#I have now learned Dave filoni wrote the entire series

[foundfamilynonsense]

Y’know. Anakin was a real asshole in Ahsoka’s hallucination.

Like. She mentions something about what she’ll be able to teach her padawan one day, since all she’s being taught is how to be a soldier, and Anakin’s like “teaching’s not all it’s cracked up to be”

And like. Asshole move. And Ahsoka rightfully calls him out on it. And he goes on the whole “uuuh I was joking. Lighten up.” Literally a complete jackass.

But beyond how he answered the question, it’s a valid complaint Ahsoka is bringing up! Anakin’s teaching her how to live or die. But Ahsoka wants to be taught how to be a jedi.

What happens after the war is over (order 66 never happens) and she now has to navigate a galaxy without a war? The Jedi take teaching very seriously there’s no greater honor than teaching a padawan. And she’s not being accurately taught, so she will not be able to pass anything on to the next generation.

But Anakin brushes it aside because he simply does not respect her or her wishes. Like. He never wanted a padawan, despite teaching being foundational to the Jedi. And he only took ahsoka in because he started to like her and became attached to her. He doesn’t care about jedi legacy, not really. So he brushes her comment off with a joke.

But in the rest of the vision… idk it didn’t feel like we were supposed view Anakin as entirely wrong here. He wasn’t in the right, he was definitely channeling Vader and being an ass, but he was basically the reason Ahsoka survived the fall, right? Bc he was making her choose life? When Ahsoka wins against him it’s sort of like she’s both learned his lesson and moved beyond him. And then for the rest of the season he’s only talked about in positive ways.

And like. That one line ahsoka said was really powerful in relation to the entire point of the show. What does she have to pass onto her own padawan (Sabine) if she wasn’t properly trained herself? That is, perhaps, the only valid plot question asked in the entire show. And it doesn’t get an answer. It’s never even brought up again.

#I have now learned Dave filoni wrote the entire series #so I am able to say now with absolute positivity that he’s a shit writer #I had been blaming the issues that the writers went on strike for #but no it’s just filoni being a terrible writer I guess? #I mean. none of the character issues are ever really resolved #we have no reason to believe ahsoka is ready to be a master now #we have no real understanding of WHY Sabine unlocked her force powers and shit (not how it works but whatever) #Sabine never learns her lesson about letting thrawn come back #Ahsoka doesn’t get anything really resolved with Anakin #she just acts like he was never Vader and that he was a great master #when we SEE in her vision he was not #idk it’s like every character plot point was dropped #nothing happened in the first half of the show #the dark side girl had a half rebellion but we got no emotion or background from her #it was just… a pointless show #nothing was accomplished #star wars #anti ahsoka #anti anakin skywalker

[not-the-tie-youre-looking-for]

Something that's been bugging me for years since the Legends finale. If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do you think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out? On the one hand, from Legends Thrawn's portrayal I imagine he would without a second of hesitation. On the other, Canon Thrawn has been much more... restrained? And on a third point, there's the fact that Legends and Canon Thrawn seem like they really could be the same person just at different points of time. cnt in next

...I'm just curious if anyone else was curious if Zhan agreed with that direction taken. Which, on that note, did Zhan ever say anything about his thoughts on how Rebels handled Thrawn? Both from a writing standpoint as well as an acting and musical one (Thrawn's various leitmotifs)?

Oh man. Ohhhhhhhh maaaaan. My friend, you have asked exactly the right person this question, because not only have I wanted to talk about this multiple times before, but I also have ~receipts~. 👀

⚠️Spoiler warnings for Star Wars: Rebels, The Mandalorian, the canon Star Wars novels Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances, Thrawn: Treason, Thrawn Ascendency: Chaos Rising, and Thrawn Ascendency: Greater Good, and the legends Star Wars novels Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, and Outbound Flight.⚠️

Oh man. Where to begin.

Lets start with who Thrawn is, because depending on who you ask, you're gonna get different answers—whether you're strictly a Legends fan, Dave Filoni, a guy who's only seen Thrawn in Star Wars: Rebels, Timothy Zahn, or just a writer/artist fan like me.

