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I never watched the Clone Wars or Rebels. Animation style didn't appeal to me.
Would the Jedi have stood by if the Clones collectively said fuck this and walked off the job?
Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off
- Thread starter CowReserach Inc.
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I never watched the Clone Wars or Rebels. Animation style didn't appeal to me.
Would the Jedi have stood by if the Clones collectively said fuck this and walked off the job?
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- Dec 12, 2018
What would they have done, made them stay? It would be like ten thousand monks vs. millions of clones.
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Is anyone on this thread keeping track of every announcement they've made? It hasn't even been two months since they announced the Female Led Star Wars series on Disney Plus, and with the announcement of the Lando series erupting, I almost forgot they announced that.
Dark Empire was not some out-of-the-blue project that Zahn had to race to accommodate in his books...it had been in development since before he was even commissioned to write his trilogy of books. And despite the fact that Tom Veitch did all kinds of last minute changes to accommodate Zahn's books for the sake of maintaining continuity--including references to Thrawn and the Solo Children--Zahn himself refused to make any accommodations like the egotistical pre-Madonna that he is, and refused to make any ties to Dark Empire in his books, both in 1991 and in 1998 with his Hand Of Thrawn books...and, if anything, used the latter as an opportunity to voice his criticisms of the Dark Empire story arc. So instead of him reconciling Mara's lack of involvement in Dark Empire, the fucking sourcebook authors at West End Games had to scramble to address what Mara was up to during the event in their Dark Empire Sourcebook.
It doesn't matter if Zahn didn't like the idea of Palpatine returning, every other piece of continuity from the Jedi Academy Trilogy to the Rogue Squadron games was making explicit references to it as a major event in the continuity that needed acknowledging, and no one involved in those used them as podiums to take pot-shots at story elements they didn't like. Michael Stackpole was not a fan of the alien invasion idea for New Jedi Order, but you never saw him voicing it in any of his work, because he's a professional.
If there are any discrepancies with Mara hand-waving the events in Dark Empire, it's because of Zahn's infamous refusal to collaborate and accommodate other writers, not any continuity flub that forced him into a corner. That is absolute bullshit, and a smoke-screen to deflect criticism on the man simply because he had a hand in creating some beloved characters.
Plenty of people think his Hand saga was not as good as his earlier books, and that the Clone Fake Thrawn was a hacky and stupid idea. Ironic that the man so against the supposed weak-sauce tease of Palpatine reviving his consciousness through clones had no problem leading readers on with the mirage of Thrawn being back, only to cop out and say it was only a clone.
For whatever faults she may have, Traviss didn't outright sabotage continuity and use her books as a platform to put other writers on blast. Whatever petty nonsense she gets into with fans or with Lucasfilm outside of her books is one thing. But when all of these EU works are revisited today, by newcomers like myself, the thing that stands out is the quality of the stories and their consistency with each other. And the petty jabs at Dark Empire from out of a character's mouth is not only jarring, but has caused Vision of the Future--a book that wasn't all that great to begin with--to remain a continuity-defying example of an author's inability to put his ego aside and preserve the integrity of the setting he was working on.
That shit is far worse than some autistic blog posts on Traviss' website, because it's something that directly affects the actual story, and will age like rot in the EU forever, a permanent stain of an author's lack of professionalism.
Can't blame him for having good taste in alien poon tang.
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- May 13, 2020
Ik he is, my issue with Filoni version of Grievous is:
- Having his signature cough too early like Anakin scar.
- He too underpowered to the dirt
- Not taken very seriously, the only villain who act like a joke.
- Get shamed on and humiliated for no reason.
- Not allowed to win a single duel only because according to Filoni he doesn't have the Force because he willing to play dirty but I guess it make sense for Pre Vizsla to hold his own in a lightsaber fight, Kenobi and Vos have a hard time dealing with Cad Bane. I have no issue with Bane or Vizsla but fans act like Vizsla is stronger than Grievous only because he hold his own.
- I'm fine with him matching his ROTS but they overdid the retreat from a fight.
- Lair of Grievous still my favorite episode, I wish they didn't kill off his pet Gor, could've just injured him instead, idk why can't he have at least 9 or 10 lightsaber (duplicate) collection in the background but instead they just gave him one lightsaber to be seen and also I don't get why Grievous get tested for his failure but not Ventress for her failure?
