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

It will be intersting to see fan reaction to this perspective. It seems like a lot of people despised the Karen Traviss Mandalorian-centric novels for having the audacity to paint the Jedi in a less than glowing light (P.S. they are good novels).

Anyway I have an idea for Disney if they're concerned about making enough money via streaming

https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-chilean-beer-ads-cerveza-cristal-lucasfilm-1851306714

Bad Batch continues damn well -- meantime per a Lucasfilm announcement, trailer for The Acolyte appears tomorrow, start date June 4. And teaser image:

https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/cb014d4428d432be199cc155676cd78c.jpg

that's quite striking

I feel like BB is punching above the episodic-but-serial weight but the episode payoffs are still “but we’re getting there!” and too much deep lore for what is really a cartoon family show. idk, maybe this is what kids do now

they’re doing “but maybe we need the dark” across media in books and comics as well, now, btw. the book/comics arc has alluded to Yoda talking to a fallen Jedi about how to defeat a weapon the republic’s enemy is using that basically eats jedi

also we found out Luke’s lightsaber crystal was forced back to the light from the sith. seems a bit obvious

And here we go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtytYWhg2mc

Couple of good interviews with Headland here:

https://collider.com/the-acolyte-season-2-plans/

https://collider.com/the-acolyte-series-vernestra-rwoh-explained/

Meantime -- Bad Batch remains really solid this season, last couple of episodes hitting more of those darker tones pretty well (the Tantiss lab set one, eesh).

And speaking of darker things -- arriving in a month!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIST9t72kY

The Bad Batch is plodding along too slowly imo - said the same re Ahsoka (tho tbh also with Andor at first but that paid off big time). The dark tonal shifts are interesting (the poor Camino scientist must be the most depressed-sounding animation character ever, understandably) but this isn't rubbing off on the story much. Wouldn't it be more exciting and cogent for example if the Emperor had witnessed Omega's escape from the base and so there was more pressure around the crew lying low trying to work out what to do next? Mebbe. Not seen the latest ep tho.

Well that's the thing, pressure has, how to put it, ramped up as of yesterday's episodes (it was a two-drop day).

I love everything about Bad Batch. I think its pace is just right and I really enjoy the occasional slow, quiet (and sad!) episodes like at the beginning of the season and this week.

My only two gripes is that for a cartoon, sometimes it's just *too* dark. Why?? And it's hard to believe there's just a few episodes left of the entire series, as I feel like they are only just beginning to reveal where Omega's story will go.

Well it may be the end of the Batch but maybe not for Omega...we'll see!

True, although Omega without the rest of the crew is… less appealing

Uncle Squad

GREAT episode yesterday -- and we get the Zillo Beast again!

My kids leapt out of their seat at that reveal.

Coincidentally they’ve been rewatching Clone Wars with me (my first time), and we got to the episode where that plot element first appeared and they talked about utilizing it for cloning experiments… and according to my kids that never really came back around in the CW series so it’s pretty great to see it drop here.

And so The Bad Batch has wrapped up. I thought it was a good ending (a double ending, really) -- part of me had always hoped since they found that one isolated refuge that they'd end up there and just be able to live, and so it proved, and the final beat was a nice way to give a real sense that they actually DID find it, or most of them. If Omega shows up at some future point in something, I'd be all for it; Michelle Ang did a great job throughout.

One near-headcanon bit for me -- I was semi-convinced that the CX operative who found said refuge a while back, leading to Omega's recapture, might well have been a fully brainwashed/reprogrammed Tech, somehow, or perhaps a clone made from him or the like. So the fact that said operative wasn't and is now iced like the rest of Project Necromancer I really appreciated as a final beat, and similarly that Tech really is gone. Kinda rare in this universe, sometimes!

Anyway roll on Tales of the Empire this weekend and then a month to go to The Acolyte.

Yes, great episode. Still feel like this show probably could have gone at least one more season but this was a satisfying wrap to the season and the coda was a nice touch to give it a bit more finality, for at least some of the characters.

Ned, my kids were also convinced that there was going to be a Tech reveal, and I’m so glad there wasn’t. It would have nullified how well done season 2 was. I’m glad they allowed that plot to stand.

I really think it's remarkable that of the four major animated series under Filoni's care, three of them are top-notch fantastic both as entertaining TV and building up the universe. (Resistance absolutely has its moments but felt more like a random obligation for the sequel trilogy.) Much as I appreciate him doing more on the live action side too, I absolutely hope there's more to come from him and the wider animation team; he pretty clearly is the major creative voice post-Lucas.

Happy Star Wars day!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Day#History

The first recorded reference of the phrase being used was on May 4, 1979, the day after Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Her political party, the Conservatives, placed a congratulatory advertisement in the Evening News saying "May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations."

i fucking knew it

Roffle.

Speaking of dark sides:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tzur6JrUEA

Tales From the Empire was a nice little fillip -- especially liked the arc of Barriss Offee given her path in Clone Wars, it was a good way to show where it all led; the Elspeth arc had its good points too and I did like how it touched on everything from Mandalorian to Ahsoka to even a little bit of Andor, in its own way.

Meantime…well then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O77VTIAYGVA