posted
So, someone somewhere thought there was enough incentive to explore the imperial interim period, and with the Star Wars Live Action series dead until there are "advances in technology and reduction in costs", according to Lucas, this is what we get before Episode VII rolls out.
The trailer struck me as potentially bolder than the old "Clone Wars" show, with potentially less restraint and narrative limits (although I won't hold my breath for any show content with a shred of the balls of the Mos Eisley bar fight).
There are a lot of things the makers can get right with this show if they really want to, try to reconnect to the dangerous and alluring wonder of the very first 1977-movie, unless they are really going for middle-road Nickelodeon entertainment and don't want to ruffle any feathers, just cash a check every month for the coming five years.
Jason Isaacs voicing the main antagonist is a good choice, even if a new Sith is harder to explain away than ever. He has Naziesque imperial riding pants and Sith regalia, an interesting mix, although his lightsaber is the most absurdly impractical design ever to grace the canon. I would have taken a lightfork over that, the previous most-likely-to-kill-the-wielder design.
The main ship, the Ghost, seems promising to me at the face of it, despite not carrying almost any visible tell-tale of being built by Corellian Engineering Corp. Its layout is 50% as well-built as the Corellian YT-2000 from the 1999 space-combat sim "X-Wing Alliance", save for the hastily chopped-off and flat nose section, and the decision to put the gunner ahead of the pilot in a non-octagonal ball turret in the very front, to manually fire at targets. That will be "cool" the first two times, before becoming rote.
I have no specific comment on any of the show characters, all are so incredibly stereotypical Star Wars characters with stereotypical gender adherence it's almost farcical. They might well manage to get the characters to grow beyond their colored armor and cyberpunk crap (welder-goggles. In 2014.), that is for the future to prove.
I feel the detail level of both the ships and the characters in the trailer and Comic-Con snippet look decidedly lower-grade than in the last season of "Clone Wars", very plastic and too brightly lit up, I hope this won't be par for the course. In CW, the capital ships were almost interchangeable with the actual live-action CGI battleships of ROTS, while "Rebels" is two steps closer to LEGO.
Anyone sitting on any other edifying info, outside of the wikipage? Please contrib!
[ August 26, 2014, 08:46 AM: Message edited by: Nim ]
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I have made a point through the years to avoid letting non-canon into my head, but a few pieces of info got through the old firewall. One of those is the notion that the Falcon was supposed to be a pusher-ship for big linear trains of cargo containers, explaining the funky offset cockpit.
I liked that, which is why designs like the Ghost don't make sense to me. It even has the port and starboard rectangles on the front, but with a glass cockpit sticking out from in between. So what's the design logic? No clue.
But perhaps that speaks more to the fact that it is so difficult to un-see what you see . . . they really should have let the tie-in material sleep for a bit if they wanted a fresh start. As it stands, everyone's brain is still infected with non-George "facts".
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:a pusher-ship for big linear trains of cargo containers
Long haul space truckers? I've seen that in so many other franchises, even Cowboy Bibappu, I'm glad it's not in Star Wars, actually.
quote:I liked that, which is why designs like the Ghost don't make sense to me.
I agree, and it's obvious the original Falcon designer had an idea and a backstory in their head. It was a transport designed to carry stuff, and then modified to also run fast and bite. This new ship is built to be a "Falcon" already from the factory, which shouldn't exist.
If the "Ghost" had been a "de-clawed" bomber ship from some old conflict, then it would have been logical for it to have these obvious "B-25" homage turrets. As it is, it kind of interferes with its function and should have been declared illegal by the empire by now. It seems to have been designed solely to give the main protagonist a "Look mom, I'm achieving my destiny now, pew-pew" platform.
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quote:a pusher-ship for big linear trains of cargo containers
Long haul space truckers? I've seen that in so many other franchises, even Cowboy Bibappu, I'm sort of glad it hasn't been a common sight in Star Wars, actually.
quote:I liked that, which is why designs like the Ghost don't make sense to me.
It is obvious the original Falcon designer had an idea and a context in mind. It was a transport designed to carry stuff, and then semi-illegally modified to also run fast and bite. This new ship is built to be a "Falcon" already from the factory, which shouldn't exist.
If the Ghost had been a de-clawed bomber ship from some old conflict, then it would have been logical for it to have these obvious B-25 homage turrets. As it is, it kind of interferes with its function and should have been declared illegal by the empire by now. It seems to have been designed solely to give the main protagonist a "Look mom, I'm achieving my destiny now, pew-pew" platform.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I think the boxy things flanking the cockpit might be for cargo loading- a standardized cargo container might load smoothly into those -and might convievably be ejected in case of emergency or "imperial entanglments".
I have a terrible hunch that there might be a folded up starfighter shoved into one of those boxes- something small like a Jedi Starfighter with the wings somehow pulled in.
