#anti disney canon

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Me when looking for Star Wars content and finding nothing but Disney/TCW content

[the-far-bright-center]

Trying to interact with Star Wars fandom these days is so frustrating because so many fans don’t seem to realise how much they are allowing Disney's reframing of the Lucas-era material to dictate their understanding of the story and its characters. Why should Disney’s ‘additions’ even be considered a valid frame of reference for material that predates it? Especially when not even made by the same creator? The Lucas saga has been around for decades prior to any of Disney's retcons and meddling, after all. So why people expect OG saga fans to take their Disney-influenced interpretations seriously, I’ll never know.

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Ripping into TCW's A Friend in Need, in which every character is awful.

I'm going to be upfront about this: I do not care for TCW, I never really have. See, I've always been a big stickler for continuity, even as a kid, and by this point there was *plenty* of Clone Wars related content that had been set across the whole 3 years of the war. The big issue of course was always Ahsoka, who of course just couldn't neatly slot into that timeframe at all because there were already plenty of comics that made it clear that Anakin never had a Padawan. She was a square peg the writers of TCW had jammed into a square hole. Of course, Ahsoka wasn't the only example, it was clear the writers never really gave a shit about what other, better writers had already established, and so retcons and continuity errors were rife with the series, only increasing as it continued. Exactly the kind of thing I was leery about. I was willing to give it a chance when it first came out, but that optimistic goodwill didn't really last too long.

I watched it on-and-off when it came out to check it out, I didn't want to judge it without having seen it. It was the same when I heard about how obnoxious Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series was, I wanted to see if that was as bad as people were saying it was (it was worse). By Season 4, I was pretty ready to write it off, the retcons were getting bigger and bigger (Even Piell getting killed off before his Canon death in Coruscant Nights, changing Asajj Ventress' backstory and fate contrary to what it was in the Republic comics, treating the Nightsisters as if they were literal witches who could use actual magic, the list goes on, but those were my biggest gripes). One episode that stood out to me though, was A Friend in Need, an episode in which pretty much everyone except for Artoo is stupid, malicious or both. At the time, I thought it was the worst episode of TCW yet. Has that changed since then? Yeah, but I'd still count this episode as the dumbest.

For whatever reason, the episode popped into my head recently after...I don't know how long its been, relatively shortly after the episode aired, I guess? And, I don't know, I guess I wanted to take a jab at picking it apart? I've never really done this before, there've been a couple of times when I've wanted to examine bad media, but for whatever reason, I never really got to it. So, fuck it, better late than never, I guess. So, I rewatched the episode to get it fresh in my mind. As the old EU was still Canon when this aired, I'm putting it through the lens of it still being Canon when I talk about it.

There's a good reason why my friends call me a masochist, I guess.

Things start out on Mandalore, where Ahsoka is escorting Padme, Bail and Mon Mothma in talks with representatives from the Separatist Senate when Lux Bonteri walks in. When I first watched A Friend in Need, I had missed Lux's Introductory episode which also introduced the Separatist Senate, so I was a little confused here. Confused because prior to TCW, there wasn't a Separatist Senate, the Confederacy was solely ruled over by the Separatist Council. Now, there's commentary from Filoni that apparently, the EU writers had misunderstood the purpose of the Separatist Council, that no, they weren't the leaders of the CIS, and that the megacorporation's who made up the CIS were just neutral parties. I have two issues with that, first being that I trust Dave "I sincerely believe this man wants to fuck wolves" Filoni's word about as far as I can throw his furry ass, and two, that isn't how it comes across in the movies at all.

The leaders of the Trade Federation, Intergalactic Banking Clan, Techno Union and Commerce Guild are all present, outright saying they're pledging their alliance and their armies to the Separatist cause. That they're apparently neutral, uninvolved parties doesn't gel at all, it just seems like a clumsy retcon to me. One of many.

But anyway...

Lux busts in and causes a scene, accusing Count Dooku of murdering his mother, so the Separatist senators have their guards drag him away. Ahsoka, concerned, gets permission from Padme to follow him, as long as she's discrete. Lux is dragged back to the Separatist's shuttle, where a hologram of Dooku appears to gloat a bit, before telling the droids to execute Lux. Why he doesn't just use the Force to choke him, I don't know, all you need is line of sight.