To Timothy Zahn, the man behind our favorite chiss, Thrawn is a character that is constant in both attitude and personality throughout all of his content. In multiple interviews, ranging from Thrawn's debut in Rebels to the latest about the writing of the Ascendancy Trilogy, Zahn states that Thrawn in canon and Thrawn in Legends are indistinguishable.

And so I present the receipts:

In a 2017 interview with The Verge on writing the first canon Thrawn book Thrawn, Zahn is asked the following question and responds as such:

How do you navigate bringing back a character who already has an extensive backstory and audience expectations, with telling a new story that fits in the new continuity?

Actually, I didn’t find that to be a problem. I’d never written Thrawn in this part of the Star Wars timeline, so it was simply a matter of bringing him into the Empire and chronicling his rise through the ranks. It’s still the same character as in the 1990s books, just a decade or two younger and in a very different military and political environment.

In another interview with The Verge in 2018 (a few months after the finale of Rebels aired) about writing Thrawn: Alliances, he repeats this sentiment twice:

Thrawn feels like if it had been written before the canonization purge a couple of years ago, or if you squinted a bit, it would serve as a perfect setup for Heir to the Empire.

Oh, I don’t think you need to squint at all. I wrote him in these two books to fit in with everything else I’d done. So if someone at Lucasfilm snapped their fingers, and suddenly all of my other books were canon, and there would be no real retrofitting that would have to go in. It would all fit together.

Thrawn: Alliances feels more at home in the new canon, especially because Thrawn has been fleshed out a bit more in Rebels. Was there any adjustments for that?

Not really. I’m getting to play with more canon characters like Vader and Padmé and Anakin, but the character himself, I still see him as the same person. He’s got goals, and he won’t necessarily share them with you, but he as long as you’re going the same direction, he’s happy to cooperate and assist along the way.

...and this is referenced again in a 2020 interview with Polygon about writing Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising:

Along with Thrawn’s appearance in Rebels, Zahn would pen a new novel, Thrawn, that chronicled the character’s early days as an Imperial officer. Zahn didn’t have to change anything with the character, telling me in 2017 that “he’s like an old friend who I understand completely.” While Heir to the Empire was no longer canon, a reader could easily read Thrawn as a precursor to that classic novel. Thrawn went on to become a major presence in Rebels, and Zahn continued to explore his origins in Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason.

The next day, an interview with IGN was published on the same subject:

Thrawn is an especially unique case because Zahn has been able to effectively continue the work he started way back in 1991 with Heir to the Empire. That novel may not be a part of official Star Wars lore any longer, but as Zahn explained, Thrawn himself is basically the same character regardless of continuity.

[....] The closest comparison between Chaos Rising and Zahn's earlier EU work is probably 2006's Outbound Flight, which is set during the Clone Wars and details the first encounter between Thrawn and the Galactic Republic (while also retroactively laying the groundwork for elements of Heir to the Empire). That novel is no longer canon, but Zahn told us he prefers to operate as if it were. He's making a concerted effort not to retread the same ground as Outbound Flight and to avoid contradicting the events of that novel as much as possible.

So yeah. In Zahn's opinion, Legends Thrawn is Canon Thrawn is Book Thrawn, and there is no difference whatsoever between Thrawns in, say, Outbound Flight, Heir to The Empire, Alliances, and Chaos Rising. I wholeheartedly disagree, but lets move on.

Now that the books are out of the way, its time for Rebels.

In July of 2016, after the trailer announcing Thrawn's canon debut aired, Dave Filoni had the following to say about Thrawn's character in regards to Timothy Zahn:

“I was pretty adamant with a couple of people saying, ‘Listen, we need to have Tim sign off on this. This is kind of a waste of time [otherwise],'” says Filoni. “We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns, but without Tim’s okay, what does it mean? That’s not going to be good. Once we had some stuff, we wanted to do what we thought was right and make the character. Then we brought him in. We had the production fully prepared. I said, ‘Look, if there’s something that Tim says that I think is really valuable, even if it changes something dynamically, we need to be ready for that and see what we can do.’ I wanted to make sure we did this right by everybody. We brought him in and we didn’t really tell him why. We just flew him up to Lucasfilm and sat him down in a theater and said, ‘Hey, we’re bringing Thrawn into the show.’ He was like, ‘Wow.’ and I said, ‘Yeah, wow. And I’m going to show him to you right now and you let me know what you think.'”

