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optimusphillip · 1 year

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OptimusPhillip Reviews – Transformers: Power of the Primes Volcanicus

This is going to be an interesting experience, because I've never reviewed a combiner in this format. I've discussed the combination modes of each Dinobot in their review, but I still want to do a separate review discussing how all five of them come together. So today, we're finally talking about Volcanicus, the first Dinobot combiner that anyone is willing to acknowledge exists.

Assembly

Volcanicus uses the standard Combiner Wars combination system. Each limb has a specially shaped block mounted that flips out on a ratcheted hinge, which serves to connect it to the torso. The torso, meanwhile, has four specially shaped slots into which you can slide those blocks to lock them into place. The sliding rails hold each figure in place laterally, and a spring-loaded latch keeps them from sliding out when you don't want them to. I will say that on my copy, Slug and Sludge are a rather tight fit, so it can be difficult to get them in and out. Regardless, it is a well-designed system, and the combiner pegs have 90-degree rotational symmetry, so you don't have to worry about orienting things correctly. The hands and feet connect with 5mm pegs, and as I said in the Grimlock review, there are spots for the extra hands to mount on the torso for storage.

Default Mode

Based on the instructions, and the little bit of fiction surrounding the character, Volcanicus's default configuration uses Swoop as the right arm, Slug as the left arm, Sludge as the right leg, and Snarl as the left leg, so we'll start with that setup.

Volcanicus has the look I would expect from a Dinobot combiner. A lot of silver, a good bit of gold, and some red accents, with just a little bit of blue from Swoop. More to the point, he has a very powerful-looking physique, with a barrel chest and chunky limbs. He looks like one of the strongest combiners in the line, and that makes sense for the Dinobots.

That said, he does have a few glaring weaknesses. As I said in my individual reviews, the shoulders are way too wide even for his barrel-chested appearance, and the forearms do look a bit hollow, especially on Swoop. If Grimlock's forearms could collapse further behind his shoulder, and the widest part of the chest were the round bits, he would have a much nicer silhouette. I don't know how difficult that would've been to engineer, and it would definitely put the combiner slots under Grimlock's shoulder wings, but considering that Bruticus also had panels closing off his combiner slots, I don't think that would've been an issue.

Onto articulation. The neck is on a swivel with full range of motion, though the cheek guards may catch on the rear cover, so you might want to be aware of that. The combiner pegs give him universal motion in the shoulders, with some very solid ratchets. Both arms swivel at the bicep, and have double-jointed elbows, though Swoop does have more range. Unfortunately, Swoop's leg joints are loose enough that their own inertia can cause them to bend backward when rotating the shoulder. Also, the vibrations from the ratcheting shoulders can sometimes cause the shoulder pads to pop off their tabs, which is annoying.

He uses Grimlock's ratcheted hips, so the legs can move forward and back as well as outward, but like I said in the individual review, the way the legs transform makes it look a little weird, especially moving outward. There really should've just been a way to collapse Grimlock's thighs into his legs. On the plus side, the combiner pegs also give him ratcheted thigh swivels and knee joints. Though be careful when posing the Snarl leg, because, like I said in his review, if you bend the knee just the right way, it interferes with the ratcheting of the thigh swivel. Lastly, the hands and feet are all on round pegs, so they can swivel freely if you so choose, and the ankles also have ratcheting tilts. All this put together means you get a surprising amount of poses out of him, considering his size. That said, he is very top-heavy, so it can be tricky to balance him at times.

Scrambled Mode

Of course, as a Scramble City-style combiner, there are 24 different possible combinations you can make with this guy, but just swapping both arms for both legs lets us see all the things that make the other configurations distinct from the default configuration.

In this form, Volcanicus is looking a lot more colorful. With Snarl's red torso now being more visible, and Swoop's blue chest now forming the shin, the gray becomes less dominant in this mode, though it's still the primary color. Grimlock, of course, still forms the torso, so all of his strengths and weaknesses are still present here. And with Sludge being a remold of Slug, there's not really much new or different going on there. I will say, however, that the forearms look less hollow in this configuration, especially on Snarl. Also, this mode has a lot more spiky bits, between the Stegosaurus plates on his forearm, the Triceratops horns on his knee, even the Pteranodon headcrest and wings look like they could do some damage. If the other configuration looked like he could pummel the other combiners, this one looks like he could eviscerate them.

Articulation is pretty much the same in this mode, the only real difference being that Snarl's elbow has less range in it than Swoop's. On the plus side, Snarl's flawed torso doesn't cause as much of a problem here, as now you need to move it two clicks to start running into problems with the rotation. Then again, like I said in the Swoop review, Swoop really doesn't work as a leg. There really should've been a lock or something to keep his hip joints from moving.

Overall, I'd say that scrambling the limbs doesn't really change anything, quality-wise. It's purely down to personal preference who you use as an arm or a leg. Personally, I kind of like it that way, since it means that you get the full playability of the Scramble City play-pattern, rather than there being one superior configuration that you would never want to deviate from. That said, this also means that the flaws with the design are harder to alleviate, so depending on how you look at things, it could feel more like a neither-nor situation than anything else.

Final Thoughts

I really like Volcanicus, but I can definitely see why so many people don't. He feels almost unfinished, like with just a little bit of extra design work, he could've been really good. But as it is, he has some pretty glaring weaknesses. If they're just fixed the hips and shoulders, and shored up Swoop's leg mode a bit more, I think people would've liked him a lot more. Those issues aside, however, he does have a really nice look to him. He comes across very powerful, very intimidating, very Dinobot in that way. But it just doesn't quite come together as well as it should've. If you like the idea of a Dinobot combiner, this guy does the job. But if you're not already into that idea, I don't think Volcanicus is going to sell you on it.

