Star Wars: Rebels

[Ender]

Well that was a letdown. Much weaker finale than the other seasons. Not really sure why they brought Thrawn in this season tbh, the storyline with him was so weak. The, what, 3 episodes? that they did with Maul were much more interesting.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, its the nature of the series that any victories either side has have to be fairly limited, because we know what comes after.

That said, I also think that Thrawn's reputation is somewhat inflated among fans. He lost completely or partially most of the times he faced main characters in his original trilogy, as I recall.

[ray245]

Well, its the nature of the series that any victories either side has have to be fairly limited, because we know what comes after.

That said, I also think that Thrawn's reputation is somewhat inflated among fans. He lost completely or partially most of the times he faced main characters in his original trilogy, as I recall.

That was when he was outnumbered and outgunned. The appeal of Thrawn is how an evil underdog can wreck the shit out of the heroes through his intelligence. Without the proper setting for a character like Thrawn, he cannot function as an effective threat.

If they want to use Thrawn properly, they need to make the Rebel alliance much bigger than what we saw in the movies. We need to know that Thrawn was the reason why the Rebels were so tiny by Rogue One/ANH.

Instead, we end up with a villian that shows that no matter how smart he is, the good guys will always somehow escape his clutches.

[Burak Gazan]

Postby Burak Gazan » Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:21 pm
If they don't get their asses SPANKED, even a little, then the entire use of Thrawn will have been a waste

Do you mean to tell me, these inbecilic retards in the writing room, and whatever you call that douchebag-in-charge, ACTUALLY did what I predicted??

Congratulations; they have LITERALLY reduced Thrawn to the level of mustache-twirling CARTOON villain...
And for the record : I always thought Thrawn was portrayed a bit too much of "OMG, it's teh THRAWN!!" but he was shown here to be a cut above. And Jesus Christ. The clips I saw, indicate that the assclowns around him for commanders should all be killed. Just because. I seem to recall him tolerating failure in battle, but NOT sheer incompetence based on ego or ambition. And the Bendu McGuffin?? Oh, lordy....
Expect a whole lot of flailing and 'splainin from the Rebel Recon people and all the fangirlz. I thought the retardo-droid espionage one was bad.
This Is Worse

[Rogue 9]

Postby Burak Gazan » Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:21 pm
If they don't get their asses SPANKED, even a little, then the entire use of Thrawn will have been a waste

Do you mean to tell me, these inbecilic retards in the writing room, and whatever you call that douchebag-in-charge, ACTUALLY did what I predicted??

Congratulations; they have LITERALLY reduced Thrawn to the level of mustache-twirling CARTOON villain...
And for the record : I always thought Thrawn was portrayed a bit too much of "OMG, it's teh THRAWN!!" but he was shown here to be a cut above. And Jesus Christ. The clips I saw, indicate that the assclowns around him for commanders should all be killed. Just because. I seem to recall him tolerating failure in battle, but NOT sheer incompetence based on ego or ambition. And the Bendu McGuffin?? Oh, lordy....
Expect a whole lot of flailing and 'splainin from the Rebel Recon people and all the fangirlz. I thought the retardo-droid espionage one was bad.
This Is Worse

In case you didn't notice, the Rebels lost most of their fleet, including every single ship above corvette weight. They did get spanked, hard.

[Burak Gazan]

They should have lost ALL of it
The correlation of forces was adverse in the extreme. Plus the idiotic use of one of them. And small-arms retards in vac suits taking out the other Interdictor?? I'm sorry, you have just crossed into bizzarro -rebel-retard land. Everyone seems to be pushing for "ooooo lets have them into the Scarif Battle next!!" Forgetting, that THAT debacle was considered their first victory. Getting every swinging dick HERE killed except for the Ghost and the primary characters , would have been fine. They can't un-fuck this now. The STANK on Thrawn, is there to stay.
What a waste

[Batman]

How was he outnumbered and outgunned? As of TTT the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant were about evenly matched.
And he lost completely or partially my ass. Yes, he didn't 'succeed' completely. Not the same thing.
HTTE-he doesn't get the ships he's trying to steal, because Lando manages to cripple them. Sure, Thrawn doesn't have them, but at least for a good long while effectively neither does the New Republic.
DFR-Thrawn got most of the Dreadnoughts ANYWAY.
TLC- until he got murderized by his own bodyguard Thrawn was WINNING.

