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Actually, I would argue that their are four Star Wars films where the villains arguably won. Not absolute victories, but victories regardless.

All the Prequels, for a start, though its not fully clear except in the larger context.

Episode One: Palpatine takes power.
Episode Two: Palpatine plays the galaxy like a fiddle, and maneuvers it into a civil war which expands his power.
Episode Three: Palpatine becomes dictator, Anakin falls, the Jedi are mostly slaughtered. The most obvious example, of course.
Episode Five: The Rebels are routed, Han is captured, Luke is beaten by Vader. This one is ambiguous though because the Empire's primary goal, to capture and turn Luke, is ultimately a failure.

Yeah, the heroes always manage to elude Thrawn in the Zahn books too, but not before he gets his licks in. Vader is constantly being eluded in the new EU, but always in a way that doesn't depict him as a raving loser like Cobra Commander or Dr. Klaw.

Galvatron wrote:Yeah, the heroes always manage to elude Thrawn in the Zahn books too, but not before he gets his licks in. Vader is constantly being eluded in the new EU, but always in a way that doesn't depict him as a raving loser like Cobra Commander or Dr. Klaw.

Allston's portrayal of Zsinj wasn't bad either, as EU villains went. It also helped that Zsinj wasn't the primary villain across the entire Wraith Squadron arc-- they spread it across a couple of other guys too. Thrawn only really had Pellaeon IIRC, and Pellaeon was mostly there to go "Ooh, wotta genius move Admiral" every now and then.

Thought: Thrawn is put into strategy over a large sector that includes Lothal. The Rebel cell catches his eye, he details a small force, perhaps led by Pellaeon, to nick them. They foil that a few times despite his careful directions, he narrows his red eyes and tells Pellaeon he's going to pay a visit. One look at some of Sabine's graffiti later, he has the lot of them in the brig. A few interrogations, maybe Kanan manages to mind-trick his way past a couple of stormtroopers and they get away, Thrawn strokes his chin and goes "Ah, so that's how a Jedi would get out of prison..." and next time he catches them, he puts a couple of Toydarians to guard them. Things like that.

Mind you, that's just my cheesy-as-hell off-the-cuff thoughts. Given a few weeks to re-read the Thrawn Trilogy and watch a few more episodes of Rebels and Clone Wars, I'd have a better idea of how to handle it.

One problem is that while Thrawn can certainly hold his own in other fields, his main area of expertise is fleet command, and, well, unless the show has added a bunch of Rebel capital ships since I last watched it, the Rebels can't really offer a challenge to even a moderately competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships.

The Romulan Republic wrote:One problem is that while Thrawn can certainly hold his own in other fields, his main area of expertise is fleet command, and, well, unless the show has added a bunch of Rebel capital ships since I last watched it, the Rebels can't really offer a challenge to even a moderately competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships.

Right, so this would basically be a bunch of punks versus a Commander-in-Chief of a massive armed force... kind of a wee disparity there. Main reason why I think it would be best to portray him as primarily a supervisor, strategist, etc. rather than being directly involved. It would be like Palpatine personally leading the Jedi Purge... why would he do that? He's got people to do it for him because he frankly has more important things to take care of. Only if the Rebels became enough of a PITA would he decide to step in. Maybe they lead a popular uprising across Lothal against the Imperials? (if that hasn't happened yet. I'm a little fuzzy on the current run)

Elheru Aran wrote:

The Romulan Republic wrote:One problem is that while Thrawn can certainly hold his own in other fields, his main area of expertise is fleet command, and, well, unless the show has added a bunch of Rebel capital ships since I last watched it, the Rebels can't really offer a challenge to even a moderately competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships.

Right, so this would basically be a bunch of punks versus a Commander-in-Chief of a massive armed force... kind of a wee disparity there. Main reason why I think it would be best to portray him as primarily a supervisor, strategist, etc. rather than being directly involved. It would be like Palpatine personally leading the Jedi Purge... why would he do that? He's got people to do it for him because he frankly has more important things to take care of. Only if the Rebels became enough of a PITA would he decide to step in. Maybe they lead a popular uprising across Lothal against the Imperials? (if that hasn't happened yet. I'm a little fuzzy on the current run)

Grand Moff Tarkin is supposedly moderatetely competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships and the series showed Lothal gang succeeding in getting away from him. Same thing happened with Vader (who, for all intents and purposes, is the Commander-in-Chief). If Thrawn makes an appearance, it will be his fate as well.

For some reason Lothal held enough importance to warrant Tarkin's attention; and the presence of the Jedi (in-training) brought Vader aboard. All the show needs is a reason for Thrawn to appear, it shouldn't be too hard after introducing Emperor's top enforcer already. Next to Vader Thrawn is still a lesser presence and threat. It will make it hard to please the audience, though: there are several people who see Thrawn as superior in every way to Vader and will be pissed if he isn't shown that way; others will go postal if Thrawn is shown as better than Vader; and for a very large audience Thrawn is a nobody, since they have never even heard of the old EU.