(Before we continue, keep that first highlighted sentence in mind for future reference. I'm going to come back to that later.)

Fortunately, Timothy Zahn was delighted at the show’s approach to the Empire’s imposing blue-skinned Chiss.

“We showed him some of the scenes with him,” Dave Filoni recalls. “He looked like a kid in a candy store. I think it meant a lot to him not just because it was his character, but because you have to imagine what he went through when it was announced that everything is Legends now, not Expanded Universe. I get that and I’ve always appreciated the work that goes into the Expanded Universe… For Tim, I think it was us saying, ‘No, no, no. We really like your character. We want him to be part of the real thing. The canon universe.'”

So in 2016, before we even saw Thrawn in action beyond a trailer, we were told that Zahn gave the OK, and he was chill with the way Thrawn was created in the show. In 2017, he gave a little more of the background of this process in an interview with FANgirl Blog:

The events of Thrawn dovetail closely with Rebels and shed light on some of Thrawn’s more seemingly surprising actions on the show, like when he appears to lose his temper and yell at Lieutenant Lyste. What was it like to see Thrawn come alive onscreen? Is he how you’ve pictured him in your head?

I don’t see my characters in terms of voice or appearance, but rather as personality or attitude. That said, I very much enjoyed the way the Rebels team brought him to life, in his appearance, voice, and actions.

I also appreciated the freedom I had to tweak certain incidents, such as the one you mentioned, and give additional or alternate explanations for the viewers who may have thought those were somewhat out of character for him.

He doesn't really elaborate on this, but we can assume he had SOME creative input on Thrawn's character, and he was overall pretty happy with the choices made in the show.

But then, we have this from that earlier 2017 the Verge article:

When did you learn that Dave Filoni was intending to bring Thrawn to Rebels, and did you have any input into how the character would be handled?

[...] I didn’t have any real input into how Thrawn was going to be handled, mainly because the lead time of an animated series is so long that much of season 3 had already been finished. But I trusted Dave and the team to do the character right. After all, why bring him into Rebels if you were going to drastically change him? Having seen the entire season now, I think we can agree that my trust was completely justified.

So... he didn't have "any real input," but was satisfied with it in the end? I guess? I don't know. We're getting into some contradictions now.

The last thing I've got in regards to Rebels is an interview Zahn did with the YouTube channel Star Wars Explained after the finale aired, where he responds to the following:

“So, maybe let's jump over to Rebels for a little bit. Now that it has wrapped up, how do you feel Thrawn was represented in Star Wars: Rebels?”

“They did a really good job—they not only understood the character and how to write for him, but they also understood the meta around how you defeat him. The only way to defeat Thrawn is to throw something at him he can't control, or can't anticipate. Given perfect knowledge and control, Thrawn will always find a way to win. But they understood, this is how you defeat him, these are the things we can use against him... so his portrayal in general, is very good; he's smart, he's anticipating, he's a step ahead of everybody, he's looking at clues and picking up on them, so I was very pleased with how the Rebels team handled the character."

I think these quotes answer many of your questions, so to answer your initial question: If Zhan had been the writer for Rebels, do I think he would have had Thrawn bomb Lothal to bring Ezra out?

Yes—but ONLY because at that point, the only established™️ Thrawn content was found in Legends, where Thrawn was a ruthless and calculating warlord.

However!

I do believe that if given the chance to re-write the Star Wars: Rebels finale using his now-canon novels as a solid background TODAY, Zahn would choose to not let Thrawn bombard Lothal's Capital City.

I believe this because he made one single very interesting creative choice when writing Thrawn that completely overwrote Thrawn's pre-established Rebels character: Thrawn was not responsible for the civilian deaths on Batonn—Pryce was.