The thing I'll accept in the Filoni (shitty) Wars are the good episode he appear in like Lair of Grievous, Grievous Intrigue, Massacre, Utapau Arc, his fight with Ventress, Nahdar Vebb with Kit Fisto, Fisto alone should've been a little longer duel to prove how skillful he is or prove that he can last long in a duel (for fans who think he can't) instead of being short, I love seeing his ability he does on-screen like choking a Clone with his claw, sending a powerful kick to Adi Gallia, Kenobi and Grievous grabbing Ahsoka with his claw then start slamming her. To me I think Grievous can still kick these newbie ass like Savage Opress using his sloppiness, Pre Vizsla too easily and Pong Krell while he taping to his dark side that won't save him.
I said this before I'll say it again.
My issue with the episode Shadow Warrior is that it make no sense for him to lose that quickly to the Gungan, they let Pong Krell destroyed/kill many Clone so why not Grievous to the Gungan, sure they're not Jar Jar they are Gungan warrior but Grievous a warrior too it like in the episode Lair of Grievous when Fisto discovered the lair and found out that Grievous was once a proud warrior after year later creating the Gungan episode I guess Filoni already forgot about that part. but they could've at least made Grievous destroyed 15 Gungans before getting captured by Tarpals that would've made it less humiliated for him it like how fans said that Krell captured is more respectful than getting captured by a Gungan.
My ideas is a novel book for Grievous to help his character like more about him being a feared warlord and him cause fear throughout the Republic. I also would like to see a little Retcon that can probably still fit in like Shadow Warrior him destroying more Gungans and Massacre but with the same ending, including rementioned all his accomplished like Battle of Hypori (first mentioned in Catalyst A Rogue One Novel) along with all the Jedi he killed.
but at least some writer take Grievous very seriously like Kanan: Last Padawan and Son of Dathomir even book writer were able to sneak in some reference in a Canon book that surprisingly went unnoticed in the community. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if we see more badass Grievous in the future.
unlike the cowboy hero Filoni.
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But its not, because as I've established, the definition of slavery requires unwillingness. Bloodlines is Traviss work, so it doesn't count. However, we have other instances, better written instances, where the clones have choices and demonstrate free will.
The morality of the Jedi agreeing to fight alongside a clone army that was created for that purpose is not clear to me. It raises two questions. 1. The clones are living creatures created to fight. Is that not a devaluation of them as beings? This leads to 2. 2. What alternative do you propose?
She would have been better creating her own universe of vikings in space, because in order to make her vision work you have to twist the other parts to fit around it.
Don't know, seems like it would have been a more interesting idea to play out than just having the Jedi sit there and be berated.
Okay, first, no bullshit. Its something he regularly has done. He inserted battle meditation to explain Endor.
He's collaborated with Stackpole and other writers so you are wrong there. There are pieces he's co-written with others.
Never met one until now. I certainly don't think its the same thing and he didn't bring that clone of Thrawn. Thrawn stayed down and was impersonated by a con man...
Okay. Are you putting Traviss' Star Wars books as better than Timothy mutherfuckin' Zahn?
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- Dec 12, 2018
It wasn't a clone, it was a performance artist. Mara and Luke find the clone at the end and he's still in the Spaarti cylinder, not ready. He never even matures because he's destroyed when the base floods at the end.
What? Vision of the Future references a ton of EU material. Corran Horn appears prominently, and he was created by Stackpole for the X-wing series. It's news to me that Vision of the Future is considered to be weak, too, because aside from the fact that the series could probably have used a third novel (despite how much of a door-stopper Vision of the Future is) because Luke and Mara's romance feels a bit abrupt, it's my favorite Zahn novel, far and away. My friends from back in the day loved it too. It is incredibly obvious that Zahn wasn't a big fan of Dark Empire, but he still incorporated its plot elements by having Luke be enthralled in the dark side for almost all of the duology as a result of it, and Mara has to break him out.
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The three unknown Star Wars movies have been delayed to a year because of COVID-19 spikes.
vern
kiwifarms.net
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Do you any sources on Zahn being a pain in the ass to work with because with Filoni there's a fair bit out there about him interfering with some episodes of the CW and not letting anyone touch his OCs.
