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My personal favorite character is canon once again! Not only is he confirmed as the new big bad for Rebels, but a book by Zahn as well.

Twas inevitable. They were never going to leave him on the sidelines forever. He's probably the only part of the EU mostly everyone agrees was good XD

Glad to hear it, but not at all surprised.

Even having never read the original books, I can't wait to see this guy in action in Rebels. Even just from the trailer, they've managed to build an exceptional air of menace about him, and the voice casting (Lars Mikkelsen) is spot on!

The trailer, in case anyone missed it:



Lots to be excited for there!

Just one minor nitpick, MGS.

He's not 'canon' once again.
He's canon for the first time. It doesn't retroactively canonise the older stuff - but as they will no doubt use elements of that older stuff, THAT will become so.

The EU never was canon under George's ownership of LFL.
ONLY the characters and events in his movies were 'canon'.

The Lucasfilm story group just followed his lead - and canon only really mattered to the writers they hired to do stuff.

Ok, so for someone who hasn't seen Rebels....was that Darth Maul meditating with the kid?!?! Certainly looked like him!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Ok, so for someone who hasn't seen Rebels....was that Darth Maul meditating with the kid?!?! Certainly looked like him!

Indeed it was. He came back in a huge way in the last couple of series of The Clone Wars, and had some really awesome arcs in that, then returned again in the last series of Rebels. They've done some awesome stuff with him in both CW and Rebels, it's well worth a look if you've not seen it (both Maul's stuff and the series themselves).

I saw Clone Wars; that was the Darth Maul we wanted and the Darth Maul we deserved. Now I need to watch Rebels....hmm, maybe I'll see if it's at a decent price at Walmart. It was my birthday yesterday, so I guess I owe myself a present!

If you liked Clone Wars, you'll like Rebels! By series 2 it's really found its feet and feels like a worthy successor, every bit as complex and well-produced as CW. It's more linear, and in places a bit lighter and closer to the OT in tone, but at the same time there are lots of instances where it gets very dark and very heavy, particularly in the second series.

Nothing is toned down at all, especially in the villain department. Series 1 has a great original character in The Grand Inquisitor, Vader in S2 is every bit as menacing as you'd hope and Thrawn looks to be continuing in that tradition. Agent Kallus, the Imperial 'mini-boss' so to speak, is also very well written particularly in the second series, he's much more than the faceless henchman you might expect.

So yeah, give it a go, it's everything Star Wars should be.

Thrawn *and* Dark Troopers, awesome. All we need now is Kyle Katarn, Mara Jade and Corran Horn and that's the greatest hits of the EU back once more.

I watched Rebels at Christmas time and, to be honest, I really didn't enjoy it to start off with. Sure, it was fine for a kids show but, bumbling comic relief Imperial Officers, yurgh.

Then about halfway through the first series. Those daft, stupid, bumbling, comic relief villians that were basically the embodiement of what I disliked about the show. Well, they came down with a severe case of "lightsaber to the skull."

*That's* when I got into the show. So if you've tried an episode or two and didn't like it, I'd recommend sticking with it until after then, your opinions may do a major 180.

Very much so, Rebels took some time to really get going and find that gritty centre that was hinted at before it was broadcast.

I saw the trailer for the third season of Rebels yesterday and I was hugely pumped when I saw Thrawn! My first foray into the original Expanded Universe was Timothy Zahn's trilogy, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command. Still the best Star Wars books ever written IMO. It's just too bad I've never watched Rebels. I've been holding out for it to show up on Netflix or something. I've been really enjoying the Clone Wars show on there.

If they bring back Mara Jade I'll start watching.

Well god damn... this was probably the only thing they could have done to bring me back in after the travesty that was Force Awakens. So much for my Star Wars boycott.

Rebels season 2 was absolutely amazing, though I'm shocked they're using Maul in the trailers, since he had that sweet reveal so late in the last season.

They handled Vader so well, I couldn't be more excited for Thrawn. It's also nice to see that little Mandalorian subplot from the last season go somewhere.

yellowfever wrote:
If they bring back Mara Jade I'll start watching.

