General Star Wars Animated Series

So, the most recent episode featured the rotting corpse of a recognizable character, huh?

Looks like we won't have to worry about this show being too light in tone...

Well, it seemed more like a mummified corpse to me.

Filoni interview about Luminara's death

So it seems she survived the initial execution of Order 66, but got captured and executed later, by, or at least in the presence of the Inquisitor himself. What Kanan and Ezra saw in the cell was a hologram recording of the moments before her execution.

edited 28th Oct '14 3:51:44 AM by Werebazs

The episode was pretty good. I get the impression the Inquisitor has a classic case of Sephiroth-level overconfidence — he's toying with someone he vastly outclasses, but lacks the discretion to realize when he should get serious until it's too late. I wonder if that's going to get him killed someday.

A schedule for Disney XD in November has revealed some episode titles. Of course we have "Breaking Ranks" next week (or now if you can use Watch Disney XD), but for each week after that we have “Out of Darkness”, “Empire Day” and “Gathering Forces”. The fact that they mention what seems to be a recurring character sounds quite interesting.

"Empire Day" should be intriguing, considering the significance of that holiday in the Star Wars universe.

Also, that deserter may be what triggers the rumored "Fulcrum" story arc throughout the rest of the season.

edited 28th Oct '14 7:40:54 PM by GamerSlyRatchet

the watch Disney XD app stuff is really killing the ratings for this show, from what I've heard.

edited 28th Oct '14 8:21:43 PM by higherbrainpattern

Got a source from that. Because if this is about the 1.0 range of the ratings, that's actually fairly common for Disney XD. Because that's what happens when Disney insist that the channel stays niche instead of spreading it to more basic programs.

Also, as long as the merchandise sells, it doesn't matter.

If that's the case, they why does Disney make post-premiere available before they air, knowing the ratings would be down?

Well I know they're not getting my ratings, because I don't get the damn channel. Maybe I'll have to look into the Watch XD app online. Are they still showing the old episodes on it, or do they close those out after they air?

For starters, not doing what they did in "Rise of the Old Masters," where the Empire completely outplayed them from start to finish, but were too incompetent to actually win. That scene at the end where they got the door open only to see dozens of Stormtroopers with their guns turned on them would've been a good place to have them be captured: instead the writers make them completely unable to hit their targets and allowed them to get out of it not by merit of their own skill, but by the Stormtroopers being inept. They weren't even moving targets; they were standing still and a dozen or so troopers couldn't hit them? Not even once?

I won't dwell on this particular example because it might distract from the main point: stop making the villains inept. This is the point in history where they're supposed to be hypercompetent since it's where the Empire truly subjugates the galaxy.

You don't need to show people getting beheaded, slavery, extortion, prostitution etc. to convey the point that the Empire is no joke and that our main characters are the underdogs. What you do is stop making them take the Stormtroopers so lightly, give them losses (yes, this early in the show too), make those losses actually matter, and maybe make the cast larger so you can have characters to be fodder for the plot. Clone Wars took place in a much lighter point in galactic history, but was somehow darker than this show (as it should be since, you know, a war).

Anyway, I'm not a fan of sticking around just to tell people the show they like sucks. I'll not post anymore until there's something positive I can contribute to the thread. G'bye, mates!

edited 31st Oct '14 4:42:07 AM by Cruherrx

I will admit that I'm a bit creeped out by how the characters just mow through Stormtroopers, with both the characters and the show often treating it as a joke. Those are living people, after all, and if the previews for the upcoming episodes are any judge, they often start training young.

Forgive me for being ignorant of Star Wars canon, but weren't the Stormtroopers all mindless clones in the prequels?

Clones, yes. Mindless, no.

My main problem with the most recent episode actually had little to do with the antagonists. What bogged it down for me was how Ezra's behaviour was handled — he's feeling betrayed that Kanan wants to pass him off to a more experienced teacher... why? I mean, in the five episodes we've seen, we have not seen even remotely enough bonding or friendship between the two of them to justify him feeling like this. Really, Ezra barely knows Kanan. We hadn't even seen them have a Jedi training session until just this episode. The show really hasn't earned this kind of sentimentality between Ezra and Kanan, or really with any of the characters except maybe Ezra and Zeb.