#transformers #power of the primes #generations #prime wars trilogy #dinobot #combiner #volcanicus #toy review

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fembot-prompts · 6 days

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Prompt V

Combiner Wars;

Windblade and Maxima;

honor

#fembot-prompts #maccadam #maccadams #prime wars trilogy #combiner wars #windblade #maxima #wednesday prompts

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megatron-is-a-mattereel-gurl · 5 months

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Overlord? More like..Oh Lord.

#Prime Wars Specifically #overlord transformers #This man was brutal in The Prime Wars Trilogy #combiner wars #power of the primes #shit whats the other one?#Titans Return #thats it

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iamanemotionaltimebomb · 10 months

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So I've never actually seen Prime Wars Trilogy or the WFC trilogy, so I thought I'd give them both a try.

Quick glimpse at the page for Combiner Wars (the first parts of Prime Wars) on TFwiki, half the page is just listed under "Criticisms" and ends with: "Alright, let's just be honest here: this series makes Energon look like a masterpiece."

Jesus Christ, tfwiki doesn't fuck around.

#pancakes watches prime wars trilogy #transformers #prime wars trilogy #combiner wars

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itneedsmoregays · 12 days

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virginiaoflykos · 10 months

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What to read after Light Bringer? (Series similar to Red Rising)

August 2023 update!

Red Rising is my favorite series of all time, and since I first read it, I have sought series and books similar in both spirit and execution. Some of these recs are books I haven’t read personally, but have often come up in discussions with other users!

1. The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

Status: ongoing, expected 10 books in total, 4/10 out at the moment

Book 1: The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings takes place on the world of Roshar, where war is constantly being waged on the Shattered Plains, and the Highprinces of Alethkar fight to avenge a king that died many moons ago.

2. The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone

Status: finished, 6/6 books out.

Book 1 (in publication order): Three Parts Dead. Comprised of 6 standalone books set in the same universe, the Craft Sequence tells the tales of the city of Alt Coulumb. The city came out of the God Wars with one of its gods intact, Kos the Everburning. In return for the worship of his people, Kos provides heat and steam power to the citizens of Alt Coulumb; he is also the hub of a vast network of power relationships with other gods and god-like beings across the planet. Oh, and he has just died. If he isn’t revived in some form by the turn of the new moon, the city will descend into chaos and the finances of the globe will take a severe hit.

3. Hierarchy by James Islington

Status: ongoing, 1/3 planned books out

Book 1: The Will of the many. The Will of the Many tells the story of Vis, a young orphan who is adopted by one of the sociopolitical elites of the Hierarchy. Vis is tasked with entering a prestigious magical academy with one goal – ascend the ranks, figure out what the other major branches of the government are doing, and report back. However, that isn’t quite as easy as Vis or anyone else thought it was going to be…

4. Suneater by Christopher Ruocchio

Status: ongoing, 5/7 books out

Book 1: Empire of Silence. Hadrian is a man doomed to universal infamy after ordering the destruction of a sun to commit an unforgivable act of genocide. Told as a chronicle written by an older Hadrian, Empire of Silence details his earlier adventures and serves as an introduction to the characters and the setting.

5. Dune by Frank Herbert

Status: completed, 6/6 books out

Book 1: Dune. Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities.

6. The Expanse by James S A Corey

Status: completed, 9/9 books out

Book 1: Leviathan wakes. Set hundreds of years in the future, after mankind has colonized the solar system. A hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together for what starts as a missing young woman and evolves into a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

7. The First Law by Joe Abercrombie

Status: completed. 3 books in the original trilogy + 3 standalone books + 3 books in the newest trilogy

Book 1: The Blade Itself. The story follows the fortunes and misfortunes of bad people who do the right thing, good people who do the wrong thing, stupid people who do the stupid thing and, well, pretty much any combination of the above. Survival is no mean feat, and at the end of the day, dumb luck might be more of an asset than any amount of planning, skill, or noble intention.

8. Cradle by Will Wight

Status: completed, 12/12 books out

Book 1: Unsouled. Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he's ever known...and forge his own Path

9. Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons (one PB’s favorites)

Status: completed, 4/4 books out

Book 1: Hyperion. The story weaves the interlocking tales of a diverse group of travelers sent on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion. The travelers have been sent by the Church of the Final Atonement, alternately known as the Shrike Church, and the Hegemony (the government of the human star systems) to make a request of the Shrike. As they progress in their journey, each of the pilgrims tells their tale.

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vintage1981 · 27 days

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The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee Kickstarts Deluxe Blu-ray Edition

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee mixes traditional documentary with a dash of fantasy. It is narrated by Christopher Lee himself... in the form of an elaborate marionette, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz. The marionette was custom designed and built by Arch Model Studios, who made all of the puppets for Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs and Asteroid City and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.

The film combines new, exclusive interviews with filmmakers, including Peter Jackson, John Landis and Joe Dante, friends and family members with animated flights of fantasy from a wide variety of artists including 2000AD's Simon Coleby, award winning stop-motion animator Astrid Goldsmith and the legendary illustrator Dave McKean who directed, scored and animated a whole chapter of the film himself.

