That novelization does an excellent job of fixing the Palpatine confrontation as well.

Confused me when I saw it.

Imagine how much better this scene would have been if Lizzo had been cast as one of the Jedi...

I think that is the “lesson” Anakin was trying to communicate. She has to want to live. After leaving the Jedi order, losing Anakin to become Vader, and seeing the New Republic slip into disarray, Ashoka has been trying not to lose….both in relationships and lightsaber fights.

Ashoka has been playing the Jedi equivalent of Martyball.

Anakin showed her that she has to fight to live. Has to quit going through the motions and quit trying to run the ball on third and four.

I think Ashoka’s lackluster lightsaber performance is about to turn a 360 and her next lightsaber duel will be ‘more free and unlike anything so far in the series.

FYP

It’s worth the time. It’s fast read and Stover is a ****ing poet.

Thanks. Never been good at the maths.

I wondered if Ray was up to a more vigorous fight scene while watching it.

That's a good observation.

Dawson is what, mid-40s? And Stevenson was apparently not really healthy/well.

The physical abilities of the actors can be limiters, too. With a TV-type budget, they may not get into the green screen/stunt double stuff as much as they can in film format, with that level of budget.

And no matter what, nothing will ever look as dynamic and fluid as animation.

Christensen is a pretty amazing swordsman. I'll see if I can dig up the footage of what the face off between he and Dooku was scheduled to ORIGINALLY look like.

This is what I was curious of.

I kinda got to thinking that maybe it's just that Christensen is damn good at that stuff.

There's tons of footage of him working with McGregor and others on it. Remember seeing some footage of cut sequences from the Mustafar duel and he was busting ass with the stunt coordinator.

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Man, some of this looks better than the final cut.

This is what I'm assuming Duncan is talking about.

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Yeah, they ended up cutting some of this because there were parts they couldn't sub Christopher Lee out for, and he just was not physically capable of pulling off at his age.

Same thing happened with the Palpatine fight. I don't think there's test footage of that, but it was supposed to be way better than it ended up being.

Again the novelization of it is pretty fantastic.

Hayden Christensen was poorly served by Star Wars. He was widely criticized for his "whiny" Anakin, but I think he gave Lucas exactly what he wanted.

Gee what could be in those boxes?

Right, I want to say maybe less screen time for the non combative ninja turtles and more screen time for the cool shit. However it is staying true to form of traditional Star Wars genre of allocating time to the weirdest of irrelevancy.

I to rewind Thrawn's beginning monologue because of sensory overload

There were zero "Man, dat ass!" moments in this episode.

They're slipping.

I would call them furless ewoks with shells. Pretty sure I see where this is going.

I really don't like the girl that plays Sabine. Shes the weakest actor/actress on the show. She just seems like she is acting.

Agree

For a minute I thought Thrawn had him an army of Death Troopers.

Now I really wish Thrawn had him an army of Death Troopers.

And props to Lars Mikkelsen for coming as close to nailing an animated character in real life as humanly possible.

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Ah, I see you and I watch the same dork videos.

Wow I loved that episode...man that hit it for me. I like the Sabine actress...not sure the hate. She looks like her too. Man Lars looks great and the Ezra actor I can see it. Hope they hit it out of the park to end this season. I'm giddy as a big clone wars and rebels fan.

https://twitter.com/RaFe_Tano/status...RAFd9Yq_A&s=19

It was the same kind of introduction scene. It felt very similar as I was watching it. Leia meets the ewoks ....

That would be pretty cool

Yeah, he was too whiny but he still cant act at the level needed for the role.

He sucks as an actor. Supposedly Brad Pitt read for the role. Could you imagine what an actor of his caliber could have done with the role?

He can act at the level, I don't think he was given the chance.

I would die happy if they go back to make a live action adaptation of clone wars.

I'm trying to watch The Clone Wars - I think it kinda sucks.

Should I just give up and watch Rebels?

Really nicely done animation but the story is just so shallow.

I could never get into Clone Wars, mainly because I had so much contempt for Anakin's character after those godawful movies.