Now, I'd actually misremembered how this scene went down. In my memory, Lux dropped an ion grenade to disable the droids and *then* Ahsoka showed up. Apparently my flawed memory made Lux more competent then he actually is in the episode. How was he actually planning on getting away? We'll get back to that in a moment, but for right now, he's at the battle droid's mercy.

And then Ahsoka intervenes.

Here's another issue I had with Ahsoka, her characterisation. There were a couple of moments that stuck with me that I think are relevant here.

Season 1, episode 19, Storm Over Ryloth: Ahsoka has to learn not to be a reckless, headstrong idiot because she gets her troops killed.

Season 2, episode 1, Holocron Heist: Ahsoka has to learn not to be a reckless, headstrong idiot because she gets her troops killed.

This episode? Ahsoka is a reckless, headstrong idiot who forces her way into a hostile situation, gets the attraction of a bunch of armed droids and leads them back towards the Senate Guards who are stationed at the Republic shuttle, quickly alerts the unaware men that some pissed off droids are on her tail, then boards the shuttle, takes off and flees back to Coruscant, abandoning the Senators she was supposed to be escorting *and* the Senate Guards who are now taking the heat for her.

Ahsoka is such a shitty bodyguard, Jesus Christ. Getting Lux to safety is a priority, fine, but why does she need to board the ship herself and flee the system entirely? Why not just have Lux board the ship, then go back to help the Senate Guards deal with the battle droids that she *led* there in the first place? They're not just regular battle droids either, they're droid commandos who are supposed to be a lot tougher and smarter than the standard B1 battle droids. We don't see the outcome of this fight, so I presume the Senate Guards won, which, good thing. Because Ahsoka abandoned the Senators she was supposed to be watching over, and I genuinely wouldn't put it past the Separatists to pull something now that these peace talks have collapsed because of what Ahsoka did. They were never going to work out anyway of course, given Sidious' whole purpose behind the Clone Wars, but the characters aren't aware of that.

Anakin gets in contact and when Lux tries to apologise with "Master Jedi, I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble." ("If" you caused trouble? "If"?)

Ahsoka tries to brush it off with "It's nothing." Uh, no, it's not. See the above paragraphs for why it *is* a big deal, and I can't see Anakin of all people being too happy with Padme being left in a dangerous situation like that. But I guess we're brushing past that, cool.

Ahsoka points out how dumb Lux's plan was, saying he would have been killed if she hadn't intervened (true). Then Lux says no, actually, he *did* have a plan, then he pulls out a taser and stuns Ahsoka. Seriously? His plan was to go in, confront Dooku, hoping that he'd send a transmission just to gloat (apparently he "knew" he would, but why? He could just have easily been shot by the battle droids), and he went in there armed with a dinky little taser? Brilliant plan, I'm sure that would have done *wonders* against a squad of droid commandos all armed with blasters.

Ahsoka wakes up hours later aboard the shuttle with just Artoo, her lightsabers missing. She goes out to talk to Lux and finds out the contacts he's meeting are the Death Watch, that Mandalorian supremacist group of terrorists who are awful even by Mandalorian standards.

Jesus Christ, Lux is so fucking stupid.

Despite Ahsoka attempting to tell him that they're bad news, he keeps brushing it off because they *also* hate Dooku, so it'll be fine. Back aboard the ship, Artoo finds Ahsoka's lightsabers tucked away in a random drawer. So, if she had bothered to look for them, she would have found them in the space of five minutes. My God, she is useless. These two deserve each other, I swear.

Oh, and we meet Bo-Katan for the first time.

Awful, *evil* Bo-Katan.

On the ride back, Lux reveals he had a way to track Dooku's location through his communication.

Serenno. He was probably on Serenno, his homeworld of Serenno, where he has a mansion on Serenno, Serenno on which he is a Count. This isn't exactly hidden knowledge.

They go back to the Death Watch compound. see them using kitbashed battle droids as target practice and Ahsoka is marched off while Lux talks to their leader, Pre Vizsla. Apparently, he has beef with Dooku now and the Count gave him a scar. Which, first thing, if Dooku had wanted him dead, he'd be dead. Second, I actually don't remember those two falling out, so I looked it up and apparently it happens entirely offscreen between his last appearance and now, so whatever, I guess. Also, Vizsla threatens to cut up Lux if he doesn't hand over the tracer, and Lux seems pretty fine with that. Brilliant, that one, real smart.

