then, I created you … to possess your body, and be eternal

I know, it’s crazy hahaha

Some version of this has been in my head for a while also. It solves so many problems and can probably be done with light trimming and a bit of dialogue replacement (Kylo is doable as this forum has proven, and there’s a decent amount of very good Palpatine impersonators out there). Rey essentially becomes Anakin 2.0, thus eliminating Rey Palpatine, drawing a more concrete connection to the prequels, and giving more meaning to Rey taking the Skywalker name at the end. It could also add some subtext to the force dyad, as both Rey and Kylo have that origin in their blood (albeit two generations removed for Kylo). Lastly, I think it is a good change that makes you re-examine Palpatine’s motives in the prequels. He created Anakin so that eventually Anakin would turn his blade on him and Palpatine could transfer his soul into Anakin’s body. But when Anakin became disfigured, Palps had to put his plans on hold, eventually hoping Luke will take his place. We all know how that worked out. After his defeat at the hands of Vader, he regroups and eventually creates Rey- the child of an ill-fated woman on a backwater desert planet.

thebluefrog said:

There may be a way to do an edit that shaves off all the extra pointless characters and mixes TLJ and ROS into a more coherent storyline.

I was actually thinking of a ST edit that removes Snoke! Well - almost. It would trim him down to just a few lines speaking only in Kylo Ren’s head. All appearances and references to him by name be cut. The First Order has no supreme leader, they are just Imperial remnant. Kylo Ren joined the First Order on his own accord and with his obsession with Vader in mind (who’s voice also speaks to him a few times).

Kylo communing with disembodied voices will kind of evolve from film to film- in TFA Kylo Ren will be guided by the mystery voice of Snoke, taunting him about not being as good as Vader. In TLJ, Kylo will still be communing with Snoke, but he will also begin to hear from the voice of Vader a few times, which sends him off to Mustafar in the end (but we don’t go there until the beginning of TROS). Then in TROS he learn the truth that it was Palpatine all along.

Obviously there would be plenty of logistical issues, for example the entire Throne Room scene from TLJ is gone automatically, Rey leaves Luke and then immediately lands on Crait to rescue the team. Those are some pretty important beats in the flow of that movie, so there would be a lot of collateral damage that would need mending.

But overall I think a big change like this, which would force plenty of smaller changes and cuts, could really help to clean up the story without asking the audience to roll their eyes any more than they already are with the official releases.

NeverarGreat said:

I don’t buy for a second the argument that the movie was dealt a shit hand from which to build from.

Agreed. The only bad hand they were dealt was the loss of Carrie, and no matter how they handled it, that was pretty much always going to be the most forgivable component of the film. Everything else feels like it was picked piece by piece out of a random Star Wars plot generator. I don’t hate it, but it’s definitely disappointing to think about what could have been- not just for the TROS but for the sequels as a whole.

My dream for the end of this movie would be to include a brown robed Ben Solo walking off of the falcon and out away from the Lars homestead, seeking isolation. Shortly after, when Rey looks off and sees the ghost twins, you first see Ben Solo walking away in the distance before they fade in before her. Obviously that would also mean cutting his death from earlier on.

Oh, and following it up with the shot of the falcon jumping to hyperspace. The work on that is excellent!

AbramPT said:

I was going over the most recent draft of the crawl, and while it’s very good, I have just one suggestion.

Original:
“A shadow has consumed the galaxy. To suffocate the spark of rebellion, the First Order has scattered and isolated those with the bravery to face the darkness.”

Grammatically, it feels a little weird starting a sentence with “to”. I think a brief edit to something like “The First Order has scattered and isolated those with the bravery to face the darkness in an attempt to suffocate the spark of rebellion” OR “In an attempt to suffocate the spark of rebellion, the First Order… Etc.”

Something like that. I hope I’m not being too nitpicky!

I agree, I think starting the sentence with “To” seems a bit off.

I have a nitpick of my own, but its more just a personal preference. Does anybody else feel like the sequel content really beat us over the head with the spark/flame metaphor? Similar to how Rogue One and modern OT-era content seems throw the word “hope” around with reckless abandon. Personally, I appreciate those types of metaphors more in smaller doses. I would love to see that particular line swapped to something like “In order to prevent an uprising, the First order has scattered…” But maybe that’s just me.

I am genuinely curious if anybody else feels the same way about the use of spark/flame/hope stuff though? Cool beans.

RogueLeader said:

I think I have to agree that showing an amalgamation would only be confusing if we have never seen him that way.

…

Alternatively, if you tried to depict a Hayden-Shaw amalgamation, or a very old Hayden, I think it would work better to change Shaw’s appearance in ROTJ to establish that look and for it to be not be confusing.

It might be difficult to craft the right amalgamation, but I think there is probably a perfect middle ground between an aged up Hayden (similar to Sade’s example) and whatever sources we can find for an age appropriate Shaw. I don’t think it would be confusing as long as it looks sufficiently similar to Hayden for the audience, and sufficiently similar to unmasked Shaw to provide visual consistency from Luke’s perspective.

I think I’m going to try and start looking for some high quality Sebastian Shaw sources to pull from and see if I can mock something up myself. Man do I love this forum.

Jonh, these are simply amazing. Both 2 & 3 are exceptional and I’d be happy to see either/or (or perhaps one in close up, the other in the wide shot) in your final version. Keep up the good work!

idir_hh said:

In the early leaks she said that she sensed the birth of her son and so she wanted to give up the jedi path because of that (which follows logically) and goes hand in hand with the EU. In this version its pretty contrived and convoluted since Ben does die and even worse he was a student of the darkside, so her leaving the jedi path because of sensing his death is self defeating and just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Fair enough. To me it says that force premonitions are, in a way, unavoidable outcomes. Anakin tried to gain more power to overcome his premonitions, where as Leia gave up her power to try and avoid hers. Both resulted in the inevitable outcomes, but Leia’s more selfless path allowed her to die in peace and save her sons soul.

idir_hh said:

"Leia told me that she sensed the death of her son at the end of her Jedi path, she surrendered her saber to me and said that one day, it will be picked up again by someone who will finish her journey "

JJ
This. Makes. No. Sense.

Eh, I don’t mind it all that much. Obviously we don’t necessarily know what Leia’s ultimate journey could have been, but at least somebody did end up picking up her saber again to defeat the dark side. Mainly, I just appreciate that the theme of this little expository blip counters Anakin’s mindset in Ep3.