Star Wars and the Comic Retcon

[MyUserName]

Oh, so were talking about Rebels now huh? Fair enough.

While i enjoyed Rebels to a certain extent, The show did run horribly hot and cold in a way that made me feel the writers felt they could get away with not really trying for most of its run, and they actually did. That final season was just, rushed, poorly plotted, and near the end the villains may have shown up to battles with kick me signs on their back. Especially Rukh. Did he ever win a single fight throughout his tenure on Rebels? You can't just tell us a character is menacing... you have to show him actually getting things done where most others cannot.

And about Ashoka's resurrection/getting plucked from the moment of her death... LAME! I'd rather she appear not sure how she survived, and to have it revealed through Vader reflecting privately on that fight that he spared her and pulled her out after knocking her unconscious. It would have gone back to the guilt he felt at her feelings of being abandoned by the order, and him, when she needed them and refusing to do it twice. But inventing a plot device that can't come up again just for the sake of bringing her back... I'll say it again. LAME!

As for Kanan... When i saw him standing on top of those fuel barrells, i was just hoping he wouldn't die from exploding barrell like a FPS NPC. I was hoping maybe Rukh would show up and kill him in a actual fight, showing us that he is indeed a force to be reckoned with. But nope, his death was just so lazy. Mace Windu went out with more dignity than Kanan did.

And then there is the finale. Could they have plot armored these characters any thicker? When the wolves attacked, a friend of mine mentioned it reminded him of the wolves attack sequence from Princess Mononoke. I replied after the scene that the peasents from that movie with flintlock weapons did better in the same scenario than Imperial stormtroopers with automatic blaster rifles. And Ezra gets the better of the Emperor, and Thrawn. Check. Please. It'd have been better of everyone except hera died in the finale, taking out certain enemies with them. I'm not opposed to the Rebels getting a victory, I'm opposed to a cheap victory where they steamroll over the enemies without any difficulty or sacrifice.

The thrill of the OT is that at most turns, the Empire seems unbeatable in direct combat. Zahn, in writing the Thrawn Trilogy, recognized that even with the destruction of the death star, logically there was nothing stopping the Imperial fleet from destroying the Rebel Fleet then and there. Zahn came up with the princible of Battle Meditation, and that the Emperor was motivating the fleet. upon his death, the shock of the loss of his motivation caused Imperials to lose the focus to fight effectively and had to retreat. Outside of that, the Rebels are often winning against the Empire through the barest of luck, or not at all. Even Rogue One got that right, that in a straight fight, the Rebellion has no chance and has to go for strategic victories, not military ones because they just don't have the military might to go head to head at that time. Thats where the finale of Rebels really went against everything that made the OT interesting and moving.

[Fixer]

While i enjoyed Rebels to a certain extent, The show did run horribly hot and cold in a way that made me feel the writers felt they could get away with not really trying for most of its run, and they actually did. That final season was just, rushed, poorly plotted, and near the end the villains may have shown up to battles with kick me signs on their back. Especially Rukh. Did he ever win a single fight throughout his tenure on Rebels? You can't just tell us a character is menacing... you have to show him actually getting things done where most others cannot.

And about Ashoka's resurrection/getting plucked from the moment of her death... LAME! I'd rather she appear not sure how she survived, and to have it revealed through Vader reflecting privately on that fight that he spared her and pulled her out after knocking her unconscious. It would have gone back to the guilt he felt at her feelings of being abandoned by the order, and him, when she needed them and refusing to do it twice. But inventing a plot device that can't come up again just for the sake of bringing her back... I'll say it again. LAME!

If I were to state what I feel the general fan consensus on Rebels was. Happy to have some of the EU legitimised with fan favourites such as Thrawn, the TIE Defender and the Hammerhead (or it's modern smaller variant). Love for every Vader and Ahsoka scene. Otherwise it didn't really contribute much.

While the Clone Wars feels like essential viewing if you want to understand the Prequel Era and see both its depth and potential, Rebels feels superfluous but entertaining.

No idea what they were thinking with helicopter lightsabers though.

[MyUserName]

[quote=MyUserName post_id=19607 time=<a href="tel:1528152505">1528152505</a> user_id=2163]
While i enjoyed Rebels to a certain extent, The show did run horribly hot and cold in a way that made me feel the writers felt they could get away with not really trying for most of its run, and they actually did. That final season was just, rushed, poorly plotted, and near the end the villains may have shown up to battles with kick me signs on their back. Especially Rukh. Did he ever win a single fight throughout his tenure on Rebels? You can't just tell us a character is menacing... you have to show him actually getting things done where most others cannot.

