Star Wars Rebels is the sequel to Star Wars Clone Wars that ran on Cartoon Network. This new series will air on Disney XD and is headed by many of the same people who made Star Wars Clone Wars so awesome. So far, there seems nothing to be worried about and it seems like a perfect way to introduce people who got into Star Wars from the prequels and prequel related EU to the original trilogy stuff. Also, and I understand if this only excites me, there is a chance that it will retcon out the horrible, awful, insult that is The Force Unleashed and their stupid explanation for the formation of the Rebel Alliance.
I don't get why so many people dislike TFU. The second game was horrid though. However, both of these games are still awesome when you compare it to this.
Well, I don't know the consensus is within the larger community but I don't like it for a bunch of reasons. The gameplay was derivative of the God of Wars series, which I found to fun at first but then awfully repetitive. At the same time, things like lightsabers and force powers weren't done nearly as well as previous Jedi Knight series, which were slower paced but provided a good sense of progression and tactics to make you feel like a bad ass Jedi. The over the top stuff were mostly quick-time events, and one of the biggest and most iconic sequences of the game, the bringing down of a Star Destroyer, was a buggy quick-time event that resulted in a lot of frustration (or just a cutscene if you were playing on the Wii.) Narrative wise, I just don't like the fact that the Rebellion was formed because of the Emperor. Yes, the Emperor's arrogance was his downfall in Return of the Jedi, but I had always assumed that up to that point he had more than enough reason to believe he was an unmatched mastermind. He basically tricked the entire galaxy into a civil war that would result in him having ultimate authority no matter the outcomes. He used his greatest enemies, the Jedi and had basically wiped them out into near extinction in one fell swoop. So of course he would be confident in tricking the rebel alliance into thinking that they had the advantage to do something that was nearly as suicidal as attacking the Second Death Star while it was secretly operational and of course he was mostly right. He never saw Vader betraying him (at least in the context of saving Luke) nor the Rebels on the moon of Endor outsmarting his elite forces (plus having unexpected allies.) But then we look at everything within the context of The Force Unleashed. The Emperor pretty much had complete control of the galaxy. It was directly stated that those who would form the Rebel Alliance were problematic but too small of a threat to do anything about it. Now I'll admit, the idea of Vader forming the Rebel Alliance is awesome. His explanation of it distracting the Emperor so that he could carry out secret operations and seize control himself makes a lot of sense and we could even expand on that and consider it as something like Vader unintentionally fulfilling the Chosen One Prophecy. By forming the Rebellion, he sets into motion the events that would lead to his redemption and bring balance to the force. It could even be a hint of the good that Luke sensed in him. It makes even more sense when in the context of the episode of Clone Wars where Anakin was teaching Onderon rebels how to fight a soft war, especially since those characters were described as a proto-Rebellion in external sources. But instead, the idea for the Rebellion was the Emperor, wanting all of his enemies in one spot so that he could execute them all in one go. Okay, I don't know why they didn't just give some other lie to Starkiller so that he would kill all the future Rebel leaders in their sleep. Or why the Emperor didn't just have Vader execute them during their big treaty signing. Or why he took them his big secret battle station to make an example of them instead of a place like Coruscant where everyone could watch them die. Or why do any of that at all. Like I said, the Emperor had basically no threats to his authority. He made one for himself for no reason other that it was the plot of the game. The final act of the game basically makes the Emperor look less like a mastermind and more like a moron for constantly putting his own plans at risk and changes some of the themes that I think the original trilogy wanted the Rebel Alliance to represent. And yes, the sequel is worse, contradicting the opening crawl of A New Hope (The rebels first victory against the Empire was stealing the Death Star plans, though I think taking out their cloning facility and capturing the Supreme Commander of the Imperial forces should also count) as well as opening up various plot holes that will never get resolved. I am also a major Star Wars nerd and have a B.A. in Literature in case you couldn't tell.
This General Grievous: Completely over-powered a Jedi Master with decades of experience, several well-trained Knights, and a legion of Clone troopers at the same time. (and one chicken Padawan, i guess) This General Grievous: Almost got his flank handed to him by a cocky Padawan iirc. And this General Grievous: Got utterly destroyed by this guy. Nice consistency there, Lucas. :Trollestia:
The reason for the difference is before episode 3, Mace Windu crushed Grievous's chest with the force in a confrontation, severely injuring him.
