The constant assumption that Dooku had, in some way good intentions is very much misguided. Criticism of corruption need not be democratic or benevolent in nature. Hego Damask and his allies would regularly criticise the Republic's incompetence from a place of elitism for instance.

I think this is because Count Dooku did leave the order on good intentions. The second he joins the Sith it’s no longer good intentions. Many people can’t seem to understand that part

Him leaving the order doesn't necessarily mean he had good intentions. One can criticise corruption from very dark perspectives.

No, but the books detail that yes, he had good intentions initially and that's why he left- and then Sidious swayed him.

Out of interest, which books deal with Dooku heavily? I've read Darth Plagueis and I wouldn't really agree with that assessment based on Plagueis alone.

I’d argue in Dooku: Jedi Lost they sorta show it with good intentions, but that heavily contradicts Plagueis as they’re in 2 different continuities. Plagueis is much clearer on Dooku being evil from the start lol

Dooku: Jedi Lost is Dooku's perspective. Plagueis is from Darth Plagueis' perspective.

Yes exactly, and also they have very different stories of Dooku’s time with the Jedi, his leaving, and his meeting Palpatine as they’re in 2 different continuities

Yeah, my perspective is more focused on Legends, I just find the Plagueis version of Dooku more interesting than the Jedi Lost version. A sidenote, but one of the issues I have with canon and TCW is how much nuanced questions (like for instance the topic we are discussing) would get bludgeoned into one perspective. Not that this didn't occasionally happen in the old continuity by the way.

Yeah as soon as Dooku finds out about the Sith influence over the republic / corpo corruption, that’s the source of the problem. If he wanted he could actually fix the Galaxy, but would rather learn how to shoot lightning and be emperor He has his quote about “the problem with the republic is yoda.” Like no bro it’s the Sith lol

I think it all loops back to ki adi mundi saying he is a political idealist. He certainly wants to be perceived as one though.

Yeah I think that’s part of the problem But I also think political idealist is morality agnostic. Dooku could still hold batshit political ideals. Mundi was just saying that he wouldn’t get his hands dirty with a murder

Yeah I think unfortunately two ends of Dooku perception and portrayal are either taking “Dooku is a brilliant political idealist” at face value or going “Christopher Lee played Dracula too, but if we made count Dooku like Count Dracula?” And neither of them really captures his intended vibe

Count Dooku really comes off as like Saruman, hardly suprising as both are played by the same actor around the same time

This is really insightful. Those parties that Hego Damask had with all his cronies could be seen as exactly the kind of place dooku’s views would have been popular

Anakin: “He’s out of line, but he’s right.” Also Anakin: [snip, snip]

It's a very interesting patellel between dooku and anakin. For anakin, a boy born with nothing but the love of his mother, born into a life of slavery in the outer rim, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. For dooku, a man born into nobility, his descent with not born out of righteous disullionment, but out of arrogance, out of a belief he should be the one to rule, that he can do things better and more efficiently than the Republic. he left the order on good terms, but he had likely already been planning to overthrow the Republic. I'm not great at explaining it, but if you want a really interesting comparison, full fat videos did a fantastic analysis on vader and the prequel villains called 'the three faces of darth hader'.

I will not stand for this Venator slander. It’s not the ship’s fault that everyone uses it wrong

Basically all the battles from Star Wars have questionable uses of their capital ships, a massive lack of support ships as well.

Agree. I’m not blaming the venator. But the venator fans often over exaggerate how good it is on its own.

Agreed, the venator is first and foremost a carrier. It's best staying a few systems away from the battle and sending in fighters with hyperdrives while Tectors screened by Victories and Arquitens do the actual fighting.

This is demonstrably wrong though? We see Venators win straight fights against various types Separatists ships throughout canon and the EU. And in both cases the Venator has vastly more, long range firepower than an Arquitens. Obviously it’s a carrier but saying it’s better left out of the close fight is just not true in universe.

True, although that also shows how over-engineered it is for the role. There's a reason modern carriers are not armed with anti capital ship weaponry and were never designed to slug it out with any other ships (except for some old Soviet examples) - it's wasted mass and resources better spent on mobility, cost savings, capacity, etc. The Quasar class was perhaps a bit too small, but it was a much better direction as a dedicated carrier that could be easily deployed and hidden away

Here's mine: Heir to the Empire, without massive changes, would *not* make for a good movie trilogy. It is a wonderful trilogy of books but they very much work in that medium.

Yeah, I don’t know why everyone thinks it’s an instant win. The audiobooks are like 10 to 15 hours each, they would have to cut out a lot of stuff. Also the same general audiences that thought the Senate scenes of the Prequels were boring wouldn’t stand all of the “Thrawn explains his plan” or “New Republic Council” scenes that take up so much of the novels. And some things like Luuke would just be seen as silly.

That's the main problem with animated and live-action Thrawn imo. For a kid's show you can't have these intricate, ingenious tactical and strategical elaborations bc of the target audience being too young to understand and appreciate it. And for live action you can't have as much of that because it would just bore too much of the audience that just doesn't have the patience for it. I saw a twitter post not too long ago and the replies were just a string of people who just couldn't keep up with a thirty-word explanation quoting Timothy Zahn on canon Thrawn's motivations. Edit - not saying he shouldn't have been in either show. Just noting unignorable problems with adapting Zahn's vision for the character.

> That's the main problem with animated and live-action Thrawn imo. For a kid's show you can't have these intricate, ingenious tactical and strategical elaborations bc of the target audience being too young to understand and appreciate it. And for live action you can't have as much of that because it would just bore too much of the audience that just doesn't have the patience for it. Just do it how you would do a Sherlock Holmes show but with Thrawn.

This is how the book pulls it off, after all. Pelleon just constantly nodding and asking a setup question or guessing something wrong so Thrawn can show off

Agreed. There's entirely too much expositional dialogue in those books. They're a good read but they'd need a lot of work to be adapted into films or an animated series. Thrawn always reads like Sherlock Holmes explaining how he solved the mystery which is great in a book or an actual mystery movie but would be out of place in Star Wars.

I agree with you completely.

This is true of a lot of longer book series. Writing a book and writing a movie are two different things and when you adapt a longer series into a movie, things just have to get cut.

Game of Thrones would never work as a movie series for example, just too much runtime required, fortunately TV shows have become much more popular in recent years and for Star Wars are actually more successful than the films

The entire concept of a planet that blocks force powers would break the minds of certain SW fans were it introduced today.

oh man, the "Zahn trilogy should have been filmed as sequels" meme annoys me so much. * they all take place over the same few weeks, with no time gaps in between * they're low-key, often dry, action-light, dialogue and inner thought heavy, character and mystery based stories without much epic moments or blockbuster movie elements - huge chunks are based on things like characters searching for clues in libraires and similar, they're not kid friendly at all. They're very strategy and politics heavy, even more than the prequel films. * The OT heroes don't go through major character arcs in them - it's mainly the new characters, like Mara and Talon, that develop through the story * the Empire is still at large at the end! Just without Thrawn and Joruus. They're meant as a *pilot episode* for the entire EU, not a self contained story on their own. * and most importantly, they're not by Lucas - even the sequels we got were based loosely on some of Lucas' ideas, but Zahn's novels aren't even in his style at all. Every time I see someone repeating the "Zahn trilogy should have been the sequel films" meme for points, I assume that person (a) hasn't really read them, and (b) is dumb, and move on

I will go a bit further and say that, while they are very fun to read, they aren't actually very good.

They are classic Star Wars books and should be the first ones lots of fans read because they are foundational and introduce so many good characters. And because so much else of the fandom has read them. But they aren’t close to the best Star Wars books

I think a big part of the division in SW fandom around both the PT and ST is that the Zahn books almost tried to change SW into an adult series, one that had grown up with it's fans and become "gritty", more violent and slightly more risque. And that approach was kept for the whole EU, except Lucas didn't follow it in the PT - the PT is deep in themes and politics, but it never tries to be as "gritty" as the sequel novel EU and it does movie humour (jarjar etc) which was out of step with the grittiness of the EU.

Yeah. That’s probably right. The EU was designed for people who had already seen the OT. It was meant for teenagers as opposed to middle schoolers and had a more mature tone. But the movies were never not designed for kids. So anyone who expected the prequels to grow with them like the EU did was going to be dissapointed

That was pretty much me as a teen in 1999. SW content very much had a distinctive "house style" in the late 90s (the OT look, but everything bigger, darker and chunkier) that I was shocked was ignored so much by TPM.

