Techwright

Star Wars Celebration 2023 taking place this weekend in London. Lots to mention, some already mentioned in other threads. I'll focus on the stuff not in those threads. First up, a picture of the Star Wars universe's timeline, in a broad sense. I thought this a good thing as so many projects are out there right now bouncing across several time periods that I've seen a lot of people confused such as hoping the Bad Batch (Reign of the Empire) will interact with The Mandalorian (The New Republic) when there's actually a nearly 3 decade gap between the two. EDITED WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL Some works to show time: The Dawn of the Jedi Upcoming James Mangold movie (see farther down) The Old Republic MMO game: Star Wars: The Old Republic (soft canon) The High Republic The Acolyte series (in the works) Fall of the Jedi The Prequel Trilogy Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series (and the animated movie and related works) Reign of the Empire The Bad Batch animated series Solo: A Star Wars Story Movie Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries Age of Rebellion Star Wars: Rebels animated series (actually, this straddles Reign of the Empire as well) Andor series Rogue One movie The Original Trilogy movies The Star Wars Holiday Special (sorry, just kidding around) The New Republic Last scene in Star Wars: Rebels The Mandalorian The Book of Boba Fett Ahsoka Rise of the First Order The Sequel Trilogy movies New Jedi Order Upcoming post-Sequel movie (see farther down) Other news: Dave Filoni will be directing a film to follow chronologically to The Mandalorian. This is presumably after The Mandalorian wraps shooting. This is a bit of a surprise because Favreau and Filoni are on record saying they had no end goal for The Mandalorian and were intending to run it indefinitely. This announcement suggests they have an end in mind now. So does that mean end with season 4, 5...maybe 6? This season had the first two wobbles of the series. I'd like to think those were just bad choices and not the series running out of steam. James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny)will be directing a movie about the first Jedi. I'm not clear if this is the first force users (called Jedii in legends material) or one of a few other stages in development of the "modern" Jedi (such as the separation of Jedi from Dark Jedi), but it sounds like it will actually push the timeline far into the distant past, even before the earliest days of the Old Republic, which would make this the earliest canonical story. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms Marvel Disney+ series) will be directing a movie about Rey's New Jedi Order set 15 years after The Sequel Trilogy. I've previously not heard of this director, and had to look her up, where I learned of her connection to the Ms Marvel series. From what I've heard so far of all new projects, this project sounds like it has the potential for the greatest negative effect on the fandom. Ms Marvel, from what I was told, was not well received, and the topic of continuing The Sequels' storyline is fiercely debated. I see this as a bold move considering recent hostility to the franchise, Disney, and especially Kathleen Kennedy who oversees all of Star Wars, and for whom this is seen as a special project. (And yes, it appears to be politically charged as well. Please understand, in acknowledging that, I'm still trying to stay clear of that to keep a civil dialog here.) I do hope that if this comes to fruition, they give John Boyega's character, Finn, some meaty development. The character was savaged in parodies for being stripped of his potential. I'd also be curious to learn what becomes of R2 and 3PO, with all the Skywalkers gone. If they stay with Rey, this may be the first time Anthony Daniels has not played 3PO. I'm also concerned about R2, since in the Sequels, they showed him as acting almost ancient: usually resting and with slow movements. R2, best as I can remember, has never had his memory wiped, something almost unheard of for droids, making him the "Horatio" (from Hamlet) of the Star Wars universe: the witness who will carry the tale when all others have died. More postings as I learn of things. I know there's some info out there about the post-production Skeleton Crew, for example.

Okay, so I'm combing through a lot of postings coming out of Star Wars Celebration 2023 taking place in London right now, and I've finally got confirmation on the names of two of the new lightsaber wielders. I'm not sure if names would count as spoilers, but just for the moment I'll drop them into a spoiler box:

Just a word of caution: It's been revealed that Star Wars Celebration 2023 showed season 3 episode 7 to the attendees. As one person commented, that's about 5000 people in one room who could post spoilers. You might want to ramp up your spoiler protection for the next several days. They did mention that episode 7 was "probably the best episode of The Mandalorian ever, at least this season". Something to look forward to.