Also I've been under the assumption that the EU wasn't always as interconnected as it got to be during the late 90s and early 2000s. Maybe some older fans can better elaborate but wasn't it until after the Trawn trilogy and Dark Empire that The EU started to expand and tie in with other works (I know there was a short dark period EU wise before those two titles where released but I'm really not familiar with that period).
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- Dec 17, 2019
The fact that Zahn establishes new in-universe rules and material to retcon elements isn't what's in dispute here. You were trying to make the claim that Zahn was forced to reconcile with the events of Dark Empire because he had no other choice, as if he was pushed into a corner by Tom Veitch's unwillingness anything, when if anything the opposite is true. When Dark Empire and Heir to the Empire were being produced simultaneously...the former having been in the development stages longer than the latter...Veitch made changes to accomodate for Zahn's books. Zahn has very publicly stated that he wasn't willing to make any such changes to his work, because he was not a fan of the ideas and narrative present in Dark Empire. He wasn't willing to change the placement of his books in the timeline, and he refused to incorporate any references to the events of Dark Empire in his Thrawn Trilogy.
And the one time he makes any sort of reference to it in his later work is to denounce Palpatine as a fake the entire time, just because he didn't like that as a story idea.
That's a far cry from introducing retcons to explain events like Endor.
Of course he collaborated and accommodated with people like Stackpole. He just didn't do it for Veitch, for some inexplicable reason...in spite of the comics doing everything they could do accommodate Heir To The Empire.
Zahn works with other authors, but he's well-known for being inflexible and not bucking with ideas he doesn't like. Not all of the authors commissioned to work on NJO were completely in love with the concept of the Vong, but you didn't see them screech the story to a halt and have a character babble in-universe about how much the author thinks the concept of the Vong is a crock of shit, and that they're probably not immune to the Force. If Zahn encounters an idea he doesn't like, he doesn't budge. Other EU authors and even the Dark Horse writers themselves have re-affirmed this several times.
You should browse some of the old Force.Net Literature boards, because opinions on the Hand of Thrawn Duology are decidedly more mixed.
I'm not saying I don't like it. I myself prefer them to the Thrawn Trilogy, but that's largely because it's better paced and features more interesting interactions between Luke and Mara.
Bookwise? I haven't read enough of Traviss' work to place her higher than anybody. In terms of maintaining continuity without breaking it to voice her skepticism of previous story arcs? Yeah, she hasn't done that yet in any of the books I've read.
Zahn has. I also don't put him on the same pedestal as the rest of the fandom does...especially in the wake of his newer books, which are just Godawful. He has his share of good work---in fact, I think his Mara Jade comics, standalone novel, and Outbound Flight book all outshine his work in the 90's. But he's every bit as capable of churning out horrible writing, very much like Traviss or Denning.
The difference is that, like Filoni, the fandom can't seem to level any criticism at him. The only other author equivalents I've seen that can seemingly buy that kind of blind, white-knighting goodwill from fans are Charles Soule and Claudia Grey, and they're miles below most of the EU talent.
I would hardly call that evidence of being influenced by Dark Empire, especially considering the whole point of Mara's arc in the Thrawn Trilogy was already to be yanked out of her dark path by the other characters. Zahn was likely attempting to do a reversal of what he'd already done in his initial trilogy. It certainly works, and compliments her and Luke's romance a bit considering how incredibly rushed it is (even though one could characterize their relationship as something that evolved over several other instances between both Zahn story arcs), but calling it direct influence from Dark Empire is kind of a stretch.
I'm not saying Zahn outright hates the people who worked on Dark Empire, in fact, he took some advice from Tom Veitch when approaching his next books. Veitch thought that Heir to the Empire's action scenes and pacing lacked the kind of nuance people were looking for in Star Wars books, so it encouraged Zahn to try to make certain scenes in the Hand of Thrawn Duology more cinematic. Zahn stated as much in a Star Wars Insider Interview. But his revulsion for the Dark Empire comics are pretty well-known at this point.
And his attempts to rebuke the events of that story arc are loud, clumsy, devoid of subtlety and immersion-breaking. He doesn't get a free pass for that just because he wrote books and created characters I happen to like.
There are interviews in issues of Star Wars Insider that I'm to lazy to dig around through--they're there for anyone to find.