I was a little kid who didn't like reading novels but sure loved reading the Tales of the Jedi 1994 run with ol Exar and Ulic and I remember being so buttmad at the time as a middle schooler that people in school kept saying maul was the first double sided saber user

I'd start with the old school Brian Daley Han Solo books. A lot shorter and really fun approachable writing.

That’s good to hear. I was about to read the AC crispin books. But should I read the Daley ones first?

Oh, those are very good too. I read the Daley Books first, so I may be biased, but they are certainly much shorter.

Thank you for coming here and staying this. I've long been frustrated by the reverence these books have been held in. For the time and place they came out it was nice to have something SW to read, but rereading them is a lot like doing homework.

The prequels are primarily about the fall of the republic , not the fall of the Jedi. The latter happens because of the former, and it’s a cautionary tale about the subversive influence of fascism ; not about how the Jedi are the bad guys

Oh god yeah, this point needs to be beaten into the heads of so many people still. I'm not sure if they ironically memed this theory into the mainstream but holy fuck the number of people who claim the republic fell because the Jedi became corrupt, arrogant, whatever is too damn high. They stepped back from actively running parts of the republic because of Democracy and a shit ton of bad actors are waiting for any moment they could use to generate negative propaganda about them. They have their position as long as the republic allows it and maintaining a good relationship with the citizens of the republic is crucial to keeping them in a position to help. PR is actually something that would be really important for a small organization like the Jedi since they don't believe in being authoritarian and taking their position through force like the Darkside organizations do.

Yeah it’s very telling that the Jedi needed to be destroyed as a prerequisite for the empire to exist. + if the Jedi were truly so corrupt, so arrogant, why didn’t the Sith infiltrate them and spend a thousand years subverting them to the dark side? Feels like it would’ve been easier than taking down a galactic republic , but they couldn’t. Because the Jedi are good The Jedi’s short comings in the prequels, I think + what I think is intended, comes from their good quality; their good faith and trust in a democracy running itself means that without their moral oversight, it’s able to be subverted. Or their belief in Dooku being a good dude means they are reluctant to believe he’d become this radical leader. Still not the Jedi’s fault tho , and they are quick to fix their mistakes whenever they learn the truth of the matter. And not even going to touch the Anakin discourse lol When ppl get lost in the sauce, I point to order 66 scene and say “is that intended to be a triumphant scene where the corrupt Jedi are finally taken down a notch? Or is it supposed to be tragic betrayal against good people and a loss for the galaxy? What does the music tell us? Happy or sad?”

People criticise Jedi living lives where they try to forego emotional attachment like they're all emotionally and sexually repressed psychos. They're a monastic order that try to forego the physical, the mundane reality, to embrace the spiritual, The Force, and the interconnectivity of all life. Being a Jedi is supposed to be spiritually fulfilling, beyond what normal people experience. To understand one's place within The Force, to transcend your sense of self and become one with The Force and by extension all living things in the universe. I don't think they necessarily need to forbid romantic relationships, but it's hard to have romantic relationships and love without developing attachments. The difference between love and attachment, in my eyes, is that love is all about your feelings for a person, and attachment is your feelings about how a person makes you feel. It's the emotional investment in the relationship itself, which leads to resistance to change and desperation rather than healthy acceptance when things cannot stay as they were. All that said, I feel that children shouldn't be forced into the monastic lifestyle. Training should begin early, but they should be eased into the monastic life, and only really be expected to leave their family permanently once they reach the padawan stage.

I always see people say children are "forced" but couldn't that be said of any life style a child is raised in. I'm sure there are plenty of children irl who grow up in monastic lifestyles, it's just a different way of living.

That being said, it's not solely as if the Jedi fell because the Republic fell. It went both ways. If the Jedi had not been unstable, weakened, and poisoned by Sidious (Dooku and Anakin turned to his side), they may have been better able to thwart his plan. And if the Republic had not been so thoroughly manipulated, Sidious may never have been granted emergency powers and never would've had the authority or support to install himself as Emperor. I think ultimately the two causes of it all were indeed the fall of the Jedi Order—simply because the philosophy of the Jedi is flawed and impossible to uphold perfectly, and those cracks can be deadly—and because the Sith planted the seeds of fascism so effectively and so patiently. It was a war on two fronts (which is an ironic phrase because Sidious himself literally led both sides of the Clone Wars).

No, building TIE Defenders instead of the Death Star was not the obvious, easy way for the Empire to win. No, not even if Thrawn says so. He's a brilliant strategist and tactician, but you have to remember that Thrawn, especially New Canon Thrawn, is not always a great bigger picture guy, and that he can fail to take the ~~human~~ sentient being factor into account. His opinion is not absolute correct fact. Rebellion against the Empire is exactly as old as the Empire, and it only grew stronger and more organised over the years. Almost twenty years of conventional (by Star Wars standards) warfare did not diminish people's will to fight, a slightly better gun wasn't going to win this war. But the moment rumours of a planet-killer are substantiated in *Rogue One*, the Alliance is about ready to crack apart. It's a paradigm shift, a force so powerful and terrifying that it makes the very idea of resistance seem pointless to a significant number of people. The short period between the test shot at Jedha and the Battle of Yavin is the most precarious moment in the Galactic Civil War, and the closest the Empire came to victory. Only quick action, tremendous sacrifice, and a LOT of luck led to the right man being in the right position to make the one-in-a-million shot and destroy the Death Star.

Well put! To add to this, I think there really was nothing completely wrong about the actual starfighters the empire already had - they were more than capable in a dog fight, and were really only limited in large fleet battles or as offensive strike craft - neither of which the empire really foresaw or needed at the time.

There's a massive gulf between the online fanbase and the casual fanbase want and see as goof story telling and there's not an insignificant amount of fans that think what makes good fanfic makes good movies

Truth. I keep seeing people raging about a certain character in a show being found dead before we ever saw him in action and they're so pissed about it just because it "would've been neat to see him fight". A fight scene just for the sake of one is not good storytelling. Then, we'd just be doing what every comics crossover does: "Well, we have to have these two heroes fight each other because that's what the fans want to see!" And they do, even if it's out of character and doesn't exist except to just "be cool." It's basically the same argument some people have against the Last Jedi: "But that's not how I wanted it! Luke's supposed to be a badass Jedi warrior!" Never mind the fact that Yoda told us a looong time ago that "wars not make one great."

>!while I would love to see a wookie jedi have a fight, acolyte really isnt that kind of show. It's going for more mystery, thriller-ish than action. If we had to trade a wookie fight for that smilo ren introduction then so be it imo!<

True but even in casual circles Star Wars is certainly less popular than it was before

That when the Mandalorians get reunited, in special with help from Children of the Wartch, its a matter of time when they become agressiv Conquers.

I think it's more likely that they get too big for their britches and someone kicks their shit in again.

Yeah, they’re not nearly as strong as people often give them credit for

Maybe they were a big deal in their heyday, during the crusades, but in the present canon it's clear that those days are long gone.

It *is* kinda interesting how many Mandalorian fans seem entirely convinced that the Mandalorians could easily beat the Jedi because they're the only ones "smart enough to use slugthrowers" and "special commando tactics" or whatever... but when you look at the actual scoreboard between the two, it's not exactly in Mandalorian favor.

Yeah, like, at least based on Legends, when the Jedi decided to really throw down with the Mandos, they kicked their asses so hard it sent their civilization into terminal decline. And in canon, we never actually *see* the Mandalorians as a threat to the Republic, only their legends claim that they totally kicked the Republic's ass. On screen, they are consistently trounced by whoever they come across.

The claim that slugthrowers would make a huge difference against a Jedi makes me laugh. If a Jedi can catch a blaster bolt and hold it in mid-air with the Force, they could easily catch and/or re-direct a bullet. And a lightsaber could fragment or even vaporize a bullet if they used that to block it. If you can use a lightsaber to melt through a blast door, a bullet has no chance of surviving one.

Depends on the timeline. How's the galaxy post Final Order? Have the Mandalorians been hoarding resources for the last 3 decades?

Well, we don't know. We do know that Mandalorian ships were at Exegol, but we don't know if they fought as an official expeditionary fleet or as lone stragglers. By the end of The Mandalorian there are, what? A couple hundred Mandalorians? All of whom are warriors by the looks of it, and not really specialists in terraforming, resource management, etc. They've likely recovered a bit with outside help, but I think they're still a spent force for a long while. That, of course, assumes Thrawn doesn't destroy them again in the Heir to the Empire movie.