I feel like I needed to use both a thumb's up and a laughter emoji for that post. 🙂 Since posting, I've continued to think about the speculation I relayed in my edit. While I like the idea of the grand villain, I can see no good reason to bring in the Eternal Emperor at this point, unless one outcome applies (I'll get to that.) The reason goes back to the alleged mandate that Favreau & Filoni were given: to make the Sequel Trilogy "work" by creating a good backstory for it. This they've been doing in the various works since they started, most notably in The Mandalorian and even as far back in the SW timeline as The Bad Batch. Were they, in just 4 months, to wipe the Sequel Trilogy from existence, it would ruin all their hard work (some would say "impossible task", but I digress), and leave a lot of loose plot threads lying around. As to that "one outcome" I mentioned: if the Eternal Emperor is brought in, dispatching such a formidable foe in 6 to 8 episodes would be a travesty, and quite likely overshadow Thrawn. That leaves the possibility that the EE is somehow delayed in rising to power, perhaps wounded and hiding for 4 decades to lick those wounds and build a base of power. In such a case, then the Sequel Trilogy story plays out, then, say, after 10 years, Rey's Skywalker Academy of Jedi is confronted by this renewed threat, probably leading to a whole new series of movies and TV shows. But my musings have coalesced around a view more in line with Occam's Razer: The orange-sabered force users are likely Dark Jedi, a wilder, less predictable version of Jedi likely to wield both light and dark. These can act heroically or villainously depending on their perspective of an issue. If they are following a story path similar to what I recall of the book "Heir to the Empire" (memory is rusty) then Thrawn might be manipulating these at the same time as they are trying to manipulate him, each for their own purposes. They could, for example, attack New Republic craft for Thrawn while simultaneously trying to find the Jedi temple and access the World Between Worlds for their own goals. It would be why Ahsoka would square off against Ray's character: she's been to TWBW and she knows it is incredibly dangerous. Side note: a reactor referred to these new lightsabers as "blood orange". I like that description.

Was that Toby Jones who accidentally fired the gun? Okay, I'm interested. With a Dial of Destiny, Indy can knock out Hitler over 200 times. Actually, this makes me really wish they'd reboot or continue The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that I've mentioned before.

Not counting the final, time-jump scene in Rebels, the series ended in 1 BBY, on the cusp of 0. Sabine was roughly 20, and Ezra 18. Add 5 years to reach the end of Return of the Jedi, and another 5 to reach the start of The Mandalorian. That would put Sabine around 30. The question becomes when this scene in the tower on Lothal happens. If it happens right after Ahsoka's appearance in The Book of Boba Fett, then add 2 more years. So Sabine should be around 32. Natasha Liu Bordizzo is 28 so it's not too much of a stretch, especially considering the Star Wars age-difference precedent of Alec Guinness at 62 playing a 57 year old Ben Kenobi. So satisfying to see that he'll be playing the role again. I'm curious how Thrawn will be portrayed. Zahn established that Chiss have a slightly shorter average lifespan than humans, and after some number crunching, I realized a while back that Thrawn would be close to that lifespan age, if not slightly over. So I would have expected an old Thrawn, but the behind-the-back shot showed black hair, not white. Since Chiss are considered near-human, I would have expected at least shots of gray running through his hair. It kind of feels like they're doing a handwave on his age. EDIT: I have a question: Are any here well acquainted with Star Wars:The Old Republic MMO? This morning I saw a speculation that Ray Stephenson is possibly playing an interpretation of the Eternal Emperor, who goes by various names like Valkorian. They speculate he has found a way through the ...well, the wonder that was discovered in Rebels. If so, I'm guessing the blonde is his daughter? If this proves true, then they are indeed Sith, and far more dangerous than Palpatine. This may actually be the way they "erase" the Sequel Trilogy, as some have speculated. But I've not played that game in most of a decade, and the story has evolved so much. I've only understood bits of it from the expansion trailers, hence why I am asking.