Spanning eight decades and almost three hundred films, Christopher Lee became famous for his iconic performance as Dracula. But he was so much more than just the Hammer Horror roles he is so fondly remembered for. His career took him from uncredited parts in 1950s swashbucklers with Errol Flynn, through famous performances in 007 and Star Wars films, cult hits like The Wicker Man and The Return of Captain Invincible, right up to a lead role in cinema's biggest event - The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Along the way, he worked with everyone from Orson Welles to Mario Bava, Jess Franco, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

Yet his story is so much richer than just his career. Lee was born into Italian aristocracy, with a military career shrouded in secrecy and kept his private life closely guarded. Some of his ventures and adventures seem highly improbable yet, as the film reveals, he often found himself in unexpected situations - he witnessed the last ever death by guillotine, was cousins with 007 creator Ian Fleming, he met Tolkien, performed with the classic Saturday Night Live line-up, was a friend and neighbour of Boris Karloff, he was the oldest person to ever get on the Billboard music charts (with his own Heavy Metal album), was an expert knife thrower, professional opera singer and a Nazi hunter. And somehow, he also managed to appear in almost 300 films of both the highest and lowest quality imaginable.

The film is finished and producers Jon Spira and Hank Starrs want to share it with you by producing a top quality Blu-Ray with great extra features and a really amazing LIMITED/NUMBERED EDITION COFFIN-SHAPED BOX SET, full of goodies, which will look killer on the shelf of any discerning cineaste. The jewel in the crown of this box-set will be a 3D 'death mask' of Christopher Lee designed and produced by Arch Model Studio exclusively for this set. They also want to host some screenings - both online and in real cinemas - so we can all experience it together and you can get to meet some of the people behind it.

Making this film has been a fascinating journey - producers excavated the British Film Institute archives where they hold Lee's personal collection of scrapbooks detailing his career in his own hand, been given access to personal photos from the family archive, they met and interviewed his closest friends and family from all over the world and we've worked with some incredible artists, puppeteers, animators, musicians and filmmakers to bring his story to the screen in the most cinematic way. Whether you're a fan of Horror, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or just cinema history in general, we think you'll be delighted by this revealing and eclectic documentary.

Risks and challenges

The film is fully edited and ready to go. This Kickstarter is to fund the final bits of post-production and the production of a fantastic Blu-ray and deluxe collectors edition box set as we're all still committed to physical media. Please note that all illustrations of rewards are designs/prototype images. The final items might differ - we hope they'll actually be better.

#Christopher Lee #Documentary #Hammer Films #Amicus Productions #Amicus Horror #John Landis #Joe Dante #Caroline Munro #Harriet Walter #Nazi Hunter #secret agent #Dracula #Jess Franco #Mario Bava #Steven Spielberg #George Lucas #Star Wars #007

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raphaellight · 1 month

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The mindset of Light Side in Star Wars

This frame is possibly the clearest image of how Jedi win their fights.

But lets start from the beggining.

Recently it hit me how little of the actual force is in the Original trilogy of Star Wars. Let's see first movie:

Ben firstly makes his iconic "These aren't the droids you are looking for"

Luke stops the bolts while covering eyes

Vader chokes snarky admiral

Ben feels the destruction of Alderran

Ben's body dissappears

Luke shots down the death star

No flashy effects. No jumping, no pushing people around. Up until a finale, it seems Force is nothing special, trickery of sort, something to overlook. Until it proves Vader right: "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." and destroys the said Death Star, exploiting the very weakness that, althought the weakness in theory (planted intentionally according to new canon) shouldn't really be an issue, as it required miracle to work. And Force brought the miracle.

That's how Luke destroyed the Death Star, marking his first highlight of his road to become the Greatest Jedi in the Galaxy. But how would Sith come about destroying the Death Star?

Well, I say, if there was another Sith in the Galaxy, that dude would probably gather resorces and slaves and build his own Death Star, but bigger and deadlier. Or looked around Sith teaching and spells to become strong enough to crush it with his mind. Because that's how Sith mind works. "Unlimited POWER!!!" is their goal. When they see someone opposing them, they thing how to overpower them.

The Dark Side is "easier, quicker, more tempting". Because it's natural. Because Luke does exacly that, when he trains. He focuses on his strenght. Because his goal is to defeat the powerfull Empire. So he needs to become powerfull himself. And that is an invitation for dark side to enter the mind. The same way it entered the mind of his father.

Anakin wanted to gather enough power to save those he loves. And because he was also wronged by Jedi enough times not to trust them with his pet parrot if he had one, he was open to other advice. Don't get me wrong, power is sometimes an answer. But it should never be a goal.

That's the mindset Luke enters his fight with Vader. And he can't do a crap. The Dark Lord is to powerfull to overcome with strenght.

Jedi don't do that. Jedi deals with issues. Jedi helps others out. And in the process they learn and make friends. That's what Jedi wins with. Patience, wisdom and allies, not with power.

Every greatest victory of Jedi over Sith or any other villain is about Jedi bringing the miracules to life. Jedi always win when dark seems the darkest. Because that's when pride of villains comes full circle. Small things left behind gather together, teaching of mentors, friends and happy coincidences combined create the victory for good guys.

When Obi-Wan cut's Maul with a sword Sith forgot was lying there.

When He cuts his former apprentice legs off, because Anakin couldn't accept, that even he isn't all-powerfull.

When Ezra brings Purgils to fight, the one thing all-knowing, genius strategist had no way of predicting.

When Luke managed to break thru the mask of hate, inspiring his father to do the right thing in the most crucial moment in Star Wars history.

When on Endor, army of Empire fall under the invasion of literall teddy bears.

When Kanan, with no fear to cloud his mind, focused on simple tast of defeating Inquisitor, realised the sword that striked so much fear for how inventive it seemed, turned out to be extremely vulnerable.

Jedi don't gather strenght. And Jedi story is definitelly not about gathering the power of spirits or whatever to enhance the hero into overpowering the villain in the final showdown. Jedi win by performing small miracles here and there, patiently waiting for evil to dig it's own grave and then giving it just a little push with help of friends they made on their way.

That is the story of The Jedi, the greatest heroes Galaxy Far Away ever saw.