Loved Rebels, though.

And I think that's my issue as well.

I suspect the draw of Clone Wars would be to see Anakin kicking ass and maybe see glimpses of his descent.

But...I don't care. I don't like him. I know he was capable of kicking ass - that was kinda the point.

And ultimately that's why I'm just so pissed off at how they fumbled Obi-Wan as hard as they did. Such a great great character and Disney stepped on their dicks and made him a sidekick in his own show. And had TCW been more focused on him than Anakin, I would've enjoyed it more (though what development arc would there have really been?).

There's just not much meat on the bones for me.

Where are you at?

It gets better. I watched the first episode and noped right on out of there until they started pulling in some of the lore.

Same with Rebels. The first few episodes are ROUGH. Then they get better.

You're watching the right Clone Wars series, right? Not the one with the shitty 70's looking graphics...

Halfway through season 2.

Wait till you get to s3-4 I believe...it gets real good from there. Show is slow first few season

I'd stick with it. Once they get past the kiddie stuff and start pushing the ambiguity of decision making, it gets pretty compelling. But if you hate Clone Wars, don't bother with Rebels.

The dork videos I watch put out some recaps for each season.

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I haven't watched them but my buddy did and got what he needed for the Ahsoka story. Personally I'd stick with Clone Wars. I actually liked it better than Rebels. ESPECIALLY the last 2 episodes (I think - however long order 66 took). That was a damned compelling episode of television.

Well at least NY makes up for its ass offense by also having a disinterested defense.

LOL. I have mine set to 50 PPP and this is the first post on a new page. I was confused for a longer time than I’m willing to admit.

Same level as Pitt? Are you on drugs?

Supposedly all of the Feloni/Favreau Disney+ shows are going to be buttoned up with a movie. It would be pretty freaking sweet to see Luke, Ahsoka, Ezra, Sabine, Din, Grogu, Boba, and the other rebels and Mandalorians in a final apocalyptic battle vs. Thrawn.

DiCaprio was another that wanted to play Anikan but wanted some creative control to play him. Lucas wasn't having that so he casted a "nobody" instead

Finally, a sequel to Return of the Jedi. :D

I WANT A SPACE DOGGY HORSE!

God damn they nailed Thrawn and Ezra. And cyborg Stormtrooper captain is a ****ing badass.

But remember - they all end to miserable shells just waiting to die who need some Mary sue to come along and save the galaxy for them.

The sequel trilogy is just such a cloud over everything.

Like, it's amazing what they did with this.

They managed to give us a 95% perfect live-action sequel to Rebels whilst seamlessly intermixing a live-action adaptation of the Thrawn trilogy.

And it's just the beginning.

Why the **** did Lucasfilm EVER hire Jar Jar Abrams?

I'm sure Filoni will offer them a retcon out/multiverse/alternate timeline thing they won't take no matter how awesome it would be.

The movie should end with Baylan Skoll escaping the New Republic's victory over Thrawm, taking Baby Yoda blood into the world between worlds so he can become a Sith cultist and resurrect Palpatine, who then creates the First Order.

LMAO

Also, Stevenson is such a damn great actor, it's a shame he died. But I'm fairly confident they can recast that role as "wise, burly, bearded silver fox dark knight with a touch of megalomania."

Abrams didn't do anything but tread water.

Your boy Rian Johnson is the one that ****ed everything up.

And you DEFENDED him...

Rian actually tried to give us something fresh and new.

But Jar Jar gonna Jar Jar.

The Colin Trevorrow script for 9 was EXCELLENT and I would have been satisfied.

It's name is Kathleen Kennedy who rejected Matthew Vaughn and Guillermo Del Toro's treatments for the sequel trilogy

Liev Schreiber.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm a fairly giant sucker for Liev Schreiber. I absolutely loved the Ray Donovan show. It is not infallable, but I think Schreiber in that role might be.

And he's a pretty good actor otherwise. He's had some bad roles that might lean one to think that he's a bad actor, but he's got a lot of range and a lot of good performances. Good call.