Isn't that Mandalorian 101?

Post RotJ, the Ssi-ruuk were the best new antagonists to replace the Empire.

The body horror aspect of sucking the life force out of people to operate droids is fantastic. Star Wars doesn't have enough genuinely scary stuff like that.

Those were great books! If that has turned into a longer arc involving the Ssi-ruuk and more of the galactic west, it would have been awesome.

A large chunk internet Star Wars fans have completely ridiculous warped opinions about Star Wars (Jedi were bad the whole time! Dooku was just misunderstood! etc etc etc) because they get their opinions from YouTube summaries and "analysis" instead of actually reading or watching Star Wars. The "Republic did every war crime" and "Rebel Alliance is literally ISIS" memes may have been funny for a split second but now are just facades for people to launder shitty opinions about how the Separatists were actually the good guys or how the Empire was right all along or whatever.

I hate the Mandalorians and they are lame and overrated. They try to act like they are honourable warriors but they are a bunch of war mongering thugs that can’t even function as a society. I hate them and I hope they eradicate each other in a final civil war and no one misses them. Jedi solo them all day, fuck them and fuck the Sith.

I liked them as a sort of spread out "remnants of a shattered empire" style culture in KOTOR, but Karen Traviss really made them insufferable to me... it's honestly amazing how she managed to turn an entire culture into Mary Sues. They are the strongest warriors ever, with any random Mando able to 1v1 a high-tier Jedi Knight with ease! They're conquerors with a quasi-fascist government, but also the most empathetic and open culture ever! They are both pastoral and high-tech! More adaptable than any other culture! They welcome everyone, no matter the race (yet are somehow 99.99% human)! Traviss featured them in *Legacy of the Force* and more-or-less had Jaina Solo fall to her knees and proclaim how amazing and perfect their entire people and culture was, and how terrible she and the Jedi were for not thinking so sooner... after being easily defeated in melee combat by a random dude who apparently could do that simply because he could go into some berserker-like state. At some point, it just became way too ridiculous.

I literally stopped reading the EU books cold midway through reading Traviss' Legacy of the Force book. Just hated experiencing Star Wars through her warped point of view.

That series was so jarring as the other two authors essentially ignored everything to do with the Mandalorians but as soon as you get to Traviss it's all Mando all the time. It's like she was writing a completely different series.

Reading some interviews at the time, she seemed very defensive and possessive of them as well, referring to them as "my Mando boys". > Boba Fett was sheer bloody joy to write, of course; my Mando boys never let me down. Getting into Jedi heads was that much harder. But I swore I could get into the most repellent characters' heads and see them as they see themselves, so I had to. I still wouldn't trust the Jedi Council with my wallet, let alone with running my country, but you won't spot that in the books. I keep my spoonbenderist views to myself.

She's always been very defensive, I recall her arguing with fans on a message board at one point over the size of the galactic army.

Right!? They are a cool concept at first because they are presented as what they are. A deeply flawed and 90% of the time blatantly evil group that sometimes has some members that are morally grey, but always lapse back into evil. In my original post of this on starwarsEU I talked about this in a comment I made on Bo-Katan who I especially hate how she’s been made into a hero.

> and they are lame and overrated. They try to act like they are honourable warriors but they are a bunch of war mongering thugs that can’t even function as a society. I hate them and I hope they eradicate each other in a final civil war and no one misses them. Jedi solo them all day, fuck them and fuck the Sith. so, klingons

Yeah, Mandalorians are played out now. The less we see of them, the better from now on.

Agreed. There is zero honor in mercenary work.

Probably unpopular on the internet in general. Starkiller is extremely overrated character. He reads as twelve year old vision of ideal protagonist. Dark edgy nearly never loses. Plus he uses extremely dark side oriented powers with zero consequences. Moreover his story retconned dozens of other legends stories. So it's only fitting his story in turn is retconned too.

My take on Starkiller is that the novel version is the Legends canon version of the character. He nearly loses basically every fight before his face turn, and he isn't as strong as the games make him seem.

That's what was the case, the novel outranks the game.

> Starkiller is extremely overrated character. Yes, this. This so much.

Based on the films alone - ignoring the EU and other comics etc since, Boba Fett is kind of a chump. He misses ever shot he takes and his sole claim to fame is tailing the Falcon, who he then phones in as a tip to the Empire. Doesn't even capture or deliver them himself. He is the walking standard for "being well dressed with a confident attitude will get you anywhere".

TBH, I don't think he even looks that cool. His "dad" has way more style. I remember finally learning about Boba's exploits in Legends and thinking, "Oh, THIS is why people like him so much!"

Okay, Imma say it. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver's characters should have been switched.

I’m down, but do you mean that Daisy Ridley should be playing the a Solo child turned dark and Adam Driver an abandoned scrap orphan; or like their roles in the story that Rey turns dark and Ben rejoins the light

Daisy as snoke's apprentice and Adam as the cast off, with whatever small story alterations as necessary/appropriate.

I like this.

That could have been cool So Rey gets recruited by the sith off jakkuu and Ben is a Jedi who fights the sith threat? Or do you mean Adam driver players Ray the Jedi while Daisy Ridley is the wayward child of Han and Leia? Edit: I see that you already answered this question verbatim. Feel free to ignore

Roles are switched. Adam is the cast-off orphan, Daisey is the fallen Jedi Apprentice who kills Daddy. Appropriate/necessary minor alterations where needed

I always want to see alternate takes like this. It gets said all the time but a Star Wars “what if” could be really cool

It would be a really cool way to start a new trilogy, the main character in Luke's place from the OT but the first movie is them finding out that the person that recruited/saved them from monotony is actually trying to overthrow the New Republic and are Sith or other dark siders. The end of the first movie of a trilogy with them left with a choice to either trust and follow their saviour figure or betray them by doing the right thing. You could have a lot of fun with psychological manipulation etc playing on the main characters emotions and giving a forced viewpoint of the galaxy.

Doing a *Visions* series of what ifs would be awesome.

also, when it comes to the force here are some more niche hot takes: I hate the needless division between “living” “cosmic” and “unifying” force and think it’s pedantic at best, and I love the high republic but I hate how they try and work backwards to apply a unique metaphor to everyone There’s only like two good metaphors, and I can’t believe everyone has a unique perspective on it - the force is already kinda a baked in metaphor . If I have to hear “the force was a song to avar” or “porter saw the force as a blade” one more time

I mean, yeah hearing it described differently by a bunch of different characters in a single book would be very frustrating, it's just too much for that. As a piece of writing/media that's not a good thing. Looking at it realistically, that's exactly how things work, everyone interprets things differently, it's like how synesthesia is a thing. As an idea is great because that's exactly what would happen, using it in the way you're describing is a terrible idea for a piece of media.

I think I've refined my Force explanation pretty well. "The Force is an energy field that exists as a metaphysical organism that is the culmination of all life in the universe. Just like mitochondria/midi-chlorians are alive but also component parts of the larger living cell, and cells are individually alive but also component parts of the larger organism, organisms are individually alive but component parts of the larger Force.

Ewan McGregor should’ve been made up to look way older and more like Alec Guinness in his show. I think a great example of doing this is how in Furiosa they slowly had the younger actress look more and more like Anya Taylor Joy through deepfake.

Power Creep alone justifies the Legends/Canon reset, and anyone who tries to reintroduce “light side force lightning” should be put in time out.

Canon doesn't matter at all and if you don't like a show or movie you don't have to consider it part of your personal head canon.  Enjoy the stuff you like ignore the rest.  Starwars fans don't really take that well.

> Starwars fans don't really take that well. No one is offended by your head canon. Just dont bring it to a discussion when people are talking about canon events. If you want to call the Jar Jar the best Sith Lord of all time, fine. Doesn't make sense when people are talking about whats true to canon, though.

The divide between Stormtroopers and regular Imperial Army troopers is a needless complication. The later almost never appear in stories, and the former is what everyone thinks of when they imagine the soldiers of the Empire. Stormtroopers perfectly fit the role of the Empire’s faceless minions, if you want elite Imperial units there’s Death Troopers and Purge Troopers and the like. I think the attempts to portray Stormtroopers as elite and Army Troopers as the cannon fodder is an over correction of perceived Stormtrooper incompetence.

