Star Wars: The Disney+ Empire Strikes Again and Again and...

Plus we've got the new Star Wars: Visions season shortly and Young Jedi Adventures for the kids. (Seen a short one of the latter they previewed on YouTube, perfectly fun.)

A making of look at the Aardman Visions short #StarWarsCelebration #StarWarsVisions pic.twitter.com/OMl3kg6wjn

— SFX magazine (@SFXmagazine) April 10, 2023

The overall trailer is a beaut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSXqU92cymY

Also per this report, one last Bad Batch season. I admit I was curious to know how long they were thinking of doing this; wouldn't've minded more seasons but given the setting and scope I did ponder what the endgame was going to be.

Those poor clones get one more season of avoiding getting tossed in a wood chipper by the Empire, I guess

Also, looks like a new Ghibli hypershort is on the cards:

This Is A New Day, A New Beginning. pic.twitter.com/3fq2VvW4FQ

— スタジオジブリ STUDIO GHIBLI (@JP_GHIBLI) April 10, 2023

that's part of the second iteration of Visions, innit?

oh nope, nevermind

So I've seen a couple of the Young Jedi Adventures episodes -- fun indulgences! -- but the second season of Visions absolutely knocked it out of the park. Hell of a brilliant range of studios, approaches and interpretations, and they were not afraid to go deep on an anticolonial (even anticapital) front more than once. I do recommend a watch and then when you have, read this profile of LeAndre Thomas, the creator of the short "The Pit," which in its own way is almost a SW riff on LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," but with different contexts and results.

https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/leandre-thomas-the-pit-star-wars-visions/

not sure the right thread for SW merch that is O_o

$400 Dollars for a statue that looks like a naked Nien Nunb getting into a hot tub.

https://regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars/starwars-busts-statues-collectibles/nien-nunb-concept-maquette-replica-dave-carson-signature-edition/

how did they know

what i liked

A-Choo -Ta!

Navigating through that slideshow of horrors, I see that the same studio (and artist?) issued a full-body nude Max Rebo with apples covering his genitals. Although it doesn't look quite as much like a geriatric's scrotum as that Nien Nunb bust does so its erotic value may be somewhat diminished in comparison.

Release date late August:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7-zia4oHuk

hell yeah, thrawn time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qz9Uqk55Jo

*Marvin the Martian voice* "Delays, delays..."

https://gizmodo.com/new-star-wars-movies-release-dates-delay-avatar-3-delay-1850533930

jfc that we will still be dealing with Avatar until 2031!

I'm psyched for the Rey movie, but sounds like I'll have a while to wait......

oh come on, there's not going to be a 2031

In the year twenty-oh-thirty-one
If man is still the one

by 2026, the full AI power grid will begin to fail and fossil fuel reserves will be accidentally destroyed by AI military. Movies will be a thing of the past, with gatherings in movie theatres morphing into gatherings where one person who saw a movie narrates what happened in it to engaged fans.

Initially these will be free until the movie studios commodify them and start charging $20 each for the opportunity.

by 2029 700 million people will be dead they won't be able to use WebMD to know it's time to go to the hospital.

by 2030 movies will return in the form of crude, gigantic 50 foot flip books, with pages flipped by employees getting paid $5 hour and offered no medical care for when they injure themselves.

by 2031, Cameron will die, sitting forlorn outside an abandoned movie, his last words being "if only they could have seen the world I built them"

by 2032 every movie stars AI 22 year old Leo DiCaprio

AI Scorsese finally directs the Grateful Dead biopic with the actual Jonah Hill as Jerry Garcia, but with AI Leo playing every other member of the band, including Donna. De-aged DeNiro to play Owsley Stanley and Bill Graham.

So Ahsoka kicks in here in half an hour...

prepping the couch and cranking the volume up

blonde sith has a Keefe Chambers vibe

Not a bad start! Pace felt a little too deliberate at points but otherwise a solid Rebels vibe extension.

Wondering how this landed for folks who never watched Rebels, cause this really felt to me like they just dropped you in the middle of that story.