#star wars #original trilogy #star wars prequels #star wars original trilogy #star wars rebels #kanan jarrus #ezra bridger #luke skywalker #darth vader #why star wars are the best #jedi #return of the jedi #the force #light side

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communistkenobi · 1 year

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the individual intentions of the writers feels kind of secondary when talking about how reactionary the mandalorian has become, but if you wanted to be extremely generous about what’s going on, I think that the very simple and boring answer is that there is no financial incentive to care about what happens in the show anymore. Disney lost over a billion dollars on Disney+ last year, despite the wild success of the mandalorian and other D+ shows. I’m assuming the primary way they make money is off of mando and baby yoda merchandise - this would explain why the showrunners reunited both of them before the first episode of the third season even aired. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the mandalorian now exists primarily to sell the mandalorian merchandise. it has become an advertisement for itself.

and this would explain a lot! It explains why virtually all of the narrative threads from the previous two seasons have either been dropped or quickly resolved. It explains the exponential increase in nauseating Star Wars references like “Han shot first” “it’s a trap” yoda doing backflips etc. It explains why Din has become something of a zombie, going through the motions without any particular motivation beyond whatever deranged escapade he and Bo-Katan get up to on a given week. There’s no point to caring because the only real pressure is getting eyes on the screen and selling more baby yoda stickers. This is why we went from an Ahsoka cameo in season 2 (an obvious ploy to launch another show but still somewhat reasonable for the story) to having Lizzo and Jack Black in season 3 (literally no narrative reason at all). Those celebrities are really popular and their inclusion in the show produces media headlines that combine their names with the mandalorian, optimising search engine results and presenting the opportunity to sell merchandise to Jack Black and Lizzo fans, even if they aren’t Star Wars fans.

but the shape of this not-caring takes on a particular political form in the show - its lack of care for politics doesn’t equally produce progressive and reactionary political conflict, it’s only reactionary. And one of the reasons for this is because I think a lot of pre-existing Star Wars canon, which this show is leaning more and more heavily on, is so politically fraught that using it without thinking about it produces reactionary narratives. I think this is a large reason why 3x03 was so deeply disturbing politically, because it was all set-up for the arrival of the First Order in the Sequel Trilogy. The show doesn’t seem to take any specific perspective on this aside from telling the audience that its all very ominous, but it’s only ominous because the First Order are established as the villains of the Sequels, not because the rise of fascism in a fictional world is a specific horror that Favreau wants to explore, and the reasons for its rise are extremely lazy, boiling down to “the government is too wrapped up in bureaucratic processes to care and too forgiving of the empire to notice.”

and two I think that in general, positioning your story in opposition to politics - not a specific set of political beliefs, just “politics” as a whole - also produces de facto reactionary narratives. the show is not espousing any positive beliefs about what an ideal world may look like, nor is it precise in its criticisms about what it believes to be the flaws that currently exist in the present day world. It’s just against bureaucracy in general, democracy in general, technology in general. and the show abdicates responsibility for taking a position on why it thinks any of these things are bad. Din dismissively scoffs “politics” in 3x06, perhaps the laziest possible admission that the show is not interested in exploring anything it considers political, and aims to position the characters as being outside of politics. but that itself is a reactionary position, to assume that presenting a “direct democracy” as an overly-decadent, hyper-tolerant society who is too scared to give cops guns but will arm citizens if their cultural “feelings” allow them to carry firearms as “not political.” Again to be way too overly generous, perhaps Favreau is attempting to wave in the general direction of current society and say wow doesn’t this suck! too much democracy produced trump, too much technology produced ipad babies, too much bureaucracy produced complicated tax forms. That’s still stupid and wrong but it’s at least not an openly fascist position. but when you don’t confront those things as political and just say “they suck” in a way that you believe to be outside of politics, the perspective you take is that of a reactionary. a refusal to confront what you consider political is itself a political position, one where you intentionally shrink your imagination of politics to, like, government employees who work at the government building, and everything outside of it is just “natural” society - or, in this case, deeply unnatural, perverted by politics. the only apparent solution for the political conflicts in the show is to scale back “the politics” that are preventing natural society from flourishing. That’s fucking reactionary! and like sorry to pull this card but the whole “I’m above politics” schtick has a pretty extensive history of appearing in fascist slogans, from Mussolini to fucking Alex Jones, a rallying cry that these people eternally get behind - “We’re above the Left-Right divide.” positioning yourself as above politics is itself a political act, one that has a lot of baggage that, by virtue of positioning yourself as being too good for politics, you will not engage with.

so like I don’t know if Favreau is “really” a reactionary. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter because his current cultural output is deeply reactionary. but I don’t think any of this is done with intentional malice. I think when you turn art into a purely financial instrument you produce art that is fascist by default, because its only goal is to concentrate financial and political power for the ruling class by appealing to “common man” interests like. fucking Star Wars!!!!!!

#mando.txt #sw.txt #mando spoilers #mando meta

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david-talks-sw · 1 year

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An argument I hear from time to time is the following:

"I don't care that this novel is considered Legends, if it was canon when George Lucas was in charge of Lucasfilm, it's still canon to me now. Whatever George says is what counts, I don't care what Disney says."

Putting the Expanded Universe's Star Wars and George Lucas' Star Wars in the same basket. And that's, uh... inaccurate.

So without further ado, let's explore:

George Lucas’ involvement in the Expanded Universe

Early years of the EU...

When the first bit of EU content came out in the form of the novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas was too busy working on the films, so Alan Dean Foster wrote it by himself (which explains why Luke and Leia's relationship plays out romantically).