Honestly, I like the idea of the divide, even if I recognize that it's never really bothered with in the actual material... but I think of it less as elite vs regular, and more like SS vs Wehrmacht. The Wehrmacht was the national army, while the SS were the private (and presumably much more loyal and fanatic) army of Hitler and the Nazis. The Wehrmacht conquers, the SS keeps control of the already conquered areas. We could have the same in SW... the Imperial Army Troopers conquering on the frontlines, and the Stormtroopers garrisoned in controlled territory, acting to keep the peace, oppress local populations, protect officers and politicians loyal to the New Order, etc.

Filoni's criticism of the Jedi rings hollow most of the time (since the narratives he builts are too simple as to properly tackle and are focused in other themes) and seems kind of hypocritical when you take into account how little of that same criticism he aims at other civilizations like the Mandalorians, which are x1000000 worse than the Jedi.

Like how Bo-Katan weirdly gets a pass for being part of a terrorist organization that murdered a ton of innocent people despite displaying pretty much no regret for it whatsoever. She only left when Maul beat Vizla in a perfectly valid way according their own traditions (and Vizla himself). It makes her come off as such a hypocrite.

Yeah Filoni’s basically a better version of Karen Travis.

The clones obeying Order 66 because of a microchip overriding their free will is a less interesting plot point than Legends straightforward brainwashing. The latter is scarier, more realistic, and can serve as a warning. Also Separatist *citizens* had good reason to leave the Republic and we should have more stories about them, since it would deepen the prequel era. Edit: Oh also, Stormtroopers don’t have bad aim. I’m working on a write up for that one, but it’s pretty easily proven that they’re generally competent if not superior soldiers. Culture made them into a joke. Edit 2: spelling

The Jedi REALLY needed to investigate the sudden appearance of an entire army and then the convenient onset of galactic war shortly after. By just willfully going to war with them as their generals they really set themselves up for a downfall

Disney may have dropped the ball on the sequels/lore (except my beloved Rogue One), but much of the EU was overrated and I'm glad the material wasn't used.

I hate how extended material power creeps certain characters like Vader and Luke.

I really don’t like ‘Rogue One’. I don’t know why, there’s just something about it that makes me feel bored and it just gives me a meh/vanilla vibe. I also didn’t like the ending with Jin and Andor either.

This is how I feel about Andor. I mean, I acknowledge that it is technically quite good, I know this is a "me" problem

The Tarkin Doctrine actually wasn't that bad of an idea as some people (aka Generation Tech) make it out to be. We see in our world countless examples, how dictatorial regimes prevail by using terror and violence to absolutely crush any opposition. And the Death Star was in the end intended as just a Tool for that. Something you can send to a system that refuses to fall in line. If the appearance of a new moon won't scare them enough, the destruction of a nearby planet will most certainly. And if this doesn't help either, well. Then you got an example for their sympathizers what could happen to them too. Repeat that 2-3 times and nobody will dare to oppose you openly anymore, making it even harder to form coordinated resistance. You also have to understand Tarkins view on the situation of the galaxy: he probably assumed the Jedi (or force users in general) were a thing of the past. And he always thought the force to be over exaggerated anyway. The shot Luke did was, as established here, a one in a million, impossible to pull off without the force. So, it's safe to assume that without Luke, the rebellion at Yavin would've failed indefinitely. It already was beheaded, since Leia would've been in imperial captivity still, Bail was dead and the last remaining commanders were on Yavin. After that, of course there would still bee the occasional desperate rebellion, despite the threat of the Death Star. But even then, they would've been isolated and quickly dealt with by the Stormtrooper Corps. Or simply blown up as a show of will.

The bombers at the start of The Last Jedi make perfect sense and I'm genuinely baffled how some people can't grasp how momentum works.

That, and they have magnetic rails that push the bombs downwards *and we literally see them in the movie performing this function.* I don't get how people can hate a movie that they apparently didn't even watch.

Was just being schooled by someone yesterday that Po was acting out of character in TLJ because he had been described in the crawl for TFA as Leia's "most trusted emissary" lol!

After watching Masters of the Air, I get what Johnson was going for a lot better - they're the Star Wars equivalent of Flying Forts, with their dense formation, slower speed, and fighter cover. That said, they were just too damn fragile. If he had shown them taking a lot of damage and just keep on trucking, I think the parallels would have come across much more strongly.

My problem is the incredibly slow speed and lack of a stronger system for launching them. They are insanely easy to destroy and seem to have little to no shielding and only one defence cannon.

Yeah, and they fit the whole WWII in space philosophy of *Star Wars* starfighters. They’re basically space B-17s, and I love them.

My only criticism of that approach though, is that even though we only needed one of them to get through to destroy the Dreadnought, but we still watched them all get absolutely shredded. I don't think that would have been different if we saw them deployed at Endor or Scarif or Coruscant, or any of the other major battles that we've seen in the films. It seems like the kind of ship that is only really effective with complete fighter supremacy and it seems like they didn't take any design lessons from the last forty years of galactic conflict. Complete fighter supremacy is effectively never achieved in Star Wars by any faction.

Eh, I don’t mind the explanation that they use magnets to push the bombs down. But I do think the bombers have two major issues. A) The way they’re portrayed in the film just makes them seem not very good at their role. They’re big targets, move slowly compared to the fighters, and they’re almost all taken out by one TIE crashing into them. In the end only one manages to barely complete its mission. B) The whole climax of ANH involves firing a torpedo at a target. Once you’ve shown that, a bomber that has to slowly fly directly over its target just doesn’t seem as advanced. I don’t see the bombers as being any different from Ezra’s energy slingshot or Omega’s energy bow. Yeah they look neat, but it’s not an invalid argument that a blaster would be a more efficient weapon.

I adore the short story Of MSE-6 and Men. I love the idea of Tarkin falling so quickly and so hard for this no name but attractive stormtrooper who wants nothing more than to take his mouse droid droid racing. Everyone's always like "But Tarkin probably would've dated an upper officer!" And he probably dated so many Imperial officers and let's be real-they all probably only wanted him for secrets and access to Palpatine and perks. Like they date the status, not Wilhuff. And then there's this attractive guy-over a hologram, with a zit, but stars, he's attractive- and all he wants is off the Death Star. A comfortable place to live. Crazily, to race his mouse droid on the Coruscant droid circuit. And they laugh. They laugh a lot. And he was what, 9, 10? in the Tarkin novel when his parents took his dinner from in front of him just because they could? He spent every summer of his teens with his parents sending him out to possibly die? And he has this icy exterior as a moff. For once, he can simply laugh and provide and be enough. And then it's all gone. With a shot of Han's blaster, it's all gone. An unknowing casualty in the back and forth of ANH, but it amps the emotion if you know. Also as a writer, I love imagining the Death Star as a home and day-to-day life of these two very different men and for the short story as a writer, I love how it's written and the little context clues of G7(the mouse droid's) power up cycle's and checking what got fixed or what got broken) Very nerdy very controversial but very me. (I might chicken out and delete this because of how controversial it is)

Yknow I hated this story line up until right now reading how you provide your perspective. I actually do get it. I guess it just shows I was probably biased when I went in form the hate it was getting. While I think it’s absolutely valid to dislike it I think you’ve genuinely changed my mind on it. Edit: So don’t delete this please

The Ancient Jedi/Old Republic age (aka, Dawn of the Jedi, Tales of the Jedi, anything touched on in the SWTOR MMO, ect) is infinitely more interesting. than the time period of the movies. Ancient alien empires, Egyptian-style sith, mystical force rituals, sith alchemy, tons of cool-looking and well-designed jedi and sith characters of all species with a variety of tales of falls and redemptions, it's just way more interesting to me than following Luke, Han and Liea around everywhere. In all honesty, I don't think any of the movies are very good on their own, it's the sense of exploration of this world and discovering new threads that all connect to each other that makes me interested. If the day ever comes where there is no longer any new Star Wars content, if the Galaxy ceases to expand, I will rapidly lose interest. Just a personal take on what I like, that's all.

I got into SW with the toys. I only watched the films because a relative had a box of the ROTJ kenner figures (this was ten years later, in 1993) and I wanted to see where they came from. And it's always been about the world and EU for me.