I'd also like to see Jade return, and maybe this time we can avoid killing her by idiot ball so a hack can take a shallow shot at Zahn's nads.

I despise this character. Not only is the character a super-massive Mary Sue (who never does anything clever; he is just followed around by another character whose only purpose is to be in awe of him) but he's also a wish fulfillment character, probably the leading wish-fulfillment character, for all the folks out there who think the Empire could have been noble, just, and wonderful.

I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say they don't like Grand Admiral Thrawn. I assume the character following him around being in awe of him is Captain Pellaeon?

I've had a beer with Timothy Zahn and think that Thrawn is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since Disney bought the rights from Georgie-Porgie!

I found the trilogy very interesting, certainly a better read than any of the other dozen Star Wars BS FanFic crap they published back in the day.

Thrawn was ruthless, cunning, but fair. He was the first Imperial Officer to ever reward someone for thinking outside the box that I recall (young cadet manning the tractor beam that pulled some weird maneuver). To be honest, if every officer treated their crew like Vader, how would there be any competent officers willing to put their necks out? The Imperial Space Navy would stagnate, right?

Yes, he was a bit Mary Sue. I see that and acknowledge it, but he also brought us the Noghri assassins, which were awesome.

 kronk wrote:
Yes, he was a bit Mary Sue.

Like how Palpatine was a bit evil.

Thrawn was:
- handpicked by Palpatine for highest rank
- a military genius (apparently the military genius)
- a savant who can deduce a race's tactical perspective from their artwork (you can't make this gak up sure you can, it's called fan fiction)
- absolutely beloved by his men
- feared and yet respected by his enemies
- designed by the author to be superior to Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine (x1000!)
- secretly working to save everyone from Yuuzhan Vong
- a threefold special snowflake
-- exception to anti-alien prejudice
-- exception to Imperial officers are evil
-- exception to Imperial officers are incompetent
- has no flaws (unless you count not being a Force User a flaw - although he figured out how to neutralize the Force!)
- killed off by the author so nobody could muck him up!

It's really bad - like so bad that he might have a chance against Rey!

But yeah, like I mentioned, that is not even my real beef with Thrawn - as totally insufferable as all of that is. My real beef is he is the mascot for Imperial apologists.

I just always see Thrawn as an "evil space Sherlock Holmes."

And went so the Yuuzhan Vong stuff just retcons?

I never thought Admiral Piet was either Evil or Incompetent:
-- exception to Imperial officers are evil
-- exception to Imperial officers are incompetent

Re: handpicked by Palpatine for highest rank

Once you get to a certain position in a Galaxy Spanning Empire, you need to get handpicked by the Emperor, right? You don't just get voted on by the regional governors or have a swimsuit competition!

He reached the highest rank you can be in the military arm of a Galaxy Spanning Empire. You should have at least 2 of these 3 traits! Barney Fife couldn't be a Grand Admiral!

- a military genius (apparently the military genius)
- absolutely beloved by his men
- feared and yet respected by his enemies

Re: - a savant who can deduce a race's tactical perspective from their artwork

I always thought that bit was silly.

Re: killed off by the author so nobody could muck him up!

One of the best deaths in the Star Wars universe, short of Jabba getting choked out like a little bitch!

 Compel wrote:
And went so the Yuuzhan Vong stuff just retcons?

Well sure because Zahn could not have known at the time that the EU would become so absolutely gakky even though he himself put it on exactly that track with terrible wish-fulfillment characters like Thrawn and Mara Jade. But it was Zahn who concocted the idea that Thrawn's backstory would involve foreknowledge of the (at that point, imminent) invasion.

I personally couldn't believe they didn't just make the zahn books into the star wars sequels. I mean, that could have been absolutely amazing, and they picked up exactly where the first three left off.

Instead, they just rebooted a new hope in all but name. Hell, I'd almost be surprised if the next star wars movie didn't start with a colossal fight on an ice planet called 'not-hoth'.