Thank you for clarifying. I wasn't sure if it was blue or gold... I do have a question: these teams, are they radio/paper, standard mission, or task forces? On the first two, though I'll cooperate for a short while with a +0 team, I prefer more of a challenge, at least a +2. Task Forces, though, are a different matter, especially the long ones. With those, well most of them, I just want to get through them as fast as possible. So if the lead sets a +0, happy am I. I'm far more likely to leave if the leader sets those to +3 or up, again, especially the long ones, and especially if its not announced in advance. I will occasionally join a +3 and up if I know in advance and I have a lot of time on my hands, but only then.

So maybe what we need instead of Twinshot and her ilk is a series of Taxibot missions where the new player is escorted around by an NPC taxibot and shown the basics for getting to a variety of locations and events?

Actually, there's 3 times for Tennant. He played identical characters in Broadchurch and its American inferior, Gracepoint. Yes, Yes, and yes, Huyang. In an era when they try to show R2D2 as greatly aged (The Last Jedi) and try to pitch that droid parts are hard to come by in 30 years (The Mandalorian), Huyang has been serving the Jedi for a thousand generations. I'm glad they've brought him, and David, to the live action Star Wars. (Oh, and there's some very slight changes to the droid's face. It looks like they partially modeled it on Tennant's features.) I don't think they're going to mess up Thrawn, though the style of presentation, mini-series as opposed to dense novel, may be a limiting factor due to time. For one, Dave Filoni is deeply involved in this. For another, they like to consult with Timothy Zahn when writing Thrawn. I think the fact that the trailer refers to Thrawn as "Heir to the Empire" is an acknowledgement that Zahn is onboard for the show. For the third, if I had to guess from viewing the back of the head, that's possibly Lars Mikkelsen, the man who understood how to voice Thrawn. As to goof or genius, if anything, I'd expect at this point in canon for Thrawn to be more intimidating than in Rebels. There, Thrawn really had only two weaknesses: 1) he didn't weed out self-interested subordinates fast enough before strategic events and 2) he didn't seem to be able to fully grasp the possibilities of force use. I'd like to think that a Thrawn who survived a force-governed purgill attack will be much more likely to correct those two weaknesses, or at least shore them up. I strongly suspect that these are not Sith, but are either surviving Inquisitors now acting as warlords, or far more likely, this is an outside group of dark-side users. Notice the blades are actually not red, but orange, though admittedly on the red end of the orange spectrum. I think that's deliberate to communicate that these are not true Sith. Canon lore has established for some time that Sith and Jedi are but two orders in a larger universe of groups wielding all three stances in the force: light, balance, dark. Knowing the generally held understanding, that Favreau and Filoni have been tasked with making the Sequel Trilogy work by filling in the backstories, I'm left wondering if these orange-sabered folk are the origins of the Knights of Ren. They could, however, be an organization from the legends books now finding their niche in canon. The legends works are vast and I've only read a small portion. At the point in time that this story takes place, there should be only 1 Sith: Palpatine, though he's off the scene somewhere, nursing his wounds and trying to grow a viable clone body. If events in various recent works play out as folks think, Snoke is not on scene yet, and will likely be created soon. Additional thoughts: Looks like we get Mon Mothma again. I'd be very interested to see if the current mess of bureaucracy in the New Republic is a product of her failings. Some leaders lead in war well, but not in peace. Sabine appears to have adopted a small lothcat for a pet. It's an interesting choice: A lady of action adopting something that tends to anchor one to a domestic life. I wonder if that's a reflection of where she is at this point? She's not in armor, something we've never seen. It seems from the trailer that she and Ahsoka broke off their search at some point. The robot guards that Ahsoka fights are of a style not known to me. The fight appears to be in a temple. Due to the light-colored stone, I suspect a Jedi temple. The