Not really feeling Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera so far but otherwise, this was ok. A lot of backstory and setup to get through

Yeah looked good but could've given a bit more stuff in general e.g. Thrawn tease. Agree with some criticism that Ahsoka is a little too stoic but my biggest gripe was after Reva surviving lightsaber impalement in the Kenobi show they did the same thing with Sabine here. They don't even have Rey-like healing powers!

Show seems slow and drab

I have only sketchy Rebels knowledge - my kids watched it so I absorbed a bit by osmosis - I enjoyed this new show without being poleaxed by it - I think they did a good job of making the characters accessible without prior knowledge, and am definitely inclined to give it a few eps grace period to find its vibe

It definitely wasn't as turgid as Kenobi / Boba Fett

I think it’s worse - every actor is doing the same energy

all these jedi huffing the same force. The master/padawan energy feels distinct, but yeah, lots of jedi being jedi like. I am enjoying the jedi focus, free of the obi wan and vader main storyline shackles.

turbolasers

E3 captured the 8 year old's attention more than the first two. I think the energies of Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera, and Huyang are absolutely distinct. However, I may be missing some of the Rebels story that establishes Sabine as so distinct as a candidate for Jedi training (beyond being Mandalorian). It's clear that a major arc of the series will be Ahsoka's teaching approach, less chisel and more collaboration. But I'm guessing the Big Problem of Training Sabine is clearer if you come in with Rebels backstory.

My 8 year old tapped out halfway through the first episode and told me to call him in when there was another fight scene.

tbf Sabine felt the same way

zero interest in this even w rosario starring

i just do not care abt Rebels at all & all these other sideverses - it was annoying when they dragged so much Rebels crap into Mandolorian, it’s so dull to me i hate it

Oh wow. I feel the opposite. I am enjoying the sideverses so much more than the series closer to the mainline. Rosario seems particularly suited to this role. She can project an inner frustration or determination without much changing on the surface.

My 9yo and I had been watching Rebels for the last few months—he’s seen it all before but wanted me to watch it. We got almost through the second season befor le Ahsoka started. He claimed to be super excited about it but he seems to have completely bailed on it after two episodes. My 13yo on the other hand is totally hooked. He is a huge Thrawn fan—read all the books over and over—and he is full of anticipation for the reveal.

All three of us are united in thinking the space whales are dumb.

Aw I like them whales.

I keep seeing Wes Chatham turning up in the cast list in the early episodes. Is he a character yet to appear and they only wanted to set up one set of opening credits or something.

Think I need to refresh my memory of Rebelsand work out what the interval is.
Her a has obviously had time to climb the ranks in the armed forces.
Not sure how much older Sabine has got.

Also trying to think when Resistance was set.

This has been ok so far, but it is curiously flat. The script can be a bit clunky, but the main issue is with the direction and editing. Filoni really drags scenes out - lots of extended shots of people looking serious - and doesn't deliver on the action. Ahsoka going for a space walk and slicing up ships with her lightsaber should have been a WOAH moment, but it didn't quite land. The Mandolorian really benefitted from strong action directors coming in, but this feels like Filoni is starting to make the same mistakes Lucas did with the Trilogy. Even if he doesn't direct every episode, it's very much his baby.

Prequel trilogy that is.

Filoni really drags scenes out - lots of extended shots of people looking serious

Lol there was a scene in the latest episode where the main evil Jedi directed his minions to do something and then he just stood there with his arms folded. I just thought “I’d you’ve got time to stand around you’ve got time to sweep the floors”

if you've got time to scowl at Sabine, you've got time enough to clean

Haha, yeah. One of the previous episodes had him standing looking at the star map for a few moments, which worked dramatically and also gave the audience something to pore over, but the scene you describe felt like a half-assed attempt at creating an ominous mood. Are they going to end every episode with him standing around brooding? Should clarify the latest episode wasn't directed by Filoni, but between the scripts and baggy editing there's a certain lack of energy.

It looks and sounds fine but a lot of it really *really* feels like cosplayers trying to bring the gravitas.

what beyond sight and sound provides this feel? Smell?