Ahsoka

Harshaw · Sep 22, 2023

Malakriss said:
There's a realistic wall you hit when you have to portray a species like the Chiss on screen, not just Thrawn but for any of that species in the future you can't break the CGI/makeup budget every time. So they did a good middle ground but it will never be as good as animated shows or video games.

As far as the Thrawn character we haven't seen enough interactions yet to judge whether it's a good depiction.

I mean he was great in Rebels and they are writing him the same. Thrawn is a great tactician but he fails when up against something he doesn't know.

Runnen · Sep 22, 2023

Malakriss said:
There's a realistic wall you hit when you have to portray a species like the Chiss on screen, not just Thrawn but for any of that species in the future you can't break the CGI/makeup budget every time. So they did a good middle ground but it will never be as good as animated shows or video games.

As far as the Thrawn character we haven't seen enough interactions yet to judge whether it's a good depiction.

I think casting the voice actor for Rebels Thrawn was a great choice, Thrawn is, as you said, much more about his calm demeanor and intellect than about being a scary ripped dude.

Of course in Rebels he was also shown to be quite strong in the martial arts and a skilled fighter, but he's also 15 years older in this show, and we don't know yet what life was like for him and his men (doesn't look like it went very well judging by the possibly many undead Night Troopers).

I've seen some people complain he looks too old but Thrawn is around Anakin's age when they meet in various books/shows, so he'd be around 55-60 during Ahsoka.

Chukzombi · Sep 22, 2023

Armadon said:
He just looks like blue Elon musk. Can't get that shit out of my head. He seems kinda lame but I also didn't watch the cartoons.

yup, blue Elon Musk or some weird Data cosplayer. he also seems pretty cucked by the red witches.

Runnen · Sep 22, 2023

Chukzombi said:
yup, blue Elon Musk or some weird Data cosplayer. he also seems pretty cucked by the red witches.

Considering his troopers are called "Night Troopers" in the subtitles, the Nightsisters are probably responsible for a part of his army being there at all, remember they are necromancers, and a bunch of those troopers had weird voices and shattered armors.

But as soon as he doesn't need them anymore, I expect it will be another matter entirely.

j00t · Sep 22, 2023

Chukzombi said:
yup, blue Elon Musk or some weird Data cosplayer. he also seems pretty cucked by the red witches.

i didn't get that at all. the witches almost seem to be doting on thrawn. when he asks for something, they don't balk, they give some weird response about "the thread of destiny"

they very obviously have a deal worked out, where they help thrawn escape, and thrawn helps them carry whatever was in the catacombs (obviously night sister corpses). it's very much a mutually beneficial relationship, and while thrawn speaks to the mothers respectfully, they speak to him in terms of fate

Chukzombi · Sep 22, 2023

Runnen said:
Considering his troopers are called "Night Troopers" in the subtitles, the Nightsisters are probably responsible for a part of his army being there at all, remember they are necromancers, and a bunch of those troopers had weird voices and shattered armors.

But as soon as he doesn't need them anymore, I expect it will be another matter entirely.

sure, but in the meantime, he's about as badass as Sean from this board.

Harshaw · Sep 22, 2023

j00t said:
i didn't get that at all. the witches almost seem to be doting on thrawn. when he asks for something, they don't balk, they give some weird response about "the thread of destiny"

they very obviously have a deal worked out, where they help thrawn escape, and thrawn helps them carry whatever was in the catacombs (obviously night sister corpses). it's very much a mutually beneficial relationship, and while thrawn speaks to the mothers respectfully, they speak to him in terms of fate

The Nightsisters and Thrawn are both the same in that they will work faithfully with people until they don't. Like they have no problems doing whatever Thrawn wants as long as their goals remain similar. Once those come in conflict they will turn on each other.

Djay · Sep 22, 2023

I was underwhelmed when I saw Thrawn. The face just doesn't look like what I'd expect...it feels "droopy", like he should have a stronger jawline or something. I'll probably get over it in a couple episodes, but it was distracting every time he was on screen in this first episode. Overall, I'm enjoying this more than Boba Fett and the later seasons of Mando, not that that's a high bar.

Wombat · Sep 22, 2023

Chukzombi said:
sure, but in the meantime, he's about as badass as Sean from this board.

He's not supposed to be a badass, he's supposed to be Moriarty with a navy - a tactical and strategic genius that knows you better than you know yourself and will use that to confound and defeat you.

The other half is Thrawn, at least the still canon prequel books Thrawn, isn't evil. He just knows there are threats out there the Republic is too divided to handle (see their complete collapse vs the laughable First Order in the sequels) and will overthrow them if he needs to, to create a unified front against those threats.

Cartoon Thrawn, on the other hand, frequently shades into, well, a cartoon mustache twirling villain. I am still hoping that Filoni and company will merge those Thrawns, and whenever he's defeated we find out he was the only thing holding the Mandoverse or Rey sequel enemy at bay until now.

jooka · Sep 22, 2023

Having just saw the catch you up vid before hand and none of the other shows, Thrawn entrance was a pretty heavy let down. As was the entire Ezra interaction, just fucking horrible.