The Clonetroopers were all clones, yes. With individual names and personalities. They were also the allies of the main characters, and we often got episodes dedicated largely to them and their own character arcs.

The Stormtroopers we see in Rebels have specifically been stated to be recruits rather than clones, and in an upcoming episode we'll apparently see Ezra go undercover at a Stormtrooper Academy where the other recruits all seem to be about his age. Also worth noting that Luke Skywalker wanted to go to an Imperial Academy in ANH, and would probably have ended up as just another TIE pilot.

So yeah, the crew of the Ghost are casually killing (and laughing about killing) people who have families, dreams, and maybe didn't even sign up because they're eeeeevil, but just because they wanted to see the galaxy. And who also may be, depending on location, teenagers. It's a tad creepy if you stop to think about it.

edited 31st Oct '14 7:25:24 AM by CorrTerek

Well, huh. I'd thought the Stormtroopers were just mindless clones all this time. That... That makes it all much worse...

Yep. I'm hoping that gets addressed at some point, but yeah, right now it's just really creepy. At least so far it's mostly Sabine and Zeb who seem to laugh it all off — Ezra rarely kills (has he killed yet?), Kanan goes about the whole business in a, well, business-like manner, and Hera rarely deals with things off the ship in the first place.

Zeb and Sabine don't bother me as much because we've known since the start they're the most ruthless/pragmatic of the crew — both of them voted not to retrieve Ezra, even though he'd risked himself to warn them. I guess I don't expect them to show a whole lot of empathy.

You have a point. I hadn't noticed that on first watch.

edited 31st Oct '14 8:08:31 AM by CorrTerek

If you follow Traviss's old Star Wars work, the initial waves of Storm Troopers that weren't Jango clones were one-year-grown Spaarti clones who had minimal training. So those troopers sucked. At this point in the story, we're dealing with recruits drawn from local populations. Cracked did a nice article discussing the Imperial Storm Trooper Marksmanship Academy and they did a nice job explaining it.

The Storm Troopers are in armor that covers them completely. They look like robots, so it's easy to dehumanize them and laugh off killing them if you're not actively thinking about it. The rebels? They're not covering their faces unless they need to. The Storm Troopers have to deal with the fact that they're killing people. They have to see the looks on their victims' faces, and the faces of the survivors. Most folks couldn't handle that. So maybe their aim just . . . adjusts itself a bit so they miss.

Remember, winning a war doesn't always mean killing your enemy. It oftentimes just means scaring enemies into surrendering.

Derp, forgot to mention that I loved the Luminara bit. The part where they played her hologram before death was amazing. That look she gave captured so many emotions: sorrow that the order is gone, pity/hate for the person that entered her cell, acceptance of her fate etc. And then it was sad when she was forced to walk into that pod thing that was likely a gas chamber. The writers aren't any worse than they were on Clone Wars, and I think that one moment showed it.

It's just the main characters and premise that suck.

That might be Executive Meddling. While Disney doesn't seem to be interfering in the movie side of things, they do have more direct control of the shows they air on their channels. I doubt even XD will run a show that's appropriately dark for the time period they're in.

I think the characters are great. I love Hera, Kanan, and Sabine especially. I love the creepiness of Rise of the Old Masters, and next week's episode is already online, I think? But yeah. The Inquisitor's all set to do some damage. But I definitely don't think the series should be grimdark all the time, there should definitely be some levity. Star Wars isn't just super dark and edgy all the time.

edited 31st Oct '14 3:29:37 PM by higherbrainpattern

Nobody's saying it is.

What is saying.

It's like making a My Little Pony cartoon that takes place in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, but having it be completely light and soft.

The Original Trilogy was set in a post-apocalyptic galaxy where everyone had family that died, Leia was tortured and forced to watch her planet blow up with a bit of an Angst? What Angst? situation, and Luke didn't really bat too much of an eye at the fact that he saw his Aunt and Uncle who raised him as charred corpses. Star Wars has a tradition of making things not as dark as they should be given the general story.

Star Wars has always been campy ham-and-cheese adventure first, dark undertones second and openly violent just third. Except maybe Episode 3.

edited 31st Oct '14 5:02:27 PM by Werebazs