I totally agree that the Inquisitor's lightsaber is idiotic- but I have not seen the double blade in screenshots- just a single blade. And the blade id super thin- like a rapier... The series creators have said that the Inquisitor is NOT a Sith, but is a force user.
Maybe some shlub "Emperor's Hand" type of guy- not strong enough to make an apprentice, but too useful to discard. Like Ventress, in some ways I suppose- same species, I believe.
Looking at the lush CG of the final episodes of Season Six makes me despair for the kiddie look of this new series- I fear that it'll be toned waaay down on both the adult stories and the occasional shocking violence: both hallmarks of the Clone Wars series.
I sure hope I'm mistaken- I'd happily eat my words here.
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quote:a pusher-ship for big linear trains of cargo containers
Long haul space truckers? I've seen that in so many other franchises, even Cowboy Bibappu, I'm sort of glad it hasn't been a common sight in Star Wars, actually.
I'm not familiar with it elsewhere. It does make sense, though. Unlike an Earth tractor truck where the gearing for towing and such still preclude grand performance, in space a pusher relieved of its bulk would be a high-performance machine.
quote:If the Ghost had been a de-clawed bomber ship from some old conflict, then it would have been logical for it to have these obvious B-25 homage turrets. As it is, it kind of interferes with its function and should have been declared illegal by the empire by now.
Indeed. As strange as it is for an oppressive regime to allow armed citizens, it's even more strange for them to allow armed vehicles. Even Han gets boarded sometimes, we hear, and yet the Falcon clearly wasn't impounded. Perhaps he bribed them . . . perhaps offering them that cargo he dumped.
Of course, in the original trilogy we don't exactly see a lot of normal Imperial traffic. Leia's cruiser was a senatorial vessel and might've had special dispensation to be armed, and the Falcon seemed to be hanging out in the somewhat more lawless Hutt areas when we first see it and presumably intended to skirt authorities on arrival at Alderaan.
quote:The series creators have said that the Inquisitor is NOT a Sith, but is a force user.
Maybe some shlub "Emperor's Hand" type of guy- not strong enough to make an apprentice, but too useful to discard. Like Ventress, in some ways I suppose- same species, I believe.
That actually sounds sort of nice, sort of like Christopher Lee's Rochefort in "The Three Musketeers" (1973). He could go well together with those two purple-clothed creepy people the emperor was hanging out with in ROTJ. They've been retconned by later authors into being "inquisitors", jedi hunters, even though the movie said nothing of it and treated them merely as advisors.
I have actually sort of waited for another character of the same race (Pau'an) as Bruce Spence in ROTS. They have those very aesthetic ribbings in their skin, looked very nice.
Just checked, Ventress is from Dathomir. No ribbing.
quote:I have a terrible hunch that there might be a folded up starfighter shoved into one of those boxes- something small like a Jedi Starfighter with the wings somehow pulled in.
This is eerie, Jason, you are directly describing my personal show scenario I started kicking around in my head already six years ago.
My idea was the Corellian YU-410 light freighter, with its two generous cargo holds refitted with front-opening vertical doors, containing a pair of thin and long fighters installed, with automated docking clamps and energy couplings, ready to shoot out when the pretense is dropped. Sort of like the Q-ships of the Napoleonic era and WWI; a war frigate disguised as a merchantman, luring in pirates before dropping the hammer.
posted
That truck from "Cowboy Bebop" reminds me of the ECS Horizon.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Like Ventress, in some ways I suppose- same species, I believe.
Males of Ventress's species (Dathomirian): Maul and Savage Opress. Look nothing like the Inquisitor.
I find the Inquisitor looks a lot like the Son from Mortis...
Yeah, you're right- and I wonder if they'll make any references to the Mortis storyline in the new series- in the last couple of Season Six Clone Wars episodes, Lucas and the gang established some neat cosmology for how the Force works- a little trippy, but neat nonetheless: The Living Force feeds the Cosmic Force (I guess when people die) and the Cosmic Force in turn enpowers the Living Force- with very few people able to retain their identity after death.
No clue how that works with the Mortis stuff- or why The Inquisitor looks like the son. Wouldn't it be great if this whackadoodle turns out to BE the Son- reborn and unaware of his past life. Regardless, Vader should recognize the resemblance!
HOPEFULLY this is not an instance of "managment liked the look of it so we had to make this look like that"- the NX-01/Akira thing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: HOPEFULLY this is not an instance of "managment liked the look of it so we had to make this look like that"- the NX-01/Akira thing.
Quoted for truth.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
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A: Front laser turret can be used in fixed position by the pilot aiming the ship balistically. Won't always require a spunky farmboy to operate while saying "pew-pew" and going "woohoo" every time he hits something.
B: The droids swear profusely under word-scrambling filters.
C: The twi'lek woman seems to have some personality. Hope it's not all by-the-numbers Ripley homage.
D: They actually worked hard to make the gassy space explosion look ANH-y. It's a nice touch, hope it's not just bells-n-whistles for the crowds, but that they will really try to go classic with the whole operation.
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