[Burak Gazan]

Plus here, the bombardment was literally seconds from overwhelming the energy field, and he CEASES FIRE
Ok
I get we don't want to kill the primary characters
Just yet
But making him look stupid , and his subordinates complete fucking morons only interested in personal glory and utterly no tactical ability? Biggest fail yet. And anyone like to do the math on how many starfighters the Empire SHOULD have brought to the party?
It's not worth the aggrevation

[Rogue 9]

Plus here, the bombardment was literally seconds from overwhelming the energy field, and he CEASES FIRE
Ok
I get we don't want to kill the primary characters
Just yet
But making him look stupid , and his subordinates complete fucking morons only interested in personal glory and utterly no tactical ability? Biggest fail yet. And anyone like to do the math on how many starfighters the Empire SHOULD have brought to the party?
It's not worth the aggrevation

Governor Tarkin issued a direct order to capture the Rebel leadership. Of fucking course he didn't just bomb them into vapor from orbit.

[FedRebel]

Plus here, the bombardment was literally seconds from overwhelming the energy field, and he CEASES FIRE
Ok
I get we don't want to kill the primary characters
Just yet
But making him look stupid ,

I'd agree keeping Kallus alive and having him on the bridge to witness the battle was unnecessarily retarded, micromanaging the ground invasion took him away from the blockade enabling the Rebels escape.

and his subordinates complete fucking morons only interested in personal glory and utterly no tactical ability? Biggest fail yet.

Thrawn inherited Sector Command, not much he can do about Konstantine or Pryce. Thrawn shoud've had a clearer 'reading' of Konstantine's ego by this point...and not place him on an Interdictor, as only two were allocated to the engagement and both were crucial to maintaining the blockade. Konstantine should've been given a light cruiser gift wrapped with lures of glory....and Thrawn PLANS for Konstantine to pull a Leroy Jenkins.

Pryce has battlefield tunnel vision and completely neglected her rear...which is where the remaining interdictor was exposed.

Of course "the force" (writers fiat) provides

And anyone like to do the math on how many starfighters the Empire SHOULD have brought to the party?
It's not worth the aggrevation

6 ISD's (including Chimaera), under Legends an Imperator had a compliment of 3 squadrons of 12 fighters each....

216 TIE's. Either Thrawn lost most of his fighters in the early engagement, or they left Lothal with only half (being generous) that number

[Crazedwraith]

In legends the Imperial class has 72 TIEs not 36. Rebel ones had 36.

[Rogue 9]

That's old EU. I think the six squadrons plus many gunboats, shuttles, landing craft, et cetera is a little high for the amount of real estate the hangar actually takes up on a Star Destroyer, and it's reasonable to conclude that the fighter wing has been lowered in the new canon, though I haven't read any of the new background books so that's just a guess.

[Batman]

TIES are 'tiny' by real world carrier standards, and gunboats aren't all that much larger. The old EU parasite craft compliment of an ISD is a nonissue on something the size of an ISD.
The 'ground assault' component is another issue, but for fighters 72 TIEs is if anything ridiculously LOW.

[The Romulan Republic]

How was he outnumbered and outgunned? As of TTT the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant were about evenly matched.
And he lost completely or partially my ass. Yes, he didn't 'succeed' completely. Not the same thing.
HTTE-he doesn't get the ships he's trying to steal, because Lando manages to cripple them. Sure, Thrawn doesn't have them, but at least for a good long while effectively neither does the New Republic.

He failed in his main objective. Partial victory.

DFR-Thrawn got most of the Dreadnoughts ANYWAY.

A genuine win. Note that I didn't say he never won, but I dared question Thrawn's complete superiority, so I'm not surprised it offended people.

TLC- until he got murderized by his own bodyguard Thrawn was WINNING.

Highly debatable at best, if you are referring to Bilbrigi, and he would have likely lost the base at Tantis regardless. The Coruscant blockade had also been broken by that point. And frankly, the fact that he was still using a Noghiri bodyguard at that point, despite having reason to doubt their loyalty and/or ability, is another point against him.

And he never managed to get his hands on Luke, Leia, or Leia's children for any length of time, despite repeated attempts.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's not to say Thrawn is incompetent or anything, of course. He made a very impressive showing against the Rebels in the original novels. But he's not nearly as unbeatable as people sometimes make him out to be, especially when going against Force users.

[ray245]

That's not to say Thrawn is incompetent or anything, of course. He made a very impressive showing against the Rebels in the original novels. But he's not nearly as unbeatable as people sometimes make him out to be, especially when going against Force users.

Thrawn is seen as impressive is because he is the star wars version of Hannibal. The underdog that almost bend an empire to its knees. Thrawn had limited resources and he almost took over the entire galaxy.