Ahsoka gets thrown in with a hut full of enslaved women from a nearby village. Great people, those Mandalorians. Artoo, meanwhile, is taken to the droid shack and told to fix up the damaged battle droids so they can be used as target practice again. They don't even slap a restraining bolt on him, they just leave him to his own devices. Which, in this case, happens to be a room full of battle droids, several of which actually still have blasters in repairable condition as we'll see later.

Well, the Mandalorians are rock stupid, so I suppose I can't complain *that's* out of character.

Big feast is held, now Lux can see with his own eyes that the Death Watch are using the local women as slaves...but he doesn't seem to give much of a shit about it, even as Ahsoka keeps trying to point out how awful his allies are. It's at that point the village elder shows up and demands Viszla let his people go. He did this unarmed, with his only support being two other unarmed villagers, walking into a camp full of hostile people who had already taken the village's women as slaves and expected things to go well for him. When Vizsla agrees in the most sinister way possible, with several other Death Watch members openly snickering about it, the elder thinks all is well and Lux even says: "You see? They're not the butchers you make them out to be."

I...Jesus Christ, they were using the local women as slaves, but you're fine with that so long as they take them back when they're done? Lux has to be the stupidest character in this series, I swear. There is exactly one smart person this entire episode and it's Artoo.

Next day, the Death Watch take the enslaved women back to their village, the Elder thanking him for it.

And then he takes out his stupid edgesaber and stabs the man's granddaughter in front of him. Can't help but feel this would have been more impactful if obvious sacrificial lamb character had more than a minute of screentime, but okay, its awful and its typical Mando behaviour. For good measure they start torching the village and maybe set one villager on fire. And much to my shock, Lux finally gets it. I was half expecting him to brush it off as them setting fires to keep the villagers warm. Ahsoka seems to impale a guy with a blunt pole, before getting tied up. And then they drag her back to their camp from their speeder...yeah, Ahsoka should be dead.

Then Lux says this...

"I believed you had honour, but you're just murderers."

What possibly led you to think that conclusion, you absolute dumbass? This whole time, Vizsla has been acting as blatantly sinister and creepy as Dick Dastardly, if he had a moustache he'd be twirling it. Lux seems like the kind of character who needs to be told not to drink drain-cleaner, I swear to God.

As Vizsla is preparing to deal with Idiot and Useless, Artoo shows up with an army of kitbashed droids...and like I said either, a few of them have working blasters. Literally the only competent character, I swear. Artoo gives Ahsoka her lightsabers back, and Vizsla decides to duel her one-on-one, because like every Mando, he has a totally unearned superiority complex. She ends up slicing his jetpack and he doesn't even notice until Ahsoka points it out to him. How did he not hear her hit it? How did he not feel that? In the confusion of the exploding jetpack, Dumb and Dumber manage to escape, chased by Bo-Katan, but they get away.

Then Lux fucks off in the escape pod, the end.

And apparently the next time Ahsoka runs into Bo-Katan, they're besties and join forces to free Mandalore. Guess Ahsoka kinda forgot about the whole slavery, village torching and innocent people she murdered, huh? Yeah, guess so. Bo-Katan fucking sucks, she doesn't get a redemption, the narrative just wants you to forget all the atrocities she commits because she doesn't want Maul to be her leader. Zuko she ain't.

Ahsoka majorly screws up her assignment, puts senators in danger and gets some guards killed, Lux is so braindead that he blindly trusts the most obviously evil pack of killers he could find. I'd say he needs a helmet, but I don't think its possible for him to get anymore brain damage.

TCW is massively overrated, this is a hill I will die on.

[mostsanescarletspiderfan]

So that new TVA comic came out... Jesus Christ... They are inside our houses now...