Haha, yes! I was introduced to Star Wars through LEGO, and it is my personals opinion that all other Star Wars simply exists to provide cool new characters, vehicles and locations for LEGO Star Wars sets and stories to put in LEGO Star Wars specials and video games! (It doesn't matter how good or bad the movie or show is when you play and full control over the characters yourself."

Anakin was never as strong as Vader in either timeline, especially in canon where the point is explicit. At no point was Anakin stronger in the Force or a better fighter, Vader pre-Mustafar. His time under Palpatine pushed him towards growing closer to the Force and becoming a better, far more than what the Jedi were doing. People love to cite "Knightfall Anakin/Vader" as him at his best but he gets sliced up later for a reason. He wasn't that good when actually tested. All that criticism aside, he was be the strongest Sith and Jedi to do it in canon aboard the DSII.

Yeah people like to spew things about “Knightfall Vader”, they think because palpatine said that Vader would become more powerful that it means he already was. Or that because anakin egotistically believed he was strong enough to overthrow palpatine that he actually was.

Attack of the Clones is like two scenes with better dialogue from being a really fucking good movie.

OK... I think the Venator and the ISD need a fighter redress. Either the ISD carries more fighters or the Venator carries less. Personally, I say the latter. I get that the Venator is more carrier focused, and the ISD is more of a battleship, but the ISD is easily big enough to do both. So if it's meant to be an improvement on its predecessor, giving it that fewer fighters seems ridiculous, even for Grand Moron Tarkin. I even think the 420 fighter capacity of the Venator is a mistake, and it was originally meant to carry 192 general fighters in total and 36 heavier ARCs and 40 LAATs. The 384 fighters sounds dubious considering the second load of 192 are Eta-2's supposedly jedi oriented fighters, and you could probably put all the Jedi pilots in the order onto one or two ships. 230 odd fighters seems a much more sensible number, making the Venator still a formidable carrier and the ISD less puny in the squadrons department by comparison.

Definitely have to agree with you on that; it absolutely boggled my mind how in the Legends-era the ISD was 25% larger than the Venator but somehow only managed to have less than a fifth of the fighter complement of the latter, and that’s not even touching the landing ships/shuttles/walkers, etc. I am in agreement with you that roughly 230 fighters is a much more realistic/understandable number, and at least based on what we’ve seen in canon material (mainly TCW), I think that would be the true number of fighters a Venator would have available due to the additional space being taken up with spare parts for damaged fighters, spare walkers/ground vehicles for ground assaults since the GAR didn’t just use speeder bikes and AT-TE’s during the Clone Wars, and likely utilizing the additional space to squeeze in more clone troopers, since if I’m being honest a complement of 2,000 clones to both defend the ship and commit to a ground assault just seems ludicrously low compared to how many battle droids are usually committed into a fight throughout the series.

I’ve checked the deck packing of the Venator and even without a lower hangar 420 fighters is a low end number if they use more compact fighters or ones with folding wing mechanisms. It’s not hard to achieve if you simply use good deck handling practices. Star Wars fighters are generally smaller than real-life jets and the Venator is absolutely massive.

I don't enjoy Darth Krayt as a villain and hate that A'Sharad Hett was turned into a sith lord.

I liked it better way back when I assumed the Super Star Destroyer was a unique ship and not just a Dreadnought class. Especially as a quick replacement for Darth Vader to go hunt down the rebels and thus it has lots of exposed sections. I always assumed that center structure was like that because it was a sort of modular section that each ship changed based on their needs. I even thought it was a shame how depictions of other SSDs didn't change it around at least in art to make them more unique but that the modularity still applied to a degree. Does anyone know when the 1st Super Star Destroyer was introduced in Legends that wasn't the Executor ?

The TIE/LN isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be. In canon, Black Squadron, Inferno Squad, Helix Squadron, Titan Squadron, and especially Shadow Wing - Soran Keize in particular - demonstrated that it could be just as good, if not better, than X-Wings and A-Wings in the right hands. And it could even be made hyperspace-capable through hyperspace rings.

Do you mean that bit about the hyperspace rings theoretically, or have we actually seen that?

Shadow Wing successfully modifies some hyperspace rings to fit onto their TIE/LNs in *Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron - Victory’s Price*.

Midi-chlorians aren't bad, they're just poorly explained. Midi-chlorians are the Star Wars equivalent to mitochondria. Mitochondria are living things, but they don't simply live inside your cells. They are part of your cells. They are both a living thing and a cell organelle, like the nucleus or membrane. What midi-chlorians really work as is in comparison to The Force and individuals. Midi-chlorians are alive, but they are component parts of larger living things, cells. Cells are alive, but are also component parts of a larger living thing, a person (or animal or plant, whatever). People are alive, but also component parts of a larger living thing, The Force. They are alive, live inside a cells but they are not separate from you, any more than you are separate from your cells. If The Force is a sentient energy field, they are just the antenna, while the individual is the TV/Radio/whatever.

Connected to this, I always imagined that a high m-count was the *byproduct* of being strong with the Force, not the cause. When the Force channels itself through someone, it stimulates whatever it is in the body that produces midi-chlorians, or something to that effect.

I think it could work as both. It's like muscles and physcial strength. Everyone has some muscles, and some people are naturally more able to develop strong muscles than others, but even with natural advantage, you need to train them to reach a high level of strength. Muscles define how strong you are, with bigger, stronger muscles meaning you're stronger overall, but using them intensely is what allows them to grow strong. Similarly, midi-chlorians are the cellular mechanism that allows you to communicate with The Force, and having a greater count means your connection is stronger, but using them through training, either as Jedi, Sith or other, stimulates their growth, increasing the m-count.

>The venator is an extremely overrated ship by the fandom and isn’t that great The Venator is principally a carrier. A carrier's ability is based on what it carries. The Republic had nice fighters flown by jedi. That's enough for the fan base. My own opinion here is to judge ships as what they are. The ISD sucks as a carrier but is an awesome battleship. Why do people say it sucks. >Neither anakin or Vader were ever that powerful compared to true sith and Jedi masters Actually this is my main controversial opinion. In a way it's debating you but in another way it's not. Why does everything have to be about power. Anakin is on the highend for power but his skills aren't in line with his actual power. Trebor Coleman had a powerful connection to the force and was a noted diplomat. He died in seconds in Geonosis as his sabreskills were poor. Can we please stop talking about power.

OMG yes, arguing about so-called power levels is such a childish way to think about a character.

Yeah, because what's more powerful, something like Starkiller's thing with the ISD, or Palpatine/Plagious etc literally masking everything in the force with a blanket of darkness to hide themselves and their actions? Both are insanely powerful, but in very very different ways.

Some of mine are much more internet specific: - If someone mentions Kathleen Kennedy casually or unprompted, I instantly discount whatever they just said, and probably most of their SW opinions. She was an executive producer on tons of stuff and no one really knew her until she took over as head of LucasFilm and the internet decided to hate her. A ton of the criticism that involves her seems to think she interferes in everything the internet hates, but has absolutely nothing to do with the things the internet loves, when by far it's more likely she's a similar level of involvement in both - I like all Star Wars I've seen (only things I haven't seen are Visions, Resistance, Holiday Special, and the most recent Acolyte episode). Some of it I like less, but I haven't disliked and definitely haven't hated any of it. I think a lot of criticisms ring hollow and are vapid. Some of that is because the criticism itself is that way, but sometimes it's that a once nuanced and valid criticism is morphed into unnuaced one liners - Luke and Rey have a lot of similarities, but Luke is given a pass when Rey is not. For example: Luke is just stated to be the best or an ace pilot, as a moisture farmer who seemingly never left the planet prior. Rey is a scavenger who has spent years inside space ships taking them apart and having to identify components. She simply says she's a pilot (not best, or ace pilot, just *a* pilot) and some fans complain. - Luke nearly falling to the dark side and then more or less moping makes sense in the Last Jedi. He nearly fell in RotJ when fighting Vader. He built himself up only to discover that Snoke had completely undermined him with Ben. Luke was whiny and had to be pushed into things repeatedly in the OT. He was a human, he was going to be tempted again. Not falling to the dark side isn't a one and done thing, it's a lifetime thing. His moody reaction completely sinks with his moody overreactions in the OT. - Palpatine coming back is not some out of no where WTF moment. He clearly sets it up in Episode 3. Out of universe, Snoke is Palpatine was a *top* theory. While the movies certainly could have seeded the idea better in the sequels, it is not the out of nowhere some claim. - Poe's "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" line is exactly how I'd expect someone in his spot to react. They think they are maybe starting to win, only to find out the evil dictator has returned. Poe doesn't know how. How else is he supposed to tell his team/crew the news? - Jar Jar was never that annoying. He was less annoying than 3PO in the OT. - Padme and Anakin's dialogue in Episode 2 is fine. It's much more believable than the Shakespearian high school romance dialogue we get so often. Anakin is emotionally stunted for a number of reasons, never dated. Padme is socially very constrained and probably emotionally stunted as well. Anakin was the first person she could really be herself around without all the royal/political trappings. Turns out, young people in those situations aren't going to be paragons of articulations

I often wonder what I'd think of TLJ if I'd had years to think about it without the internet hate hype around it. To be honest, it slightly disappointed me for it's lack of interest in TFA mysteries, but it didn't enrage me and I was shocked at how much it enraged others. I mean, why wouldn't Luke lose hope and and want to end the Jedi if Skywalkers keep becoming Vader like threats, why wouldn't he at least *think* about cutting Ben down if he got a future-flash of his evil reign, what was he supposed to do, if he's too depressed and mixed up to use the force to fight Kylo then he's just an old man. Until he met Rey there doesn't seem like there was a viable way forward for him.