And that's that on that.

A few months ago I would have ended it there, but today, Thrawn's story is no longer just contained in the novels and Rebels, but also in that of The Mandalorian.

This is where I will proudly say I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Before The Jedi aired, I was 100% sure that the next time we saw Thrawn, it would be nowhere NEAR the Empire, because Zahn was pretty adamant in the novels that Thrawn was only in the Empire to help. His. People.

So now he's apparently doing fuck-knows-what in fuck-knows-where and is STILL associated with the Seventh Fleet and Imperial Warlords???

Huh??? Despite the fact that he held no true loyalty to the Empire or to the Emperor??? It's been months and I'm still confused as fuck. Add to the fact that Zahn also doesn't know what the fuck is going on to the equation and we get a big fat question mark with one pretty clear answer that Filoni said himself that we have to keep in mind:

"We, of course, can do what we want with a character that Lucasfilm owns."

So I don't think Zahn has much control over Thrawn as we would all like to think. We can hope he gives us the crazy Thrawn and Ezra Space Adventure™️ novel all we want, but ultimately, Thrawn's fate does not rest in his hands.

If you guys have more to add please let me know!!! This is, obviously, a topic I am very passionate about, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

#tye answers asks #not the post youre looking for #thrawn #timothy zahn #thrawn trilogy #legends thrawn #star wars #rebels #lothal #star wars rebels #dave filoni #thrawn ascendancy #chaos rising #greater good #thrawn alliances #thrawn treason #thrawn books #wow this took a while #but I like the way this is looking

[violethowler]

A Farewell To The Clone Wars

Yesterday was the end of an era

After 11 years and 104 days

After a theatrical movie, a novel, a comic miniseries, 8 incomplete story reels, and 133 episodes

After 49 hours and 12 minutes of incredible, heartbreaking, beautifully animated television….

Ended, The Clone Wars have.

I watched all of the existing Star Wars movies on DVD when I was a kid, but I was never particularly enamored with them the way that others are. And then in August 2008, I went to the local movie theater with my grandmother to see an animated movie that – while I didn’t know it at the time – would chart the course of my future for years to come.

While a lot of the general Star Wars fandom looks down on the theatrical Clone Wars movie as weak and lackluster, 11-year-old me loved every minute of it. I’ve been obsessed with animation my entire life, and around 2 years before the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I had just begun to explore the world of animation outside of my childhood Disney bubble, diving headfirst into SpongeBob and Avatar and Codename Kids Next Door. Whenever I saw commercials for an animated movie playing in theaters I would beg my family to take me to see it. It didn’t matter what the movie was actually about, all that mattered was that it was animated and I thought it looked fun.

So, when I saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars in theaters with my sister and my grandmother, I loved it. I enjoyed the movie so much that when I learned there was going to be a TV show following the movie, I was ecstatic. From the moment that the first episodes of Season 1 aired on Cartoon Network a few months later, I was hooked. From the very beginning I refused to miss a single episode. From middle school all the way through high school The Clone Wars became the axis around which almost all of my entertainment consumption revolved.

I started reading more Star Wars books and comics from all over the timeline. The Thrawn trilogy. Darth Bane. Fate of the Jedi. The Old Republic. Lost Tribe of the Sith. I devoured every piece of Star Wars media I could find as this show awakened in me an appetite for all things Star Wars. Whenever my parents asked for gift ideas for my birthday or Christmas, at the top of my list would be the latest season of The Clone Wars on DVD. Every summer I trawled the internet looking for news from Star Wars Celebration or San Diego Comic Con about the next season – trailers, clips, plot details, whatever I could find.

When the show was initially cancelled following the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, I was devastated. This show had such a staple of my life that the idea that it wasn’t going to be coming back hurt. As I started looking around at online Star Wars fandom to find someone, anyone, who felt the same way that I did, I discovered #SaveTheCloneWars, and joined the campaign. Through that first year after the plug was pulled, I wrote to Disney asking them to continue the show. I signed fan petitions and made posts on Facebook. It was my first real engagement with the wider online fandom.