The Romulan Republic wrote:One problem is that while Thrawn can certainly hold his own in other fields, his main area of expertise is fleet command, and, well, unless the show has added a bunch of Rebel capital ships since I last watched it, the Rebels can't really offer a challenge to even a moderately competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships.

Actually, Thrawn demonstrated that he was also good at commanding a squad of stormtroopers during firefights in the Tatooine Ghost novel. Moreover, he proved himself to be an adept commando when he impersonated Jodo Kast, infiltrated a Black Sun stronghold and assassinated their Corellian vigo.

Tiriol wrote:

Elheru Aran wrote:

The Romulan Republic wrote:One problem is that while Thrawn can certainly hold his own in other fields, his main area of expertise is fleet command, and, well, unless the show has added a bunch of Rebel capital ships since I last watched it, the Rebels can't really offer a challenge to even a moderately competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships.

Right, so this would basically be a bunch of punks versus a Commander-in-Chief of a massive armed force... kind of a wee disparity there. Main reason why I think it would be best to portray him as primarily a supervisor, strategist, etc. rather than being directly involved. It would be like Palpatine personally leading the Jedi Purge... why would he do that? He's got people to do it for him because he frankly has more important things to take care of. Only if the Rebels became enough of a PITA would he decide to step in. Maybe they lead a popular uprising across Lothal against the Imperials? (if that hasn't happened yet. I'm a little fuzzy on the current run)

Grand Moff Tarkin is supposedly moderatetely competent Imperial commander who has access to capital ships and the series showed Lothal gang succeeding in getting away from him. Same thing happened with Vader (who, for all intents and purposes, is the Commander-in-Chief). If Thrawn makes an appearance, it will be his fate as well.

For some reason Lothal held enough importance to warrant Tarkin's attention; and the presence of the Jedi (in-training) brought Vader aboard. All the show needs is a reason for Thrawn to appear, it shouldn't be too hard after introducing Emperor's top enforcer already. Next to Vader Thrawn is still a lesser presence and threat. It will make it hard to please the audience, though: there are several people who see Thrawn as superior in every way to Vader and will be pissed if he isn't shown that way; others will go postal if Thrawn is shown as better than Vader; and for a very large audience Thrawn is a nobody, since they have never even heard of the old EU.

But Rebel's Vader was never shown as a commander or tactician, he appears in person, wrecks some havoc while looking badass and then the heroes escape. As I cannot imagine Thrawn running after the Ghost crew with a blaster or jumping into a TIE, I don't think their areas of expertise, at least when it comes to this show, overlap.
And there is also the Phoenix Group, which got a carrier and three frigates recently, maybe it will expand further in the future. It doesn't seem to concern Vader because he is focused on Ahsoka, Kanan and Ezra, but could be a nice target for Thrawn.

EDIT: @UP EU at its finest.

It's also entirely possible that Thrawn won't even be an Imperial officer. The Ghost might accidentally encounter him by mistakenly stumbling into Chiss territory or something.

Galvatron wrote:I don't have digitized copies of the novels right now, but I do remember that Zahn outright stated in the exposition that the white uniform was unique to that of Imperial Starfleet grand admirals during Palpatine's reign. It wasn't just some tacky affectation like you might expect from a third world military strongman.

Besides, the way he was written, Thrawn struck me as someone who would frown on that sort of pomposity and false grandeur.

My questions is this: will Captain Pellaeon make an appearance too?

With regards to the uniform, note that he only wore the epaulets if he was making a state visit. I quite like the white uniform.

eMeM wrote:OK
"I hope anyone who touched Thrawn in the old EU will be kept as far from supposed Rebel's Thrawn as possible and the show writers will base their work only on Thrawn's portrayal in Thrawn's Trilogy."

Meh. Only Zahn so far has managed a complete, fitting portrayal. I can't see anything else succeeding and would rather they leave Thrawn buried. Whenever the new EU and cartoons have tried to use concepts from the old EU they have sucked so far, much better to let them do their own thing. I don't want this to be like the portrayal of the clone wars where the old EU was far superior than the new one.

Well that episode is a great big kick in the nuts for anyone who denies droids are sapient.

Do such people exist?

I enjoyed the episode, but I couldn't help but remain focused on Commander Sato's statement about the rebel carrier not having enough fuel to journey only "several parsecs" to the Yost system. Shouldn't that be a short hyperspace jump for any ship in Star Wars?

I doubt that any author has really thought about how hyperspace jumps actually work and how distances work out.

I liked that last episode it was really cute. One thing that continues to bug me though with rebels is that they keep showing star destroyers firing read bolts instead of green ones and they never send anything bigger than a tie fighter to destroy the ghost. Yet we know that star destroyers can fire at ships with similar size like the millennium falcon.