After the movies came out, when new material was going to be created, George told Lucas Licensing and other authors that the Prequel era was off-limits to write about, because he might tell that story one day.

Beyond that, they could go to town and write sequels, for instance. After all, part of why Star Wars was created was to let people's imagination run wild and George was happy to let other artists play in the sandbox he created.

That said, things were very clear from the get-go.

These weren't his stories.

The Thrawn books, Dark Empire, all this material was explicitly just Tom Veitch and Timothy Zahn and whoever else's creation. Not George's, who was described by Lucas Licensing's Lucy Autrey Wilson as "not very involved".

The most he did was answers "OK/Not OK" questionnaires about what the EU writers could or couldn't write.

Telling Yoda's backstory? Not OK.

Telling Han's backstory, between the Prequel and Ep. 4? OK.

Having someone wear Vader's suit after his death? Not OK.

The Emperor returning in a clone body? OK.

So that's it. That was his involvement in the 90s.

Him saying "don't write something set during this/that period".

"OK/Not OK" questionnaires.

It's also worth mentioning he didn't approve of Mara Jade, Luke's wife in the EU. In his mind, "Jedi don't marry".

Rather, the character herself wasn't an issue... until she married Luke. When Timothy Zahn asked for Luke and Mara to be married or engaged, back in 1993, Lucasfilm initially vetoed the idea.

According to Brian Jay Jones (author of "A Life", George Lucas' biography), in 1995 George convened a 'Star Wars Summit' wherein he gathered licensees and international agents to Skywalker Ranch to reinforce "the need for him to maintain quality control, especially in the areas of publishing, where some characters—such as Luke Skywalker, who’d been given a love interest in a fiery smuggler named Mara Jade—were living lives far beyond the ones he had written for them in the original trilogy".

Sources:

During the Prequels...

George Lucas was writing and directing three movies with large themes, shot almost back-to-back, commuting between Australia and California. That's hard enough as it is.

Also, in the 90s, most movies were still shot on film. During the making of Phantom Menace, Lucas shot parts of the film by combining prototype digital Sony cameras and using them in combination with videotapes, rather than shooting on film.

For Attack of the Clones, George worked with Panavision and Sony to develop fully digital cameras, which eventually became the standard.

As if that wasn't enough, by making the Prequels, Lucas and ILM were also creating fully-digitized worlds (Coruscant, Geonosis) and characters (Jar Jar, Yoda) and laying the groundwork for the CGI technology that has now become essential for today's blockbusters.

Having established all this...

Do you really think he had the time or the patience to read through a bunch of novels and guidebooks?!

Simply put: George Lucas was too busy revolutionizing cinema to be involved in the development of the EU.

So if you ask George who Tahl or Vitiate are, or what the Stark Hyperspace War or a vapor manifold are, if you ask him to recite you the Sith Code... he'll grumble and say "heck if I know".

He outright admitted that fans know more Star Wars lore than him.

Because SOMEBODY ELSE wrote that stuff.

And he let them do it because:

It made money. A lot of money, especially after TPM came out. Money that could fund his next films. You don't mess with licensing. Hell, it's why he was so cool with there being all those Star Wars parodies.

He didn't see those stories as canon anyway, so it couldn't hurt. He saw them as a separate universe, an alternate timeline wherein the films happened ALONG with all these other tales.

So associating the EU content with Lucas is unreasonable. He was too busy, so he just let Howard Roffman, Lucy Autrey Wilson, Sue Rostoni and Lucas Licensing do their thing and crank out new stories and transmedia content for the fans.

It was a one-way relationship. The licensing parallel universe needed to have some internal consistency AND adhere to what Lucas established in the new films movies (which was difficult because they weren't involved in the production process), but he didn't need to be in line or consistent with anything they established.

Now, George did set some guidelines/boundaries and there were obviously do's and don'ts. But once those boundaries were set and the brief was established, the authors had a lot of freedom and, like, 99% of their interaction was with their editors from the respective publishing houses (Scholastic, Del Rey, Dark Horse) and the folks at Lucas Licensing.

George was only really brought in to sign off on, like, some of the major plot points only once in a blue moon. Stuff like:

"Let's make a Maul novel". George would go "fine, just keep him mysterious."

"What species should Plagueis be?" George: "he could be a Muun, here's concept art."

Nothing more than that. Again: the Expanded Universe was other storyteller's interpretation of what Lucas had created.

Sometimes, it was spot on and it aligned with George's vision.

Other times, this additional lore was created by writers who didn't know what he was doing with the Prequels, so they were in the dark regarding certain plot points.

And then you have the authors who absolutely disagreed with George's vision of the Prequels, or of Star Wars, in general, but wanted to engage with the material nonetheless.

Which is why, whilst sometimes the EU fixed some plot-holes, sometimes the EU had inconsistencies.

Inconsistencies such as Ki-Adi Mundi being a Knight on the Council, who is married and has kids (when the Jedi being prohibited from marrying is a major plot point in the Prequels)...

… or the Jedi being essentially superhuman (when one of the narrative reasons Qui-Gon is killed is to show that the Jedi are mortals, not supermen)…

... or other stuff like Mace having a blue lightsaber for a period (because who the hell knew purple was an option?!) or some Jedi having red lightsabers, or Sith Lords being able to become ghosts after death, when that's a feat you can only achieve by being selfless.

It's also why you get conflicting definitions of what the Jedi call "attachment" or conflicting narratives trying to reframe midi-chlorians as a cold, intentionally-flawed way of seeing the Force (when they're meant to be a beautiful metaphor for symbiosis and how the Force works).

And it makes sense that some of this stuff wouldn't track, considering how Lucas stated multiple times that he didn't have anything to do with it, that it was a separate universe from his own...

