So it looks like Gina's appearance in that one Bear Grylls' episode got axed too... Never say there isn't a Disney blacklist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0CjVoXrE34
And that cunt Pablo Hidalgo ironically laughed at her getting fired back in February despite being let go himself just a little bit before that and getting his Mando guide book cancelled because of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOb0SAsmJH8
Did she wear that outfit in the first season?
I don't like the design of her face, it's like they're trying to get closer to the shitty SW Rebels art style. She doesn't even look like Ming-Na. At least her costume is highly-detailed and not drawn on a 3D stick figure.
They're using the same animation team as Rebels and S7 of Filoni Wars, which is why a lot of assets resemble it. The recycling is even notable in that they're using Zygerrians with the exact same tech and animals as their debut episode, same textures and all too to avoid over spending, so we know that much like Rebels and Resistance this show won't have a wide variety of locations and characters since Disney was way less loose with the budget than George.
And speaking of George... he and his wife did a thing a few months ago which has started trending as of yesterday.
Anyway, on a more notable note, Filoni has very little time to work on Bad Batch apparently, so he's left its writing and directing to Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau, the two
geniuses behind the failures that were the Resistance cartoon (the shitty CGI tie-in to TLJ and IX) and Forces of Destiny (the all-female SW shorts that were an attempt at making SW Barbies). So this already seems to be doomed from the get-go.
Not disagreeing with you that LITERALLY the exact same shit 35 years later with zero additions (no trophies, no battle damage, no momentos, no upgrades) is lazy character design. But its not out of line for Star Wars.
The immediate counter point is all the ESB bounty hunters were constrained by budgets and costume technology of the 70s/80, while that character design has only the limits of computer graphics. And despite that, Bobba's armor has character and Fennec is super bland.
All I'm getting from this is she's been dating the same guy for 35 years with no breakups. That's pretty impressive
True, but even so, the likes of
Dengar (while still aesthetically similar) was made younger and given a somewhat different outfit for the pre-Disney Filoni Wars, while 'Fennec' over here is still completely unchanged even facially and is even wearing the same bucket-construction helmet she wore in Mando despite the 30+ year gap. Not even a variation of it. Its the same get up, weapons, clothing and face.
Also since she is an adult in this show its gonna be hella awkward having this lady run into little boy Boba (and you know they'll do it), a dude she's fucking in Disney crap 30 years later. Overall, all this does is cement how fucking boring and bland the character is that they felt the need to leave her completely unchanged out of fear that no one would know who she is otherwise, despite that I'm pretty sure normalfags in general still won't know or care who she is.
That model doesn't look finished.
And surprisingly it is. This show seems to have red flags all over. But the most telling thing is the fact, that based on current summaries of the show, the clone main characters have chosen to become mercenaries instead of keeping them imperial characters and giving audiences a show that shows life on the Imperial side, but much like with Squadrons and EAfront II, Disney loathes the idea of letting the audiences connect with imperial characters unless they're victimized or defect. And Filoni's brain chip ensures that imperial clones with free will are never seen again in Disney shit. Although, its possible the mercenary shit might be a fake out since someone I know told me that the Disney Marvel comics feature
stormtroopers who might be these Bad Batch assholes, but I highly doubt it since aside from Dr. Aphra appearing in a crappy mobile game and novels, the elements from the shitty new Marvel comics have remained largely ignored by the rest of Disney Wars for the most part afaik outside of shitty reference books.
Oh, but of course! Even better when Filoni ultimately winds up having her become what Luke should've been!
View attachment 1997692
Again, I don't hate/dislike the character, but I really think she's been overemphasized, especially compared to what happened to the OT trio in the sequel trilogy. They get the shaft, while Filoni's own creation survives every challenge/turmoil and comes out stronger and wiser.
It'd be like if, say, the DC Universe had Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman wind up dying as failures and their accomplishments undone, and someone like, say, Batgirl/Oracle wound up becoming the legendary and accomplished sage figure everyone knew about and looked up to.
...Aw shit, I just gave the current writers at DC an idea, didn't I?
This pretty much sums up the whole issue with Ahsoka perfectly, but many just prefer to outright deny or justify how weird it is that the sidekick from that one cartoon from 2008 is now the linchpin and heart of the franchise. That's like if Luke, Han and Leia had been killed off in Crucible only to have Ken Palpatine show up through a time portal to reveal that he has become the alpha-omega jedi and will watch over the universe from now on.
Filoni trying to turn Ahsoka into the SW Gandalf just makes this even more shamelessly noticeable.
