General Star Wars Animated Series

Chopper finds your lack of faith disturbing.

Skippy, you're our only hope.

Chopper doesn't need the Force. He's going to be the core of the Death Star.

They just put a new clip up for us:

If you think Chopper's crazy, you should also meet R9-C4, an OC I conceptualized months before Rebels was announced for the Paranormalities trilogy (the concept art itself was posted more than a year after she was introduced in the story).

Part 2

edited 2nd Mar '15 11:54:21 AM by yellowturtle

That last question: Very good answer. If there's something we Star Wars tend to forget every now and then, it's not to take everything said literally.

That answer to the first one was also an interesting one. It seems Filoni is worried about generating Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy (something that many post-New Jedi Order novels have been notably suffering from, and considering the time-period Rebels takes place in, I can't blame him), and he notes that the audience liked it more when the heroes prevail in bleak situations.

I usually notice that a lot of Sci-Fi franchise fans (some Star Wars and Doctor Who fans for instance) have an aversion to going even slightly towards the silly-side of the Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness. Sometimes I wonder if us nerds were made fun of back then just for taking everything seriously.

And apologies in advance for shoehorning my own works into this thread (again), but when I work on Paranormalities - which take place not long after New Jedi Order - I have plenty of unusually dark elements included (such as the horrors of being possessed by an Eldritch Abomination), but I also have plenty of light-hearted moments in turn (and that sometimes falls into Black Comedy) and try to have some glimmers of hope in what would otherwise be bleak situations. For the story, it starts off as the usual light-hearted Star Wars fare before it starts getting Darker and Edgier, but even after that, I still try to keep it moderately light-hearted compared to the licensed novels that took place in that era.

I'd say that when it comes to Star Wars, darkness is best used in moderation, but if you plan to make it really dark, plan to set up an Earn Your Happy Ending scenario (and if you know it can't have a happy ending, set up some glimmer of hope). If you make it overly dark all the time, it'll just look like it came from some pretentious and overall inexperienced fanfic author who thinks darkness always makes everything better. Having some light-hearted moments means you're acknowledging that you can make yourself look silly (accidentally or intentionally) to some and that you're not immune to making questionable decisions. In other words, be flexible with the mood and don't just set it to one mood at all times.

edited 2nd Mar '15 2:32:45 PM by GahmahRaan

He definitely has a point about darkness in Clone Wars because we did know the ultimate end of that whole situation.

I do feel the best use of darkness and the Inquisitor thus far has been during the Jedi Temple episode. Mind you, I haven't seen all of the latest episode and I'm sure the season finale could top that episode, but so far that's the one episode that hit the right balance for me.

I look forward to seeing where things go in season 2. Hopefully beyond Lothal.

YES!!!

I can watch it tonight after all!

Excitement returns.

edited 2nd Mar '15 3:33:43 PM by yellowturtle

Edited.

edited 2nd Mar '15 3:33:51 PM by yellowturtle

I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on what I've missed since Disney XD is running all of the episodes leading up to the season finale.

I do think the execution scene could have been better handled to make it clear the Inquisitor's head is on the chopping block as well (the only real concession to this is the backwards glance Tarkin gives him when he talks about no longer tolerating failure). The scene is also framed in such a way that it's easy to believe that the Inquisitor killed those officers on his own initiative. Might've been better to have Tarkin explicitly give the order there.

Small stuff, and mitigated by later scenes between the Inquisitor and Tarkin. I can't wait to see Vader's response to all this.

Gahmah Raan has an excellent point. Star Wars has never been about despair or complete darkness- even the prequels ended with the knowledge of the OT, and that the Empire doesn't last forever. And even during Padme's death scene, she was expressing hope.

I think we'll only see Vader for a few minutes, at the end.

Definitely. No one's asking for complete darkness. Some of us disagree on how successful the antagonists should be, but nobody is asking for death and destruction of the entire cast. And it's not uncommon for villains to step up their game in the season finale and come back in a new and improved second season, so I'm going to keep an open mind.

It'd better be a spectacular role, otherwise what's the point of even bringing him in?

EDITED WITH SPOILERS:

This episode was pretty much what I was hoping. Fulcrum is Ahsoka, the Inquisitor chose death rather than face his punishment for failure, and Vader looks like he's going to be the antagonist of season 2. They can't possibly mess this up. Or at least, they'd better not. Also of note was Kanan's excellent use of Ezra's lightsaber. The only thing that immediately comes to mind as perhaps needing improvement was the actual choreography of Kanan's final blow vs the Inquisitor.

edited 2nd Mar '15 6:34:53 PM by CorrTerek

I know we all expected it, but the part with Ahsoka being revealed as Fulcrum made me squeal with glee. And her design is interesting! Plus the fact that she's hanging out with Bail- not surprising, but some questions need to be asked. The lightsaber battle was pretty cool- I was worried about Kanan using the dark side, but it was avoided well enough. The use of the blastersaber was beautiful, and all in all a well paced episode.

All in all, awesome finale.

Man, Jason Isaacs just cannot catch a break when it comes to playing villains on animated shows.

Season Two is going to be awesome. By the way, did you know Lothal means a "pile of corpses"?

IKR? They always choose to die in the first season finales!

So how long till we have a Vader vs Ashoka fight?

Oh God probably next season. I will be a mess if/when that happens.

And Gatdamn Kanan is awesome. And slightly terrifying when pissed. For a second I thought Ezra might actually lose a hand, but I suppose a few open cuts is the most graphic they can show at this point. Lulz at Ezra's "he's not gonna use it" line, Chopper must be rubbing off on him. Gotta say though, they shouldn't have spoiled Vader's appearance at the end.

Oh, and after rewatching Ahsoka's last episodes in TCW over the weekend, her new design is weird as fuck.

And now we wait...

edited 2nd Mar '15 7:44:10 PM by TheAirman

Holy shit, for a second I thought Kanan was going to break out Vaapad.

AND YAY!!!! Ahsoka's back.

edited 2nd Mar '15 10:15:44 PM by higherbrainpattern

The Inquisitor should have really not taunted Kanaan about his Soresu fixation, back in the day. I mean...Did he never read up what Obi-Wan "Wall Out of Lightsabers" Kenobi did to Grievous?

edited 3rd Mar '15 1:47:26 AM by 3of4

Was a pretty cool finale (despite the fact that I was forced to watch it with super slow internet). Agree with everyone on Ezra's saber being used well. The Inquisitor's death actually didn't surprise me too much - a lot of the promotional material suggested that it would be the case. Still, I found it quite interesting that they had a dark side villain that actually revealed they weren't afraid of death, like they seemed to have emphasise in the past (well, he isn't a sith, so that might explain it). Now let's hope he stays dead and doesn't pull a Darth Maul... Also thought it was cool how Kanan didn't completely lose it during the fight (which was probably the best lightsabre duel so far), and it was good that Ezra actually didn't really stand a chance (if he actually was as good as Kanan, it would be pretty unbelievable). Rest of the episode was fine - looking forward to seeing the other cells, as well as more of Ahsoka/Fulcrum. Now lets hope that Darth Vader doesn't keep losing next season...

7: Interesting... foreshadowing?

edited 3rd Mar '15 2:51:03 AM by Tyrannotitan

Also interesting but slightly downplayed as to just how much Hera HADN'T been telling the others. She knew of other cells all along but they seemed to be under the impression they were basically freelance and working for Fulcrum, not part of anything bigger. Sets up the second season nicely!

Also, seconding those fight scenes, hot damn. Those were great, took The Clone Wars a little while to get up to that standard for me so hurray for technology/expertise marching on!