Star Wars: The Disney Era

Everyone says Rebels is really really good but I can’t get over the Pixar-esque CGI, the style is such a disconnect for me from what Star Wars “looks” like.

That’s totally valid. I was in the exact same place when I started watching it. Either I got used to it, or it grew on me, I don’t know.

What I find interesting, is that I really love the look of Vader in Star Wars Rebels, and in the comic image @Cremlian posted above. It took me a while to actually figure out why, but I think it’s because Vader’s helmet doesn’t look huge and unwieldy, like it does in the movies, especially A New Hope.

To bring in another scifi property for a moment, for a long time Space Marine miniatures from the Warhammer 40K game were criticized for being too small and that it didn’t seem possible that an actual human could fit inside their power armor. The new Primaris Space Marine minis are much bigger, look like a person could fit inside them, and generally look awesome.

I find that I prefer the opposite when it comes to Vader. Compared to his actual helmet worn in the movies, I much prefer the “slimmed down” helmet as shown in the above comic art and in Rebels.

vader

Realistically, it doesn’t look like his helmet is actually big enough for someone to wear, but I don’t care. He just looks cooler this way.

vader2

There’s a point at which mass appeal can dilute the actual work itself, though, and I think the old EU got there in parts.

Star Wars is a contrivance with a set of rules. Those are the boundaries that give the work some kind of meaning; without some limits, you have a blank slate. You have nothing. There’s a long discussion to be had there about art and pushing limits and all that jazz, but at the end of the day if we’re talking about a discrete concept, something has to define that concept - and if any story can be a Star Wars story, then what the hell is Star Wars?

I mean it’s kind of silly for me to level criticism at the artistic integrity of the Star Wars franchise, I’ll cop to that - but there comes a point at which you are no longer writing a Star Wars story, and are instead writing whatever story you want with some kind of simple aesthetic pasted on top.

What you’re saying about the old EU is on-point, and I also think it was the single largest problem with that body of work. Once you get too far afield, you’re just doing something else.

Now, mind you, lots and lots of that material enhanced the source material or added something compelling - but a lot of it involves bullshit back-explanations of parsecs and/or dropping moons on people.

You raise an excellent point, and for the most part, I agree with you that at a certain point, “you are no longer writing a Star Wars story, and are instead writing whatever story you want with some kind of simple aesthetic pasted on top.”

Where I disagree with you, is that doing that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for me. I mean, when you look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all the movies that are being praised the most, whether it’s Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Thor:Ragnarok, and Black Panther, are being praised because they’re not just superhero movies, they’re other types of movies with a superhero aesthetic pasted on top.

Winter Soldier is an espionage movie with a superhero aesthetic pasted on top.

Ant-Man is pretty much a heist movie with a superhero aesthetic pasted on top.

Thor Ragnarok is a buddy action comedy with a superhero aesthetic pasted on top.

Black Panther is a political intrigue movie with a superhero aesthetic pasted on top.

The fact that these movies varied from the traditional Marvel movie formula isn’t a bad thing, on the contrary, it’s why people like these movies MORE.

Why not the same thing for Star Wars?

I didn’t particularly like Rogue One, but when they first announced it, and I thought it was going to be more of a futuristic heist movie set in the Star Wars universe, I was super jazzed about that. The fact that it turned out not to be that doesn’t take away from the fact that I, and many others, would have loved a Star Wars heist movie.

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And a heist movie may be what the Solo movie has on offer.

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Yes, exactly. I was just about to edit my post when you wrote that. I guess Rogue One was billed more as a heist movie meets the Dirty Dozen, but regardless, my point stands.

I loved that it was a war movie, basically The Guns of Navarrone IN SPAAAAACE.

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I hated the movie, but loved the concept.

Straight up, the EU was real dumb.

