Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker

[Khaldun]

Think of it this way: in season 1, they did a lot of Easter-Egging that didn't require any knowledge of the Easter Eggs to enjoy. My wife didn't know anything about the Darksaber or the Mandalorians or any of that shit and she was still:

Oh, ok, Giancarlo Esposito's character has a backstory connection to the Mandalorian.
Oh, ok, it involves the reasons why all those other Mandalorians were on the bounty hunter planet and all the stuff about forging his armor.
Oh, cool, he's got a weird looking lightsaber, he's a dangerous villain.


They've done just enough to say: hey, this is an ongoing universe where stories connect; and so far, nothing that said: sorry, if you are not Nerd Grade Ten, you are not tall enough to ride this ride.

I think they'll keep that balance.

[Draegan]

I really like the first season of The Mandalorian so I'm willing to give season 2 a lot of the benefit of the doubt but I'm already on record as saying the stuff that makes me the least excited are the things they're bringing over from Clone Wars. It's stuff that connects back to 11 seasons of TV across 2 shows that I'm not going to watch through, and I have a feeling that if they gave Filoni the reins to the franchise a lot of things that tie back into stories he worked on would keep popping up.

On the one hand, it could easily be said that I'm not the target audience for SW. On the other, I think Disney would still be looking to appeal to a larger audience than however many people watched Clone Wars.

I never watched the animated stuff, but I'm pretty sure that Clone Wars and E2 and E3 are basically the core experience of most Star Wars fans under a certain age. No one cares or gives a shit about the sequels, I don't think they created any new fans of the universe. Anything moving forward is going to heavily lean on the Clone Wars for the most part.  I'll have to finally watch a thousand hours of it. I have to figure out if I want to do it with the kids or by myself.

[jgsugden]

Some of Clone Wars was Lucas at his worst.  A lot of the later stuff pulled out of the tailspin and was pretty good.  Basically, they took a pitfall in the form of the Mandalorians and made good stories about them.  They continue that in the Mandalorian, although I want to see the rules reconciled. 

In terms of looking at the Star Wars content with fresh eyes and giving it no free passes for being novel, ESB and (almost all of Season 1 of) the Mandalorian are the top.  I'd give a few stories in Clone Wars and Rebels the next spots in the series in terms of quality of story and use of the IP.  Obviously, animation and live acting are hard to compare.

[Velorath]

Think of it this way: in season 1, they did a lot of Easter-Egging that didn't require any knowledge of the Easter Eggs to enjoy. My wife didn't know anything about the Darksaber or the Mandalorians or any of that shit and she was still:

Oh, ok, Giancarlo Esposito's character has a backstory connection to the Mandalorian.
Oh, ok, it involves the reasons why all those other Mandalorians were on the bounty hunter planet and all the stuff about forging his armor.
Oh, cool, he's got a weird looking lightsaber, he's a dangerous villain.


They've done just enough to say: hey, this is an ongoing universe where stories connect; and so far, nothing that said: sorry, if you are not Nerd Grade Ten, you are not tall enough to ride this ride.

I think they'll keep that balance.

Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

[Khaldun]

I think as long as Ahsoka comes in sideways and the Mandalorian is our viewpoint character, it'll work fine.

E.g., if she shows up and he's "who the fuck are you" and she's like "well once upon a time I was the apprentice to Anakin Skywalker and..." and he's like "yeah, whatever, can you handle killing a few fuckers who are trying to get to Baby while he and I go get some kind of Foozle thing for this episode, I really don't give a fuck about your backstory" that will be great.

If she shows up and for a three-episode arc it's the Ahsoka Show not so much.

[jgsugden]

I think it will be a bit like how she was handled in Rebels.  The Darksaber at the end of Season 1 of th Mandalorian, along with adding Ahsoka, is a pretty clear indication that Filoni wants to bring back characters from Rebels and Clone Wars as meaningful live action elements.  He wants to build on his foundation - but Ithink he understands that he has to assume viewers know nothing of what took place in those series.

[Hoax]

here's my cheat sheet to skip most of the garbage in Clone Wars and what order to watch things in (you do need to jumble up some of the beginning), in case anybody needs it. I can't even remember what the exclamation points mean anymore, I made it and watched most of them quite a ways back.

[eldaec]

.... and all of season 7.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I did a binge of clone wars earlier this year since so many people had recommended it.  I'm not going to call it great or anything, but I did enjoy how it fleshed out the world.  It found its footing in the later seasons and had some good arcs.  

I basically followed this (doesn't have the last two seasons on it):

.... and all of season 7.

What?  I mean, I didn't like all of it, but thought it was a good close out for the series and ended strong.  The final scene of the whole series was pretty damned grimdark and emotional compared to what I was expecting.