That being said, Stevenson is amazing in this. He's said almost nothing, but every word is really rucking good, full of nuance, character and charisma. The difference between what we're seeing and some dogshit throwaway character (eg Captain Phasma) is Stevenson's performance. At least to date, we'll see where it goes. That take may not age well, but he's been goddamned good.

For sure

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...AA&oe=6515C424

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...zg&oe=65152A58

nailed it

https://fr.web.img6.acsta.net/pictur.../24/530882.jpg

Yep, better actors really elevate the material. That's why not choosing Dicaprio or Pitt for the Anakin role was a huge mistake. Maybe they could have saved the prequels
Agreed. He has the acting chops to pull this off. Not a flashy I'm going to kick your ass but you can see this is a dangerous person just by their persona.

There were many, many mistakes with the way Anakin Skywalker was treated in the prequels.

Sin 1: making him 9 years old in TPM. All of those “he’s too old” storylines ring false with a kid that age, and the Anakin/Amidala age gap is weird. Had they had him just 3-4 years older, everything becomes more believable.

Sin 2: the writing in Attack of the Clones does him no services. It was bad, bad stuff even casting a more acclaimed actor like DiCaprio or Ryan Gosling as Skywalker wouldn’t have saved that.

Sin 3: Cutting Episodes 2 and 3 so that the only examples of Palpatine’s manipulation and grooming of Skywalker is limited to a grandfatherly chat and the Darth Plagueis the Wise moment.

You could like more, I’m sure. Casting may be one of them, but I actually think Christensen is a fine enough actor and physically he carried the role well.

(Also, if you want another reminder of how small the average Hollywood person is, thing about how towering and commanding he looks as Anakin , and then realize Christensen is 6’ flat. Lol).

Romance in Attack of the Clones is what tanked it for him, and I don't think he deserves the lions share of the blame for that. He was actually pretty okay in other parts of that movie, but holy shit was that some of the most painful 'acting' to sit through. I think he could've survived the other ****ery but that was just way too far.

"From my point of view the Jedi are evil..."

Clunky dialogue - yes. But c'mon, look at how he stands up to McGregor there and it's just night and day. McGregor gets plenty of clunky dialogue in his own right and he still kills it.

Christensen just doesn't.

Could he have had a better offensive line? Oh sure - but does he still stare down his receivers and throw stupid balls into double coverage? Yup.

Whatever you give him, he's going to do less with it than an accomplished, quality actor. He was bad.

Like seriously - can you not show 'hate' without just looking sleepy? His affect is just all wrong.

He's bad. I know he's been rehabbed a little by later uses of his character, but I'm not gonna get there. Hayden Christensen was just lousy.

On a side note Jedi Prime/1st known force user apparently had dealings with Marvel's Asgardians and Hasbro's Transformers which could be shown or hinted in a project centered around him

I thought he was passable to good in ROTS. Just me, though. But I'm also mostly here for the cool laser sword fights and Christensen seems to have put most of his attributes into that stat.

Yeah, INT and WIS are his dump stats...

Fair - I have definitely come to respect the swordplay stuff now that I've seen more actors in these roles that really aren't very good at it.

I think I'm going to need to watch that episode again to figure out my opinion on it.

Lars as Thrawn still awesome, but Ezra's iteration looks like a KK special because dudes can't kickass and be a protagonist

****ing amazing how well they have portrayed Thrawn's tactical genius.

https://www.enworld.org/media/kylo-r...gif.93906/full

C3P0 made me all warm and fuzzy inside...and I'm pretty sure that was Ackbar.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...99/974/881.gif

Sabine hands Ezra his lightsaber.

Ezra: "I don't need it."

:facepalm:

Listening to a podcast of the series and talking about episode 5 someone says "I'm watching this with my wife and she says 'she has a nice ass and the people that make this show know it..."

I'm feeling less and less creepy as this goes along...

Seriously? :shake:

https://media.tenor.com/4qOOoSuddecA...alker-luke.gif

Yeah, it was pretty hokey. He's just force shoving guys the whole time - fairly lame.