dark grey and red battle droids' color scheme suggests Sith, or at least "villain group". Perhaps the battle droids were brought to the temple by an outside force. Maybe the orange-saber fighters? Hera is piloting the Phantom II, the smaller craft that docks as a back fin, of sorts, to her ship The Ghost. Makes me wonder where The Ghost is. The last canon shot we had of it was in Rogue One. It has been assumed she used it during the space battle of Endor, where the Death Star II was destroyed. We do know from canon discussion that she was there. The ship bridge design that both Thrawn and his protege walk in, as well as the 3 large ships (capital ships I presume) do not appear to be of empire, New Republic, nor Chiss design (I had to google the Chiss ships). This makes me suspect Thrawn has either forged an alliance or made a conquest to bring these under his control. Morgan Elsbeth, Thrawn's follower, returns. (Incidentally, the actress was godchild to Bruce Lee.) While it might be flashbacks to events prior to The Mandalorian episode The Jedi, There's no indication of such. If it is up to date, she was sprung from prison somehow, probably by Thrawn's planning. Ahsoka confronts Ray Stephenson's character. First off, whomever gave him the whole look (costume, hair, makeup), they deserve a nice reward. He looks every inch a being of power, and Stephenson manages to make him look at ease in said power. I look forward to finding out about this character. It's the chamber in which they meet that has my attention. It screams two things: Jedi temple and The World Between Worlds (TWBW). This is a very important discovery first made in Rebels. If you've not seen Rebels , this next bit is a massive spoiler, though I suspect the whole Ahsoka miniseries will be the same. TWBW is a plane of existence that connects to every point of time and space. With it, one could rewrite the universe of Star Wars. Ahsoka's life was saved by the use of it. Probably the greatest contribution of Ezra Bridger was not the defeat of Thrawn and his fleet, but twice denying the Sith access to TWBW. It appears Ray and Ahsoka will meet and dual in another access chamber to TWBW. There's even what appears to be archaeology equipment in the chamber, same as the first time. They appear to be giving Ray a "hallway scene". This has becomes a "thing" in Star Wars since Rogue One. Hallways encapsulate opponents for maximum destruction. So far we've seen ones for Vader, Luke, and Maul. This suggest to me that they're telling us Ray's character is on par with them. Ahsoka's dual with the double-saber wielder. This dual gives me pause and make me think that at least this orange-sabered fighter is an Inquisitor. It's not just the helmet, which reminds me of the helmet of the Eighth Brother of the Inquisitorius, but if you stop the video in just the right place, you see the distinctive curve of the metal handguard. This type weapon has only been seen before in the ownership of the Inquisitors. Minor detail but cool: Ahsoka is wearing spit-toed shoes like those seen in Asian martial arts films. What really intrigues me is what is actually going on with Thrawn. In Rebels he states that all he wanted was results for his emperor. In the books, we see that everything he does is ultimately for his people, the Chiss. What is his real goal here though? Using the term "Heir to the Empire" suggest that he's setting himself up as the leader of a re-established empire, at least from the good guys perspective. I find it hard to believe, though that Thrawn doesn't know about the First Order, and by extension, The Last Order. He seems to be one of the few remaining empire leaders that Palpatine would entrust with the secret of his survival. So is Thrawn working for himself, for the Chiss, or secretly for his emperor? I look forward to seeing what Eric Voss of New Rockstars YouTube channel manages to discover from the trailer.

Sounds like Sly Stallone's recent super-powered role in the Amazon movie, Samaritan. To be honest, though, I'm sad to say you may be in the minority. If a hero story begins in the middle, people these days will spend the next 10 years griping about the "shoddy" writing. This despite the fact that one of the pillars of writing epics is that the story starts in the middle. About the only heroes you can get away with in that technique would be the well-known heroes.

Are you sure Terry Brooks didn't write the script? It has a vibe like his "Magic Kingdom For Sale" series of books.