Then came The Lost Missions and the Clone Wars Legacy releases – Crystal Crisis, Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple… Having more Clone Wars stories helped soften the pain of the show’s loss, but the story still felt incomplete. Hearing about future arcs that had been planned for the show only added to the sense of incompleteness, knowing that there were more stories we didn’t get to see. When rumors had begun circulating about an animated Star Wars show set post-Clone Wars, resolving unanswered questions of The Clone Wars was at the top of my wish list for a future Star Wars show.

When Rebels was announced I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t want to get attached to a new set of characters when the loss of Ahsoka and Rex and my other Clone Wars favorites still felt so raw. After Dave Filoni and the production crew of Rebels posted videos introducing the crew of the Ghost and the core cast of Rebels I reluctantly became more interested, I still was cautious about investing my time in this new show out of fear that it too would be ripped away from me without a proper conclusion just like The Clone Wars was.

So, when the final episode of Rebels’ first season confirmed that the mysterious Fulcrum was none other than Ahsoka Tano I was out of my seat cheering. There were still questions I needed answered about what happened to her after she left the Jedi Order, but the fact that she was there, back on my TV screen once more, was a relief. And when I watched the first trailer for Season 2 a month later, the words “My name is Rex,” made me scream and cry. I was overcome with tears of joy knowing that not only would my favorite Jedi be appearing in Rebels but my favorite Clone Trooper as well.

By the time Rebels’ first season had ended, I was getting ready to graduate from high school and planning where I would go to college in the fall. Taking art electives in high school, particularly a computer art class during the airing of Season 5, made me appreciate just how beautiful the show’s art style was, and when the time came for me to plan where I wanted to go to college, I chose schools that had programs for animation. I had originally wanted to be a game designer because of Kingdom Hearts, but The Clone Wars made me realize that the passion I truly wanted to make a career out of was animation.

I continued to follow Rebels as I went off to college, and by the end of Season 3 – with Maul dead for good, Ahsoka MIA, and Rex and Hondo as the only major Clone Wars characters left on the show – I had gotten attached to the Rebels characters as well. I was just as invested in their fates as I was for those of Clone Wars characters like Rex and Hondo. Season 4 finished airing at the end of my junior year, and the knowledge in the final five episodes that Ahsoka had not only survived her confrontation with Anakin at the end of Season 2 but that she was still alive years after the events of the original trilogy had me crying tears of joy as I went to sleep.

The trailer announcing the return of The Clone Wars had me in tears for hours. Long had I been dreaming of the remaining stories of this show being released in some form. I would have been content with more novels and comics like Son of Dathomir and Dark Disciple, but to have the show return in animated form was a miracle I had given up hope for years ago.

But within the last twelve months, my interest in Star Wars cooled.

I was never the biggest fan of the movies. Revenge of the Sith was my favorite because in the absence of a proper conclusion it functioned as a de facto finale to The Clone Wars. I enjoyed the original trilogy, but they weren’t movies I considered my favorites. I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in theaters and cried on my first viewing of both films, but on repeat viewings the magic of them faded and I lost interest. While I could understand why other fans liked them, there was a spark that was missing from most of the movies released under Disney that prevented them from really having any staying power for me.

And then The Rise of Skywalker came out and completely shattered any expectations I had that Disney really knew what they were doing with the franchise. Where before I was willing to trust that there actually was a plan because of how precisely Rey and Ben Solo’s arc followed the path of the Heroine’s Journey across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, now I realize that what I initially believed to have been a carefully planned narrative arc was most likely JJ Abrams planning to set up a conventional Hero’s Journey which Rian Johnson used to try and tell a Heroine’s Journey instead. And even if there was a plan for Rey and Ben Solo that got screwed around by behind the scenes conflicts, there was clearly no plan as far as Poe and Finn and Rose were concerned.

