joefavs

I’d rather watch the PT than, say, the Transformers movies. But I’d also rather watch Jupiter Ascending than the PT.

DominicCobb said:

Doesn’t make up for the fact that the rest of the score is mostly pretty boring, honestly.

I don’t think it’s any more boring than ROTS. A big part of what I’m considering for my ranking is the relative strength of the themes introduced in each film, and on those grounds Sith is absolutely the loser.

“Across the Stars” is more than enough to put it in front of ROTS and possibly RO.

I actually listened to the abridged audiobook of Outbound Flight in the run-up to Thrawn, because I never actually finished it the first time around and I ran out of time for a full reading. The abridged version cuts out almost all of the non-Thrawn/Car’das material, which eliminates a lot of the prequelisms. Really, though, more than any PT references, I found myself most fed up with C’baoth. I understand that the whole point of the character is that he’s a pompous ass, but god damn does it get tiresome to read.

The only real conflict between the two is that he learns to speak basic in both (though he knows a bit at the beginning of Thrawn, and he could plausibly be hiding a greater command of the language as a means of staying a step ahead of the Imperials who first encounter him). The new novel begins more than a decade after Outbound Flight, so it’s got enough distance that the two don’t really step on each other.

suspiciouscoffee said:

Without spoiling anything (I’m waiting for the paperback), could Thrawn fit with the original Thrawn Trilogy? I assume it wouldn’t outright contradict them, despite Canon statuses, but I guess it might.

I’m almost done with it and I can’t think of anything that conflicts with the old books. I don’t think it even directly contradicts Outbound Flight.

Catalyst has been one of my favorites so far. I was actually a little bit disappointed with Krennic’s role in the movie because he was so charismatic in the book.

I thought she only worked on TPM. I have no idea where I read that, though, so I might be totally wrong.

oojason said:

^ from https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/66plp5/just_sayin/

I didn’t realise the resemblance to Old Republic Jedi symbol - whether intentional, accidental, coincidental or just seeing things where there is nothing to see…

Well, the Old Republic Jedi symbol is actually in the trailer.

Any recent movement on this, or are things more or less the same as they were a couple months ago?

They never actually said Raddus was already en route, only that he had returned to his ship. I just figure it’s still in orbit around Yavin at that point, and that the droids shuttled over. Or maybe everyone regrouped at a rendezvous point before heading to the battle. Point is, Raddus’s ship shows up at Scarif at the exact same time as the rest of the fleet, so there’s definitely some opportunity for the droids to catch up.

Yeah, I’ve been seeing more and more cassettes lately, starting with a Purple Rain reissue right after Prince died. I get a kick out of making the occasional mixtape, but I can’t imagine actually buying anything on that format.

I must have been 6 when I first saw the OT, and while some of it kind of freaked me out (mostly the Tauntaun being sliced open and Luke losing his hand), I was so in love with the world of the movies that I didn’t get hung up on it. Really, when I think back on my own childhood, all of the stories I loved the most were a little bit scary.

I’ve recently been thinking myself about Star Trek while trying to figure out my relationship with the PT and other elements of Star Wars that aren’t my favorite. I only came to Trek in my late teens, so this might have more to do with the fact that I was never as invested in it as I was in Star Wars, but the stakes for any given Trek thing being good always seemed lower because there was always an understanding that there would eventually be more Trek. In the years between the PT and the Disney acquisition, when Lucas regularly insisted that there wouldn’t ever be any more Star Wars movies, I was really pissed off because it looked like they’d taken a thing that I loved, made it terrible, and blown it up, never to be brought back or continued. Now that we’re going to be getting new films indefinitely, though, pretty much all my negative feelings about the prequels have dissipated. Without that finality that ROTS once carried, they just seem to me like three subpar entries in an ongoing series that’s bound to have ups and downs, much like the Trek films and shows that I don’t care for.

lovelikewinter said:

They aren’t Starhawks, way too small. They look like gunships or transports of some kind. I’ve seen it speculated they are above D’Qar and are Resistance personal escaping a First Order attack.