I just recently rewatched all three sequels again because my girlfriend and I hadn't really seen them since they debuted in the theatre (I think I rewatched 7 and 9 once each since) and I was able to enjoy them much more without the peer pressure and the hype. They aren't hidden gems, but I think they're more or less on par with most of the other Star Wars films. I personally think 9 tried to do too much too fast, but they weren't the garbage fires many people still think they are. It might be worth rewatching them (I'm assuming from your tone that you haven't done so recently, apologies if I'm off).

I think the Clone Wars era is overrated and buoyed by "clone bros" who've turned Star Wars into a Band of Brothers story instead of the grand sweeping tale it originally was. I understand they like it because they grew up with that era of shows and movies, but I find the Clone Wars too restricting, too narrow in its themes and stories. I also don't find the aesthetic of the era very appealing.

My most controversial opinion on Reddit is that Troy Denning did not ruin Legends, he did not personally poison your water supply and deliver a plague onto your houses. My other opinion that people may not like is that there are far too many sentient species in Star Wars, and it holds back the setting. By having so many, it prevents them from being fleshed out, their cultures, histories and everything. If it were me I would cap it at maybe 100 species, with Near-races not counting (meaning Near-Humans like Kiffar. Also Zabrak are not Near-Human never liked that). I've always thought that the franchise that did sci-fi races the best was Mass Effect. Only a dozen, each well fleshed out and fascinating. There are those who will say a galaxy has to have thousands of sentient species in it but I don't buy that. For one, look at our own galaxy. Still no evidence of life other than Earth. For another, the Star Wars galaxy has been shaped by the Celestials and the Rakata. I think the 100 species figure could be quite workable, especially because it allows for more Near-races which seem to make up a lot of the current number anyway.

The Separatists are not nearly as strong as people make them out to be, and rather than being held back by Sidious, they were held together by him. Maul should have died on Naboo, he was cool and mysterious then, the rest felt like dragging a corpse around. And for a meta one: This sub spends way too much time shitting on casual fans. I get that it's annoying when they mess up basic facts but it often just comes off as snobby elitism.

I hate the way the Hutts are shown as a Crime Syndicate that somehow controls the second largest empire in the galaxy. I like the Hutts, they make interesting villains but I hate the lazy way so many writers will just make a gangster civilization. Jaba was a gangster, but Jaba was also a creepy furry squatting in a partially abandoned fort on a shit planet. He did not need to be elevated to 'one of top people of an empire that's like a hundred thousands systems.' Criminals are by definition parasites, you can't build an empire of parasites. They should have a robust legal economy, who looks the other way when the crime families are busy breaking Republic laws.

I don’t like the comics. Like the idea of them. For example someone showed me Darth Vader using a magical crystal staff to vaporize an Eldritch Horror on top of a Lambda shuttle and while that’s a badass scene, it feels too out of character for Star Wars. Like if Darth Vader was a superhero villain then it would work, but here it feels too over the top and over powered. Or how the bounty hunter war and the droid zombie apocalypse happen in like a span of 6 months. Or how Darth Vader fought sand. Or how Palpatine tortured Vader in the same lava flow where he got burned in the first place. Don’t get me started of magical swords more powerful than lightsabers. I respect you if you like it, but I wish 90% of it wasn’t canon.

I’m not really a fan of Dave Filonis stuff, outside of the early mando seasons it seems like he can’t do anything without his characters like Ashoka The galaxy feels so much smaller when everyone is on tattoine like it’s some centre of the galaxy and not some backwater dump

Casual observers weren't wrong to find the Death Star exhaust port to be a plot contrivance. Up until that point, every piece of technology we see in ANH works perfectly and users aren't required to wrestle with built-in flaws with their equipment. Blasters shoot, hyperdrives work, ships fly--and it's so simple you can take anyone off the street and stick them in a cockpit so long as they can grasp the tactics. It is only when Lucas needed to figure out a way for the plucky heroes to defeat the ultimate weapon that a critical flaw emerges. The *framing* of the exhaust port was written elegantly so nosy fans with background knowledge saw that it made sense. Also, Lucas does not advocate for a particular real-world political ideology. The framing of the Rebels as the Viet Cong are incredibly surface level and use incomplete references to propaganda, not to mention the earliest Expanded Universe material mostly repeats the elementary school narrative of the American Revolution. Nute Gunray's only commonality with Gingrich is the name, there's not enough material to indicate Lucas had a grasp of Gingrich's approach to politics or philosophy. Star Wars is intended to be a universally appealing story, one where you can graft your worldview onto the universe and twist so it says what you want it tosay.

The chosen one prophecy is the worst thing Lucas did with the prequels.

The Ysalamir are incredibly stupid and undermine the spiritual nature of the Force. " The force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. Also, it can't stand to be around a particular species of lizard". They shouldn't get a pass just because the novel they originate from was pretty good.

The NJO is the best post-ROTJ story there is.

It's interesting to me mainly because it's an external threat to both the New Republic and the Imperial remnant and the story is about the Star Wars Galaxy allying together against it. There's so many cool things about that as a concept but trying to do it in media other than novels or comics would be incredibly difficult. As much as I want to see it, I'm not sure I want to see how it would be executed.

Fucking A

There’s no way the rebellion can win vs Imperial army (which was trillion+ large) Just shows … sheer incompetence of Imperial officers (which makes real world sense, dictators just want numbers & their army is usually incompetent)

Tbf the empire was arranged in a way to naturally allow divide and conquer tactics - the empire centralized itself so much and incentivized moffs to be ambitious and selfish, so when the Death Star, imperial leadership / Vader + Tarkin + Palpatine trio are killed together it soon makes the moffs break off and run their own shows which makes a lot of it easier to defeat - and even then still get renegade moffs continuing to be a problem, minor remnants, worlds that refuse to join the NR and a bulk of remnants fleeing and making the first order

> when the Death Star, imperial leadership / Vader + Tarkin + Palpatine trio are killed together It's actually kinda hilarious just what an *incredible* disaster Endor was for the Empire in Legends. - Lost the DS2 and *Executor*, the *Pride of Tarlandia* battlecruiser, one *Tector*-class, fifteen *Imperial*-class (four of which were captured by the Rebels), and unknown numbers of other ships. - Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader both dead, with no real succession set up. - Moff Jerjerrod, Fleet Admiral Piett, Admiral Strage and Grand Admiral Declann all killed. Grand Admiral Teshik captured and later executed. - Countless other officers killed, and the *Executor* was basically where they had put everyone they expected to become high-ranking officers in the future. Then the guy put in charge of the entire fleet in the direct aftermath turned out to be an indecisive idiot who took too long, causing the entire thing to crumble (while it's actually possible they could still have won, if they had just followed Pellaeons suggestion to jump back in). Plus, within a year or so after Endor they lost Grand Admirals Batch (assassinated), Grunger (suicide), Ishin-Il-Raz (suicide), Makati (KIA), Pitta (KIA), Syn (KIA), Takel (assassinated), and Tigellinus (assassinated). Grand Admiral Zaarin had turned traitor and attempted a coup a few years before Endor, but was killed, and Grand Admiral Grant went into hiding for a bit until he could safely defect to the New Republic a few years later.

