Tropes can be played with though, turned about, reconfigured. That’s why they’re tropes, man.
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It was clearly a newer different model TIE Fighter. It had a rear gunner seat. Did you miss that?
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The trope is: the weapon is taken away from the weaker or less experianced character.
Now classically it would be a man saving the woman.
Star Wars is notable for having Princess Leia take the blaster in the escape from the prison and blast the Stormtroopers. You’re example of Fury Road is a great one too. There are many more examples where it is just two men, but the underdog out performs who is expected to win/be better at something (David and Goliath is a classic example.)
But in this case, it is just bizarre and bad writing. Unless Chewie has cataracts (is that why he has two scopes?) there is no reason for Solo to TAKE the weapon. He might say, “Chewie, tear those guys new assholes.” But in the movies and in the now non-cannon stuff, he is never seen as weak or less capable than Solo.
Had he taken a blaster from say Rey or Finn there would be cries of foul because we are much more sensitive to bad stereotypes. But even if you are a racist or sexiest, you should be against tired tropes because it is BAD story telling.
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Chewie was injured at that point so Han opting for the more powerful gun made sense. Trope work or not, it was just logical (especially since we needed as many chances as possible to show the true power of his gun so Kylo’s hit by later would work.) What didn’t work was the whole schtick to make us believe that for the years they have been together Han has never fired Chewies gun. I shoot with family members and friends and I have fired at least once every single weapon available. Han and Chewie are life long bros. No way had Han never handled the bowcaster. Just one more failing in that film that proves JJ is all flash and no substance. So glad he has no future hand in this series.
A simple line change “Chewie, gimme your bowcaster. I need more power here” followed by “it’s been years since I fired this thing, I forgot how great it was” or something (screen writer I am not) would have made that whole part so much better.
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I just kept thinking: ever tried to take a weapon from a Wookie that wasn’t wounded? You’ll pull back nubs. At the shoulder.
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Because, AFAIK, Thrawn is no longer canon, just like none of the old books are.
We’ll see if he shows up in Rebels or not.
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Which makes me very happy since most of it was shit.
Not to mention that those aren’t classic “Tie Fighters.” The New Order has its own gear and the designs of all of its ships are somewhat different/evolved from the Empire. So their new Tie Fighter design seats a gunner? Seems ok to me.
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You must have missed this then:
Part of the reason for negating all of the EU was so Disney and Lucasfilm could mine that treasure trove for the best stuff and use it in official canon again.
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I edited later but yeah.
I’m just glad they’re throwing most of that trash written for 14 year olds away.
Is that what Bexit was all about?
But seriously, Extended Universe / European Union is in second place for confusing me behind Bureau of Land Management / Black Lives Matter…
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Disagree.
There was a lot of shit mixed in there, but there were also a lot of good stories.
Disney had a chance to try to take some of the good stories with them into the new continuity, but instead, they presented the fans of the EU with a middle finger and said, “Nope, even the good stuff, the stuff that was as good or better than the movies, that’s all gone.”
I mean, forget the rest of it. Had they kept two series (the Thrawn trilogy and the X-Wing books), kept the kids’ names the same, and ditched almost everything else, I would have seen that as a sacrifice that had to be made. The Black Fleet Crisis, the Corellian Trilogy, the Callista books, Jedi Academy… All of that could have gone down the tubes and I’d have barely missed most of it.
But ditching all of it, saying that there’s nothing salvageable in over thirty years’ worth of continuity… That was just a middle finger in the face of the fans who had been on that journey with them all along.
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Who is going to read 80 shit novels to find the five good ones?
They ditched it because keeping it all straight (which ones they kept, which ones they tossed) would be impossible and appease no one. It is simpler to dump it all and then cherry pick a few things.
[quote]The slap-dash, anyone-can-add-to-it nature of the existing Expanded Universe and its tiers is great for detail-oriented fans who want to write a Mary Sue fanfic that includes a perfectly accurate depiction of the seven prime forms of lightsaber combat, but it’s absolute poison for Disney. The company will be releasing their next Star Wars movie in 2015, and the giant swamp of the EU stretches out before them, threatening to ensnare and swallow up any potential ideas they might try to include. They need to be able to re-launch the franchise in a direction that they control, and that requires the freedom to let Empire Strikes Back writer Lawrence Kasdan pen the script without worrying about stumbling over years’ worth of baggage. In fact, Kasdan’s unfamiliarity with the EU is a strength here—and one that Disney is capitalizing on by drastically reducing the number of things he has to worry about.
Most of the EU is simply layers and layers of garbage. It’s filled with thinly veiled Mary Sue characters, ludicrous minutiae, and a ponderous and plodding history (past AND future) of the galaxy. It’s creaky under its own weight, and Chee’s pruning is a welcome change. In him, Disney has a person who intimately understands the core elements of what makes Star Wars, Star Wars.[/quote]
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Only one argument for why Disney might not want to breathe new life into the EU remains: quality. As stated above, there were many aspects of the EU that weren’t that great. Some of it was downright awful. Any fan will tell you that. Is it reason enough for it to die completely, for the story to end? Not when the new canon material is hardly any better. Disney’s new canon expanded material began in the lead-up to The Force Awakens with Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath. It was hardly groundbreaking, and in many ways, was just as bad, if not worse, than many of the lackluster EU stories that came before it. The book currently sits at a customer review rating of 2.6 out of 5 on Amazon.
The new canon material is simpler and written by their own people, not whomever got a contract over the last 30 years. If only for branding, they’ll go with their own people.
Oh, and I liked that book ok. 
But then I’ve read five or six Wendig books.
In any case, the decision is made. I am sure all those Star Wars fans have just walked away from all new movies and shows in protest, right?
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I think David Brin hit that nail on the head in Startide Rising where he has alien races named with asterisks and percent-signs in them.
I’m already sold, stop making it better! 
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