General Star Wars Animated Series

Here is something that definitively improved over the show: Battle Droids. I think somewhere along the line, someone realized that maybe they shouldn't be used as comic relief most of the time. After all, that makes us question how the Separatists are making any advances in the war if their main infantry act like the Three Stooges whenever we see them.

I say "most of the time" because it is OK to do jokes a few times with these kind of characters with "few" being the key word here. The Stormtrooper that complimented Ezra's paint job on the TIE fighter in Rebels' season one finale comes to mind.

edited 16th May '15 4:00:55 AM by DS9guy

This. One of my favorite moments in Season 1 of Rebels is the stormtrooper who stopped to make sure that Zare was okay after Ezra "attacked" him. Especially after we saw the Academy encourage them all to betray each other for personal success.

Edit: I can't believe I only just realized that "Zare" is an anagram of "Ezra."

edited 16th May '15 10:25:05 AM by TheAirman

Hmm, the thing about Krell is that those who use the Force and are cruel enough end up going dark, and it ends up twisting any good they have left. Although Barriss' motive rant was a great example of the greying morality of the Republic- nothing she said was wrong, although her methods were.

Although it still doesn't explain why people aren't protesting at the Senate as well as the Temple. I guess it's Palp's manipulations of political opinions again.

I'm sure there were protests. It's just we never saw them on screen. It's hinted in the season one finale that they may have happened before.

So the Vader "fight" got leaked.

"rekt" does not do it justice.

Yeah, that's not even a fight at all. This is Vader just standing there and laughing internally at how powerless Kanan and Ezra are.

In other words, exactly everything I wanted from the encounter ^_^. Though now I'm wondering how the inevitable Ahsoka vs. Vader fight will turn out...

It would be a lot more even. Given that as their "apology" for not believing her when she said she wasn't a terrorist and murderer, the Council was going to give Ahsoka her Knighthood, she couldn't have been far off from taking the Trials when she left. She has since had 16-ish years to continue working on her skills, and it's not like she doesn't expect that this is a possibility, since she's actively building a rebellion against the Empire.

Vader, meanwhile, is very powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. The suit isn't doing him any favours, and he could only fight Obi-Wan to a standstill in his prime. Obi-Wan let him win on the Death Star, but who knows how that fight would have turned out if he hadn't. Vader didn't seem to be doing especially better or worse than Ben, but that might be down to the choreography and how tough filming the lightsaber effects actually was. He does significantly better against Luke both times they fight, but Luke has had what could charitably be called "minimal" lightsaber training the first time, and not much more the second.

Yeah. I'm guessing Ahsoka's been doing this a lot longer than Kanan has, and started off with a lot more training and experience.

While the team wiseman, the fact that Kanan is, in a way, still just as much in training as his padawan has been made pretty clear. He's badass, but he just doesn't have the experience fighting boss level villains or even observing such fights between others as Ahsoka does. Even the Inquisitor you could in part put down to his enemy being overconfident in battle to the point of incompetence.

edited 22nd May '15 2:30:46 AM by KnownUnknown

Also, Ahsoka trained with Anakin- she knows a lot of his moves, and was probably one of the best taught Padawan in the Order in terms of lightsaber skills. Kanan was only a Padawan for a few months of the war; Ahsoka experienced most of it, and was pretty good at fighting.

(Also, given that Ahsoka probably wasn't as traumatized by Order 66 as Kanan was- heck, she might not have even been that surprised by what happened on Empire Day- she has a mental advantage as well.)

Like I said, by the time she left she was a Knight in all but name. That gives her a huge leg up on Kanan, who's had to go the Luke Skywalker route of figuring stuff out on his own after spending a short time with Jedi.

I don't even think Kanan was a Padawan for a few months. The impression I got from reeding the summaries of the Comic was that he was made a Padawan, sent to fight, and then lost his master all within the span of maybe one month.

YEP. Like I said. Kanan is level 5, while Vader is goddamn Level 50. No contest, Vader wins.

I think Dave Filoni said that.

