A More Civilized Q&A - September 2022

I come from the future just to say I can't believe you guys watched the trailer for tales of the jedi before finishes season 7 of TCW. So many headfucks for yourselves!

I think a big part of how you evaluate Season 5 as a whole comes down to if you're a Hondo Enjoyer or not. Because if you are then the ratio of good to bad arcs looks a lot more appealing.

Younglings Arc good actually.

During the conversation about whether any character has actually had a shift in goals/perspective, I was shouting "Rex! REX!!" We saw him go from vehemently defending the Jedi on Umbara, to ordering his fellow clones to pursue Ahsoka without hesitation. Doesn't this count as a character arc?

I'm all caught up on my Star Wars, which may be why I'm a season 5 truther. I know the high highs to come, and it may be that's why I can go back and enjoy Meebur Gascon and his fuckin D-Squad. Those episodes aren't *good* and I recognize that, but also sometimes dumb Star Wars happens and it still makes me go :) I don't want to turn off the critical side of my brain, but I feel nourished by so many other feasts that I don't mind Jar-Jar stepping in poop and yelling "icky icky goo!" It wouldn't surprise me if y'all experience something similar in the years to come.

Patrick Kay

"This show is almost nothing but clowns!" I have some very bad news about Rebels...

Tash Diehart

I’m a S5 truther too, I think those low lows add to how crazy it gets by the end. My 1st experience with TCW was watching it with my youngest brother though, and the youngling arc was one of his favorites, so I think I may have been stockholm’d into this opinion though lol

IIRC, that had a death for Quinlan as well right?

Keeper

Oop, and you just double checked that... guess I should have kept listening first 😅

For context, yes, as Austin speculated, Barriss's unsatisfying Legends EU fate was written about a decade before the end of season 5 aired. Her death on Felucia was based on a Revenge of the Sith deleted scene that made it into the comic adaptation of the movie. It's something y'all brush up against from time to time when you read something interesting on wookieepedia and wonder why the show ignored it. The real answer is that George Lucas didn't really consider the licensed stories part of *his* vision of the universe, though he had some hard limits on what he would let them do and would mine it for cool ideas and characters from time to time. So frequently, TCW would come along and depict an idea from George that left the EU to scramble for some retcon or messy way to patch up a story that was contradicted by the show

My nickname back in school was corky. I hated it then. Hate it now. My headcanon is his name is Corey

Corey Scott

The fact that the end of S5 is so good is, IMO, just an argument for creative constraints. TCW had 3 "final seasons," and that's where they made most of the best arcs of the entire show. Not when they knew they had 100 episodes and plenty of time to explore the space, but when their time was limited, when they were forced to say, "how can we best use what's left to us? what are the stories it's most urgent and exciting for us to tell?" That's when we get the good shit. Which hopefully, as the civvies suspected themselves, will also make Tales of the Jedi really good!

I don’t think there’s anything inherent to the story that makes watching Rebels first a must, but since so much of the podcast is spent analyzing creative decisions and real world context I think having the Rebels context is going to make for much more interesting Season 7 analysis.

Felippanda