Probably the two that I want to like and don't are the Skyway Troll Rave and the Ghost Ship. The Ghost Ship offers no real challenge. The ghosts stand in bunches and wait for you to sidle up to them. They'll not attack you once you out-level them The ship itself causes no real damage. I kind of feel like there's not a threat unless you're well below their rank and stupidly attack. I'm not quite sure what would be the fix, but I feel it needs to be more dynamic and less static-y. Perhaps switching them from a level 20ish to a situation where they're always within 5 levels of your character might be a start, though not an end to it. The Troll Rave...ugh. I really want to like this but there's so many negatives: The standard trolls stand around The move to enter the doors to "juice" is very sluggish. Even if you're the only hero working the area, it's unlikely you'll take out all the Super Trolls needed for a badge. Super Trolls run slow and in clear, linear pathing, making picking them off easy and boring. Rarely does one enter the event alone, and this causes major headaches. It's highly likely that the other player(s) will not team with you and will start blasting all the standard trolls, the source of Super Trolls, whereas you've been patiently waiting for those rare trolls to make for the door and "juice". Wiping out all the standard trolls repeatedly, they end the scenario early leaving you holding next to nothing in your goals. You return later to see this happen again, and again, and again, and none of these impatient types will listen when you try to explain it. As a result, the event becomes an unlikeable slog to get all the badges, and should you finally succeed, you'll never play it again, at least on that character. These guys are juiced. Standing around in nice circles waiting to be hit is very tame for the level of drugs in them. They should be doing crazy stuff within a wider range, and not all bunched together (to my thinking). Super Trolls should be happening more often, and they should be speedy and unpredictable in their pathing, including vertical. It would be interesting if unexpectedly some of the super trolls did a Hulk leap at flying heroes in an attempt to bring them down. They do need to focus on the threats to them in the area rather than just wander off to throw a boulder or two. Maybe the police nearby might be threatened, and you need to extend protection to them, with the event ending prematurely if all the police get sent to the hospital. The event somehow needs to address the number of solo players moving through it. Perhaps giving credit to all within the range of the event, so long as they are fighting, might be a starting point of discussion for redesigning it. I would like to see this event remodeled in such a way that it is still interesting after completing the badges. Again, if the Super Trolls remained closer in level to the player's character, regardless of the level, it makes it a tad more interesting, and if there's a chance drop for rare items useful for a 50, that might keep interest as well. Improve zone events overall...hmm...might need to give that a good deal of thought. One thing that does come to mind is to add a special teleport. Since these are on a timer, time and opportunity are lost if you're far away. Maybe make it a purchaseable, limited use effect from the P2W vendor, same as jetpacks, and such. Or make it a machine as option in a super base. If you're supergroup has one set up, you'll be connected and will see a site-to-site port button on your control panel. If multiple events are active, it will give you the option of which one to go to. Designing a new event: I'd have to give that one some thought as well, however...a long time back a few of us discussed the possibility of a zone event of bleeding time, where time portals popped up sporatically and randomly on land across a zone and opponents poured forth. You could have 5th column from the I.P. attack that killed Atlas, to Family from the gangster 1920s, Nemesis from Brass Monday, etc. All random. Seal enough portals and the zone event stops. Actually, as the discussion comes back to me, we'd talked about the possibility of entering the portals, taking us to an instance we'd have to clear, then exit to seal one portal. Using this, might it be possible to actually end up on the IP bridge for a time with an NPC Atlas towering over you (or perhaps having just fallen) as you cleared one wave of 5th column pushing towards the portal? Same with Brass Monday, or any other special historical event. It gives you a chance to experience them without having to set up a full task force.

Happy to help...

Wise words. I'm glad I knew nothing about this episode going in.

