u/Affectionate-Act5579

Seriously, it's absolutely amazing how much the sequels poisoned the well with Luke, Han, and Leia, and I think it's obvious that Lucasfilm is afraid of using them after the ST got racked over the coals, and they evidently can't think of something. Outside of *Solo: A Star Wars Story*, the OT characters have no films, shows, cartoons, or games starring them. They were supporting characters in the sequels and are relegated to uncanny CGI cameos and name drops in everything else. The only area in-which they got good focus was the comics, and while I enjoyed those for a while, they were 90% interquels set during the original trilogy period. Plus, they went downhill around 2020 and when they finally moved into post-RotJ, Alex Seguera's Battle of Jakku stuff was so lame, I didn't bother with the third flagship because it was by him.

Honestly, one of the most infuriating things about KK's exit interview was her doubling down on blaming *Solo's* failure on Han being recast. Maybe it's because I'm one of the five people who enjoyed that film for what it was and liked Alden in the role, but that was such a cruel thing to say, especially when that film had a gazillion other things going against it, like behind the scenes drama, a comically bloated budget because Lord and Miller left two weeks before shooting ended and over 70 % of the film was reshot, poor marketing, and vicious box office competition. Sure it wasn't a great film in the first place, but I think it was pretty decent/good enough and didn't really deserve to fail.

But no, apparently it's all the recast's fault and now we're stuck with uncanny valley CGI cameos. Even then, that doesn't explain why we don't get cartoons or games, since animation largely removes that factor. Just make some good stories that aren't too connected to the sequels considering they take place so much earlier. It's not that deep.

It is evident that while Thrawn was a simple imperial loyalist in *Rebels*/The original Thrawn Trilogy, Zahn's modern version turns his belief in The Empire into a means to an end. Thrawn's desire to protect his people and The Galaxy from the horrors lurking in the Unknown Regions is very much at the core of his modern motivations in both the original EU and New Canon, and he believes that The Empire has the strength to stand up to these horrors. His conversation with Nightswan in *Thrawn (2017)* has him rationalize that the Empire's harshness is, in his eyes, "a necessary evil", because The Empire is strong while The Republic was a place where everyone had a voice and nothing got done. Thrawn is even portrayed as not always agreeing with The Empire's actions, and he is shown to be somewhat naive regarding the nature of The Emperor and The Empire, something that Nightswan is allowed to call him on.

But let's take a look at what happened since *Rebels*. Thrawn basically argued against the Death Star and saw it as an inefficient waste of resources. He also pushed for the TIE Defender project that arguably would've made things more difficult for The Alliance. Then he got exiled, and what did he find when he returned? The Empire fractured and defeated. The mighty Death Star got blown up days after its completion and papa Palpatine proceeded to build a bigger one that didn't even see completion. The Battle of Endor was such a disaster, The Empire ultimately lost the war against a much smaller Force that is now much stronger.

Thrawn attempting to unite The Imperial Remnant and whip it into shape in preparation for the Grysks isn't illogical. It's literally how we first met him. But to me, it would be interesting if we got a different take this time. What if Thrawn realized that while The New Republic isn't perfect or ironclad, The Empire isn't all that it's cracked up to be either? What if Thrawn and The Chiss Ascendancy elected instead to ally with The New Republic against The Grysks?

Honestly, I think that's a pretty cool scenario. Thrawn as an untrustworthy ally that the NR is forced to associate with can be a very interesting dynamic imo. And I also really like Zahn's idea of him recruiting Ezra for The Chiss Ascendancy, perhaps as a semi-reluctant collaborator. It's certainly more interesting than Ezra hanging with Crabs for 9 years as far as I'm concerned.

And for the record, I don't want good guy Thrawn. My ideal portrayal of Thrawn would combine his ruthlessness and villainy from the original Thrawn Trilogy with the moral complexity of modern Thrawn. I just think making him an ally of convenience that the heroes can't trust can be interesting.

Star Wars has a large and complex canon, whether you're talking about the original EU or the new stuff. Comic book nerds can tell you that expansive lore inevitably comes with retcons and continuity hiccups. And one of the primary sources of retcons is the fact that what's on-screen takes priority over what's on paper, which is why we had multiple tiers of canon in the old EU days. George Lucas is famously in the "continuity is for wimps" camp, and both the prequels and TCW show overwrote stuff. Ultimately, *Andor* S2 overrode the K2SO & Cassian comic and no one cares, because it would make no sense for Tony Gilroy to adjust his plans for a show costing 100s of millions to accommodate a comic one-shot that even comic readers haven't read.

Now, I'm not of the opinion that this is automatically a bad thing, but I do feel that it sometimes misses more than it hits. Largely because if you're going to overwrite something, you have the responsibility to provide something at least just as good, and the replacement often falls short.

To give you an example that both works and doesn't work, let's take a look at the *Ahsoka* novel by E.K Johnston. It's not a great Star Wars book, but it is an overall pretty decent Order 66 survivor story about Ashoka dealing with grief and survivors guilt as she finds a new role as a rebel. The novel was first contradicted when TCW S07 dropped, and quite frankly no one cared. Why? Because the show only slightly contradicted some vague interludes that had no bearing on the book's actual story. Also, "Siege of Mandalore" ended up being pretty good overall.

Then *Tales of the Jedi* dropped and we ended up with another version of the book's story, with both versions being based on the same outline. Except the book was obviously much, much better because it had far more room to tell the story. And now Lucasfilm confirmed that the events of both co-exist together, so we now have Ahsoka going through the same storyline twice in a frankly stupid manner. And that is ignoring that the two stories can't co-exist cleanly without at least some contradictions.

And my question is....why? Ignoring my personal belief that Ahsoka shouldn't have had half of *Tales of the Jedi* dedicated to her, the only answer is that they wanted to show the people who don't read books/comics how Ahsoka came to work with Senator Organa. But was that really necessary? Was it worth the continuity hiccups? Because the problem here isn't that they contradicted the book. It's that they ultimately didn't provide something of similar value. And Filoni clearly intended for the show to replace the book.

Another example is *The Bad Batch*, which I actually like overall, contradicting the Order 66 scene from the (rather excellent) *Kanan* comic book by Greg Weisman. The comic's version is probably one of the best portrayals of Order 66 for multiple reasons, like the way it established the bonds between the specific Jedi and clones, or the way it drove home the horror by getting into Caleb's head, or the darker setting and atmosphere. It's generally pretty visceral. And the show version ultimately pales in comparison and comes across as generic and far less impactful. You can pretty much replace Caleb with any other Padawan - like Gungi, who even *shows up later*- and get the same effect, especially because Kanan doesn't show up again. Not only is Kanan not specifically relevant to the story of the show, but the new scene adds nothing to his own story.

And again I ask: why? Not everything has to be shown on screen to have meaning, and Kanan already spoke of Order 66 in *Rebels*. The problem isn't that the comic was overwritten. The problem is that they failed to provide an alternative of the same value and did it just because of the "what about the people who don't read?" mentality. And then you have the random resurrection of Asajj Ventress down the road. They promised that *Dark Disciple* would remain canon and that they will explain things, only to pull a largely "somehow Palpatine returned" with her. And I might accept that had they done something meaningful with Ventress but they kinda.... Didn't. Not yet least. She adds basically nothing to TBB, and *Tales of the Underworld* was another one of the oversaturated lone world and cub stories repeated by Lucasfilm. Love or hate her death, it was undone for essentially no reason and now she's another loose end.

TL;DR: It's not inherently bad to overwrite canon. But let there be a good reason and at least provide something of similar value to what you're overwriting.