Revisiting the female Inquisitor and her possible identities (which will bug me till the day they confirm her identity), I stumbled upon this old rumor from March. Namely it states that Sarah Michellle Gellar's character is Aileen Zahn, named after Timothy Zahn, an Inquisitor who pretends to be part of the Rebels. Though I take this with a grain of salt, some people are saying that the female Inquisitor is not Barriss Offee, but a character based on Mara Jade (though their sources are said to be from friends who happen to be working on the Rebels show, which also has to be taken with a grain of salt).

So I ask the question, how much of this rumor is valid? And is possible that Filoni is deliberately making Barriss Offee a Red Herring to the Female Inquisitor's identity, possibly to make up for the The Un-Twist reveal of Fulcrum being Ahsoka all this time?

I don't buy it. It could just as easily be a fake name as real.

As for being "inspired by Mara Jade", it's not like she's a particularly unique concept. If she was a red-headed human Inquisitor, then yeah, I could see it. But her concept art is of a green-skinned alien. The only thing they have in common is being female.

There're exactly two characters I really don't want her to be: Barriss or Mara 2.0. I don't want her to be Barriss, because the whole reason she did the bombing was precisely because she hated how the Jedi became servants of a corrupt and failing system and of the Dark side. It would just take away any tiny bit of credibility she had (which is really not much), if she joined up with the Empire. Unfortunately, the way Filoni was dodging the "What happened to Barriss?" question on the Celebration, is very similar to how he had been dodging the same question regarding Rex and Ahsoka. Also he even admitted that she was set up to die, but he had the scene removed from "The Wrong Jedi". So I do find it likely that it will be her.
I've gone over Mara a couple times, so I'll leave that one alone now.

The name is definitely fake 'tho. It has the typical "Star Wars fan thinks he/she has figured out the SW naming formula, and makes-up some half-assed name" stuff written all over it. I recall there was a rumor before Rebels was announced about the that new cartoon series will star "Sky Bonteri" the son of Ahsoka and Lux...I mean, sure there're names like this. But they belong to incredibly minor characters, and we usually learn about the names through the manuals.

edited 24th May '15 2:04:16 PM by Werebazs

Motive Decay is like, the hallmark of Dark Siders, though. Lets look at Vader: The only reason he turned to the Dark Side was to prevent a vision he had...and then he killed his wife basically right away, fulfilling the vision...and stayed evil for more than 20 years afterwards. They're not exactly the most stable bunch of individuals.

True enough.

Barris could have more elaborate motives for joining the Empire, too. Like wanting to use the Empire's resources for her own reasons and then somehow sabotaging the Empire from within to create a ideal Republic.

It'd fit with the Sith being all about Chronic Backstabbing Disorder

Inquisitors are not Sith.

Well, they are our major representative of the Dark Side.

I've actually seen a good fic which has Barriss brainwashed into believing that the Jedi did attempt a coup and are causing problems and hurting people while the Empire helps out. So she could just be made to believe Imperial propaganda as well.

Star Wars is infamous for the idea that if you are a force user and do bad things, ultimately you will just start kicking puppies and being as evil as possible despite any contrast to your actual former personality - especially since most examples of dark siders that are more nuanced were in the old EU and are thus currently out of continuity unless brought back in.

Well Intentioned Extremists or Anti Villains don't exist among Force users in the Star Wars Universe - with the force, morality is black and white. If you go to the dark side for good reasons or intentions, you are incapable of actually living up those intentions and will become a monster.

edited 24th May '15 5:12:40 PM by KnownUnknown

Which I think is a totally fine position for them to hold. It's not called the Dark Side for nothing. There is no good reason to intentionally use it, and prolonged use is extremely corrupting. Look at Palpatine.

That's the in-universe reason, yeah. The out of universe reason is because Star Wars has always been a traditional series of Heros Journeys, with a very rigid separation between good and evil. Ultimately, it got to the point where such a thing was ingrained within its mythology (rather than, say, active choices and traits that define the characters).

edited 24th May '15 5:41:22 PM by KnownUnknown