Official Trailer #2

Three sprang to mind immediately: News of the World (2020) with Tom Hanks. I saw this for the first time a month ago. I'd been on a multi-month tear through classic westerns (and some not so classic) that I'd never seen, and Amazon popped this one into my list. I'd never heard of it (possibly due to the chaos of the Covid year in which it was released), and the title didn't really sound western-ery enough. I was about to pass on it, then thought: "it's Tom Hanks. Give it a try." So very glad I did. It felt like the Hanks role could have been played by Jimmy Stewart or possibly Gary Cooper, but Tom filled it wonderfully. I was astonished at the subtlety of acting the two stars brought to the screen. The director apparently has a gift for making a scene speak without words, and he uses that often here. The Rookie (2002) with Dennis Quaid. I was alone on a rainy Friday night when I showed up at the theater. Nothing playing appealed to me, but I wanted movie popcorn (extra butter), so I grabbed a ticket for this film. I didn't expect much with a "G" rating for a "based on a true story", but was stunned by how good it was, and I left the theater very happy. Undercover Blues (1993) with Dennis Quaid (again), Kathleen Turner, Stanley Tucci, and a few other recognizables. This is nowhere near Academy Award territory, but it proved to be a lot funnier than I expected. Quaid has great chemistry with both Turner and Tucci, and Tucci absolutely steals every scene he's in and the scenes before and after them, too. The man's a riot of slapstick comedy as Muerte, a clueless New Orleans street thug whose vanity is bigger than his switchblade. It almost make me wonder if Tucci got slapstick lessons from Stan Laurel's ghost. This is strictly a popcorn flick but I can honestly say that everyone I've shown it to were howling with laughter.

I'm actually looking forward to this. I'm getting Captain America: The Winter Soldier vibes from this, though I see the Russo brothers do not appear to be tied to this. I don't know the director. Has anyone here viewed one of his projects before? I wonder how many surprise cameos we might get. I'd personally think it would be interesting to see a Skrull pull a Steve Rogers or Natasha Rominoff cameo to rattle a few confidences, but the nature of Skrulls can give opportunity for several real world figures to make cameo appearances. Will this be the moment they reveal that... Samuel L. is 75. I'm not sure how many more 3 year gaps in filming he can handle. If this is Fury's swan song in the MCU, just don't toss him out the window.

They say that Ted Kord will be acknowledged in the film. That's good! I'm getting the vibe of a cross between Shazam and Ant-Man, the latter due to an apparent wacky entourage for the hero. While I'm not entirely sold on it yet, I did like the Jaime Reyes portrayal in Young Justice, so I do think this is worth giving a solid chance. I'm puzzled why they gave a weapon of mass destruction a relatively soft, feminine voice. I'm not opposed to the female part of that formula, it probably balances the cast a bit better, but I would have figured on a drill sergeant delivery, or at least a more bloodthirsty one. Alex Kingston comes to mind as possibly able to deliver a more savage voice. Cate Blanchette, too. By the way, Blue Beetle is supposed to be the first of the relaunched DC films, so it dodged the axe. It's a one-shot, but with the understanding that if it does well, the characters will probably show up in the other DC films at some point.

And the Box-Seat Boys will answer the call.

I've seen a rumor, perhaps just a fan theory (and forgive me, I've only seen about 2/3rds of Phase 4, so I may have missed something), that Stark Tower, aka Avengers Tower, will be sold and turned into Fantastic Four's headquarters. With the introduction of a single version of Reed Richards to the MCU whetting the interest, perhaps the tactic they might take is for the tower to be sold (background news story) then gradually converted throughout Phase 5 and or 6. The tactic might build anticipation while Phase 6 plays out. Of course, this means we'd only get an origin story as a flashback, but I'm fine with that, in fact, I'd be fine if they handled it in similar fashion to the Tom Holland Spiderman, and just discussed the origin, rather than show it.

Would you be so kind as to share the macro for that? Gorilla Tape, H_B, Gorilla Tape. Much tougher hold for tougher fights. 😉

Agreed, although with Phase Five scheduling stated, it's going to be a long wait, and that's assuming they're in Phase Six.

How long until we get the Atgeirr as a rifle option? 😁