And the plot armor's starting to get boring as well. I don't care about any of the fights between the 3 main good guys or 2 secondary antagonists because whatever happens, they're all gonna come out of it alive.

This could've been a heck of a showdown between a newly focused Ahsoka and Baylon but again, there was just very little tension as there's too much unresolved with Baylon so you knew they weren't going to off him.

They've written themselves into some doldrums here.

So there was a lot like and a lot that was gummy and some that was really poor.

The Bad
Yeah, the "I don't need it" shit was clunky. I didn't hate the sentiment, or the storytelling arc (obviously they're putting Sabine on an arc there), but holy **** that was dumb, especially since 90 seconds later he's trying to reason with a psychopath. I don't hate the idea, but the execution was shitty asshole.

They really need to cut the shit on the lightsaber fights. The Baylon Ahsoka fight was....bad...again. It started out OK. She was doing the training thing and preparing and all that and he forced his weight on her and she effectively defended. Good. Then, she blocked an overhead strike with one saber and spun around inside the space of her block. Without slashing his guts. I mean, yeah, spinning is cool. But they really need to have a little tighter eye on fight choreography. I'm no martial expert, I'll wear that. But if you're going to spin around under the space of his saber and you have 2 of them, just stick it out a bit and gut him like a fish. Then I don't know how I feel about the "you can't beat me" schtick. Again, no fighter, but there is no way anyone that has trained and been in fights knows that shit happens. That took me out of it. I didn't even hate the bombing him and then getting an escape, but still go with, "keep training" or "your training was futile" if he's wanting to talk shit. Maybe that's nitpicking.

The Gummy
Sabine explained the entire rebellion and what everybody was doing but didn't tell him about Ahsoka? And wouldn't. I get they were wanting the payoff about "you thought she was DEAD?", but there was a better way to do it. Maybe have her get emotional and then interrupted or something. A little bit of a tremor in her hand or something would have been pretty powerful. They got there, but it was mucky.

The witch ladies are wonky. They're just a plot device at this point. Thrawn: YO BITCHES Find her... OK, cool. Maybe something will come of that, IDK, but it was really ****ing wonky.

Baylon and Shin break up was a little rushed. Like hey master padawan relationship. Seems to care about her, then out of the blue, "dueces yo." Stevensen pulls it off because he's throwing smoke this whole time. Seemed out of the blue.

The Good
As per usual Thrawn is playing the long game. The payoff while a little "duh"-ish was still worth the payoff.

Ezra/Sabine fight worked. They really captured the Rebels "feel" there. Even if getting there was dumb.

Shin imploding was really good. Stevenson saying "impatience for victory will guarantee defeat" ****ing awesome. Then her doing it, naturally, and her face as she realized what she'd done was goddamned good.

Last, Dawson seems to be coming alive. She had real depth and weight to her performance, which is new, and good. I think you could get where they got without making her just absurdly boring. But I felt all of it. About ****ing time, yo.

Never watched Rebels (although this show is making me inclined to do so), but I had no problem at all with him turning down the lightsaber. It's unique to have a SW character fighting with no weapon and just the force like that and it honestly made him seem more powerful.

My question is when are they gonna explain what Baylan's motivations actually are? We're sort of running out of time here for him to continue being this mysterious.

It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the Ezra fighting scenes didn't come off as him starring in an 80's workout video for most of the fight. It was like martial arts mixed with jazz hands. I was really wanting to see Ezra take out some frustration over being stuck on that planet alone for 9 years. In Rebels, he was always brash and never backed down. Seeing him all "No, I don't need a lightsaber." Followed by "Hey, can't we just talk about this?" when it became clear he was totally outmatched without a lightsaber. It was weird, and the humor didn't fit.

Is there 8 episodes?

It really is a shame. He is damn good. When he stood there after getting bombed by the droid, thinking, "****" was just great. Stevenson deserves more credit than he'll ever get.

Yeah I wanted to see him whoop some ass. Love the casting but need Ezra with a lightsaber fight too. Hopefully this ends well and sets up a s2 then a movie. I really want to rewatch rebels again.