Books Star Wars: On The Front Lines

Just to clarify one point--and again, I'm not trying to speak for the Story Group nor am I qualified to do so--but I wouldnt describe the rationale behind the Hobbie decision as "let's kill off Hobbie in a reference book." More like, "because Hobbie ALREADY died in ESB, let's make sure that reference books reflect that new canon going forward."

LFL leans into a philosophy of "don't establish major facts unless there's a major story behind it." My little reference book is NOT that story in this case.

 

Which is perfectly fine.

Tangent:


These characters started with a clean slate in new canon, and really they haven't been used much in the new canon--not enough to make me care enough that they are surreptitiously killed off.

 

Amidst all the disappointment over Hobbie, I'm actually low-key pleasantly surprised by this.

Jason Fry is in Rogue Squadron now?? Freaking nepotism.

 

Guys.

It's OK.

Hobbie dying isn't the end of the Fandom.

Disney isn't out to get you.

Dan is a pretty cool guy.

That is all.

 

Yes. We know that.

I can still be disappointment with this story choice.

 

I understand the reasoning behind it, and I love Dan.
I just don't love this.
Oh well, maybe we'll get some Rogue Squadron stories in the ANH-ESB era.

Edit: would a couple of "Luke Skywalker and Rogue Squadron" mini-series kill Marvel?
Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

 

I should add- fans of Jess "Testor" Pava won't be disappointed. She is a bad@ss.

Also- everyone's favorite Beastie Boy, Ello Atsy, also get a cool feature as well. I'm stoked that they focused on these lesser known pilots, as opposed to more on Poe or Snap.

--Adm. Nick

 

Yeah seriously. Did anyone here blame Dan or the story group? As far as I saw we all just where bummed a character we like is dead sooner than we might have wanted. No one is angry we just would not have stuck with the original idea of him dying, it is fine (and honestly important) that fans disagree with certain decisions and discuss said disagreements. That's a vital part of fandom and ongoing storytelling.

Wait Jess gets stuff to do!?!?! Yay, she has become my favorite new canon character already. Essentially new Wedge for me.

 

Another detail I think is wicked cool- nearly a third of the Seppie armada at Coruscant wasn't even able to attempt a retreat, due to damages suffered on their hyperdrives or sublight engines. That's not counting all the ships they lost in combat, or the fact that apparently many of the organically crewed ships (Neimoidians on TF battleships, Muuns on BC frigates) also decided to surrender.

Coruscant was a MEAT GRINDER for the Separatist navy. I never got that impression before, but this book clearly shows the scale of the loss.

--Adm. Nick

 

AdmiralNick22 anything on Red Squadron, esp. Garven Dreis or Theron Nett?

 

There is a section on Garven Dreis. It's mostly a recap of the stuff we already know, but it's cool to see him get a spotlight. It mentions he was one of the biggest drivers for switching Rebel squadrons to the T-65 X-wing, as he felt it's easy learning curve made it easy to get bush pilots up to speed quickly. Both he and Jon Vander jointly commanded the attack on the Death Star.

--Adm. Nick

 

Since X-Wings are in the next season of Rebels, I hope that means Dreis will appear too. Having him and Vander in an episode together would be amazing.

 

Oooh, yes! I also hope that we see Wedge and Hobbie's first X-wing flight. I hope we get a lot more Hobbie in Season 4 - and maybe Wes can show up, too.

 

My friggin' kingdom for this.

 

Yeah, this has been kind of bugging me: the new continuity seems very well aware that people love Wedge, and people love X-Wing pilots, but there seems to be this peculiar lack of acknowledgment that there was a particular series about Wedge and X-Wing pilots that prompted a lot of that affection.

This. It reminded me a little of the whole Anaxes debacle, in that the only people who would notice are the people who wouldn't like it - except that X-Wing fans were a much larger group than EGTW nerds.

It's mean, but from the moment I first read about this, I couldn't help but keep thinking "wouldn't it be funny to see Veers Watch's reaction if the first nucanon thing to actually use Veers killed him off?"

 

Related to this: While I absolutely loved Rogue One as a film, I'm still bitter it wasn't about an X-wing squadron after using that name. I wish the "steal the Death Star plans" movie hadn't taken that name, and that they didn't use a name everyone would associate with X-wings and Wedge.

 

Yeah, that's another case study in what I mean.

 

Meanwhile, Rogue One did feature a spectacular space battle and Red/Gold Leader. I just wish it had been about them!

 

They knew why we were really reading those books. Come for the X-Wings, stay for the fruit.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

 

I wouldn't even go that far - I just think the dissonance between a movie that was never going to be about pilots being called Rogue One, versus the reaction of everyone on this board automatically assuming it would be from the name, is kind of noteworthy.