I'd wish that thrawn didn't have to make his debut in a children's cartoon, but you can't have everything!

Unlike the deckhands toiling facelessly in the galleys of the Star Destroyers, officers like Piett (and Thrawn for that matter) had front row seats to the innumerable atrocities committed by ... well, them in large part, aka the Empire. But I guess they were just following orders so no harm, no foul. But this is a great example of how Thrawn as a character seeps backwards into the IP to rehabilitate the overt Space Nazis. I'm honestly surprised he isn't called something like 'the Space Fox' by his fans.

 Manchu wrote:
Unlike the deckhands toiling faceless in the galleys of the Star Destroyers, officers like Piett (and Thrawn for that matter) had front row seats to the innumerable atrocities committed by ... well, them in large part, aka the Empire. But I guess they were just following orders so no harm, no foul. But this is a great example of how Thrawn as a character seeps backwards into the IP to rehabilitate the overt Space Nazis. I'm honestly surprised he isn't called something like 'the Space Fox' by his fans.

Don't paint me in the broad brush of the "Imperial Apologists". I have no illusions that the Empire was anything but evil, run by evil men. You seem to have a burr in your boot about those apologist people, whomever the feth they are, but that's you're problem. Don't pin it on me, thanks.

Further, to MY point, Piett never did anything Evil in the movies, that I recall. Was he an innocent Bo-Peep? Most certainly not. However, he didn't cut down hundreds of younglings with a laser sword, either.

LOL directly murdering children is not the threshold for evildoing. Morality in the Star Wars cinematic experience, especially in the Original Trilogy, is fairly black and white. If you wear a Nazi Imperial uniform, you are a bad guy. EU authors, beginning with Zahn, started to problematize this probably because, as novelists, they wanted fuller, more sympathetic characters. (By contrast, Imperials and their analogs - initially - remained much more starkly and simply evil in the Dark Horse comics.) But it was also something to do with the 90s, a burgeoning love of anti-heroes, because SW novels before Heir to the Empire are content with the moral clarity of the film(s). There is no question whether Piett is "evil" because the movie doesn't trade on those terms; he's a bad guy, and that is all that matters. You need a character like Thrawn to come along before you get to the question of whether Captain So-and-so is really evil deep down, or just a bloke doing his job the best he can. When you look back on the OT and you start dividing up the bad guys between the really evil ones and the ones who ... er, just totally went along and enjoyed all the privileges that being a leader in the Galactic Empire entailed ... wait, I mean, the ones who aren't really and truly evil, then you are already involved in apologetics. This is why I said I "despise" Thrawn - not merely dislike or find irritating (like Rey from Force Awakens).

 Manchu wrote:
LOL directly murdering children is not the threshold for evildoing.

It's an excellent yardstick, though!

 Manchu wrote:
When you look back on the OT and you start dividing up the bad guys between the really evil ones and the ones who ... er, just totally went along and enjoyed all the privileges that being a leader in the Galactic Empire entailed ... wait, I mean, the ones who aren't really and truly evil, then you are already involved in apologetics.

Bill Weasley's character for the Force Awakens was evil. Snowtrooper #4 from Empire Strikes back was a good bloke that got caught up in the gambling circuit and had to join the Imperial Navy to avoid a few leg breakers. He purposely shot wide of any vital equipment on the Falcon with his E-Web. He won some money on a certain Kessel Run in his youth, you see?

Again, I haven't seen the apologetics you're talking about, but I don't frequent Star Wars discussion forums.

 kronk wrote:
but I don't frequent Star Wars discussion forums.

a great policy!

 Manchu wrote:

 kronk wrote:
but I don't frequent Star Wars discussion forums.

a great policy!

So what is the actual claim these apologists are making? Just that the Empire could have been good? Or that deep down, it had some good to it? Based on what we see in the OT, both claims seem pretty spurious to me. I mean, in the most theoretical sense, I suppose if the Empire hadn't been evil, it could have been good, but then it wouldn't have been the Empire we actually have. One built upon corruption, fear, oppression, murder and genocide.

So what are the apologists actually claiming?