Galvatron wrote:I enjoyed the episode, but I couldn't help but remain focused on Commander Sato's statement about the rebel carrier not having enough fuel to journey only "several parsecs" to the Yost system. Shouldn't that be a short hyperspace jump for any ship in Star Wars?

If you're going with Saxton's Tachyonic hyperspace, the difficulty is in getting to hyperspace at all and after that you don't need to gain energy to speed up. Even in the SW Tech Journal the actual act of going to hyperspace was the big energy drain and after that you used less. They might not have been able to use hyperdrive at all? Though that was hardly how it was explained.

Of course, The E2 ICS had a theory that older warships existed but were not fitted for travel much beyond a sector; that'd fit too.

That said, I think the only way to explain imperial failure to kill these guys is that the Imps are still in a 'police' mindset and are aiming to subdue the rebels using minimum force most of the time.

Were those things Kinrath? I've always hated them. Yuk.

What are those things' shells made of that can withstand the Ghost's cannons, and why doesn't the Empire use it to make TIE fighters?

I applaud a little that the episode didn't go trough the technobabble route of figuring out what the sensors do and replicating it with the ship (even though that was my first thought). There was no time, so they just stuck with grabbing the sensors and figure it out later.
I wondered whether we'd learn more about the creatures too.

What I don't understand is that why isn't Kanan and Hera's relationship so tipped-toed around, only dropped in hints and always done with mostly-platonic gestures like in this episode. Does the Disney channel have some sort of problem with the idea, do they need to be formally married or do they have some sort of cross-species dating taboo? Yeah, Kanan is a Jedi but he's been a rogue one for quite some time now.

What are those things' shells made of that can withstand the Ghost's cannons, and why doesn't the Empire use it to make TIE fighters?

Probably would be too expensive. Tie Fighters never really gave the impression to me that they were the best available tech, but the most cost-effective.

Were those things Kinrath? I've always hated them. Yuk.

No, those have eyes on top and these guys have it on low. It's interesting that for predators they seem to have 360 vision.

Well, Disney's done cross species romance before. Beauty and the Beast, anyone? The Little Mermaid?

Hell, Gargoyles.

Zixinus wrote:What I don't understand is that why isn't Kanan and Hera's relationship so tipped-toed around, only dropped in hints and always done with mostly-platonic gestures like in this episode. Does the Disney channel have some sort of problem with the idea, do they need to be formally married or do they have some sort of cross-species dating taboo? Yeah, Kanan is a Jedi but he's been a rogue one for quite some time now.

In the novel where they first met, Kanan was clearly smitten with Hera. Unfortunately, this has only been hinted at in the show, but I'm pretty sure that neither one of them have revealed their true feelings for the other yet.

And yeah, I think Kanan decided long ago that the Jedi code forbidding attachment no longer applies to him.

Since Kanan was raised in the Jedi order, maybe he doesn't really know how to properly embrace attachment and actually not just try to go to a place of peace and calm every time he feels strongly about something. We've seen how he can lash out (verbally) when he gets angry, while Ezra is much more natural with his feelings, (since Ezra was never indoctrinated).

Rogue 9 wrote:What are those things' shells made of that can withstand the Ghost's cannons, and why doesn't the Empire use it to make TIE fighters?

Given they were firing at a range of at best 30 or so metres, in some cases with the beasties on the hull of the ship maybe the didn't shoot full power so as to not fry themselves? Also, anything that tough is going to be just as tough to work with.

Besides, wasn't this supposed to be a secret base? Makes one hope the Empire doesn't know about the planet (and by extension the ridiculously tough creatures that live on it).

Is it me or were the lightsabres a lot less pointy this time?

Batman wrote:

Rogue 9 wrote:What are those things' shells made of that can withstand the Ghost's cannons, and why doesn't the Empire use it to make TIE fighters?

Given they were firing at a range of at best 30 or so metres, in some cases with the beasties on the hull of the ship maybe the didn't shoot full power so as to not fry themselves? Also, anything that tough is going to be just as tough to work with.

Besides, wasn't this supposed to be a secret base? Makes one hope the Empire doesn't know about the planet (and by extension the ridiculously tough creatures that live on it).

Is it me or were the lightsabres a lot less pointy this time?

Surely their materials science is advanced enough that if a natural creature can form a shell that can resist their cannons, they can fabricate a similar material that would similarly resist their cannons. If such a material exists, they don't have to know about the crab-spider things to know about the material.

As for not firing at full power, sure, you could say that for the first couple of shots, but when those shots clearly don't do anything other than annoy the critters the logical next step would be to turn up the power of the weapons - which they pointedly failed to do.

It's obviously idiocy.

Like how the ship that can make orbit in a trice and cruise around the star system at will is elastically stuck by webs.