Furry · Sep 22, 2023

Araysar said:
Dathomir stuff sounds interesting. Im tired of the only villains being Sith and some variation of The Empire. They constantly get beaten by The Good Guys so theyre not even interesting anymore

I hear this and think of the honored matre in Dune. If they were that level of psychopath this show could be pretty damn fun, but it's probably illegal to show a women in that light in disney.

Chukzombi · Sep 22, 2023

Wombat said:
He's not supposed to be a badass, he's supposed to be Moriarty with a navy - a tactical and strategic genius that knows you better than you know yourself and will use that to confound and defeat you.

The other half is Thrawn, at least the still canon prequel books Thrawn, isn't evil. He just knows there are threats out there the Republic is too divided to handle (see their complete collapse vs the laughable First Order in the sequels) and will overthrow them if he needs to, to create a unified front against those threats.

Cartoon Thrawn, on the other hand, frequently shades into, well, a cartoon mustache twirling villain. I am still hoping that Filoni and company will merge those Thrawns, and whenever he's defeated we find out he was the only thing holding the Mandoverse or Rey sequel enemy at bay until now.

The build-up and hype on this board for thrawn, had me believing he was some super evil monster. So far he really isn't anything special. What is he doing for the last ten years? He didn't even repair his ship. Is he going back in that or is he taking the ship that rescued him?

Merrith · Sep 23, 2023

We've not seen near enough screen time to establish Thrawn as anything close to Zahn books. Realistically a lot of his character was demonstrated in space battles and interactions with a few key people. Just not enough time in 2-3 episodes to do it full justice.

j00t · Sep 23, 2023

i mean, the guy who is directing live action thrawn is the same guy who directed cartoon thrawn. while yes, it's a different medium, but i very much am under the impression that if you liked thrawn in rebels, you'll like him here.

that being said, i was watching some random interviews with sam witwer (because that guy is awesome) and he talked about how he had a conversation with filoni about how maybe maul in rebels wasn't 100% consistent with maul from clone wars and sam was questioning whether or not he should say something to the writers to change the dialogue. and dave said, "these are all campfire talltales. it's okay that maybe things aren't 100% consistent because these stories are being told from different perspectives."

which is actually consistent with how lucas viewed star wars. lucas has said that the original trilogy is told through the perspective of R2D2 and C3PO, which is why they are always saving the day. it's an interesting idea, and i'm all for it in theory, but i don't think it should be used as an excuse to be internally inconsistent.

Chukzombi · Sep 23, 2023

ok, you guys all know Thrawn really well, think he's the Moriarty of Space. what can i expect from him before the season ends? double crossing the red witches who saved his ass? sending out some undead stormtroopers to kill Ahsoka? do undead Stormtroopers shoot better? is Thrawn going to kill Ezra for reals this time? if this season ends with him zipping back to the Star Wars galaxy while stranding Ahsoka and friends on Crabworld without really seeing why Thrawn is so formidable, is that a good thing? Thrawn getting his shit pushed in by Ahsoka doesnt sound like a good alternative ending either if Thrawn is supposed to be so awesome. there really doesnt seem to be a lot of good options here to give Thrawn his time to shine.

j00t · Sep 23, 2023

Chukzombi said:
ok, you guys all know Thrawn really well, think he's the Moriarty of Space. what can i expect from him before the season ends? double crossing the red witches who saved his ass? sending out some undead stormtroopers to kill Ahsoka? do undead Stormtroopers shoot better? is Thrawn going to kill Ezra for reals this time? if this season ends with him zipping back to the Star Wars galaxy while stranding Ahsoka and friends on Crabworld without really seeing why Thrawn is so formidable, is that a good thing? Thrawn getting his shit pushed in by Ahsoka doesnt sound like a good alternative ending either if Thrawn is supposed to be so awesome. there really doesnt seem to be a lot of good options here to give Thrawn his time to shine.

well. it depends. in the books, both the old EU non-canon books, and the new ones that ARE canon, thrawn is very much portrayed as not really evil at all. just an efficient general that allied with the empire because the rebel alliance didn't have the strength to defend the chiss from their enemies. (thrawn's species is the chiss, they are notoriously isolationistic so VERY few of them have left the chiss ascendency or let anyone within their territory) rebels thrawn has a lot more cartoony mustache twirly villain moments, but still comes across as much less of a villain and much more of just an antagonist by circumstance.

the empire is notoriously racist and almost exclusively employ humans, so for thrawn to not only IN the empire, but to be one of the highest ranking military officers should tell you what you need to know about him when it comes to being a bad guy. but, like others have said, he's an atypical villain in that he's not interested in vengeance, he's not interested in body counts. he wants to reduce the cost of life, not only on the side of the empire, but the side of his enemies as well.

it's kind of interesting to see this version of him though. he's definitely lost something, but i think that's because he's been stranded and lost A LOT of men. even if those night troopers are under his command, i don't think he thinks of them the same as regular troopers since they are most likely dead and brought back as revenants of some kind, a la marrok. for a guy who wants to preserve life at all costs, looking at a bunch of walking corpses dressed as your troopers probably does a number on him.