[descendantofthesparrow]

honestly the way this is still being played up as romantic is just like 🙃🙃 like she drugged him, yes she felt bad in the end and fixed it with a antidote, but after its revealed she never told him the truth and is just telling the entire kingdom a lie that Ben thought was the truth, just makes it so ick

[gch1995]

Why do you care about Vader's feelings so much? He doesn't deserve dignity. I hope Lucasfilm makes a story where he's captured by the Rebellion and brutally tortured until he's crying for Shmi. They'll use force suppressing devices and make him feel like the worthless slave he is

I care because Star Wars is primarily Anakin’s story, whether you like it or not. I care because Luke’s entire character arc in the OT films is pointless if Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda were always meant to be the perfect mentors, who did nothing wrong. I care, not just about Anakin’s feelings, but the feelings of every other Jedi recruit who had serious issues with the way the old Jedi Order and Republic operated.

I care, because if the Jedi are supposed to be the good guys, in spite of their flaws, then we should ultimately be rooting for them to rise again with Luke Skywalker. Because Anakin’s arc and feelings in the prequels are no longer treated as valid in the Disney era of Star Wars, that means Obi-Wan and Yoda are treated as being completely right all along, and the new Jedi Order cannot grow with Luke Skywalker in the current canon. The same bad choices and mistakes keep being made in the current canon because he follows his blatantly misguided predecessors, which was not implied at the end of the OT movies at all. While I would never agree that mass murder/genocide is the answer to deal with stopping them, because the current canon narrative ignores all the serious issues Anakin and his predecessors had, at least in part, because of the blatant corruption within the Order and Republic they grew up amongst, I’m also not too thrilled that Luke rebuilt the Order because he’s repeating all of their misguided choices and practices in current canon as a result.

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This open contempt for Luke is yet another reason why I don't consider what Disney shat out to be the real Canon.

I know Mark Hamill is too old to play Luke pre-sequel trilogy now and it's probably too expensive to keep using tech to de-age him.

But.

I feel angry on Luke's behalf that he's mostly forgotten about now in canon. Luke became a Jedi and brought Anakin back to the Light Side and it's kinda like Star Wars has just gone "thank you, next" and discarded him?? It's his storyline to rebuild the Jedi Order but they had him mess that up and passed over his storyline to Rey. It's like they've decided Luke's only value was saving Anakin and now that that's done they don't care about him anymore. Justice for Luke Skywalker. He deserves so much better.

[brsb4hls]

Ok, I'm ship neutral, so no ship hate, but I have never seen people absolutely denying reality and facts this hard and as a logic loving person I cannot stand this level of delusion.

Lokius shippers might as well argue the earth is flat in the main tags, that's what it feels like to scroll trough this weirdness.

So it's gonna be this one rant post, correctly tagged of course, to vent and then I'll have to blacklist this tag (which I have never done before with any tag, cause nothing was ever this bad) for my sanity.

Firstly:

Sylki is the canon relationship of the show.

Still, even if they've broken up.

So, if Loki is in love, it's with Sylvie.

That's that Isaac Bauman interview.

It is not in any way confirmation of lokius.

(Oh and the rainbow as a symbol of hope and new beginnings passes over everybodys face. Because Loki gives everyone hope. Rainbows did have symbolic meaning before the creation of the pride flag and by denying that, shippers sound like weird ass Karens claiming the fashion industry is pushing the gay agenda by printing rainbows on kids shirts.)

Now next interview, the Kevin Wright one:

He talks about Sylki as a romantic relationship and how much Loki still cares about her, even if there is no time to focus on that, and mentions that Loki was only able to do what he did 'because he cares about her, he cares about Mobius, more than anyone he's ever cared about.' Both of them!

So shippers actually took a Sylki interview to make it about Lokius.

The 'it's about who': there's an Eric Martin interview, where he explains that losing Sylvie was the last straw for Loki and then he started to control his slipping and it was about all of the people he cared about.

Which is logical, since he can slip if he focuses on a person. If it was about Mobius only, how would he end up in the citadel again.

And Loki does a full turn, then looks at the space where the audience would be, but not directly into the camera. Because it is about everyone in that room. Full turn.

Tom's interviews:

Tom calls both Mobius and Sylvie mirrors in an interview.

He uses 'passionate disagreement' for both of them.

He had to be informed about Lokius, because he wasn't aware of it, but is obvi ship neutral/ positive here, because he's a decent human being. That's still no canon confirmation.