(Yes Dave, because everyone was worried about Ahsoka and not about the state of the galaxy, the ruined New Republic, the death of the Jedi and the Sith, and the fact that the Skywalkers and Solos got jilted and have been left without fucking heirs)
Or like how they cement Ahsoka and the Filoni OC crew as the true founders of the Rebellion with Leia essentially being just a glorified cameo who just got caught all the time, with Ahsoka even replacing Bel Iblis and others as the jedi who helped the Organas get the Rebellion started.
I really like the episode "Bounty." Seeing Bossk and Dengar was unexpected but cool at the time, I liked the droid and the Theelin girl, and I really liked that it opened up a new path for Ventress. I was ultimately really disappointed that long term they decided to kill her off in Dark Disciple.
Which brings me to my next big problem of Filoni in general and post-Disney in particular "making the universe smaller." They kill Ventress, kill most of the Inquisitors and the Inquisitorious branch is dissolved, throw Thrawn and Pelleon into the deep unknown, Aurra Sing is unceremoniously killed offscreen by an actor that clearly doesn't even want to be in these movies, Interdictor Cruisers are apparently discontinued after Yavin, the TIE Advanced and Defender make early prototype appearances but are discontinued afterwards - all those things that were well known or a part of the old EU are introduced but then unceremoniously eliminated so we're pretty much left only with whatever appeared directly in the Original Trilogy or with whatever Disney craps out later. The new "Expanded Universe" winds up being unbelievably smaller compared to what we had before.
And the worst part is the reasoning we hear from the story group and producers -"we figured it wouldn't make sense to have these things around during the Original Trilogy, otherwise they would've made an impact on the movies." The fuck? The original EU had these things around and it was clearly never thought that they impacted the movies! Part of me suspects that there's a deliberate effort at work to poke a thumb in the eye of the older fans.
It was pretty much Filoni trying to push the whole "Legends" narrative which he even forced into the dialogue of the show by having Ahsoka say "there is truth in Legends", but they're ultimately not true as far as Disney and him are concerned, so they showcase a bunch of stuff from the old canon then have said stuff destroyed, erased or humiliated to explain why they never appear again or why you shouldn't care about them in order to do a "they did exist (sort of) but everything you know about them is wrong", like Droids, Thrawn, the B-Wing, KOTOR, Malachor V, or replacing Darth Traya with Filoni's donut steal "Darth Tanis", even though all that does is basically make them be completely unrelated to the originals, only sharing names and/or appearances for the sake of clickbait. I could go on, but
@Mississippi Motorboater already said it perfectly while I was writing this.
Making Soontir Fel canon means fuck all if he's never going to have his romance with Wynessa Starflare (and by proxy, spark a sense of animosity with her cousin, Wedge Antilles), retain his ties to the Empire of the Hand, or ever produces a son in the form of Jagged Fel, who's arguably even more important for the long-term romance he fosters with one Jaina Solo, who for obvious reasons can never be part of the new continuity under any circumstances. This is what the slack-jawed canon monkeys over at the short bus that is the Story Group don't understand about canonizing characters: it's not the character themselves that people appreciate and love, it was the stories, relationships and vital narrative events surrounding that character. Without those things, the soul and integrity of what made the character great, the reason why readers are attached to the character AT ALL, are no longer present...and they're only the same character in name only, a hollow shell of their EU self that readers grew to love and cherish.
This is also why canonizing the likes of Dash Rendar is utterly pointless. If Shadows of the Empire or Shadow Games never happened, then fans aren't going to give a shit. It's the stories that make them worth a shit, not the sheer virtue of existing.
That's pretty much what Disney fails to grasp. These corporate suits think names and IPs make the characters and not the stories themselves. Without the events that build and mold them they are nothing. And for some reason they are incapable of wrapping that notion around their heads. Like how they think Galaxy's Edge would be the ideal SW park just because it has the SW logo on it and a pseudo-copy of the Falcon.
I want
The Book of Boba Fett to show how Dengar becomes Rothgar Deng to further rub it in that Filoni Wars isn't going to retcon the Sequel Trilogy to troll The Fandom Menace.
Dengar's fate under Disney perfectly embodies the overall state of the franchise while under KK's run tbh, much like with the OT gang and Thrawn. They butcher the character beyond recognition and make him a miserable and broken shell of what he used to be whose life went in the completely opposite direction of his original counterpart. Under Disney he just becomes a soulless and broken monstrosity addicted to cybernetics, murder and greed, all his traits flanderized to the extreme. In contrast to his original counterpart who managed to rediscover his humanity, find new purpose and even settle down through actual growth and development.
