DarthDementous

This isn't about scientific accuracy, this is about fleshing out the mechanics of how stuff works in the universe. Don't need to go into great detail since that's not Star Wars' bag, but it would help believability and make things feel more cohesive if those things were given thought. Ripe for storytelling potential too, what exactly does being in a Sarlacc for a year (or however amount of time it was) actually do to a person both mentally and physically? What is it required to survive in there and what kind of mental toll does that take on someone? Instead BOBF treats it more as an inconvenience than potential for character development, which is a trend with a lot of the conflicts so far

One of these days we'll get a story where the main character is a bounty hunter...actually about bounty hunting

The directing might've been better but I didn't feel a substantial improvement on any other aspects from the previous episode

The Rancor embroidery on Danny Trejo looks neat

That is particularly baffling, I was under the impression they'd be cherry-picking the good stuff, so to see them take bad ideas and do them even worse was incredibly baffling. Same with the good ideas for that matter, the Dark Troopers were absolutely worthless in The Mandalorian, and the Tuskens are missing a lot of richness to their culture and history that was in KOTOR. The Krayt dragon is also a poor adaptation because the strategy they try and opt for is nonsensical compared to KOTOR where it's very simply, lure out Krayt Dragon and have him step on a bunch of mines - except in The Mandalorian that tactic barely does anything to it despite it being established it has a weak underbelly.

An alternative approach would’ve been to double down on Dooku from the beginning as a representation of a Sith that has a sympathetic alternate perspective that ultimately ends up getting manipulated by Palpatine like everyone else The emotional connection to our characters would be very strong because he was Qui Gon’s master, and if he ends up killing him then that would be all the more dramatic

I didn't say you needed to read more than 10% to understand them, I said if you haven't even read 10% of the EU then don't try and speak for its quality or style as a whole. By all means judge the series individually, but broad sweeping statements on the entire collective universe is just ill-informed. I can't think of a single piece of EU that isn't an obvious sequel that requires you to have read a completely different series to understand, most of the time the continuity is just the icing on the cake and the series/individual entries are relatively standalone. I specifically separated games because I assumed that you were talking about the books, but EU includes everything in C (Continuity) canon which involves the games so they are definitely relevant to bring up. You were talking about public perception, and so I gave you some public statistics that contradict what you claim. If Star Wars books sold well purely just for having the brand, then every Star Wars book would be on the New York Times best seller list. The latter is just complete conjecture, and I heavily doubt kids were voting in that 60,000 person survey about top sci-fi books. I don't know why your brain jumps to debate. I simply want something that we can both anchor ourselves to and discuss instead of it being purely conjecture and based on individual taste. Those kinds of conversations go nowhere. Most of what I said after that were questions just asking for you to explain why you believe what you said because I didn't understand the reasoning, rather than any particular challenge

Ah yes, I remember now. I can't really see much to engage with there, I'm pretty sure they justify exactly why Lando is helping out the gang in the Thrawn Trilogy beyond y'know, being a good friend of the main trio and the New Republic which is enough on its own. I also hear a lot of people complain about Luuke and Joruus C'baoth but can't really get a sense for why they think it's bad for the story or why that would be a major flaw that diminishes the entire Trilogy. Not sure why not being able to reference other works in the universe other than the movies is a negative to the story either, I also doubt it's true because I know some stuff in the original Marvel comics run made it through the filter. I'm not sure what period you're referring to as 'the height of the EU' but my personal experience was that I read some novels (including The Crystal Star hilariously enough) and comics when I was in school as well as listened to a bunch of audiobooks mostly out of context. I liked them but my true passion was in games such as Knights of the Old Republic 2 which completely blew me away with its world and characters. So from my perspective the height of the EU would've been early 2000s right up until TCW came out. I'm only really discovering it properly now after being completely disenfranchised with the current state of Star Wars and starting to realize how good things actually were before. What I don't like about how people talk about the EU is just how damn broadly they condemn it, despite likely not having read even 10% of it because that would be an insane feat in itself. We're talking about 40 years of stories written by a wide swathe of authors with completely different writing styles. I feel like most people read a couple of series, don't like the writing style, and then just assume the rest is exactly the same. You claim the books were regarded as 'mediocre-to-bad sci fi' whilst completely neglecting that Heir to the Empire was #1 on the New York Times best seller list, with the trilogy itself selling 16 million copies in total. For something more recent as well, in 2011 a survey of 60,000 handled by National Public Radio was done on the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy books and it came in at number 88. You know what's also hilarious, I discovered that The Crystal Star, widely derided as the worst novel in the EU, was also a New York Times bestseller and the sixth consecutive Star Wars novel in a row to be on that list. Even when the EU was at its perceived lowest it was still popular! Your personal value of the EU is one thing, but if you're going to claim that everyone just regarded it poorly and it had no mainstream appeal then that's a completely different narrative that's going to require actual evidence. And this is only just for the books, the popularity of the games can not be overstated enough and they were absolutely also a part of the EU.