Oh and the scrapped ep 5? There's no way it was simply 'romcom-like', as shippers love to imagine, that would have impressed nobody and Marvel already did that with WandaVision, so it would not have been a 'big conceptual swing.

It was most likely about Loki going back to the New York invasion, which is why B 15 is in 2012. Or slipping further back even.

That would not have fit the tone of the show and blewn the budget, so it got axed.

Now my inner virgo feels better.

I can't stand people spreading misinformation, that has actually nothing to do with shipping, but with my fact-loving self.

[rogue205]

Just saw a marketing still of Disney's New Jedi Order movie where Rey will completely steal Luke's character arc after they had her completely plagiarize Anakin's and now I'm annoyed all over again.

Plot twist I want to see; Rey goes dark like the Palpatine she is and FINN will take over as the "good" Jedi that he was being set up as back in Episode 7. Then we might actually have a decent movie.

I mean, they basically rewrote Luke so he was repeating the same damn mistakes that Yoda made with the original Order so how is MaRey Sue gonna know differently? Because she’s “perfect at everything” that’s why. 🙄

[comebackali]

so i'm finally reading master & apprentice and apparently claudia gray is my BEST FRIEND because disney was like, "hey, after the successes of the other books you've written for us, do you wanna maybe write a prequels book?' and she was like, "oh abso-fucking-lutely. here's 430 pages of qui-gon being a dick to babywan and making him feel like absolute shit about himself xoxo ❤️❤️❤️" and the good people of disney star wars were like, "that's great john you can go ahead and order it."

[anidala-for-ever]

I think this is more damage to characters and the fandom made by Disney. It's because of that infernal Ken*bi show, that had no basis in canon. And now, after Leia spent ( I just can't accept it as canon) a few weeks ( days?) with OW the fandom has latched on this thi, because Luke rejected his teachings openly, though never maliciously. In original canon, Leia only sends OW a message calling him by his full name, never speaks to him face to face and is horrified by the implications of his death. OW never appears to her as a Ghost and the only time she is referenced is when he and Yoda plan to replace Luke with his sister if Luke dies. I really wish that show was never made. It destroyed a lot of the characters.

I think that generally accepted fan headcanon that Leia would wish OW was her dad over Anakin or not understanding why Padmé fell for him instead of OW is unfunny and baseless. Mostly coping mechanisms for people who hate Anakin or severely project themselves inside or project something inside OW.

[kyliafanfiction]

Really can't say I like the glimpses of Disney Canon's expanded handling of the interquel space - the shows are good, but the other stuff? Ugh.

[terriblygrimm]

i haven’t watched rebels season 5 oops i mean a.hsoka and i dont ever plan to (disney can burn after mando 3) but i gotta say dave fil.oni making s.abine a force sensitive mandalorian is some kind of next level piece of shit move

[anidala-for-ever]

I actually don't mind this choice that much. I mean it's too on the nose and everything, but if there was precedent it's even more possible for Qui-Gon to have thought Anakin was created by the Force.

Wow, Disney really can't hide their hatred of Anakin Skywalker huh...

As was established in Phantom Menace, Shmi Skywalker tells Qui-Gon that Anakin has no father, that she carried him and gave birth alone. Hence Anakin was created by the Force to counteract what Darth Plagueis had done by meddling with life and death.

And now Disney, showing once again that they never learn after the MaRey Sue Palpatine joke, has created The Acolyte which has a pair of twins that were "created by the Force". I mean... ffs Disney. Anakin just can't keep anything, can he? You already tried to put Woobie-Wan on his level of power by pushing this 'Force Dyad' bullsh*t and now this? They even used the same "who is the father" "there was no father" lines!

Star Wars is, at it's heart, the story of Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One. Disney is just not getting the memo. I very much doubt that Disney has some plan for future episodes that will make this little plotline anything else but yet another carbon copy of Anakin's story and origin.

[the-far-bright-center]

For the last 8 years now, it’s been exceedingly lonely being a SW fan who is legitimately content with the Prequels and Original Trilogy as my only actual canon. The story is perfect to me as it is, and I simply cannot relate to people who constantly clamour for ‘more’.

[azurecanary]

Question, why is Star Wars Legends only considered non canon post the Disney acquisition when Lucas famously hated the Expanded Universe