[Teleku]

Also, because of my binge watching, I actually am excited about the prospect of Ahsoka showing up in the Mandelorian.  I can understand people who haven't gotten into the tv series not caring or wanting it, but even though she's sort of retconned into everything (considering how in the movies Anakin never mentions her despite the series establishing they became super close), I feel she became a good character to add to the lore.  With all the insane shit she's gone through, she's got to be pretty grim and grizzled by The Mandelorian era.  Her character would fit in perfectly with the ascetics (especially considering how season 7 of the clone wars went, and the Dark Saber showing up), and as Khal said they wouldn't need to spend much time explaining her backstory at all.  They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.

[jgsugden]

... They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.

Unlikely.  The final scene of Rebels takes place a bit after the battle of Endor (we know Hera fought in the Battle of Endor...).  The Mandalorian takes place 3 years after the battle of Endor.  It will have been less than years, perhaps much less than 3 years, since Ahsoka began the search for Bridger - and if you think Filoni is bringing Ahsoka over to the Mandalorian in that timeframe without a plan for how to interweave it with the Bridger search, you are mistaken.  I bet we see most of the crew of the Ghost before the end of season 3 - and some of them in Season 2.   

[eldaec]

Sabine in particular.

I'd quite like some time spent on how the tribe relate to wider mandalorian society. Sabine would be the obvious way to do that.

[jgsugden]

Sabine in particular.

I'd quite like some time spent on how the tribe relate to wider mandalorian society. Sabine would be the obvious way to do that.

I'll be very curious how they cast Sabine when she does appear.  Filoni and the voice talent are very close and she'd love to be Sabine in live action - although most people would recognize her as Vicky on the Good Place these days.  I did not make the connection for a long time.

[Hoax]

ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.

[jgsugden]

ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.

No reservations here.  They are kind of opposites in some ways.  It would be interesting to see how they juxtapose him against her.

[Teleku]

... They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.

Unlikely.  The final scene of Rebels takes place a bit after the battle of Endor (we know Hera fought in the Battle of Endor...).  The Mandalorian takes place 3 years after the battle of Endor.  It will have been less than years, perhaps much less than 3 years, since Ahsoka began the search for Bridger - and if you think Filoni is bringing Ahsoka over to the Mandalorian in that timeframe without a plan for how to interweave it with the Bridger search, you are mistaken.  I bet we see most of the crew of the Ghost before the end of season 3 - and some of them in Season 2.   

Ah, I admit I only watched a little bit of rebels and am not familiar with this part of the story.  I had gone ahead and read plot synopsis of episodes before, where Ahsoka went missing after after the fight with vader in the temple.  I was not aware of all this final stuff I am reading now.  So yeah, they may likely tie in all that if they include her.

[Riggswolfe]

[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

[jgsugden]

[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Favreau on how they use EU/Legends and the animated materials:

I don’t want to talk about anything that might be fun for people to discover. We do have conversations. Part of what’s fun to see if we could merge the worlds of the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, The Clones Wars, and what’s been considered canon up to this point and what’s been considered part of Legends. I think this show offers an opportunity to bring in all those elements so no matter what your flavor of Star Wars ice cream you like there will be something to enjoy. But you’re asking the right questions.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/of-course-the-mandalorian-is-interested-in-what-the-exp-1838066931

I think the Mandalorian will:

a.) Epilogue stories from Clone Wars and Rebels.  They've talked about a sequel animated series to Rebels, and I'm betting that we get some setup for it in the Mandalorian.  However, I'm betting we find out what became of certain recurring characters in Rebels within this show.  They're talking about Temuera Morrison returning as Boba Fett in the Mandalorian this season, but I think he'll also appear as Rex, who was featured in both Clone Wars and Rebels (all those clones).

b.) Feature minor characters and locations from the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance (cringe), EU, and everything else Star Wars we've ever had.  Heck, they've already referenced the Christmas Special twice with his gun, and Life Day.  Favreau and Filoni (even after all these years in Clone Wars) were handed the keys to the biggest Star Wars toy collection ever and they're going to town.

c.) I am betting we also see a lot of Underworld Coruscant within a season or two.  Lucas' planned live action series was to be set there (during the same time as rebels) and he had scripts for dozens of shows and outlines for 100.  I would not be surprised if that show was green lit in the next year as the biggest concern was the cost and the new technologies they're using on Mandalorian open up a lot of those doors.  I'm betting those scripts are in Filoni's hands and he considered them when doing Rebels. 

[eldaec]

ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.

No reservations here.  They are kind of opposites in some ways.  It would be interesting to see how they juxtapose him against her.

The Mandalorian and all previous Filoni Mandalorians are kind of opposites.

