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Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
Here are two observations from reading the Thrawn trilogy, the books that really kickstarted the whole expanded universe thing.
  1. It's interesting how these books strain against the limits of what was canon at the time and how big parts of it are later invalidated by the prequels and the further development of the franchise. Like, it's baffling to me that before Disney reset everything this was all supposed to be one (albeit tiered) canon. The Clone Wars are totally different and even the timeline of when they happened is wrong.
I could go on and on about all the weird retcons people had to do to keep the old canon working at least somewhat, but one particularly interesting trouble regarding the Thrawn trilogy is that it was published concurrently with the Dark Empire comic which was set in the same time period, but Zahn almost completely ignored the events in it because he didn't like it. Which means that the official post-Endor timeline was "the rebels drive the Empire away from Coruscant... But then the Empire somehow re-conquers Coruscant so the rebels have to drive them away a second time."


  1. Thrawn is indeed an effective an interesting villain, but the key to his success is... space racism? He studies the artwork of whatever species he's intending to move against and uses it to determine their fears and how they think so he can effectively plan against them. In general there's an ugly strain of racial determinism in the story. The Bothan general who tries to undermine Akbar can't just be a slimy, politically motivated individual, it is understood that all Bothans are like this.
This was common in a whole lot of Expanded Universe material, which usually extrapolated personalities from the characters we see in the movies to fit their whole species. So all Hutts are crime bosses because the one we see in the movie is one, all Rodians are bounty hunters because Greedo was one, etc.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Also, Star Wars is a place where each planet has, like, one defining characteristic, so it’s kind of a fair assumption on Thawns part
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Species with rigidly defined personality traits? Are you sure you're not talking about Star Trek?
You joke, but Star Trek makes much more considerable effort than anything I've seen from Star Wars about diversifying its non-human characters (within the constraints of a TV show) and giving them traits that are opposed to their nominal species (eg. Worf is a Klingon but was raised by Humans, Spock is a half-Human, B'Ellana is half-Klingon and an engineer, heck even Michael from Discovery is a Human who was "raised" by a Vulcan).
 

Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
There were some attempts in later Star Wars media to diversify the species. The CG Clone Wars series for example tells us that Rodia is a pretty peaceful and friendly culture, Toydarians have a noble kingdom, and even the Mandalorians is depicted as a pacifist culture struggling with a violent past (and it's even said that Jango Fett wasn't actually a Mandalorian at all, just some guy using armor from Mandalore's war-torn past).
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
The Mandalorian suggests that the dude who said that about Jango was probably lying for political reasons, and Jango was a Mandalorian foundling like Mando.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
  1. It's interesting how these books strain against the limits of what was canon at the time and how big parts of it are later invalidated by the prequels and the further development of the franchise. Like, it's baffling to me that before Disney reset everything this was all supposed to be one (albeit tiered) canon. The Clone Wars are totally different and even the timeline of when they happened is wrong.

There's an annotated edition of Heir to the Empire available that's fascinating reading. Once you read it, you'll understand more than you ever wanted to about the various personalities behind Star Wars and just how messy the notion of "canon" has been over the franchise's history.

The interesting thing is that a lot of what Zahn uses was well-established material from the West End Games RPG that had been publishing sourcebooks since 1987, and the remainder is mostly filling in gaps by lifting concepts and stereotypes from more popular sci-fi.

I could go on and on about all the weird retcons people had to do to keep the old canon working at least somewhat, but one particularly interesting trouble regarding the Thrawn trilogy is that it was published concurrently with the Dark Empire comic which was set in the same time period, but Zahn almost completely ignored the events in it because he didn't like it. Which means that the official post-Endor timeline was "the rebels drive the Empire away from Coruscant... But then the Empire somehow re-conquers Coruscant so the rebels have to drive them away a second time."

Dark Empire was published starting December 1991; Heir to the Empire was published May 1991. And given the production schedules for comics VS novels, it's likely Heir was written more than a year before the first issue of Dark Empire. It apparently had been pitched to Marvel before they lost the license in 1987, but it's not reasonable to expect Zahn to have foreseen that Dark Horse would pick it up and run it unmodified six months later.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Yeah, the old EU was pretty much anything goes until the early '00s and there wasn't any outwardly evident central control for a long span of that period. I think the Yuuzhan Vong arc of books was the first really planned set, outside of creator-organized series and trilogies.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
Thrawn is indeed an effective an interesting villain, but the key to his success is... space racism? He studies the artwork of whatever species he's intending to move against and uses it to determine their fears and how they think so he can effectively plan against them. In general there's an ugly strain of racial determinism in the story. The Bothan general who tries to undermine Akbar can't just be a slimy, politically motivated individual, it is understood that all Bothans are like this.
That's unfortunately one of those things baked into the fantasy genre (of which Star Wars is) since Tolkien.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
I would still love to play this character I made for one of those Star Wars RPGs where the game never happened that's one of those women with the weird head tentacles that just has a massive massive chip on her shoulder about everyone assuming she's a "dancing girl" and no she's a doctor and no that's not how she paid her way through medschool how dare you and basically just hates everyone.
 

Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
Apparently there's a story in the new canon where a guy meets a gungan and starts talking to him in Jar Jar-speak, only to have the gungan reply in regular english that he's terribly offended by that awful stereotype.
 

Daikaiju

Rated Ages 6+
(He, Him)
Looks like the Ashoka series will definitely following up on Rebels. They're looking for someone to play Sabine.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Apparently there's a story in the new canon where a guy meets a gungan and starts talking to him in Jar Jar-speak, only to have the gungan reply in regular english that he's terribly offended by that awful stereotype.
There was an unfilmed bit in Attack of the Clones where Jar Jar remarks that he has perfectly learned the posh dialect that the Senate and most Jedi use. From the original script:
INT. SENATE BUILDING, APARTMENT CORRIDOR - EVENING
The door to the apartment slides open. JAR JAR walks into the corridor, where TWO JEDI are exiting the elevator. He recognises OBI-WAN and becomes extremely excited, jumping around, shaking his hand.

JAR JAR
Obi! Obi! Obi! Mesa sooo smilen to see'en yousa. Wahoooooo!

OBI-WAN smiles.

OBI-WAN
It's Good to see you, too, Jar Jar.

JAR JAR
Oops! Wheresa mesa manners? Excuse me, Master Obi-Wan. I completely forgot myself for a moment there. I have had to learn Diplodiaclect... speak it like a native now. Don't really see the point, actually, but members of the Senate seem to prefer it...

JAR JAR notices OBI-WAN'S APPRENTICE.

JAR JAR
(continuing)
...and this, I take it, is yourapprentice... Nooooooooo! Annie?Noooooooo! Little Bitty Annie? (Looks at Anakin) Nooooooo! Yousa so biggen! Yiyiyiyyi! Annie!! Mesa no believen.

ANAKIN
Hi, Jar Jar.

JAR JAR grabs hold of ANAKIN and envelops him in a big hug.

JAR JAR
Annie! Annie! Yiyiyiyiyiyiiii!

INT. SENATE BUILDING, APARTMENT - EVENING
PADME is in a conference with CAPTAIN TYPHO and DORME. JAR JAR enters the room, followed by the TWO JEDI.

JAR JAR
Lookie... lookie... Oops!... Oh, dear, I'm afraid I've forgotten myself again.
 

RT-55J

space hero for hire
(He/Him + RT/artee)
Regarding the Bad Batch season finale, Crosshair kept giving me some serious "hmm... I think I might enjoy having my face eaten by leopards" vibes
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Star Wars Visions looks like it will be highly entertaining (and non canon with that "good" Force Lightning). The animation on that lightsabre at the end annoys me no end though, the lead edge should never be bendy

God I'm an irredeemable nerd

 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Some of those look like they could be very good. The sketchy black-and-white one has me very intrigued (even though the iaido draw on the lightsaber is... nah, nope, it's just a cool stylistic choice, it's OK, it's fine, I'm fine.)

One of those also looks like it could be very good but in a specific Studio Trigger way, which I want to see just as much but for very different reasons.

And a couple look like they're going to have to work to earn some interest beyond "it's anime star wars!"
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I'm here for iaido lightsaber styles, it's an interesting fit.

Ultimately I'd like to see Force religions beside the Jedi and Sith, it's bigger than both of them. Let's get nuts.
 
I'm not getting my hopes up/setting my expectations in the basement. The old-at-this-point Hollywood play of having old white guys pay Japanese animation houses a blank check to produce an eclectic anime anthology on a nerdy theme is an intriguing idea. But what seems cool in theory almost never materializes into something worth while, interesting, or having a soul in practice. Be it the Matrix, Batman, Halo, or whatever, I've been pretty consistently burned by these kinds of things. I'd much rather they pick a single partner and to work with them to fully develop an idea into a full show or something. Because it's just really hard to create something with substance when all you've got to work with is 5 minutes. You're basically just making anime music videos at that point.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
The Animatrix was pretty good! Though I haven't revisited it since release so I can't vouch for that.

Some of the language I'm seeing is describing it as a "series" with "episodes," though others are calling them "short films," so I can't tell. Do we know if they're the normal short length, or if each one is a full TV episode length?
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Yeah, I remember enjoying Animatrix and am down for some cool little Star Wars vignettes, even if they're ultimately a bit slight.
 
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