For a non-complete set of examples: the time Luke lost his powers because of an exploding star and joined a blatantly evil cult led by a golden blob. Or the entire Jedi Prince series, in which the main character is a Star Wars toy collecting nerd in the star wars universe, the emperor has some triclops sons, and Luke rescues space whales, and the fact that Moffs don’t hold conferences, they hold Mofferences in a Mofference room on a Moffship(I swear to you that was real). Or that one where we essentially follow Leia on a trip to the Bank to get a loan, which Darth Vader has to personally stop for some reason(He literally says the line “It would only do evil things to your credit rating”, what a caring father). Or the fact that Leia and Han’s kids get kidnapped more often than Princess Peach. Or the clone wars movie, in which part of the plot is driven by a Hutt that is basically just a crappy flamboyant gay stereotype. Or Bendorion, the Jedi hutt. Or the Sentient, clinically depressed mountain. Or the fact that there was a clone of Luke called Luuke, and there was a second clone, called Luuuke(thankfully, they did not make any more clones). Or basically everything to do with the Sun Crusher. Or the famous Jedi warrior, Soon Bates, AKA, Master Bates. Or the time Luke fell in love with a spaceship, and I mean that in the romantic, non-platonic, go-home-Master-Bates-you’re-not-needed-tonight sense

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There was a lot of garbage but there were some good stuff, like Rogue Squadron, the Corellia series, and the novella collection about the bounty hunters.

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I know, I read them. I’m pretty sure the only Star Wars books I didn’t end up reading were the RPG rulebooks.

Plus, the whole Legacy of the Force series, what happens to the Solo children, is just an incredible storyline, even if its execution wasn’t perfect. In comparison, the Kylo Ren storyline seems like it was written by an elementary school student.

This shit right here is what I’m talking about. It’s not like Star Wars is high art to begin with, but motherfucking Mofferences?

So I dunno, maybe the new EU will be less incredibly fucking dumb.

I’m stil hoping we can get a series about life aboard a Star Destroyer during the pre-Death Star Empire. A ship on a cruise out near some outer rim world, up and coming officer who means well and wants to truly serve and realizes over time how fucked the whole situation is. Maybe over a few seasons we finally get them deciding to go Rebel.

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I never paid attention to the EU as a kid but the video games set in the prequels definitely had an impact on me. The question is, what do the sequels offer in terms of setting for extended universe tie-ins? As clunky as the Clones Wars were, they made for a great setting in terms of basing games and stories on it. How does the state of the SW universe at the end of TFA or TLJ support any kind of supplemental material?

Monaco horse-goat racing!

Reminder that EU works didn’t go anywhere. The books are still there, so are the comics, I still have Knights of the Old Rebublic on my Steam library, it’s all still around. It’s just no longer canon, but for that I say “fuck canon”. If something is good, it’s good and if something is shitty it’s shitty, being canon or not does not affect that one bit. Thus all the old good and bad works in EU are and will be around and new works on new canon will be made. And I assume that there are some people around that can’t let go of the old canon and will create something for that too.

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Well the N64 podracing game was actually sick so maybe its not as far-fetch as it seems. Though the ultimate message of horse-racing equals slavery might make it a hard sell.

As far as I understand the Clone Wars Movie and TV series are still Canon. Rebels doesn’t make sense otherwise. The mistake of the Clone Wars Movie was trying to pass off a 3-episode pilot as a complete movie. (And a complete Star Wars movie at that.)

EU novels involving Luke always suffered from “What contrived circumstance can we introduce to nullify Luke’s ability to use the force.” Then there were the Vong, who came across like as the most “Late-90’s, Early-00’s” villain ever. “They have Tattoos and Piercings, and they’re Sadomasochists.” gags

Right now both the First Order and the Resistance are a bit of a mess. The Supremacy was basically Capital of the First Order and that’s a wreck. So the First Order is going to spend time rebuilding it. So you have this galaxy of planets where no one is really in control on a galactic level. You don’t have the Empire and you don’t even have the New Republic. There are a lot of places you can go with that level of chaos in the galaxy. Some system might decided to expand their area of influence, in other systems the population might decide it’s time for a revolution.

However, considering how fast they’re going to put out the next movie it doesn’t matter. The OT had 3-4 years between movies, the PT was 3 years, now they have this down to 2 years and they’re making “side story” movies in the “off-year”.

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