Was the footage out there yet? I’ve only seen summaries/reports so far.
Apparently they brought McDiarmid out immediately after the trailer. And Kennedy gave a talk or a statement where she said bringing Palpatine back in some format was the plan from before TFA was announced.
So here’s hoping they took the time to figure it out instead of just tossing it in there.
Here’s the trailer. It is more of a teaser, but its piqued my interest 
While I realize no one cares about the ret-conned Expanded Universe, one of the first stories to come out post movies was the Dark Horse Comic’s Dark Empire series.
Within this Palpatine was still the leader of the Empire. He didn’t die from Vader’s treachery. He has a bank of clones and using the force is able to transfer his consciousness into a new clone body. I know this sounds like they are trying to wedge the idea of immortality and clones and what Palpatine said about Darth Plagueis, but remember these books came out like 8 years before The Phantom Menace. If anything maybe they influenced the story line of The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith.
IMO, it was a satisfying story line, and if they do bring back Palpatine my only complaint is that they didn’t do it from day one of the sequels. Or at least as a reveal at the end of Ep 7. Also - goddamn, Dave Dorman’s cover art and Cam Kennedy’s interior art is god dam gorgeous.
The Expanded Universe got to be so unwieldy and convoluted that I completely understand why it was retconned, but it’s also a wonderful source of characters, ideas, plots, etc that have been cherrypicked for ‘canon’ status. Heck, half of the stuff that’s long-standing canon now was invented by West End Games for their RPG back in the late 80s. If Lucasfilm can bring Thrawn, Asajj Ventress, and stuff from Shadows of the Empire into canon, pretty much anything’s fair game if it’s cool enough 
Yes it was - and those source books were freaking awesome! And they were approved by Lucasfilm at the time.
And I agree that cherry picking the best and bringing it out is the way to go. Wookiepedia put the Expanded Universe stuff as “legends” and that makes sense. We can’t agree what really happened with REAL historical events. So fictional events that span a galaxy are sure to be full of half truths, fuzzy retellings, and out right lies.
It wasn’t telling us a story about the events that transpired but rather that it was portrayed in a fashion that is more like a fanboy remembering the films rather than having that authentic feel that comes from such events. For example, not many folks remember who were the pilots that defended England from the Blitz but the generation that was raised by those veterans do know enough to take cues from such veterans when they’re present. But someone born to the generation after that? It’s mostly hearsay or whispers. and that’s within the UK itself. Human knowledge even in a scifi world with talking robots and laser swords isn’t going to transfer that kind of knowledge perfectly or those who lived it aren’t likely to celebrate it on a far off planet like Jakku which was a literal graveyard. Rey would only know the barest of details. I doubt the galaxy would know who Han Solo is. Let alone Luke Skywalker. Veterans of the Galactic Civil War should but anyone else that wasn’t close to a veteran (as a child of one) or older it would be pure mythology to them. That’s the kind of thing that made TFA bad to me. It wasn’t built with an authentic feeling. It didn’t feel lived in. It felt like some manchild’s fan cave. I’m very critical of all films in this regard since honestly I’m a snob. It’s also why I hate the prequel trilogy as well.
I praise it because he was force to cut as much out as possible. He was forced to reduce it to the bare essentials, and make the dialog work with it. Also, the set design and pick of actors made it feel lived in rather than just some Flash Gordon serial (even though that was his core inspiration). It’s a lightning in a bottle situation which the prequels prove you can’t really replicate without the pressure of rewrites that he had.
Nope, you seem to totally misunderstand my point. My point is that when we have simple dialog of Obiwan talk about the Clone Wars, he wasn’t talking as if he was an encyclopedia entry on the event but that he LIVED it. Equally, Luke wasn’t written as someone who knew individual events or people from the Clone Wars, he just knew they happened and it was a big deal and no one really wanted to get into it cause of the Galactic Empire and all. It felt authentic. It felt like a kid talking to a Gulf War or Vietnam War veteran without turning into some cheesy scene where Luke was gushing over Obiwan the way Rey was made to gush over Hano Solo in TFA. Now that’s the kind of show me don’t tell me I’m talking about. If you think I’m talking otherwise then I apologize for any confusion but at the end of the day the sequel and prequel trilogies are just not worth watching on the big screen. Heck, I say that about most films to be honest.
You know for a promo featurette leaked by cellphone that is fairly interesting.
I’ve been a little cautiously optimistic about The Mandalorian. Given the early info was very “it’s like the OT!” And “it’s TV!”. Gave the impression of a lot of fan service, and some we can’t tell you anything or impact anything story telling.
There’s a much better impression of world building and serialized plot in there. And even the armor looks a lot more completely thought out that the early looks made it seem. Seeing more of it and Pascal moving around in it I like it a lot. Where as that first photo had me thinking Boba Fett with a paint job and fewer accessories.