And about Ashoka's resurrection/getting plucked from the moment of her death... LAME! I'd rather she appear not sure how she survived, and to have it revealed through Vader reflecting privately on that fight that he spared her and pulled her out after knocking her unconscious. It would have gone back to the guilt he felt at her feelings of being abandoned by the order, and him, when she needed them and refusing to do it twice. But inventing a plot device that can't come up again just for the sake of bringing her back... I'll say it again. LAME!

If I were to state what I feel the general fan consensus on Rebels was. Happy to have some of the EU legitimised with fan favourites such as Thrawn, the TIE Defender and the Hammerhead (or it's modern smaller variant). Love for every Vader and Ahsoka scene. Otherwise it didn't really contribute much.

While the Clone Wars feels like essential viewing if you want to understand the Prequel Era and see both its depth and potential, Rebels feels superfluous but entertaining.

No idea what they were thinking with helicopter lightsabers though.
[/quote]

I never liked the idea of bringing Thrawn or the Defender into this series. The Empire had enough of an advantage over the Rebellion at this time. Thrawn was so brilliant and his strategies was so devestating when it was the Empire who was at a disadvantage. The Defender as it was noted in the EU, its design was finalized near the time of the Battle of Endor, had the Empire had the time and finances to mass produce them, the rebellion would have lost all its advantages in space dogfights and likely would have had to avoid dogfights altogether. Bringing both these game breakers into Rebels SEEMED like a cool bit of fan service, but as in Rukh's case, the only way for the Rebellion to have survived beyond the series would be for both these elements to be nerfed of all their former glory.

It's very similar to how Voyager introduced the Borg and then, to keep the series humming along, had to Nerf them otherwise the show would have ended quickly and darkly, which pleased VERY few people.

I appreciated the intent of the Fan Service, but hated seeing the defender and Thrawn Shadow's of their former selves.

[Winter]

I do like how Rebels explored the Force and added more to the mythical side of things while still keeping true to the core ideas of it. The Bendu, the time travel idea, and just how terrifying those like Vader and Ahsoka are from the view point of their adversaries. One of my issues with the resent films is that Force is more of a plot device then anything else and is really just there to do whatever the writers needed it to be. Yes the Force has always been a plot device but in the resent films that's pretty much all it is and the rules have been upended so now if you have the Force if you are the path of the light it requires no real work on your part and if you are the side of the Dark it takes dedication and hard work to achieve what you want.

With Rebels the rules are the same as they are in the George Lucas Era, the Light is the way of discipline and hard work while the Dark Side is quicker and easier. One thing that's often over looked when the discussion of Luke's training comes in, that he became a Master in a very short amount of time, it still took him 5 to 6 years in universe to get to that point and he was still not as good as he thought he was as he couldn't resist the Dark Side when extreme under pressure.

Same thing with Ezra, he became quite powerful but the series did a good job at making you wonder if he could fall to the Dark Side. With Rey, in the movies proper does anyone really think she is ever going to fall to the Dark Side, like even for a second? With Mara it was a debate whether she was going to be able to redeem herself and join Luke and break from Palpatine altogether and would she ever be as strong without her master directing her?

I'm not saying this in order to start another debate on the politics of the series but rather to show why I feel one was done better then the other. In the grand scheme of things I do think that The Clone Wars was the stronger of the two and when anyone talks about the Star Wars animated series both Clone Wars 2D and 3D series are likely the one everyone is going to be talking about while Rebels will be seen as a interesting continuation of it.

On a side note I think the original plan for Rebels was that the Ghost Crew were going to be the ones who stole the Death Star plans and that would have been the series finally instead of Rouge One. Just a thought more then anything else.

[Fianna]

I'll repeat what others have said: you don't need a reboot; you can just set movies a hundred years or more in the future, and only reference the events of previous movies vaguely as legend or history.

Honestly, I think that's what Disney should have done in the first place. Keep C3PO and R2D2 around, and have Luke and maybe Yoda show up as Force ghosts, but beyond that don't force in any characters from the Original or Prequel Trilogies, so people can imagine the happy ending for them that they want.