From what I've researched, there wasn't any cross-communication between the novels and the comics from 1978 to 1990. The first efforts to have novel authors and comic writers communicate and attempt a shared continuity was in 1991 with Dark Empire and Heir To The Empire (to mixed success), after Bantam and LFL Publishing decided to maintain continuity between both mediums, using the established terms and lore that had been built in the West End Star Wars RPG (Timothy Zahn even had to read multiple RPG sourcebooks to be primed on all of the terminology of the SW universe before starting his novels). This was the first time that LFL made a conscious effort to market their materials as the Expanded Universe, and largely ignored a lot of the books and Marvel comics published before 1991 (although the Brian Daley Han Solo novels were migrated into canon, as were the comics that reference Lumiya).
But then the EU took even larger strides to be more closesly-knit with novel publshing/comic writer cross-communication and story arc planning once Del Rey acquired the license for books after Bantam in 1999. Sue Rustoni and Shelly Shapiro admit as much in their Round Robin interview included with the CD-ROM and eBook for The Unifying Force. There was still an attempt in the early/mid-90's Bantam era EU to have references and continuity---you have Kevin J Anderson referencing Thrawn and Dark Empire in the first few chapters of his Jedi Academy books. There are several references to the events on Bakura and in the X-Wing novels throughout a lot of the Bantam books. But Del Rey felt that a lot of the books from this time felt like one-off trilogies that didn't have much of a narrative throughline when collected side by side, and motioned for the EU to start having huge story arcs and multi-media projects in the early 2000's. While this created a lot more communication between authors and led to some ambitious story attempts, it didn't always avoid the same pitfalls as the Bantam era. In fact, the lack of communication or lack of forewarning caused things like cancelled books, canon changes that would force authors to accomodate on short notice (sometimes frustrating authors into resignation, like Karen Traviss), or the worst possible scenario, characters being killed off without informing their creators. Some of the old guard were able to transition to the new stuff without any problems (like Luceno and Alliston), some new authors were allowed to flourish and become big players in this environment (such as Denning and Golden), and some quit just as quickly as they had arrived (Traviss). It wasn't a massive upgrade from the Bantam days, and it had its own share of problems, but the Del Rey era saw arguably the best Star Wars books ever written, even reaching the peak of Star Wars fiction before the Day of Reckoning in 2014.
Overall, the harmonizing and consistency of comics and novels got better as time went on, but in varying degrees, and not without casualties. Many cite this as the reason why the EU was too unwieldy and needed to be scrapped by Disney....but they conveniently forget that Disney/LFL are tripping face-first into continuity flubs and insultingly-bad retcons in a rapid time span of only 6 years, as opposed to the EU's 22 years.
And even then, the EU had some the best Star Wars fiction ever written to compensate for it. Disney/LFL have only produced disposable, filler-esque tie-in crap whose relevance and popularity expires in weeks instead of years. People are still talking about The Thrawn Trilogy, New Jedi Order and the Clone Wars multimedia project to this day....whereas Doctor Aphra has all but disappeared from the collective consciousness of the fandom outside of a few desperate porg shills.
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- Apr 16, 2017
I remember that. The story of 3PO's leg. 3PO's programming ended up being overridden by a replacement part resulting in him leading a droid rebellion against Boonda the Hutt which was surprisingly successful before he was restored to normal by R2. It was a fun read considering it also served as a good "Where's Waldo?" for robot cameos from other franchises.
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Dude, it's one line, not pages and pages of criticism leveled at Dark Empire. Mara Jade, who's gotten over her devotion to Palpatine and now looks back on those times bitterly, questions whether it was really him or just a mad clone who claimed he was Palpatine. In the context of the story, it makes sense. She wants to leave that life behind and definitely finds it horrifying that Luke might have fallen under his sway.
Maybe. Everyone I've talked to considers it the swan song to the New Republic era and a great step forward for Luke and Mara when it comes to character development. It also finally puts the conflict between the New Republic and Empire to rest, a pretty substantial plot development considering how often that era relied on the Empire as an enemy.