For months after this, I started questioning and doubting my love of all the canon Star Wars media. How could I enjoy anything in the Original and Prequel trilogy eras knowing that all the hard work of dismantling Palpatine’s empire would be undone in order to rehash the same plotline with new characters and no concern given for whether the audience could follow what was happening or why these events and character decisions mattered if they hadn’t read every comic and novel and played every video game connected to this era.

Since the last trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars went up on YouTube, I vacillated between enthusiastically sticking to the shows I loved regardless of my problems with the film saga, and abandoning the franchise altogether and gifting my Clone Wars and Rebels Blu-Ray sets and associated novels to my college friend who had just gotten into Star Wars.

And then ‘The Phantom Apprentice’ Happened.

Ahsoka and Maul’s two-part duel in the throne room and the rafters of Sundari reminded me of everything I loved about The Clone Wars in the first place. The animation. The art style. The music. The attention to detail on every character and in every detail. The tragedy of what was to come. On my third re-watch of the third-to-last episode of Season 7, that was when I realized that despite my problems with the Sequel Trilogy, despite the many flaws in the writing of the Prequel movies, I could never give up on The Clone Wars, or on Rebels. These two shows have meant too much for me to ever walk away from either of them.

I have cried at least ten times in the last five days watching the final two episodes of The Clone Wars. The final of this incredible series was such a gut punch even though I knew what was coming and who would survive. I had and saw so many ideas about what the last episode would include. Would their be a montage of all the Jedi who survived Order 66 as a mirror of the death montage in Episode III? Would Ahsoka and Rex receive Obi-Wan’s recorded message from Rebels warning surviving Jedi to stay away from the temple?

But in the end, none of those things happened. The focus of the episode remained on Ahsoka and Rex. Their escape from the ship. The tragedy of their inability to save the other clones. And ending with a shot of Vader finding the ship some time later, all these symbols of the Republic buried beneath the winds of time as the empire rises. It was bleak and depressing and when the credits rolled I was holding back tears. But looking back on the entire series and the era of the war, knowing what was coming, there was no other way I could have expected it to end. The audience already knows that this is not the end, but Ahsoka and Rex don’t know that, and so the finale of The Clone Wars reflects this. The pain and despair. The tragedy and confusion over what will happen next. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite all the movies I’ve watched; the comics and novels I’ve read; the video games I’ve played; very few things in Star Wars canon or Legends have been able to match the magic of The Clone Wars in my heart. I have never truly been a Star Wars fan so much as I have been a Clone Wars and Rebels fan. The novels and comics and movies I enjoy are an extension of my love for the shows, but the shows will always come first. The characters these shows introduced have stuck with me more than any characters from the movies ever has. Clone Wars made me love Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme and Yoda, but to me, my Star Wars favorites have always been Ahsoka, Maul, Rex, Ventress, Fives, Hera, Zeb, Thrawn, Sabine, and all the rest.

So, I just wanted to say thank you to Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Lanter, Catherine Taber, James Arnold Taylor, Sam Whitwer, Nika Futterman, Dee Bradley Baker, as well as every single person involved in bringing this show to live for all the hard work and passion you have poured into this series. Your work on this show shaped the person I am today, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

May the Force Be With You.

#star wars the clone wars #clone wars season 7 #thank you dave filoni #the siege of mandalore #victory and death #farewell to the clone wars #tcw spoilers #clone wars spoilers

[starwarsconnectionarchive-blog]

Pablo Hidalgo’s Many Revelations About The Last Jedi at Comic Con Chile

Pablo Hidalgo, he of the witty Tweets wrecking Reywalker (exhibit 1), cat lover and Lucasfilm Story Group top banana, was recently at Comic Con Chile for a panel called “Mysteries of Star Wars”. One of our Spanish-speaking members from Reylo Skyforum has made a recap/translation of the panel. Behold the wisdom gleaned from this video.

Pablo (PH) opened by revealing that he wrote the captions that appear under the Annie Leibovitz photos in the Vanity Fair spotlight of The Last Jedi. He went on to scroll through the photos and added commentary about the characters and filming process as follows:

About Kylo Ren:

“Here are the bad guys in The Last Jedi -  Kylo of course, carrying the scar that he got from Rey. Kylo has a lot to prove. Even though the First Order was successful in a lot of what it did in TFA, you can't forget that Kylo was defeated by a newcomer. The Last Jedi starts off right where TFA ended, and he has to go visit his boss. We can all imagine how that's gonna turn out."