and like i said, he's not interested in vengeance at all, and yet he still sends people after ezra. he keeps intel on where ezra is, showing that he's still paying attention to a hermit who's likely just trying to be left alone. i imagine thrawn sent several cadre of troopers after him and none have returned, so he's stopped sending people after him, and yet he STILL keeps intel on his location on him. but then ultimately admits that the ONLY thing that matters is getting out of that galaxy.

i'm assuming that thrawn will pull some 4d chess on baylon and shin, resulting in baylon's death, maybe shin's as well but i think she'll survive the season and disappear for a while, only to join team ahsoka later down the road. i think that the witches will also end up going back to dathomir and repopulating the planet with night sisters/brothers, though i don't know where thrawn will be at this point. i really like the idea that he gets back, and looks to be remilitarizing the empire so team ahsoka go after him, but his death results in showing that he was holding back the first order, but now that he's gone, it galvanizes them into action.

Chukzombi · Sep 23, 2023

j00t said:
well. it depends. in the books, both the old EU non-canon books, and the new ones that ARE canon, thrawn is very much portrayed as not really evil at all. just an efficient general that allied with the empire because the rebel alliance didn't have the strength to defend the chiss from their enemies. (thrawn's species is the chiss, they are notoriously isolationistic so VERY few of them have left the chiss ascendency or let anyone within their territory) rebels thrawn has a lot more cartoony mustache twirly villain moments, but still comes across as much less of a villain and much more of just an antagonist by circumstance.

the empire is notoriously racist and almost exclusively employ humans, so for thrawn to not only IN the empire, but to be one of the highest ranking military officers should tell you what you need to know about him when it comes to being a bad guy. but, like others have said, he's an atypical villain in that he's not interested in vengeance, he's not interested in body counts. he wants to reduce the cost of life, not only on the side of the empire, but the side of his enemies as well.

it's kind of interesting to see this version of him though. he's definitely lost something, but i think that's because he's been stranded and lost A LOT of men. even if those night troopers are under his command, i don't think he thinks of them the same as regular troopers since they are most likely dead and brought back as revenants of some kind, a la marrok. for a guy who wants to preserve life at all costs, looking at a bunch of walking corpses dressed as your troopers probably does a number on him.

and like i said, he's not interested in vengeance at all, and yet he still sends people after ezra. he keeps intel on where ezra is, showing that he's still paying attention to a hermit who's likely just trying to be left alone. i imagine thrawn sent several cadre of troopers after him and none have returned, so he's stopped sending people after him, and yet he STILL keeps intel on his location on him. but then ultimately admits that the ONLY thing that matters is getting out of that galaxy.

i'm assuming that thrawn will pull some 4d chess on baylon and shin, resulting in baylon's death, maybe shin's as well but i think she'll survive the season and disappear for a while, only to join team ahsoka later down the road. i think that the witches will also end up going back to dathomir and repopulating the planet with night sisters/brothers, though i don't know where thrawn will be at this point. i really like the idea that he gets back, and looks to be remilitarizing the empire so team ahsoka go after him, but his death results in showing that he was holding back the first order, but now that he's gone, it galvanizes them into action.

wouldnt this contradict the Rey trilogy canon with Snoak as the guy the 1st Order revolves around? or lol, Palpy 2.0? this all seems like a long game strategy. i guess my question was mainly for this season. if Thrawn doesnt come through with something wild by ep 8, isnt that kind of lame? thats why i mentioned killing Ezra or Sabine. Thrawn need a "shit just got real" moment. we all expect Baylan to die by the end of the season. he's been monologuing a lot and we know the actor has passed on. his coke fiend apprentice is pretty lolzy. maybe Sabine gets her callback and defeats Shin only for her to escape to come back another day.

jayrebb · Sep 23, 2023

Seems like they might have put Baylan in the Filoni movie if he hadn't died.

I doubt Filoni wanted to go digging around for heavyweight acting talent to fill out supporting roles. And he'd come Disney cheap no problem. Disney loves a good deal.

See live action Vader they paid 50,000 USD for reference.

Wombat · Sep 23, 2023

Chukzombi said:
what can i expect from him before the season ends? double crossing the red witches who saved his ass? sending out some undead stormtroopers to kill Ahsoka?

Hati continues to all but tell Baylan "We're getting involved even further with the witches? You do realize we are the baddies then.", so her being the one (and not Thrawn) to turn against the witches seems inevitable.

There's only, what, two episodes left, and Ahsoka hasn't even landed yet, and given the glacial pace, I just expect Thrawn to have his engines damaged when he tries to jump back to the original galaxy and ends up in 'Show X' in the future.

I don't remotely know star destroyer lore, are we supposed to assume the Chinera's been rebuilt with Purgill bones (the goldish brown material in the intro shots)?

Malakriss · Sep 23, 2023

I expect someone from the good guy camp to be left behind and I also expect some major players from the bad guy camp to be killed or left behind. Given the name of the series and future movie prospects that unfortunately narrows it considerably.

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