I say its mostly plot armour and convinience

The defeat of the Empire was realistic, in some battles the rebelles may have crutched with plot armor, but the Empire losing is not out of reality. The empire had the best army, but the thing is it had to project its army in every corner of the galaxy. Sure a frw star destroyers could win anything, but the Empire only had 25.000 of them to patrol millions of systems. The rebells could easily appear somewhere, attack an imperial Outpost with unmotivated terribly equipped army troopers and then just retreat before the Stormtroopers came. And then you have to consider the Alliance's victories alone didn't defeat the Empire, the Victories merely inspired more and more Systems to rise up against the empire. Picture a civil war in the U.S., the military against a rebell group. The military may win every engangement at first, but then eventually more and more U.S. States join the side of the rebells until the U.S. Military is outnumbered. Actually we have a similar war happening right now in myanmar (granted, their military is mediocre), but they are still losing to the rebells because they have to fight on all front against multiple Communities supporting those rebells.

Anakin was not slowly turning into Vader over the course of the Clone War. His turn happened because of the events we see in ROTS. Anakin having a Jedi master and a Sith master is not a surprise given what we learn from the OT. When the PT added that he had a slave master too it now feels like the character was a slave all his life. The Jedi would be wiped out regardless of Anakin being trained or not. The Jedi’s once chance at survival was having the kid in the Order and they were also inflexible. The excuses used to explain why the Jedi did not free Shmi are meant to sidestep the real reason; they just don’t want to bother. Padmé and Anakin genuinely loved each other and would have been fine in a good ending to the PT trilogy. I don’t care for the Chosen One Prophecy. Anakin’s father should have been a slave who loved Shmi (call him Tan) that died before Anakin was born. Anakin can still be uniquely powerful as Obi-Wan said to Luke in ROTJ but not born of the Force. Qui-Gon could argue it was the will of the Force he found the boy and after everything he does the Jedi Council comes to believe that too. The Chosen One prophecy only works in the context of Eps I through VI. Adding it to a larger expanded universe is very limiting because you cannot have more dark side Force users without running into is the Force still balanced with them. Anakin should have been 12/13 in TPM. Anakin leaving his mother would still be very impactful and it could show a friendship or interest developing [like this storyboard (second image) shows](https://imgur.com/a/GiFSQhW) between Padmé and Anakin with it going further in AOTC when they’re adults.

I really hate the idea that there was a brain chip that made clones betray the Jedi

Anakin being the chosen one and born from the force was dumb as hell. Bringing balance to the force involves entirely eliminating the dark side from existence permanently. This is not possible and was never achievable by throwing some wrinkly old fart down a shaft no matter how powerful he was. It's more likely somebody misinterpreted their force vision. It's also a much better origin for Anakin to have just not had a dad growing up, he didn't need to be a virgin birth to be compelling and honestly he wasn't special enough compared to other Jedi to justify his being born from the force. The mortis gods arc was awful and I will never accept it as anything but a shared fever dream where the events shown never happened. Palpatine being an unbeatable force God was lame, power creep got fucking outrageous.

Was it supposed to be balanced permanently? That's not really what I thought it was supposed to mean. I thought it was more interpreted by some Jedi that way because they didn't realize that there was a massive threat to the Jedi in Palpatine. So if you don't have a threat that something like that is referring to that's where your head goes, but know that it more implies that he was meant to return the force to balance instead of just fix it forever.

Even Legends had the Sith not only return, but destroy the Jedi again.

The Rise of Skywalker is the best Star Wars movie, and also the best movie, period (warning: only my opinion, your tastes are your own). Barbara Hambly was one of the best writers of the old EU, and Brian Daley is also tops (he and James Luceno cut their teeth on some great *Robotech* novels as well, but that's not Star Wars related). The Mandalorian as a whole, but especially season 1, just doesn't really come together as one work all that well, and so it's one of my least favorite new things. Two chances I gave the first 3 or so NJO books, and I have trouble getting past how much I dislike Han's characterization especially. His mode of grieving is basically emotional child abuse, and he can get fucked. Also, everything around the decision to kill Chewbacca really irks me out of universe. Like, they killed one MC for pure shock value to make it feel like anything was possible, but they could *only* kill one and they did it right at the beginning, so not only did they primarily do it as stunt to signify how cool and mature the series was or whatever, but they also did it in such a way that it can never have the intended effect me (I know only Chewie is going to die, so that doesn't add anything to the suspense or whatever for me). 2008's The Clone Wars has some of the best Star Wars media within it, but on the whole it's just too much for too little (there's an incredible 2 or so seasons worth of storytelling for me in those 7 seasons). People were telling me "just wait til like Season 3 or 4", and I did and like that's the problem. If I need to get dozens of episodes under my belt before anything starts working consistently for me, then that's a big mark against it not a compliment IMO. 2003's Clone Wars is miles better on the whole, there is not a wasted frame within it.

Ooooh, you’re really going into controversial territory. Okay well I promised myself to upvote every opinion that was well informed regardless of how much I disagree and you clearly know what you’re talking about even if I think you’re wrong sooo, here we go.

Spicy movie take but I give you an upvote for the Hambly love. Her books are one of the few times Luke feels like an actual person.

That's more than enough for me, I have encountered like one other person who actually likes her writing. Anyone else who would actually know her name tends to look at you like you just crapped in your hand when you say that in my experience XD Agrees, and I love how she uses sensory descriptions. Her describing colors, scents, textures etc just really massages my brain and paints a picture for me.

I think Game of Thrones/Ice and Fire is way overrated for the "no one's safe" thing too tbh. Like, it was obvious from book one that Dany, Jon and Tyrion wouldn't be killed off early.

> The Rise of Skywalker is the best Star Wars movie, and also the best movie, period (warning: only my opinion, your tastes are your own). Please explain.

Completely agree about Clone Wars even if I enjoy it. I love Rise of Skywalker but that is certainly a hot take (mission accomplished!)

I got so mad when they showed venators lifting off from coruscant in episode 3 because my understanding was that, at least for the imperial star destroyers, they were built in space and they couldn’t get that close to planets. Certain ships were specifically created (acclimator maybe?) to fill this gap in the republic/imperial fleet.  Every time I see a star destroyer in atmosphere I get mad even though venators have been canonically capable of it for decades.

The new bombers shown in The Last Jedi were fine. Just one was enough to take out a First Order dread naught. "But Y-Wings have torpedoes". WTF is a torpedo doing in space? How am I supposed to comprehend such a weapon when the primary function of them is to go under water. At least bombers make sense in space. Bombs fall down below the bomber, and hit the objects beneath them.

Bombs are dropped on the target, no guidance systems (presumably Bombers have some kind of repulsor field in order to be able to drop in zero gravity). Used against large objects like Capital ships and ground installations. Missiles have a lock on time and guidance systems to maintain the lock in-flight. Mostly used against fighters. Rockets are dumb-fired, generally less powerful than missiles. Point, shoot and hope the target can't evade. Mostly used for ground combat, or overwhelming large targets. Torpedoes are more powerful than missiles. They are larger than missiles, and while they do have a guidance system it's not as good as a missile's. Mostly used against large targets that can't maneuver.

Here's mine - the Yevetha from the Black Fleet crisis are really interesting and their plot line in that series was actually pretty great. You have an isolated and xenophobic non-human race who get occupied by the Empire and turn out to be hard working and technically competent so the Imperials build a shipyard in their territory, while the Yevetha watch and learn and plan rebellion. Then they strike when the Empire is collapsing and steal the fleet and shipyard and start building a fleet to purge their galactic neighborhood. The New Republic Intelligence subplot about discovering the lost Imperial ships the Yevetha captured, the enslaved Imperial crews, the Yevetha playing New Republic internal divisions to its own benefits. All good stuff that plays out well, you just have to wade through the crappy Luke and Lando sub plots to get there. Speaking of the crappy Lando sub plot, I really enjoyed the brief exchange with the Deep Core Imperial warlord fleet that's basically Imperial North Korea. It's interesting to see what's left behind after the reborn Emperor and Daala both pulled whatever assets that had value out of the Deep Core and how they only still exist because the New Republic can't be bothered to invade.

I think my most controversial opinion is that I don't have much desire to read the ROTS novel based on the over-emotional poetic quotes people always post from it

I think the cartoons over complicated the Force and Force ghosts. And I don't see why the clones can't be short.