How the Tribe relates to the well developed advanced economy world of Mandalore is the one specific world building thing I'd like the show to cover at some point. Seems unlikely Fionli would do that without someone we know. There are other people it could be, but if you're going to have Ahsoka in the show, it seems logical they'd use the person last seen with Ahsoka who is also an outsider on Mandalore but at least understands it.

[Velorath]

[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.

[Velorath]

I think as long as Ahsoka comes in sideways and the Mandalorian is our viewpoint character, it'll work fine.

E.g., if she shows up and he's "who the fuck are you" and she's like "well once upon a time I was the apprentice to Anakin Skywalker and..." and he's like "yeah, whatever, can you handle killing a few fuckers who are trying to get to Baby while he and I go get some kind of Foozle thing for this episode, I really don't give a fuck about your backstory" that will be great.

If she shows up and for a three-episode arc it's the Ahsoka Show not so much.

Dude goes around with a force-wielding infant of Yoda's race, and she's a Jedi who is likely one of the only people still alive at that point who has actually met Yoda and would potentially know things about his race. I really don't think it's going to be a casual 1 episode team-up to kill shit unless they contrive a way for her to never find out about the kid and for him to not realize she has potentially useful information. Like if they do some cliche hero fights hero because they don't realize they're on the same side kinda thing, or if Mando loses the baby for part of the season or something.

[Riggswolfe]

Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.

Regardless of your personal crusade here, you're wrong. It's not EU no matter how much you seem to wish it was. She's not in Episode 3 because George Lucas hadn't invented her yet. Had he tinkered with the prequels like he did the OT he  would've inserted an Easter Egg or a line of dialogue about her or something but he didn't.

[Khaldun]

I could see her saying to Mando basically:

I am realizing for the first time that none of us knew anything at all about Yoda or his people.

I could also see her saying: ok, I am gonna go try to find hidden information in whatever the Emperor copied over from the Jedi Archives, if anything (kind of like the comic story where the Emperor sends Vader to get artifacts from the Archives and they make the librarian into a sort of kick-ass Jedi fighter who does NOT want people checking out books if they don't have a library card). So she shows in one episode and then shows up in the final season-ender the same way that the first season brought together multiple seemingly one-off characters from earlier in the season--she's got the map or the info or something and she's ready to make a last stand to save Mando and Baby Yoda.

[Velorath]

She's not in Episode 3 because George Lucas hadn't invented her yet. Had he tinkered with the prequels like he did the OT he wouldn't would've inserted an Easter Egg or a line of dialogue about her or something but he didn't.

Exactly, she's a character who is retconned into the story. A living apprentice of Anakin Skywalker should factor into episodes 3 through 9, but again aside from easter eggs in 9 she absolutely doesn't and goes completely without mention. Regardless of what the official classification for Clone Wars is, it's completely ignorable side story. It's Marvel TV in the context of the MCU. Stuff from the movies filters into the shows, but it doesn't really go in the reverse. Which is fine and by that same token Mandalorian is the same thing. It was just a little disappointing because they had finally put out something TV or movie that was it's own thing. As people have pointed out before, when you tie everything in together like that you're just taking a big universe and making it feel smaller.

[eldaec]

[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.

Ahsoka is exactly as EU as the Mandalorian. Which is to say she's not. But if you want to redefine EU to put them and everything that isn't a movie in that bucket then sure why not.

Calling her and Mando the equivalent of the Netflix MCU series is fair enough. But those Netflix series referenced each other pretty heavily and that worked out. Also putting the Netflix MCU on the same shit pile as the Star Wars EU seems *really* unfair.

[Khaldun]

I am guessing that if there is ever more theatrical Star Wars, it's going to be "EU" in this way as well. I think they are never ever going to want to talk about Rise of Skywalker again in referencing whatever comes after that. I think they're going to look to tell stories that:

have bounty hunters and mercenaries
have lightsaber people going zsssh zsssh
have aliens of many kinds
have big and little space ships going zap zap at each other

Etc. into which I would guess they would rather have character references that are NOT Han Solo Princess Leia Luke Skywalker Chewbacca Rey Poe Finn Rose Tico etc. if they're going to do references at all. The stock of characters like Cad Bane, Ahsoka, the Mandalorian, etc. is likely to rise--you get Star Wars referentiality and some geek cred and you stay away from the main "saga" which has become the opposite of geek cred-gaining and not particularly well-loved by mainstream audiences either.