Audience member question: “Does Kylo Ren know that Darth Vader turned good in the end?” PH: “I think Luke would have told him. He may only have heard a certain side of the story from someone else, and he decided to choose what he chose to believe.”

About Luke/Mark Hamill:

Luke's gloved hand is touching "an ancient Jedi book" in the trailer.

Ahch-To is the site of the first Jedi temple, but the stone hut featured behind Rey and Luke in the VF picture is not a temple. PH: "The island is home to caretakers, and these aliens live in those huts - so Luke hasn't been entirely alone."

“The space siblings (Luke and Leia) have moments (in The Last Jedi) as well.”

Audience member question: “What can you say about Mark Hamill's displeasure with the creative direction of Lucasfilm? He has talked about this in a lot of articles.” PH: “Mark has been quoted out of context. He said he had disagreements with how his character was shown because he didn't think it was going to work out, but then he said ‘I was happy to be proven wrong.’ I think that Mark gives an amazing performance in TLJ and he has nothing but incredible things to say about Rian Johnson. I think any reports about him being unhappy are probably being framed that way for some reason.”

About Rey:

Rey has inherited Anakin's saber and the pilot's seat in the Millennium Falcon, and Chewbacca is a loyal co-pilot. 

     That’s it, wop wop :(

About Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia

"Carrie Fisher's role is much bigger in TLJ than in TFA. We didn’t intend for it to be that way at the time, but TLJ will be an amazing tribute to Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia.”

“Even though we lost Carrie Fisher it doesn't mean we're done telling stories about Princess Leia. There's chapters of her life that haven't been told yet. We have a book coming out by Claudia Grey which follows sixteen-year-old Leia. I think we have opportunity to tell more stories about her.

About Snoke: 

Audience member question: “Was Snoke's first appearance in TFA, or have we seen him before? Is he related to Darth Plagueis?” PH: “Snoke was first seen in TFA. He is a new character we have never seen before.

About the new characters:

“Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose Tico is a mechanic in the Resistance, her sister Paige is a gunner on a bombing ship.”

Laura Dern’s character: “You had best not underestimate Vice-Admiral Holdo."

"Here is Benicio del Toro as DJ. There are all sorts of rumors about DJ on the internet; he is so shady that there's probably all sorts of rumors about him in the galaxy as well. If you shouldn't judge Holdo by her looks, you can probably judge DJ by his looks."

About Phasma:

"We'll learn a lot more about Phasma this year": there is a new comic about how she arrived on Star Killer Base. There is also a forthcoming novel from DelRey which “talks about how the First Order came to find her in the first place, her past, her home world.”

The picture of Phasma in Vanity Fair “is Gwendolyn behind the scenes, not what Phasma looks like without the helmet.”

About the filming process of The Last Jedi and episode 9:

Rian Johnson went to Skellig Michael to film the continuation of Luke and Rey’s meeting scene for start of The Last Jedi about 2 weeks after JJ wrapped up filming the end of TFA - so before TFA was released.

Audience member question: “Did Carrie's death affect The Last Jedi?” PH answer: “No, because she had already completed her part in its entirety. It did create a challenge for Colin in episode 9, because we all wanted her to feature quite prominently in it, but that can't happen anymore. We are evolving the story from the loss of that, to tell us where it should go.”

About the Force:

“If the Jedi have existed for thousands of years, they would have explored all aspects of how the Force works, from the spiritual to the biological. Only thinking of one side of the equation is an incomplete understanding.”

General Star Wars questions from the audience:

“Was Anakin Skywalker created by Darth Plagueis? PH: “All clues point to yes. This is just a theory, everyone can believe what they want; I think Sidious and Plagueis tried to provoke the creation of The Chosen One so that they could control it, and it didn't work out.