I hope the Mandalorian is a good series as well. I think Star Wars beyond the Skywalker saga is possible but it’s going to have to start small and be smart. A space western with a bounty hunter is definitely a good starting point (I’m still wanting a neo-noir drama set on the Smuggler’s Moon though). If it gives cute nods to Duck You Sucker (aka Fist Full of Dynamite) then I’ll be happy.
They also showed a short making-of bit (quickly removed from the internet, might be back now?) that showed that they’re making this series using as many ‘old school’ techniques as possible: ships handbuilt and kit-bashed, motion-control cameras and matchmoving against greenscreens, latex costumes, etc. They want the aesthetic to match the original trilogy. And I’m sure for someone like Jon Favreau, after all these all-CG productions, this is a joy to work on.
We know who Hitler is, and Churchill. And people like Jack Churchill among other interesting people from all sorts of wars and events.
And if Hitler had been personally defeated by a wizard we’d probably know the name of that Wizard. We tell stories about these events, people know the broad strokes. We create fictional characters, some of whom are insanely well known who were involved in them.
More over this isn’t a series that’s in anyway realistic. Remember space wizards. Now TFA is a nostalgia piece, and that’s not always a good thing. But I’d maintain that it was a bit necessary given how the prequels depressed enthusiasm for the series. Even among people who liked them and grew up with them. The approach of making the events and key characters and leaders from the OT somewhat legendary is broadly speaking realistic. And to the extent that it isn’t it helps impress that whole epic thing into what is essentially epic fantasy.
It just sounds like your complaining about Star Wars being what Star Wars is. And the OT does have all the short comings you’re describing just as the new films have plenty of the smoother stuff you’re calling for. These have never been films without flaw. That’s a fair bit of the charm.
Physical effects are a good approach. CG at the top of the scale is actually more expensive than physical and in camera effects these days. Purely based on staff costs. And even if you dont agree that it looks better than even the best CG, it certainly looks better than TV CGI.
I think we should look a little side eye at a lot of the stuff they put out there about making things the way they did in the 70’s. Like Abrams made a big stink about shooting on film so it would look like the OT, but that wouldn’t happen unless you got the same cameras, lenses and film stock.
Or getting Kenny Baker to play R2. That’s nice, but do you really need to cram the elderly, ill man back into the tiny box that nearly killed him 40 years ago?
Physical effects are a more valid thing to push than some of the other shit they put out there. And design approaches like model bashing really did have a determining impact on the series aesthetic.
You’d be quite surprised how little the average American knows about the war. So imagining a far off place like Jakku getting no more than the news that literally fell on top of them wouldn’t be surprising. Even Chuck Wendig in Aftermath didn’t make Jakku’s citizens fully aware of the storm that was about to befall so them being ignorant as to the consequences thereafter wouldn’t be much different nor unexpected. The reality is that TFA was too much of a theme park and not enough of a fairytale come to life. And my complaints with Star Wars as a whole is general for much of scifi (being either too dirty, too clean, too disconnected from its consequences, etc). A good story is what I tend to look for. It’s why I’m not much of a fan of franchise films beyond the fun aspects. But even then I worry that scifi is getting the short end of the stick when we’re seeing series like GoT being not too scared to deal with real consequences even in a pretty fantastical fantasy setting that is ASOF. The sequel trilogy seems like it leans too much on nostalgia and too afraid to really break off for the less beaten path (that’s true with the ending of TLJ, it felt like Kennedy leaned too hard on Johnson to reverse enough of the changes to make it possible for anyone else to return to familiarity in the sequel afterwards).
Anyways, thanks for the conversation on this matter. I think I’ve beaten the horse into paste at this point.
One of my favourite settings in the grim dark Galaxy of the future in which there is only WAAAAAR!!!; also know as Warhammer 40k.
What I like about the setting is the idea that nothing is true, no matter how much it is part of canon. Everything is rumour, myth, propaganda, half forgotten facts, mistranslations, ambiguities, misunderstandings and out right lies. In a Galaxy in which even the flow of time is untrustworthy, everything is up for grabs.
Is this how they can reason away the fact that the miniatures from last year which used to dominate are now obsolete, and it was really these new miniatures being sold this year that are superior? 
The effects of naked capitalism on the setting always tickles me.
I definitely preferred their stories and descriptions to most of what I’ve read about novelizations (not having actually read any).
Ooh, that’s a good line.
I read the original Heir to the Empire trilogy - but I don’t remember it well… I did love the West End Games sourcebooks and came up with my own RPG Adventures.
That was quite a cool RPG system too… Though Stormtroopers, under those rules, could actually hit things, and frequently did 
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