Safe to say that if George had any involvement in the EU, it was so minimal that he, himself, didn't count it as "involvement".

Additional sources:

Later years of the EU...

After the Prequels were over and done with, Lucas created The Clone Wars with Dave Filoni. At first, he'd just suggest a few storylines, but he quickly got VERY involved in the whole process. Far more involved than he ever was with EU content.

And y'know... Dave Filoni is a massive Star Wars fan and an avid EU reader. So, from time to time, Filoni would bring up EU material for Lucas to consider during the story conferences, and they'd look at what was out there together.

But it's important to note that George's stance toward the EU didn't change and became a rule for everyone on the writing staff: the EU content was nothing more than a pool of "fun what-if ideas" that they could draw inspiration from.

If they could, they'd try to not mess with continuity... but if the story called for it, they could retcon anything without batting an eye. Because it wasn't canon to them.

It's why author Karen Traviss quit working with Lucasfilm after the Mandalorians were retconned into pacifists in The Clone Wars.

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The only things that were truly canon were:

George Lucas' own word.

The movies.

Previously established The Clone Wars lore.

And that's it.

Everything else was somebody's else's concern. Not George's.

Sources:

This way of seeing the EU continued all the way to the time shortly before George sold the company to Disney as his drafts for the Sequels featured:

no Jacen, Jaina or Anakin Solo (Han and Leia's kids from the EU),

a still-alive Chewbacca (who died, later in the EU),

no "New Jedi Order".

Every version of George's Sequels ignored the EU.

Which would explain why the EU reboot was planned in the summer of 2012 (when Lucas was in charge)!

I'll repeat: the EU reboot was planned months BEFORE George Lucas sold the company to Disney.

Because of course it was! It's a natural result of 30 years' worth of content that's so intermeshed that it would stop future artists - namely George himself - from creating anything else.

Sources:

Exceptions to the rule:

1. Comics (kinda)

He did read the comics. Or at least, he gave them a glance.

Aside from the fact that he grew up reading comics, understand that George Lucas is a visual artist, first and foremost.

That's what he's about and that's what he loves, that's what speaks to him. There's a reason his upcoming Museum of Narrative Art will feature comic panels and pages of all kind.

During pre-production on Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Lucas had the art team draw concept art before a script had ever been written so he'd have ideas for set-pieces.

Later on, J.W. Rinzler pitched him the idea of adapting his early drafts for Star Wars into comic form. Lucas' initial reaction was going "hell no". Rinzler had concept art made…

… and George took one look and was on board.

So it's not a stretch to assume that a book telling a story through beautiful drawings would catch his attention more than a novel.

Case in point: He knew who Quinlan Vos was and was enamored with the character. He knew Aayla enough to put her in Attack of the Clones after seeing a cover of Republic by John Forster featuring her (below, left).

(although, it's worth pointing out that he doesn't call her out by name a single time, in the director's commentary of the Attack of the Clones, she's just the "Twi'Lek Jedi" and her inclusion was done mainly to add more diversity to the Jedi fighting in the arena)

Over a decade later, when the comic Star Wars #7 came out in 2015, Lucasfilm acquired artist Simone Bianchi's original 20 pages and cover art for George, so he could feature it in his the Museum of Narrative Art:

So at the very least, he looked at the comics and admired the visuals.

Whether he actually read the comics in detail or just skimmed through most of them because he liked the pretty pictures (likelier, imo) is an entirely different matter.

Sources:

2. Video-Games (kinda)

Lucas would periodically check in on the status of LucasArts games, lending creative input and advice.

Sometimes, his advice ranged from "weird" to "he's gotta be fucking with us, right?"

Apparently, he advised the team developing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that they dub Starkiller "Darth Insanius" or "Darth Icky".

And you know what? I have no trouble believing it.

Firstly because if you're going by the idea that he gave no fucks about the EU, then of course he'll come up with "meh" names. But also, this is the same guy who created "Winkie" in 2012/2013, the character who'd go on to be named "Rey".

He also told the team creating Star Wars: 1313 that he wanted a fresh face as the main character, then only weeks before the game was announced he went "let's make it Boba Fett".

Finally... the cancelled Darth Maul game by Red Fly.

Codenamed “Damage”, then “Battle of the Sith Lords”. Think Batman: Arkham City meets Star Wars.

Red Fly pitched it as a coming of age story where we see Maul be kidnapped, tortured, eventually joining the Dark Side, and ending in TPM. Then they had interactions with LucasArts and found out Maul survived his fight with Obi-Wan.

The game went through several iterations, partly because the people at Red Fly were kept in the dark about the developments in The Clone Wars (Season 4 wasn't out yet), and even when some tidbits came out and they knew characters like Savage Oppress and Death Watch would be included, they didn't get more details.

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Whatever. They do their best to make something from what they're told. Then they have a meeting with George. As this GameInformer article explains:

“A friendly George Lucas entered the room and was eager to hear the pitch from Red Fly’s creatives. “Before they could finish their spiel, Lucas cut them off, stood up, walked over to [two Sideshow Collectibles statues of Darth Maul and Darth Talon], rotated them to be facing the same direction, pushed them together, and said ‘They’re friends!’” adds the source. “He wanted these characters to be friends, and to play off of each other. […] The problem with the idea of Maul and Talon teaming up for a buddy cop-like experience was that they were separated by over 170 years […] When this vast time divide was brought up to Lucas’ attention, he brushed off the notion of it not working, and said that it could instead be a descendant of Darth Maul or a clone of him.”

So now the game is about a descendant of Maul, guided by his ancestor and fighting a redesigned Darth Krayt, etc?

The game was eventually cancelled when George sold the company.