You're going to make me bust out my full Star Wars nerd? Okay. First image: After it seems like he beat them into submission with thousands of super-battle droids. Second image: Grevious was taught, by Dooku in the Tartakovsky series, that he needs to break his opponent before engaging with them if he wants to ensure his victory. At Hypori, I'm pretty sure he scared the crap out of each and everyone one of them. As the war went on, the Jedi knew what Grevious was, but all Grevious had to do end the duel in a draw, because he could have his army give him an edge. Then at Coruscant, the Jedi needed to get Palpatine to safety but Grevious pursued them with a bunch of magnaguards. So yeah, Grevious winning in fair, one on one duels, I'm pretty sure was never a thing (at least in G-canon). Third image: Obi-Wan was chosen to pursue Grevious because he had a sword style that basically countered Grevious. Couple that with the damage he took from Mace Windu and plenty of duels for Obi-Wan to analyze and know what he needs to do defeat Grevious, it still came down to Obi-Wan getting pretty lucky Grevious brought a gun to a sword fight.
My only beef the with Clone Wars series that most recently aired on Cartoon Network (and is now on Netflix with its sixth season, if anyone is interested) is that they did Grievous poorly. In the Clone Wars micro-series, he was not only powerful but also intelligent and feared by all. That he wasn't able to take down a jedi padawan in single combat was ridiculous; naturally, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series pandered more to its younger viewers, and thus made Grievous a little bit more PG (the whole series was like that, but what are you going to do? It is on a kids network after all). But that didn't necessarily mean they had to use him as a second-rate - if not third-rate - villain in every episode where they wanted some good-guy characters to fight a familiar face. He became a basic, poorly-written, mustache-twirling villain who even took a backseat to new adversaries unique to the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, because right from the get-go Grievous is established as a fairly powerful yet ultimately incompetent villain. He shouldn't be. There are plenty of good works out there, including the previous referenced Clone Wars micro-series as well as the book I mention below, that properly render Grievous' character without turning him into Dick Dastardly. There is no way to properly justify watering Grievous down like that. He had so much unused potential. As for Obi-Wan's personal style (Soresu, Form III) being the reason for his being sent to fight Grievous, I will say that is absolutely correct and will further cite Matthew Stover's novelization of the script for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith as proof. If anyone hasn't read it, I encourage you to drop whatever you're doing and pick up a copy. I had not heard of that new series; I'll be checking it out for sure. And I don't consider the Force Unleashed games to be canon.
Yeah, the problem is that being a "good fan" means accepting the good and the bad as it happens. Denying The Force Unleashed ever happened is just going to close the doors on potential future stories. Plus, part of the fun of being in a fandom that has a relatively solid continuity is accepting all these stories as part of the canon, and not really being able to pick and choose. Like how it's rather unacceptable to deny that certain things happened in history when it's clear they did. But that's why retcons, while not necessairly good and definitely bad to have too often, are useful. As for Star Wars Rebels. Every character so far seems like they would be infinitely more interesting than Starkiller.
I'm saying Grievous had wasted potential, not that the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series never happened. Just because he was intended to be a certain way does not make that intention suddenly superior to all other possibilities. If you do want to look outside the movies to the Expanded Universe fiction, then you'll find much more of a backstory for Grievous. I don't think the most recent series portrayed him well, regardless of their intentions. Our dear General Grievous was briefly exposed to us by the micro-series, the movies and the Expanded Universe before being slapped on The Clone Wars as a tacky, replaceable, forgettable villain. He exhibited none of the cunning he was initially said to be known for, his combat skills appeared only to be passable. He was lazily written in The Clone Wars, relying in many cases on onomatopoeia and predictable threats as opposed to communicating through interesting dialogue. I think a good movie/book/series needs deep villains with interesting exchanges with other characters and complex emotions behind their actions to make that movie/book/series really great. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars series was good and all, but the villains were mostly cardboard cut-outs of their movie selves. Grievous wasn't the only character, either, with Count Dooku being another notable example. I understand this is a children's show we're talking about, but seriously, I enjoyed it the same way I enjoyed The Force Unleashed. That doesn't mean it was the holy grail of the Star Wars universe or anything; the way a few of its characters were written was a definite flaw, and I hope the next series does better. Except where there are contradictions; then fans fill their own heads with their "headcanon" or what they think happened. Then it comes down to what you think the contradictions are and how they might negate the contribution of a particular piece (ex: there was a fan-based story, essentially the first EU fic, that came out before the Empire Strikes Back, in which Darth Vader was not Luke's father; there, the fans get to say, "forget this one happened, it was neat but it doesn't define the series"). Saying we must observe all Star Wars creations outside the movies as existing cohesively is asinine.