[Velorath]

For years as books, comics, and games were being released Expanded Universe was pretty much used as a catchall term for anything outside the movies. We can "Well, actually" this shit to death and get into how at one point there was G, T, C, S, N, and D-canon. Or we could argue that just about everything released under Disney and certain other things they've selected like Clone Wars are canon so any random issue of a current Star Wars comic is just as canon as any of the movies which is what some of you guys seem intent on doing. For the general public though the movies are the movies and everything else is side stuff. My brother is about as big a Star Wars fan as you're likely to meet and has collected a fuckton of the toys, but hasn't read one novel or watched one episode of Clone Wars. Most people I know have watched the movies. I know one person at work who has watched Clone Wars. If I were to tell people that 11 seasons of cartoons are just as relevant to the story as the movies, I think "fuck off" would be the general reaction. At the end of the day it's all fiction but that's where I'm coming from with Expanded Universe, and acknowledged Mandolorian is in the same boat.

And yeah, going back to the Marvel TV analogy some of that stuff did reference other stuff pretty heavily. The Netflix shows pretty much were designed around it. But let's say Marvel released a Moon Knight show or something on Disney+ and the reviews are positive and it takes place in the MCU but generally is telling its own story. You've got some good writers and directors working on it (and Jed Whedon is there also). Then at the end they bring in some plot element from Agents of SHIELD and announce that Quake is going to be in the next season. On some level you trust the showrunner because you thought the first season was great, but there would probably be a little concern in the back of your head that there's a bit of a bait and switch going on because one guy can't let go of his pet characters or storylines and you didn't care enough to watch 8 seasons of MAOS.

[eldaec]

I guarantee there will be people on this very forum disappointed if any marvel TV project doesn't explicitly reference every other marvel project.

But yeah, these things crossover too much.

However, that doesn't mean they can't do it well. Ahsoka is a well developed enough character that it doesn't worry me wherever they put her. Similarly, the whole mandalore crew, including Sabine, are well enough thought through that I'm not worried - they'd find a way.

I'm much more concerned about the rumours they want to link this to the first order and Snoke.

[Velorath]

Yeah I mean for as much as I’m voicing my concerns here and the amount of text I put into it, I’m still looking forward to season 2.

[Khaldun]

Excessive cross-referentiality is definitely the death of an IP unless it's a single really tight ongoing program that has some element of meta to it and a tight-knit fandom. E.g., it works for Venture Bros. but not for some sprawling IP like Star Wars.

You can see it in Marvel Comics way pre-MCU, especially in X-Men franchise stuff when they were the hot property at the company (basically Claremont/Byrne on forward). Characters became just incredibly burdened by the convoluted histories they had acquired and the writers tried to keep all of those millions of balls juggling in the air perpetually.

So if Mandalorian becomes the one place that "continuity" goes to be handled, then it will die and probably Star Wars as an ongoing concern with it. They need the light touch they've had so far (relatively). And they need to do what both MCU and the Marvel Netflix shows (mostly) did, which was to edit existing Marvel characters and storylines so they made some streamlined sense. That's really what the film Solo did poorly--it decided that everything about the character as he appears in the "main saga" needed on-screen explanation/backstory, including his goddamn name. Sharing characters and storylines between separate programs, comics and novels should be a matter of killing little darlings all the time--making everything tighter, throwing away dumb ideas and bad characters, etc.

[Velorath]

Let’s look at what we know is currently in the works for SW shows (animated or live action). There’s the Obi-Wan series, the Cassian Andor series, and The Bad Batch. So filling in story on a prominent SW character, filling in the backstory of a character from a side story that was itself filling in the details of a plot point in ANH, and a spin-off of characters from Clone Wars. Two of those shows are prequels for characters whose ultimate fates we already know. It’s just odd that the IP is so insular and in these three cases specifically are still focused on the time between the prequels and the OT.

[MediumHigh]

Your best bet for the Mandolorian future success is to let it be its own cannon. It really doesn't need to link up with the rest of star wars anymore than the Nextflix Defenders need to link up with Tom holland spiderman. Let it be its own parallel cannon with self contained plot and villains.

[Trippy]

So if Mandalorian becomes the one place that "continuity" goes to be handled, then it will die and probably Star Wars as an ongoing concern with it.

The Mandalorian doesn't have enough run time/episodes per year for that sort of thing. Season 1 was about 4 hours long.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Etc. into which I would guess they would rather have character references that are NOT Han Solo Princess Leia Luke Skywalker Chewbacca Rey Poe Finn Rose Tico etc. if they're going to do references at all....

I don't think they will shelve perfectly fine characters (the young ones, not the old 1970s ones) just because the Skywalker trilogy was a mess that kind of sucked. They can just move away from this idea of big main saga trilogies and the easy answer is copy what MCU did and have everyone going off side adventures that can integrate a greater story arc lore to varying extents until you have enough for the occasional super film (Avengers).

[Rendakor]

I do not imagine a major SW trilogy without some descendant of an established showing up, likely as a main character. Maybe this time they do use a Kenobi instead of a Skywalker, but genetic inheritance is a core concept of Star Wars and, I suspect, will continue to remain so.