You’re right, Leland Chee confirmed it on twitter. I must have confused a couple of things I saw on Reddit.

The Nebulon-B looking ships are apparently Starhawk-class battleships, which have appeared in the Afteemath trilogy but which I don’t think have been depicted visually until now. I’m expecting to see them soon in the Poe Dameron comic now that the cat’s out of the bag.

I’m pretty sure the credits thing is just something they haven’t bothered to change since 1997.

Yes, it’s in the collection called Star Wars: the Original Marvel Years, Vol. 1.

nickyd47 said:

Was that done under Disney or Lucas rule?

Both, I believe. The original version was collected in a Dark Horse omnibus that was put out shortly before the Disney deal, as well as a Marvel omnibus that came out shortly after. Disney also did another version with different colors and the original Jabba and Emperor replaced, essentially creating an SE of the original comic (as opposed to a comic of the SE, which is what the 1997 one is).

And to be absolutely clear, I never meant to say that I “only care about official canon”, nor that I agonize or worry over canonicity. What I did mean was that

A.) it seems to me that the term “canon” is pretty meaningless if it isn’t official, and

B.) I find it to be less of a headache to just roll with the official timeline and accept that the events of, say, AOTC “count” in the universe of whatever story I’m watching/reading/playing even if I don’t like the film than it would be to maintain some kind of byzantine ever-shifting mental hodgepodge of stories and story elements I’ve cherry-picked to avoid acknowledging anything I don’t care for. I’m simply not bothered enough by the stuff I dislike existing on the timeline to put the work into building and curating a private version.

I also feel like noting that back in the Legends days, I was bothered enough by the way the entire Empire was pretty much retconned into being Palpatine’s defense against the Vong, and I did develop my own version of what should and shouldn’t count. Nothing in the new canon so far has seemed deeply wrong in the way that did, so I’m still taking it as it comes.

EDIT: Also, this shit Alderaan is trying to sell about reacting positively to the ST somehow running counter to OT.com’s raison d’être is fucking preposterous, since this whole place was around years and years before the Disney buyout was a glint in Bob Iger’s eye. One has nothing to do with the other.

Alderaan said:

If you care about ‘canon’ of a fictional universe, you’re either a teenager, or I feel sad for you.

Don’t, I’m absolutely sure that I derive much more joy from Star Wars than you do.

Eh, I dunno. I think they devoted more time to sweeping landscape shots than they needed to. If you’re going to spend a third of the trailer lovingly running the camera over Skellig, at least go past where the Falcon is parked or something. The TFA teaser had a similar rhythm, but all of those early shots included enough signifiers from the SW universe to be more exciting (downed Star Destroyer, melted Vader helmet, Skywalker lightsaber).

“Canon” means official canon as far as I’m concerned. Of course, I tend not to revisit the stuff I didn’t like, but I’m not bothered enough by any of it to spend the mental energy on curating my own version of the timeline that no one else will share. If I didn’t like the new films I’d probably be singing a different song, but as it is I’m on board.

As far as Legends goes, I do tend to assign more value to the stuff that came out before NJO.

Have they ever actually announced a home video release at a Celebration? I know the streaming versions of the OT and PT weren’t, and neither were the initial TFA and R1 blu-rays. Was the 3D TFA with the commentary track and the extra features a Celebration reveal last year? I’m beginning to realize that this event has never really been the place for that.

DominicCobb said:

I get saying ROTS is worse than TPM, but worse than AOTC??

ROTS has everything I dislike about the other two, but more of it. Awful, awkward interactions between Anakin and Padme? Check. Yoda flipping around like a jackass and overdoing it with the backwards talk? Check. Comedy battle droids? Check. Major plot info delivered in scenes where two characters are just standing in a room doing nothing? Check. Add to that how badly they flubbed the Jedi purge and how thoroughly ridiculous Palpatine became in the second half, and I think you’ve got a solid case for it being the worst. It’s peak PT. All of Lucas’s worst impulses were firing on all cylinders.

Also, I kind of like the set piece with the creatures in the arena in AOTC, at least until the Jedi show up. I can’t come up with anything I can say that about in ROTS.