From my own personal opinions, of course. Grievous' dialogue and placement in the plot of the Clone Wars series was tired and predictable and did nothing to add to the complexity of his character. It was a case of, "Hey, everybody knows who this guy is, let's pull him out so we can start the fight and get the fans excited!" Okay, let me make this as straight-forward as possible to eliminate misunderstandings between us: his appearance has nothing to do with whether or not he was memorable. Scrap that thought. Consider instead the idea that, if Grievous were to be replaced with any other evil character, he would function just the same in the context of the plot of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, albeit disregarding the fact that he is in the movies and therefore gives some small context to the plot. But he adds nothing but a familiar face. That. Is. Lazy. Writing. Most of what made him memorable in the micro-series and The Revenge of the Sith was the allusion to his prolific murdering talent: not murdering soldiers, mind you, murdering civilians. We get a man who does not, like Tarkin, order the deaths of billions coldly, but instead delights in slaughtering as many of them himself as possible. It may have been implied or stated as narration, in the case of the micro-series and the Revenge of the Sith novelization, respectively, but that shouldn't matter. What should matter is that he was new to the Star Wars series and that gave Grievous the chance to come into his own as a character through the Expanded Universe. We don't see much of that blood-lust (he kills some side-characters who happen to be soldiers, smashes some droids and yells at the protagonists... sound familiar?) in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, either because it is indeed a children's show or because they chose not to expand him in that direction, but either way the character missed out on a chance to develop, and I am not one to look upon mediocrity and say, "Yes, under these circumstances this is acceptable." No, it was unfortunate and shouldn't have been done that way. Now that all is said and done, I can of course enjoy the material, but I don't have to favor it with any sort of praise. When we see a new series, we don't want to see the exact same iterations of the same characters. Grievous from the animated series shouldn't have been the exact same Grievous from the movie; rather, he should have complimented him in a unique way (as opposed to being a replacable plot-puppet and missing out on any real depth). I'll reiterate: Bad Guys (and heck, characters in general [teehee, General, wink-wink]) need to be complicated to be memorable. This Grievous wasn't. Our early glimpses of him through the movie, micro-series and comic books alluded to some greater depth which the newest cartoon series did not provide. I've already said I enjoyed the series, but thank you for your concern. As for the micro-series, I enjoyed it about the same, though I particularly enjoyed the bits that didn't have talking in them. I thought it was a cool stylistic choice and added a new perspective to a series that is in danger of becoming overly familiar to us all (and perhaps already has). When Star Wars is as popular and established as it is, new perspectives are required to make series/movies/books stand out. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars series hardly did this at all, hence my criticisms of it. Grievous was merely an obvious perpetrator. Other examples include the fact that every Jedi but Obi-Wan had next to no added complexity. I'm familiar with said department. Your point is fair and I accept it as true. That's alright.
This is fun. Also, for the record, I'm not trying to convince you to like the series I'm just having fun discussing our various readings.
I'm glad you asked! From the beginning we see that Grievous carries trophies; this tells he delights in murder with his own two hands. Let him murder some people! Innocents, hopefully. And let him enjoy it, not because it furthers the war but because he doesn't actually care much for the outcome of the war politically, only that the carnage feeds his bloodlust along the way. I might have also written Grievous to engage fewer enemies personally, letting his magnaguards or droids do most of the fighting, thus making any scenes with him in personal combat more of a treat to the viewers. With the exception of Kit Fisto, I would have had Grievous only fight characters who are unique to the series but whom we have come to know and love, and I would have had him murder them all, or almost all (again with the exception of dear Kit, we reserve that honor for Palpatine). The problem with combat in this series is, if characters from Revenge of the Sith are involved, you know they live to see the next movie. This is why unique characters are preferable in those sequences; it would have allowed the viewer to question whether or not their friend makes it out alive. Having Grievous win some of these encounters would only increase that doubt, making for a very emotional scene. Finally, I would have given him less vocal anger and more passive aggressive violence. Consider: Droid: "The Jedi escaped, sir." Grievous: "Rah!" [smashes droid's head while other droids watch] "Find them!" or Droid: "The Jedi have escaped, sir." Grievous: [annoyed] "Are you tracking them?" Droid: "We can't--" Grievous: [arm lashes out and mangles droid, rest of droids stare] "The rest of you, go find them and bring them to me." One of those is horribly cliche, the other one only slightly so. The contrast of violent action with cool and collected statements gives Grievous an edge of power. Here, he isn't insane and he isn't raving; he's a calculating murderer who enjoys the kill. He can still be allowed vocalizations of his anger in situations where other characters might do the same (during a battle, perhaps), but yelling at droids just seems to demean him. He's a cold-blooded killer, not a schoolyard bully. I would have him make