Worth pointing out that this was circa 2010/2011... around the time that George started working on his Sequels, according to Jett Lucas. And we know that the treatment for the Sequels that Lucas presented to Bob Iger featured old man Maul and Darth Talon as the villains of the trilogy... take from that what you will.

3. The Prequel novelizations (kinda)

They were all given a copy of Lucas' screenplay.

While most of their work was with Sue Rostoni, Lucy Autrey Wilson, and Howard Roffman on the Lucasfilm team (like some of the other authors), Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore and Matthew Stover all spent a bit of time with George before writing their respective novels.

George told Terry Brooks to write some additional material for Anakin Skywalker because there wasn't enough of that in the movie. He was shown rushes from the set, they "opened the safe" for him. When Terry had further questions re: midi-chlorians and the history of the Sith, George goes on a 30-minute monologue about all that.

R.A. Salvatore had a 45-minute interview with him that turned into a 3-hour chat. He was able to go back to the Ranch a few times during the writing process, and one of those times George chatted with him and his wife during lunch. He was shown various cuts of the film and concept art.

Matthew Stover and George talked for a whole afternoon (I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he was also shown the other stuff like some cuts/deleted scenes, concept art, etc etc).

Was there a line-edit of the ROTS novel from Lucas? Regarding the Revenge of the Sith novelization, some people bring up the idea that George Lucas did a line-edit on the book because Stover wrote this statement on theforce.net:

That said...

Stover, also stated that Lucas told him to write whatever he wanted as long as it was good,

he also said he didn't actually see Lucas type the edits,

an anonymous Del Rey editor stated on theforce.net that the notion that George edited the novel himself is "extremely incorrect".

There's enough "reasonable doubt" for the argument to be made that the Revenge of the Sith novelization was edited the same way as any other Star Wars novel, rather than by George himself.

The fact remains, though, that it was a novel written by someone who understood the source material, as it was explained to him in detail by George Lucas himself (a luxury many SW authors never got).

Lucas' backstory for the Sith in the TPM novel: If Pablo Hidalgo is to be believed, the backstory of the Sith, as detailed in the Phantom Menace novelization, came from Lucas.

(Obviously, I'd allow for the very likely possibility that there was some embellishment by Terry Brooks)

20 years later, however, it seems George decided to stick to the idea that there was no war between the Jedi and the Sith.

Final thought:

A lot of people will insist that George was involved in spite of all the above-posted evidence. Saying stuff like:

"But [X person] said that it was canon..."

Sometimes, they’ll link you to this whole website collecting quotes of other people saying "the EU was canon" (never George Lucas except for, like, one/two quotes where he acknowledges the existence of Sequel books which MUST mean he saw them as canon, right?) and...

On the one hand... of course they'll all vaguely say he's "involved" and tip-toe around the subject; it's technically true and, again, they're trying to make money. It's a business, folks.

On the other... yeah? Duh. Of course it was canon to Lucas Licensing and the authors who wrote for the EU. But it wasn't canon to George. And I just gave you a whole bunch of quotes directly from him and/or the same people quoted on that website, all confirming that he didn't see them as canon and he wasn't involved (or barely was).

Other times, we're straight-up approaching "burying head in the sand/lalalala I'm not listening!" levels of justifications.

Like, we just talked about the Sith's origins, right?

I remember a while ago, this Star Wars YouTuber was reviewing this quote from Lucas, in The Star Wars Archives: 1999-1995:

The YouTuber's reaction the second after reading the quote is saying:

"And of course, what George is referring to, here, is the Battle of Ruusan and the Brotherhood of Darkness using the Thought Bomb created by Lord Khan to kill the Jedi Lord Hoth and…"

My guy! You read a whole excerpt that started with "there was never a war between the Jedi and the Sith" and the words "Ruusan" or "Thought Bomb" never being mentioned once in the passage (or in the TPM novelization)... and concluded that George was referring to the Jedi/Sith Battle of Ruusan? And all that other EU stuff?

See what I mean, folks?

Now, look, I grew up with these stories (heck, I grew up with these stories in three different languages). So I get it. I know they're awesome.

And, yes, there is a difference between the kind of content we used to get and the content we're getting now (for one, lightsabers used to be lightsabers, in video-games, not baseball bats).

But if you're trying to prop up the EU, the facts show that the "George Lucas signed off on them" authority argument isn't a valid one. Because he clearly wasn't very interested or involved in it.

And why would you want to use this authority argument, anyway?

You shouldn't need to say "this came from Lucas" to like those stories. They don't need to be George Lucas Approved™ to matter and to be validated as "worthy of appreciation". They're valid on their own, they're great stories. And if you like them better than the Sequels, go to town. I know I do.

The only thing you can't do (with a straight face, at least) is hold them up as "the True Lucas-Approved Canon™ as opposed to the Disney Trash" in a rant, because you'd be wrong and/or lying. Neither had Lucas' hand in them in any meaningful way.

Finally... I was devastated when the EU was officially made non-canon, in 2014. And for a few years, I saw the new Star Wars continuity through this lens:

"Any EU content is still canon unless it's directly retconned...!"

Trust me, when I say that only pain lies that way. Because that's not how a lot of Star Wars creators, including the Flanelled One himself, see it. The way they saw/see it is:

"Unless it's been shown in a movie or TCW... it's a legend, it might have happened."

This line of thought seems to be increasingly applied to the new Disney canon too, by the way. "If it's not shown on a screen, then it's probably canon yet also up for grabs to be retconned."

And the sooner you accept that this is how it's being treated, the sooner you accept that the EU was never canon to Lucas or Filoni...

... the less painful it'll be when, I dunno, you watch The Acolyte and it's nothing like the Darth Plagueis novel or Plagueis himself is absent, or he's there, but as an Ithorian instead of a Muun.

