A/V Star Wars: Resistance

Unfortunately, this is probably a bad time to be sick of the Unknown Regions. Between Thrawn, the Chiss Ascendency, the "unknown threats," Palpatine's hidden bases and shipyards, Snoke, and the still mysterious early years of the First Order, we've been left a fair number of storytelling "bread crumbs" that all seem to be leading back to the UR. I don't expect Resistance to touch on too much of this, but in terms of overall Star Wars storytelling I think the UR will become more prominent in the years to come.

 

Its more I don't want Ezra anywhere near it.

 

Well considering the Rebels Finale, pretty sure we'll see em all pop up again in maybe a different series.

 

I’d have to imagine if they were to revisit Ezra it’d be at a point in his life where Taylor Gray could still feasibly voice him, so that might rule him out for Resistance where he’d be middle aged.

 

I think it'd be bizarre to use Ezra in Resistance and just completely skip over his implied post-ROTJ story (ditto Ahsoka or Sabine), but TBF I thought the same about Rex in Rebels and ultimately I was fine.

 

I don’t know why but I have a bad feeling about this. I feel like this show will be silly.

 

I imagine it will start out similar to Rebels and The Clone Wars, where it's definitely geared towards the younger audience but picks up on "darker" topics as it moves on. I'm interested to see how it plays out.

 

I love me some silly Star Wars. I completely understand why that's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd be totally here for it. Anyway, I think the only sense of the tone we've gotten so far is "an engaging story with heart and humor," right? Which describes a whooole lotta pieces of media throughout the entirety of Star Wars history already. It's not gonna go full-Tiny Toons. Don't build it up in your head to already be something you won't like, especially when we have next to nothing to go on. (I don't mean that in a lecturing or reproachful way toward you; I want to encourage you to not worry for now and instead have fun imagining what you'd like to see. )

 

True. I reserved judgement on Rebels until after I saw the first episode and was never disappointed afterwards (no episodes bothered me at all). I didn't want to pre-judge based on what happened in Clone Wars since I was basing what I liked off the original EU. Aside from Barriss Offee (which I headcanoned a way out of that and stick with it to this day), I'm not afraid to admit Clone Wars is more enjoyable without the original EU to think about.

I shall reserve my judgement on Resistance until after I see the first episode (I will be thankful to anyone who uploads it to Youtube since I live in Australia and don't pay subscription [unless Disney gives up on its platform and agrees to Netflix's terms]).

 

On Thrawn... honestly I wish they kill him off off-screen. They will either keep him a 100% bad guy that goes "all according to plan" even as he loses, constantly, or they'll Draco in Leather Pants him and make him a crystal clear good Republic officer ala Kallus. The Showrunners do not understand nuance.

 

Was Thrawn truly a villain though? He served the Empire yes, but his true loyalty was to Csilla.

 

*hiss*

No.

 

Umm... YES.

 

That's my point. He was neither truly evil nor good. He was an antagonist, but he wasn't evil stupid and there was logic behind his plans. In New Canon meanwhile, he always kept on about how his plans are going to work well but it never happens. So since he's a fan favourite, I imagine they'd Draco in Leather Pants him. Make him some sort of fully good heroic character, which would be equally stupid as making him irredeemably evil.

And I don't know about new canon, but Legends Thrawn's loyalty was never to the Chiss. It was always to his own interpretation of 'order'. His Empire of the Hand had Chiss defectors, sure, and it was supported as a buffer state, but its end goal was never 'protect the Chiss'. I mean, he was EXILED and considered a disgrace to the Chiss Ascendancy. Thrawn himself specifically picked the Empire and its aggressive ideals over those of the isolationist Chiss. I don't know where this misconception comes from, that he was a 'Chiss agent all along'.

 

Thrawn's evil because he works for oppressive regimes. Not to mention during the Orginal Thrawn Trilogy he could be pretty evil.

He talked about wiping out a species when he couldn't figure them out

 

Yeah you're probably right

 

And at the same time, he's good because he wants to stop an extragalactic invasion and sees said oppressive regime as the only way to do it. Think WH40k, the Imperium is evil because it's an oppressive theocratic dictatorship that casually commits genocide, yet its the only thing keeping the warp at bay.

 

Yeah, that's fake though. That's the fake reasoning every fascist oppressor comes up with. "We have to protect ourselves from the Jews/Russians/Muslims/Mexicans/etc.". Just because fiction wrongheadedly keeps justifying it doesn't make it any less fake.

Thrawn is evil. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion wasn't prevented by enslaving the Noghri. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion wasn't prevented by committing planetary genocide. He's just evil, whatever justification he comes up with.

 

So pretty much Honorable Imperials don't exist.

 

The only way to be an honorable Imperial is to not be an Imperial. Even Cienna, who I love as a character, her honor is a lie at the end and even she knows it.

 

Guys... saying Thrawn isn’t evil because he’s a Chiss first, or because he did it all to prepare the galaxy for an outside threat, is missing one of the main points of Star Wars. The ends don’t justify the means. Intentionally killing others, like that guy on the speeder bike that exploded, no matter the reason, is wrong. Just like Luke killing Vader in anger for revenge would have been wrong. Just like Anakin betraying the Jedi to save his pregnant wife was wrong. Just like Jacen becoming Caedus was wrong.

@Havoc123 @Noash_Retrac

 

Nothing of what I said goes against that point though. He's still portrayed as an antagonist in most stories he's been in. You CAN sympathize with him, and he's a villain with actual motives instead of being a cartoon caricature, but he's still an antagonist, he's still the villain of his story.

 

@Jedi Princess already covered this pretty well, but I just want to add that wanting to prevent an invasion doesn't make you a good guy. It just makes you a guy who doesn't like getting invaded. That's a pretty universal feeling across all ethical alignments.

 

What amuses me is how people go "why aren't there sympathetic villains" and complain about a lack of nuance, but then will take the slightest positive quality or sympathetic motivation and use that to declare that they are not bad guys at all, and are really the true good guys (often while taking the slightest character flaw or mistake to declare the good guys are unforgivably evil)

 

Yeah. it's been a thing since HoT, but to me none of that sufficed to move Thrawn from the Villain to Hero column. It makes him more interesting sure, but still not a "good guy".