some verbal threats and then immediately follow up on them. In which case I refer you again to the Matthew Stover novelization (page 3 as well as the chapter, "Grievous", which begins of page 89). He certainly had his moments, and in contrast to everything else they were quite good but they were too few and far between. There was a huge opportunity to make him more than he was made to be. A premise was set with a huge amount of room to maneuver. You said it yourself: he was a foil. No need to have much character development in a foil, right? Throw him out there as a catalyst for conflict. Fair, but that still makes him a rather sub-par character. If all we looked for in art were things that did what we needed them to do practically, our entertainment would be very boring indeed. I don't think he lived up to the hype created for him prior to the release of The Clone Wars. And I did in enjoy the series, man. See, that's the thing, though: I also have a beef with Palpatine. I think he wasn't very deep, either. Some EU stuff expanded on his character, but I think a villain who is evil personified is lacking, no matter what they look like or how powerful they are. When people talk about memorable villain scenes in Star Wars, Palpatine is often left out of the conversation in favor of mentioning Vader. Vader is a great example of a complicated villain who remains memorable. To be clear, just because there are certain traits a villain possesses that you remember distinctly doesn't mean they're memorable to people who have only seen the source material once, and then out of a blatant curiosity. They remember Vader. Heck, even people who have never seen Star Wars know who Vader is. A character might be cool on the surface, but there's definitely something underneath that preserves them in our minds as great. For the record, I thought all those episodes were really good! I wished more of the plot had been like that. I felt like we were frequently jumping from one brief conflict to another; and yes, that is characteristic of the Clone Wars themselves, but the story could have done with more unifying character struggles throughout. Well, I said none of the Jedi but Obi-Wan had complexity. Domino squad don't count towards that, and for the record I felt the clones were one of the things that kept the series fun. Anakin was alright, excepting that we had kind of already established him as the anti-hero savior-with-a-dark-side type of guy. I kept on wanting more from him as a large-scale inconic hero; it would have been cool to see him lead a battle for a whole system, all by himself, taking planets and kicking butt. However, I suppose that would have kept the focus on him a little too long for it to be feasible within the series. It would make a good book. In fact, more large-scale battles (particularly on the ground) would have gone a long way towards improving the series, I think. We did get some, so I'll be content with that and hope for more in the next series. I agree, and that's fair.
I actually looked up Grevious backstory and it's kind of dumb and uninteresting. Before The Clone Wars came out he was basically just some warlord he had to hire himself out as an enforcer fo the Banking clan. Then San Hill sabatoged his ship and rebuilt him at a cyborg and he agrees to be their general. I am particularly fond of the "he wants to become Jedi like so he replaced his body parts with mechanical parts" backstory as I think it keeps him more of an aspect of Darth Vader rather than being a straight up copy-paste story of Anakin Skywalker.
No, but the lightsabers are enough. I kind of thought it would have been good for Ahsoka's character, as well as Anakin's, if she were to die in the series. It keeps the show from being a "Yeah good guys versus bad guys yeah kick some butt yeah!" fest. I would rather be challenged than appeased. But yeah, this is a kid's show. Death is a part of war. Some more major characters should have died, or rather it should have focused more on characters who had the potential to die. But yeah, it's a kid's show. Yeah, I think that would have added a lot of depth. On that, we quite simply disagree. For starters, I think sympathy is good. There are lots of different ways we can feel sympathy for our villains; we can see a good side in them, perhaps by seeing that they can love (Darth Vader). Or we can understand their motives even if we don't agree with their actions (Light Yagami). Or they can simply be compelling in their dialogue, so that even if we know what they say is evil we still feel compelled to listen (The Joker). Those are all perfectly excellent reasons to like a villain. There are many types of sympathy, and unless the character is very minor I believe one of those things should be incorporated for depth of personality. Like it or not, there is no such thing as an absolutely evil person. Even if they do want to watch the world burn, that single chaotic emotion does not a human being make. They aren't believable if that's all you give them, and the longer they stick around the more you start asking yourself what his deal is, why he's here, why he's important. "Because he's a plot catalyst" is not a good answer for the viewer to find within the realm of the story as they watch. That's another reason why I'm looking forward to it! Yeah, I'll have to take what I can get. Yeah, even though my first impression was that I wanted her to be killed off, walking away is almost better.
Imma just leave this here. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/460842/lucasfilm-declares-all-star-wars-games-non-canon/
I'm surprised that noone has really been talking about Star Wars rebels. I honestly feel its going to be a lot better than most of the previous stuff they've done recently. http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/04/20/wondercon-star-wars-rebels-clip-and-new-details-revealed
1. I was right! 2. Damn, so much time in the EU, all for nothing. We had a good run, guys, but Abrams wants to blow it up. I'm super excited!