“Did Palpatine have any involvement in Padme's death?” PH: “You can theorize about it; I doubt we're ever going to get any more detail as to exactly how she died. That is a story George presented and we'll leave it as is in the movie.

“Did Palpatine influence Anakin's dreams?” PH doesn't think so. “He is a fearful person, and Palpatine took advantage of it.”

“How did you guys get over the criticism of the PT?” (lol) PH: “Lots of kids love the PT. That generation will get a chance to get out of the shadow of the previous generation. Then they also have to deal with the next generation, who have staked out episode 7, 8 and whatever comes next as THEIR Star Wars. That's healthy.”

“Is Return of the Jedi plural or singular? PH: “People should figure it out for themselves, it's magical that we're still arguing about what it means 30 years later. This is like our religion and we are not done studying it; it doesn't matter what I think about that, it matters what you believe."

“Is Jango Fett Mandalorian or just a mercenary wearing Mandalorian armor?” PH: “All we have to go by is Prime Minister Almec's word. if Jango is Mandalorian he has to be of such shaky standing that someone like Almec can say "No he's not," but there's more to come about this.”

“Are you going to make movies about the survivors from Order 66?” PH: “The era of the early Empire while Jedi were being hunted is an area of storytelling we're interested in. We just launched a new Darth Vader comic series that takes place right during that era. We're not done telling those stories, so it's always a possibility.”

“We saw Mace Windu fly out the window but we never saw his corpse. Is he alive or dead?” PH: “Depends on who you ask. Sam Jackson says he's alive and well, and I don't want to argue with Sam Jackson.”

PH: “Dave Filoni wants to do something special with stories he didn't get a chance to tell. I'll leave that for him to describe.”

“Is Disney interested in doing films about the Old Republic era?” PH: Creative direction for Star Wars is under Lucasfilm - we are always looking along the timeline to see what stories to develop, if we find a filmmaker passionate about that era we may consider it but for now the story is told through the video games.”

“There's a rumor that the First Order will fight against an external galactic threat like the Yuuzhan Vong; will there be something like the YV in the Sequel Trilogy?” PH: The First Order has its hands full trying to take over the known galaxy... The Yuuzhan Vong where going to appear in Clone Wars, they were going to be different than what we read in the books, and it was going to be mysterious aliens encountered by the Jedi - but it was never produced. In our mind there is a version out there where the Jedi encounter Yuuzhan Vong.”

“What do you think about the "Jar Jar is evil" theory?” PH: “Poor guy, he's been through so much but still has  a heart of gold.”

If you made it this far, we regale you with our quick-fire impressions:

As discussed in our podcast analyzing the The Last Jedi teaser trailer, we believe events shown in the teaser will be occurring in the first 1/3 of The Last Jedi. Pablo’s comments about continuity and Kylo having something to prove after just being defeated support that. Don’t expect to see Kylo Ren appeased at the start of TLJ, he will probably be a hot mess. (Hot because he’s attractive, get it? u_u)

The picture of Rey and Chewbacca in Vanity Fair + Pablo’s brief comment about Rey inheriting the Millennium Falcon and a loyal co-pilot in Chewie point to her eventually leaving Ahch-To in The Last Jedi. Some have speculated she will probably spend the entirety of the film on the island, but we disagree.

We are relieved and thanking the Maker after hearing Pablo say “WE are evolving the story (episode 9)” - it’s not just riding on Colin Trevorrow’s shoulders (sorry, Colin). This should also be reassuring in light of PlotGATE: the filmmaker has freedom, but Lucasfilm is always a part of the process. 

They have more Princess Leia stories to tell! And Claudia Grey is involved, huzzah!

Barely any questions about Kylo Ren and zero questions about Rey - but y’all ask about Darth Jar Jar? Get it together, my dudes. -___-

#The Last Jedi #Pablo Hidalgo at Comic Con Chile #Star Wars news #Reylo podcast #Star Wars Connection #The Force Awakens #Rian Johnson #the more you know #plotgate #Kylo Ren #Rey #Episode IX #SW spoilers #Star Wars #Reylo life