Once again, the only thing I can think of when it comes to Zahn "messing up" continuity is Heir to the Empire's references to the prequels, which he couldn't have known was going to change, and one line from Mara. That's it. There's plenty of criticism to be leveled at Zahn: he uses repetitive language, he shills Thrawn quite a bit no matter how well-written as a threat he is, sometimes his arcs don't seem to add much to a story (Shada D'ukal comes to mind), and Luuke was goofy as hell. I just don't see your point about him being obnoxious about Dark Empire. It certainly didn't overwhelm the book like Filoni's pet characters tend to do.
It's directly influenced by Dark Empire and stated as so in the story. Luke cuts back on using the Force because he feels that while he gained incredible power in the Force during the post-Endor period, he was losing sight of what being a Jedi meant. He says the apex of this was when he joined up with the Emperor to stop him, and Mara says that he likely went over to the dark side during that time and that's what's causing him issues. He even has visions of the Emperor and Exar Kun when he fights the clone pirates, if I remember correctly.
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In terms of novels, the Bantam Spectra era of books were mostly standalone with only a few trilogies here and there, making it easier to get into without having to have read anything prior. While the Del Rey era that came after was far more interconnected and overarching.
Also in relation to my last post, here's the moment from the 1994 comic where 3PO lost his original leg which was eventually replaced with the silver one.
In Disney's shitty nuCanon, it only mentions that 3PO simply had his leg replaced without much else. He's also listed in DisneyCanon as having been with Bail Organa for 19 years despite that Antilles was given charge of the droids at the end of III only to subsequently lose them in a sabacc game and reunite with them years later, but now they were just with Bail serving as butlers for 19 years, and occasionally Disney references the contrary. Disney is very indecisive on everything it seems.
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vern
kiwifarms.net
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You could also criticize Zahn in arguing that C'baoth being the other main antagonist in the Thrawn Trilogy makes him somewhat hypocritical over his stance on Palpatine coming back in Dark Empire after all whats the difference between a crazy clone of a jedi and a crazy clone of a sith.
Although I did some digging and found an interview with Veitch where he kinda explains both of their stances on Palpatine coming back.
It also seems like the conflict between Zahn and Veitch came from Lucasarts not telling each of them that someone else was doing a Star Wars series till the last minuet, and making each other critique the others work.Veitch said:
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Probably because we had never seen C'baoth before. Palpatine was a known character who bit the dust in ROTJ and signaled the end of Anakin's arc. But, yeah, another thing you could criticize him for is his reliance on clones for his early novels. Fold Luuke being goofy under that.
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I'll say this about Zahn: he was a good sport when it came to fan criticism of his use of clones, because he wrote a joke story for Star Wars Insider about a Luke Skywalker clone having an emotional crisis.
Somehow I don't see Karen Traviss doing something like that...at least, I'm not aware of her doing anything like that. Mandos are too sacred of a cow for her.
vern
kiwifarms.net
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You say that but C'baoth was original gonna be an evil clone of Obi-Wan.
I'm glad they convinced Zahn to drop that idea cause that could have been dumbest thing in the EU.
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On the topic of Zahn and clones I think people over exaggerate Luuke. He’s only in like one chapter near the end of the third book and has a pretty minimal impact on both the trilogy and the rest of the EU. The name is fucking gay but I understand that Zahn felt writing “the clone of Luke did x” would get pretty repetitive.
James Roancrest
kiwifarms.net
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Luuke was a better way to bring back Anakin's lightsaber than Episode VII. Change my mind.
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Luke fighting a deranged genetic duplicate of himself was always a cool concept in my mind. It was made even cooler when it got official art representation in the 90's comic adaptation and the 2012 Reader's Companion:
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That last one is a nice piece of art. One of the rare high end ones the early days of the Bantam era never really got much.
I agree with the Luuke name being dumb and it should've been something better. However. I always really liked the literary allusion that Luuke was the path Luke would have taken if the duel on cloud city and the father revelation hadn't happened. It was a great recognition that ROTJ Luke had some serious growth after that. (To use old game terms, he was on the path of the guardian but swerved hard into Consular. Cue the green vs blue lightsaber.)
I agree with the Luuke name being dumb and it should've been something better. However. I always really liked the literary allusion that Luuke was the path Luke would have taken if the duel on cloud city and the father revelation hadn't happened. It was a great recognition that ROTJ Luke had some serious growth after that. (To use old game terms, he was on the path of the guardian but swerved hard into Consular. Cue the green vs blue lightsaber.)