(note how I didn't use the word "painless")

#Lucas Canon & EU Canon & Disney Canon are all different things.#the only downside to this notion is that you can't use Lucas' name in conjunction with the EU to win a debate or rant about LF.#or use Lucas' name to validate a headcanon that came from the EU #Aside from being glad he got to create a universe that inspired so many artists and creators to let their imagination go wild #he barely gave a crap about what other writers did in a parallel universe that he didn't even see as canon.#and that's FINE #collection of quotes #89 quotes I think #this may be the longest or second post I've written yet #meta #sw meta #expanded universe #george lucas #lucas quotes #dave filoni #youtube #star wars #star wars analysis #TCW #star wars comics #star wars novels #lucasfilm #EU #Legends #star wars legends #sw legends #supplementary material #long post

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thrawns-backrest · 4 months

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Prompted by this post and the related interview, reason 15467352 why I think Dave Felony isn’t up to the task of writing live action Star Wars.

I was going to harp about how this proves Filoni hasn’t read the books but this interview is from before the canon trilogies were out so touché on that. And yet this just proves to me why Filoni isn’t the guy for the job of writing Thrawn. Or any live action imperials for that matter.

I’ll start by saying that one thing I will concede is that the notion of the Imperial military being plagued by incompetent officers is not entirely unrealistic. Given that it’s a stratocracy, you can expect to find people who used politics to climb the ranks rather than actual military competence - it’s a kind of French Revolution situation kind of thing. Historically it’s been known to happen in our world.

Combine that with the fact that the Empire is racist, elitist and (kind of) sexist as all hell and you have a limited pool of people to pick from when filling its ranks, pushing some genuine talent to the fringes or excluding it altogether.

The thing I’m entirely tired of seeing though is the implication that it’s the majority of Imperial leadership that’s like this and by this I mean incompetent. The overwhelming majority at that. But more on the Empire’s moronicity later, let’s talk about Thrawn.

“He’s not ambitious in the way where he needs to see himself promoted, or a governor one day. He purely wants to dissect them; that’s what he enjoys!” This. This grinds my gears so much. For starters it proves that Filoni sees Thrawn as this ‘quirky baddie’ where Zahn treats him as an actual person. There’s something almost condescending in taking a neurodivergent coded character and being like ‘aww, look at them, they’re so happy doing their little thing they don’t have any other goals and ambitions whatsoever :)’.

To get things straight, Thrawn has always been annoyed by the limitations placed on him by an inferior rank. You could argue it’s for the simple reason that a higher rank gives him more freedom to act and pursue his goals but that’s just what that is, a simplification.

And that’s where Filoni’s problem lies:

Filoni is good at writing cartoons. And before people raise their pitchforks, I don’t mean this in a negative way. Writing cartoons forces you to squish complex ideas into a digestible format, the genre needs simplification and caricature to work and doing that well is a talent all by itself.

You’re meant to put in some extra effort to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy the deeper complexities of the story. Where that stops working though is when you step out of the genre and move into live action and our good buddy Dave doesn’t seem to realize that.

It may admittedly sound like I’m being unnecessarily harsh on him and I probably am but I do realize the guy is just doing what he does best. I doubt he has any real beef with neurodivergents or has no actual clue that militaries need a base level of competence in order to function and thrive.

Neither is he the only one guilty of implying the Empire’s competent staff can be counted on the fingers of one hand. “It’s just so different for them to have a bad guy that’s, you know, actually smart with how he uses the Imperial war machine!” Okay, Dave. Sure Dave. “[…] with the exception of Tarkin – Tarkin’s strategically intelligent” Oh so there’s two of them! (okay okay, I’ll stop here)

My point is, you can’t get away with making the antagonists so stupid in a realistic setting. I recently saw someone compare Kenobi and Andor in terms of portraying your antagonists correctly and I have to agree that Andor is the only star wars live action media in recent memory that gets it right. (Though even Andor is guilty of injecting some stupid into its plot in order to enable implausible events to happen. I’m looking at you, Maarva’s speech.)

Because the thing is, the more bumbling and idiotic you make your antagonists, the more it detracts from the efforts and skills of your protagonists when defeating them. The Empire is sprawling and all powerful, so much so that it takes several force users pulling deus ex machinas out of their ass to bring it down. In conjunction with the extreme dedicated efforts of the Rebellion mind you.

It took a timely coincidence of hubris, political corruption and flawed strategy working together to allow it to happen. Give me media that explores why the Empire endured for so long, the mechanisms in place that made ordinary people turn into cogs of the machine, the selective process behind constructing an absolutely ruthless, dangerous leadership, media that looks at how these same conditions can come about in our world rather than the unrealistic explanation of ‘people bad because bad’.

Zahn, Gilroy, Luceno and many others are examples of writers that do this justice. Pass the baton on to Filoni and you end up with an antagonist who’s smart as an exception because ‘he’s just so quirky’ while still bearing all the hallmarks of a cartoon villain, the ominous gloating speeches and sadistic behaviour and whatnot.

I’d be hella remiss to say it hasn’t left its mark on the fandom either. The amount of times I’ve seen characters like Tarkin, Krennic, Palpatine, etc. be moronified (while Thrawn inevitably gets his victim treatment) while completely ignoring the fact that defeating them was no small feat and their having weaknesses to exploit isn’t something that detracts from just how dangerous and scary these motherfuckers were.

The Clone Wars was a good show. Rebels was a good show. But by god is Filoni bad at transferring his skills to live action and no one can convince me that Thrawn isn’t the best example of that.

#thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #dave filoni #dave filoni critical #andor #thrawn books

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