Why I love the Thrawn Trilogy

[Captain Crimson]

Know what's ironic? Given how derivative of the past elements the DC is, I find it funny the most original content, TLJ, gets the most backlash and is the most fan-divisive. It's why they have no confidence in what they do.

[RobbyB1982]

The biggest advantage the Thrawn Trilogy (and the EU in general) had over the movie sequels is that it took place very shortly after the original trilogy. Because its just a few years later, you can show Han and Leia's relationship grow, you can do things like pair Luke up with Mara, (and have adventures with young spry Luke in general) you could deal with all those characters having kids and the slow darkside turns and aftermaths and new evil armiesbe gradual events.

But the movie sequels? They HAD to be set 40 years later because the actors had aged. So at that point you have to just broadly fill in the gaps of all the characters lives which leads to them having had very dull one note lives when not much happened. Leia kept commanding, han went back to smuggling, luke turned into Yoda. Han and Leia's kid had already been trained and gone bad. There was already a new evil empire fully formed. And all of them had just been holding those paths for years and years.

While you absolutely could have say, introduced Luke along with his wife Mara, and let future books re-fill that history, what do you do with that in the context of the film? DO you have her still with Luke? Why would he be at his current state if he had someone to actually help support him? Do you have him mention her in passing as this big part of his life the general audience never got to see? That's a copout too and they'd want more info on that. So its just sort of an unavoidable trap.

If the sequel movies had been made sooner, say the early 90's, or instead of the prequels, even as late 2005 instead of 2015, it would have made all the difference in the world as to what you could actually do with the characters.

[Nealithi]

So Thrawn and the trilogy there in. I like Thrawn for being an intelligent but not omniscient enemy. The chess master who raids on one world make shortages so his opponents have to send ships. He raids a friend of theirs and steals his tools. Then sneaks into a shipyard to steal their warships from them with the tools he stole from them. And when this was eventually stopped. He settled for withdraw because their only means of stopping him still crippled those ships.
Or visiting Talon Karrde and knowing he was lying about something to do with the flight across the jungle. So he leaves some troops. But he does not know the cover up was the existence of the jedi Luke Skywalker. Just there was a cover up so he under estimated things. IE he was a challenge to best. But he could be bested. And he still won. Some times big and sometimes small. It made him a threat and worthy of the efforts of our heroes.

[GreyICE]

So Thrawn and the trilogy there in. I like Thrawn for being an intelligent but not omniscient enemy. The chess master who raids on one world make shortages so his opponents have to send ships. He raids a friend of theirs and steals his tools. Then sneaks into a shipyard to steal their warships from them with the tools he stole from them. And when this was eventually stopped. He settled for withdraw because their only means of stopping him still crippled those ships.
Or visiting Talon Karrde and knowing he was lying about something to do with the flight across the jungle. So he leaves some troops. But he does not know the cover up was the existence of the jedi Luke Skywalker. Just there was a cover up so he under estimated things. IE he was a challenge to best. But he could be bested. And he still won. Some times big and sometimes small. It made him a threat and worthy of the efforts of our heroes.

As an aside, Thrawn's tactics here are one of my "RPG villain" models, and I took a lot of that from the trilogy. Assuming the protagonists are a credible threat and planning for their actions, without knowing their exact capacities gives them room to feel smart. Also adjusting the response for the next encounter makes them feel worried. It's a good way to raise tension for game masters who are wondering how to make less stereotypical BBEGs threatening. Seeing how Thrawn reacted gave me a lot of ideas, and for people wondering how to run that sort of game, it's great reading.

[Scififan]

Thrawn was a good villain because he was a good officer. He commended his men for doing a fostered loyalty around his followers. Vader only ruled by fear and getting his attention was never a good thing.

[Captain Crimson]

And yet we're seeing the same issues plaguing LF under the Disney management that affected the team working on VOY. Namely, that they don't know what to do with character, they don't have confidence in what they're doing, so they just bring back an older and beloved character - which seems to more often than not be at the discretion of the boss in charge, since it's been well-established by this point how DE and the TT are Mr. Filoni's pet stories.

It's what character feels arguably more shallow than it was in the PT. They're just there as an afterthought and to score woke points and call back to a time when they had more creative people pumping out tons of great stories. Thrawn has been overplayed, he's made to look like a jobber in a few cases that a further watering down of the mythos, and with rumors that he is set to come back in TM or some kind of spin-off as well as another trilogy of Thrawn books in the works, it's old. Please stop beating this dead horse. You give Thrawn so much attention, but not another overrated character such as Revan? How about all the older EU characters you've been ignoring since 2014, 2012, 2008?

It's just a Frankenstein's Monster in terms of corporate grafting to see what works, score points with the PC culture crowd, and make money. I hope the HR project will not have cameos galore. I also sincerely hope Revan doesn't make an appearance, at all. They would water that down, too. Mr. Filoni introduced time travel in Rebels, though, so it's very possible. I have to hope for the best, but all signs lead me to feel LF still hasn't learned their lessons.

[Riedquat]

Know what's ironic? Given how derivative of the past elements the DC is, I find it funny the most original content, TLJ, gets the most backlash and is the most fan-divisive. It's why they have no confidence in what they do.

You don't (or shouldn't) get any points for being "original" if you're just being different for the sake of it without knowing what to do with it - and without knowing when and where it's appropriate. Throwing a hammer throw a window is more original than hitting nails with it.

[Captain Crimson]

Know what's ironic? Given how derivative of the past elements the DC is, I find it funny the most original content, TLJ, gets the most backlash and is the most fan-divisive. It's why they have no confidence in what they do.

You don't (or shouldn't) get any points for being "original" if you're just being different for the sake of it without knowing what to do with it - and without knowing when and where it's appropriate. Throwing a hammer throw a window is more original than hitting nails with it.

I may have a more unique view than most of fandom, which are comprised mainly of TV and movies casuals. In that I think all the criticisms leveled against TLJ, had already happened years prior. It's just nobody noticed and no one cared.