There are far more high quality EU works than bad ones, and the attention to detail and most importantly continuity since the Thrawn trilogy up until the release of the 3D Clone Wars series is still unparalleled to this day. It really was firing on all cylinders across mediums such as video games, comic books, audio-books, and novels. It's really easy to dismiss the EU, especially with the revisionist history I see going on, but if you're even slightly disappointed in any of the current canon material I strongly urge you to check out its EU counterpart. The Clone Wars comics and Dark Times comics are such unbelievably superior versions of TCW and Rebels respectively it's actually kind of absurd, while I appreciate the new stories I honestly wish the shows had adapted this source material instead, especially for the Clone Wars which makes the conflict feel like a real war and explores important concepts like Jedi schisms that TCW barely touched. Even if all of the new canon material was impeccable, it's destined to be thinner for quite a while as a result of throwing out an entire richly defined universe that was built over 40 years. That's why even when they try and recanonize stuff it's going to be a pale imitation, because so much of the foundation that defined it in the first place is going to be completely missing or altered to be practically unrecognizable. Why do you think the Thrawn trilogy is bad?

At that point the only thing you would have left of the Thrawn trilogy are the names of the characters. Mara Jade’s entire arc in that trilogy is dependent on Luke and literally could not be replaced with anyone else

To ease off on the negativity a bit, I learned about a detail which I found quite neat. The chanting during the Tusken funeral was actually in Mando'a, a language that was created in the EU as the official language of The Mandalorians. Anyone familiar with Republic Commando would've heard Mandalorian chanting in the majority of the tracks, most notably 'Vode An' or 'Brothers in Arms'. The lyrics being sung repeatedly are 'Allit ori’shya tal’din' which translates to 'family is more than blood'. Quite appropriate given the scene, and I appreciate the continuity. EDIT: Turns out it's a little more in-depth than that: Mando'a Aliit ori'shya tal'din (x3) Burcyan (x3) Aliit ori'shya tal'din Darasuum kando (x3) Aliit ori'shya tal'din Translated Family is more than blood (x3) A close bond (x3) Family is more than blood Eternal importance (x3) Family is more than blood

That’s true but I’m assuming the idea was that you could migrate just The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett into Legends

It’s a nice idea on paper, but The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett differ way too much from the respective EU to possibly fit in. Just because it hasn’t touched heavily on Sequel Trilogy elements doesn’t mean it’s compatible, it functionally exists in a completely different universe. If it was a part of the Legends timeline then The Mandalorian would be taking place whilst Grand Admiral Thrawn is launching his massive campaign to crush the New Republic and the galaxy would be in a period of war, which is not reflected in the slightest in the show. World-building is a huge thing to me as well, but the world presented in Book of Boba Fett is incoherent and vague. Why do none of the big players in Mos Espa have any security in their buildings to prevent people just waltzing in with guns? How did Jabba’s criminal empire actually function and what happened to all the previous patrons under Bib Fortuna? Jabba’s palace is so empty and lifeless under Boba and it seems like he literally only has two guards and now a pack of swoopers. Why wouldn’t his first order of business be recruitment on a larger scale? Does he even have access to any money? Why do the Pykes run a train of spice through the desert, why not use a spice freighter so you don’t have to worry about local interference at all? I don’t get a sense for how literally any faction functions and it makes it very hard to get invested in the world as a result.

Fennec isn't assertive either, both of them are quite passive to what's happening around them despite them supposed to be making some kind of bid for power to establish themselves and gain the respect of the neighboring factions. Most of the time Fennec doesn't say a single word and just stands next to Boba doing her best to make it look like she's being a bodyguard

That last episode has kind of made me give-up on the show completely. It's not like it was awful but I'm starting to see patterns forming and getting an idea of all the things that I really, really don't want to see in a TV show and I'm a bit tired of being jerked around by side missions (major deja vu here...) It also doesn't really feel like Star Wars, sure it looks like it because it's cramming in iconic imagery almost every second (if the Wort that burps in the ROTJ Special Edition counts as iconic I guess), but it's severely lacking the style and tone of Star Wars. I'm not quite sure what style and tone it even has, it just feels very...empty. And it's frustrating because they're playing around with some great elements of the Star Wars universe but it's being done in a way that makes it feel like it was written by a simpleton. I actually can't fathom how clueless and dumb Boba Fett is and the ramping up of the sympathetic and vulnerable angle is making it even more off-putting, disrespectful even. It's like they extrapolated the one strategically poor choice he made in ROTJ that got him Sarlacc'd as a key trait of his character, and unless it's played for comedy it really does not work. I'm getting annoyed at all the newfangled and ridiculous melee weapons they keep giving characters, especially in situations when they 100% should be using a gun. Looking at you Black Krssantan, I understand you're a gladiator but what the fuck kind of assassination attempt was that.