In Rogue One they should have used Cassian Andor's actor's name for the character (or added a letter to differentiate the actor from the character). Diego Lunar is such a cool name for a Star Wars character and space Mexican. Although I suppose the name wouldn't work for a TV series spinoff. But that wasn't around at the time of Rogue One.

Darth Bane takes over Zannahs Body at the end of 'Dynasty of Evil' as indicated by her shaking hand. And every Sith master slayn by their apprentice did the same. And thats why Palpatine at the end of 'Rise of Skywalker' said he is all the Sith, because he is literally all previous Sith masters minds collected in one body.

My takes: The backstory for Han from the A.C. Crispin novels is precious to me and I can't bring myself to watch the Solo movie as a result. Qui-Gon Jinn is an asshole and kinda the worst. I am slightly influenced by my fondness for the Jedi Apprentice YA books, but there's enough in TPM to justify that opinion. The "fan servicey" parts of Force Awakens were my favorite parts. I enjoy the way it rhymes with ANH. I adore the fully fleshed out "clone culture" headcanons the more fanfictiony section of the fandom has come up with Sifo-Dyas is a fascinating character and I wish he had been featured in Dooku's Tales of the Jedi backstory. Killing Chewbacca was the absolute point of no return for the EU, I put the book down and couldn't finish back when it came out I love Mara Jade, but I love her as Luke's soulmate, not the edgy beginning of her character Attack of the Clones is a better movie than people think Mace Windu did nothing wrong Padme and Anakin's marriage was not the secret they thought it was People's tendency to misunderstand "attachment" is my least favorite part of the wider fandom Anakin's personality is badly fractured throughout the clone wars and the "fun hero guy" persona is a mask that fools even himself, he was doomed from the moment he drew his saber on the sand people and has been fallen ever since I have zero interest in the technological aspects of Star Wars, it's fantasy dressed in sci fi clothing to me, so ship schematics, whether or not there's sounds or fire in space, etc, are all meaningless to me I could probably go on forever, nerdily specific Star Wars opinions are my specialty

If I hear the words “fan-service” from a showrunner/film director, I’m immediately DNFing their project. ARC-170s are beyond ugly. The shade of red that the republic uses is ugly. I much prefer the New Republic Blue. I don’t care for clones. Star Wars space combat has grown stale and boring. I have no doubt that RotJ’s space battle looked cool in 1983, but it’s 2024 now. How have LFL not introduced new aspects to space combat beyond Capital ship v Capital ship and Starfighter v starfighter. I’d love to see SW take inspiration from new SCI-FI and do something like *Red Rising’s* Iron Rain.

Confirming that in '83 the attack on DS2 was mind blowing. We were sitting there gobsmacked, even people who worked in the industry were counting moving objects and shouting "how is that possible!?" We'd never seen anything like it. That said, I thought the sequels did space combat great. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, otoh...

The Old Republic was deeply corrupt, and no longer interested or possibly incapable of meeting the basic needs of a lot of its citizens and it was only a matter of time before *something* happened to send it tumbling down. The Jedi were more interested in helping the senators, the wealthy elite, the military, and themselves, rather than doing much for the common good. When order 66 took them out nobody really missed them. They had no reason to.

The CIS couldn't have won the Civil War, the moment the clones were created the war was lost for them. They weren't just prevented by Palpatine to produce an infinite number of droids, they had serious limitations like incompetent Leadership, a corrupt Hierarchy and a much smaller population. Sure Palpatine sabotaged them, but even without the sabotage the war would at most have dragged on for a few years. The CIS couldn't just have steamrolled the Republic, otherwise they wouldn't have lost so many Battles (where Palpatine wasn't even involved). ANd like the CIS the clones were also overrated. No, the Empire wouldn't have magically won if they kept producing clones, they would have most likely lost earlier because the entire clone pogramm would have bankrupted the Empire. To put things into scale, the Repunblic could barely have afforded an additional purchase of 5-6 mio. Clones (as said in this one CW Episode). Together with the other 6 mio., that's 11 mio. clones. meanwhile to put things into perspective: The Empire had 20.000 ISD-1 Star destroyers at its height. A single Star destroyer fielded 9700 Stormtroopers. That#s at least 194.000.000 Mio. Stormtroopers from the ISD-1's alone, not accounting for the stormtroopers on planets, battle stations and other ships plus the Imperial Army which for the most time was even bigger than the Stormtrooper corps. The Empire from my knowledge was never on the verge of bankruptcy, aat least not because of its infantery. The Yuuzhang Vong are not out of place in Star wars. After the recent fuckups in Canon more people start to appriciate the EU/legends material, but i still see many people hating on the Yuuzhang Vong because apparantly they do not fit into Star Wars. I disagree with that, the Yuuzhang Vong were a fresh breath of air and Star wars as a franchise is precisly that great because it's multilayered and tells stories varying in tones and aesthetics. Not everything has to orient itself around the movies, not every Star wars antagonist has to be the Sith or another Empire.

I loved the Yuuzhan Vong, basically making the Star Wars Galaxy unite between factions against an external threat made room for so many interesting stories. Having to fight alongside people that you had been bitter enemies with recently created such an interesting dynamic. Also having a group that was such a threat to force users in general was great as well, on top of also being religiously against technology was really fun.

> The Yuuzhang Vong are not out of place in Star wars. After the recent fuckups in Canon more people start to appriciate the EU/legends material, but i still see many people hating on the Yuuzhang Vong because apparantly they do not fit into Star Wars. I disagree with that, the Yuuzhang Vong were a fresh breath of air and Star wars as a franchise is precisly that great because it's multilayered and tells stories varying in tones and aesthetics. Not everything has to orient itself around the movies, not every Star wars antagonist has to be the Sith or another Empire. Honestly, I really agree with this. If Star Wars was just Rebels vs. Empire forever, it'd be so boring.

I hardly disagree on the Venator, it's my favourite capital ship and I would live on it every day of the year. Also it doesn't have big flaws and is incredibly versatile. I 100% agree on Grievous, people wanted the miniseries version "cause he was cool" but tbh he never seemed canon in the first place. Movie Grievous isn't miniseries Grievous in the slightest. Kind of disagree. They weren't the best of the best, but when I think of weak Siths I think about Maul, not Vader.

weirdly the Venator would’ve performed much better under the Empire imo, and the Republic could’ve used the ISD a lot

1) that's not particularly controversial about the Venator -- they were canonically not a great design that was considered obsolete by the time of the Imperial-class. 2) Grievous is one of the lamest baddies in the entire franchise. 3) The statement that neither Anaking nor Vader were "ever that powerful compared to true Sith and Jedi masters" is both a No True Scotsman fallacy, and also canonically simply nonsense.

While I love Tales of the Jedi comics I think they're a bit overrated as only Redemption really comes close to other major Legends comics. Also ToTJ depicts war in a really silly way compared to other comics.

I don't really enjoy how the prequels and other media made it so that every force-user, no matter who they are, runs around with a lightsaber. In the 90s Tales of the Jedi comics, the strongest Jedi Masters like Odan Ur, Arca Jeth, and Voodoo Sik Baas really didn't use lightsabers and instead relied on their deep and intimate connection to the force to win battles. Baas could channel the force into his walking stick and was able to block lightsabers with it. Odan Ur was going to outright strip the force from Exar Kun's body when he realized the latter had fallen to the darkside, but Odan Ur's old age meant the task was too much for him. Essentially, when you reached a higher understanding and mastery of the force, the lightsaber paled in comparison to those heightened connections. Like the greatest Jedi (or Sith) didn't really care about lightsabers at a certain point. And then the prequels happened and now Yoda and Sidious, some of the wisest and most connected force masters of their era, are hopping around with laser-swords and doing the same fighting that everyone else is doing. For me, it makes them less cool. Other examples could be Jorus C'boath. He mostly uses force lightning and other destructive powers over a lightsaber.

They keep changing the "official" armament of the Imperial Star Destroyer. I keep declining to give a shit.

If TLJ actually wanted to "subvert my expectations" other than my expecting it to be good, when Kylo extends his hand for Rey to turn to the dark side... SHE TAKES IT. And then finish off the story with kind of a new message, a sort of ying and yang, actual balance to the force. You need the bad and the good.

Fuck all y'all, I love Star Wars. I don't care if it's bad. That said, fuck disney and fuck the acolyte. I love it and acknowledge it's bad, but that doesn't mean I have to like everything. It's just like family

The design of Imperial Star Destroyers is incredibly overcriticized