[Galvatron]

I don't get the outrage with this episode. Thrawn handed the rebels a costly defeat and probably would have taken them all prisoner if not for Konstantine's insubordination and Bendu's intervention.

Also noteworthy: Thrawn apparently answers to Tarkin as well.

[Reyvan]

I don't get the outrage with this episode. Thrawn handed the rebels a costly defeat and probably would have taken them all prisoner if not for Konstantine's insubordination and Bendu's intervention.

Also noteworthy: Thrawn apparently answers to Tarkin as well.

And he'd have probably outright killed everyone if it weren't for Tarkin getting greedy. If Thrawn had been allowed to fight that battle on his own terms, everyone would have died. He kept having to pull his punches that entire battle.

[The Romulan Republic]

So the moral of the story is that if you tie Thrawn's hands in a bunch of different ways, even he can lose?

Not sure how that shows him in a bad light, even if it may not be very satisfying to watch.

[bilateralrope]

Did the orbital bombardment serve any purpose in the fight ?

The only purpose I can see for it was so that Thrawn can show that he would have killed everyone if he hadn't been ordered to take prisoners. I'm assuming that the reason the bombardment stopped just before the shield failed was because he had some way of monitoring it.

The way I see it, there were three things that cost Thrawn the battle:
- Being ordered to take prisoners. Without those orders, the Rebels would have all died in the orbital bombardment.
- Konstantine refusing to follow orders. Had he held position, Ezra wouldn't have got away to get help.
- Bendu.
He could have won if he only had to face two of them.

[Galvatron]

Did anyone really think Thrawn would end up wiping out the rebels? Perhaps if General Dodonna wasn't there and if this was the series finale, maybe.

[Ender]

I don't get the outrage with this episode. Thrawn handed the rebels a costly defeat and probably would have taken them all prisoner if not for Konstantine's insubordination and Bendu's intervention.

Because there was no payoff. What lesson did the characters learn? How did they grow? What did they sacrifice to get their victory? How what their triumph made personal? Nothing, on all counts. This was just "Hey some stuff happened". Closest anyone comes to doing that and thus having a narrative arc and the story having a fulfilling payoff is Kallus. Who, being a side antagonist, we lack the connection to.

It is honestly made worse by the setup of the first episode where they tell rather than show Ezra's growth and relationship to Kanan.

Also noteworthy: Thrawn apparently answers to Tarkin as well.

that was established in the first episode here when Pryce requests the 7th fleet and Tarkin has him assigned to Lothal.

[The Romulan Republic]

Did anyone really think Thrawn would end up wiping out the rebels? Perhaps if General Dodonna wasn't there and if this was the series finale, maybe.

Its been pretty much established that the Ghost and at least some of its crew will survive until the Battle of Scarif, in any case.

[Ender]

Did anyone really think Thrawn would end up wiping out the rebels? Perhaps if General Dodonna wasn't there and if this was the series finale, maybe.

No, but you could have a basic narrative payout. We got that with the Maul episodes, this was just the writers smashing their toys into one another for 60 minutes.

Like the ground assault should have been a moment of very high tension - will the imperials breach the shield before Ezra and Sabine can take out the interdictor and let the fleet take off and escape? What are Ezra and Sabine risking, what will they lose, just to save their family. Contrast Thrawn's cold intellect and breaking them piece by piece against their warmth, passion, and joy at being reunited. Instead it was flat and just "things are happening"

[SAMAS]

What a fucking waste of Thrawn as a character. They should never have used him in Rebels.

Geez, you make it sound like he died here or something.

Spoiler Alert: No he doesn't.
Spoiler

Actual spoiler: And he beats the pants off the rebels in the process of not dying. What exactly was wasted about him?

He failed all his main objectives? It's not important to wipe out Rebel ships if the leadership survive. The Rebels are an insurgency, capable to rebuilding time and time again as long as the leadership is intact.

Spoiler

The only reason he didn't just kill them was because Tarkin ordered him to take prisoners. The only reason he didn't take them prisoner was because he didn't know about the pissed-off Force Demigod that happened to also live on the planet.

Konstantin screwed up, and still took out a Rebel Cell leader. Pryce may have failed, but she still did everything she could have done in that situation. Not her fault she was up against freakin' Mandalorians.

And despite those failures, Thrawn still all but wiped out Phoenix Cell, decimated Dodonna's Cell, destroyed a major rebel base, and prevented the destruction of the TIE Defender factory on Lothal. The Empire won a resounding victory, and you're mad just because it wasn't perfect?