Star Wars: The High Republic

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 1]

For those interested, the YouTube channel Star Wars Explained was invited to the press event and has a bit more detail than the press release.

Below is the video that was made afterwards.

 

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 1]

Nice little video with a bit more information, thanks for posting it. Definitely super excited to see how this all goes, I’m so ready for a new part of the universe/timeline

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 1]

I’d like to see if FFG could repurpose the Imperial Assault game for this setting, with a group of Jedi and followers against this new enemy.

It would of course depend upon the licencing contracts that various companies hold.

[ninjillyParticipant 11673xp 1]

That could be fun. I suspect it will be a good couple of years before we started to see if anything High Republic moves beyond books and comics. You have to figure the % of people who read these things vs have seen the movies is much smaller. If the HR era stuff bleeds into a Disney+ show or something, I think we’ll have a better chance. No one knows where FFG will be at that point. They have had an interesting time with the license to date.

[limburger 21668xp 2]

I wonder if they named it ‘High Republic’ because calling it ‘Old Republic’ would cause too many akward questions about what happened to the EU that was declared ‘obsolete’ by Disney.

I bet 90% of these ‘new’ ideas were already in the expanded universe lore too.
The only thing the EU didn’t have was a political agenda of ‘enforced diversity’ where the heroes are either Mary Sues or suspiciously perfectly balanced teams of women, aliens and jedi.

Both Lucas and Disney have proven that they can not tell a good story within the Star Wars universe.
As such them asking ‘new’ writers for ideas is good, but the kind of brainstorming that the video showed makes me fear the worst.

So much potential for greatness … all ignored in an effort to please ‘everyone’ who ‘demands’ more ‘diversity’ to spread a political messaget that no one really wants to hear.

Never mind the rather ironic “anti war” premise for a setting that is destined to explode in a gigantic civil war.

[sundancer 42901xp 1]

I’d guess naming yourself “old republic” while your a current form of government is kind of weird 😉

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 3]

@limburger – I don’t see any “enforced diversity”, but then I’m a proud SJW!!
(And don’t take that as an invite to point things out, we are very unlikely to agree.)

If it weren’t for some SJWs in history, only land property owning people would have the vote in the UK – that took what, 300 years to overcome.  Later SJWs fought for women having the right to vote and in some places in the world I’m guessing they still don’t.

Both Charles Soule and Claudia Gray are well regarded amongst the people I follow on the subject of Star Wars.

[limburger 21668xp 3]

@hobbyhub
I get that SF as a genre is often used to sell a modern moral/political idea in the form of a story.
However I’ve noticed that whenever the SJW crowd and related political activists get to do it the story takes a backseat and the message gets hammered with the subtelty of a twenty ton anvil being dropped on your family jewels.

This trailer where they so proudly talk about having ‘freedom’ to create (as if that never ever happens in products of this status) and the short list of things they ‘need’ to have in Star Wars makes me feel like they’re too focussed on creating a message that they forget about telling a good story.

Within a shared setting there are going to be restrictions on what can and cannot be done, because that’s what keeps it a cohesive setting.
That list should have been there instead of written from scratch, because they’re building onto an existing universe as is.
Never mind that there already was a load of talent responsible for the expanded universe. Why sell this ‘high republic’ as something ‘new’ when it is something that already was possible within the universe that had been created up until Disney got the license ? Bioware managed it when they created KotOR …

From the female version of Thor in comic book series to Rey in Force Awakens to the female Doctor in Doctor Who.
It’s like nothing is left to chance to hammer home a message that those characters apparently are too weak to tell organically through their story.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 1]

@limburger – Do you know who Pablo Hidalgo is?

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

@ninjilly – If you haven’t already seen it, the latest, now monthly, episode of “The Star Wars Show” has a few more details including a quick panel with “gasp” a diverse group of creatives.

[limburger 21668xp 0]

@hobbyhub no I don’t … but then I rarely know any names of directors/producers of anything.
IMDB lists he has done both Rebels and Last Jedi
One was excellent … the other crap.

I’d say based on his timeline he is getting worse in Star Wars stories, not better although we don’t know how much influence he really had.

The more the advertising focusses on how ‘diverse’ the writers are the more red flags are raised for me.
I don’t want to know what skin colour they have or what gender they are.

Star Wars as it was after the orignal trilogy was an ok franchise.
Every modern iteration appears dead set on making it ‘inclusive’ and ‘diverse’ when it already was exactly that.
We never questioned why Lando was black and why he was friends with Solo, because they just were.
In Force Awakens I find myself wondering if Fynn was black and Rey was a girl because the producers had to tick a few boxes.
It makes me wonder why practically every evil character is male and every ‘good’ character is female.

It makes me question tthe authenticity (sp?) of the story and message they’re trying to send as opposed to just enjoying the movie for what it is.

And going that extra mile to pretend that ‘High Republic’ is something new when ‘The old Republic’ already covered a suspiciously similar era within Star Wars ?

I do hope it gets Starwars back on track to being good.
And the Mandalorian sort of proves it can be done if they want to based on what I’ve heard (can’t watch it because I am not paying for yet another streaming service using ‘exclusive’ content as bait).

It’s the way it’s promoted and hyped that makes me have serious doubts.
Star Wars has a galaxy worth of potential for awesome.
And yet somehow that potential has been wasted every single time in order to please the shareholders and a few wannabe activists instead of their actual fan base and those who might want to get hooked.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

@limburger – From a tweet if have read within the last hour, and I don’t know where to check it, but demographically speaking only 11% of the world’s population is white.  And only 49% male, except I think in China where their 1 child policy really screwed things over.

So basically if you are white and male, which what you write leads me to believe you are, you are, in fact, in the minority, globally speaking.

Hollywood is becoming more aware of that, and a true capitalist does care where the money comes from.  Box Office is becoming more of a global thing.

So if you don’t like “diversity” on the big screen, in writers rooms, you are screwed.

You also never questioned why the major of the characters of the original trilogy were white male humans.

It is a fictional universe, we don’t what the demographics are.  There could be more non-humans than humans.

We do know that the Empire was an analogue of the Nazis and the Empire were anti-nonhuman – Thrawn being a rare exception that proves the point.

 

[limburger 21668xp 0]

@hobbyhub demographically speaking I am in the majority in my region … :-p that still doesn’t explain why Chinese culture hasn’t dominated my life in the same way American culture has as the former has the biggest potential audience.

Besides … as you say : it is a fictional universe

Applying demographics of our world is not going to work either way.
There’s a reason why ‘planet of hats’ is a standard in fictional settings like this.
Heroes and villains like Thrawn are an exception … and that makes them special/unique.

The lack of friction for a traitor stormtrooper like Finn was weird to say the least. The fun thing is that in Rebels there is an entire story arc dedicated to get a Jedi to trust a clonetrooper ….
Surely his training/indoctrination can’t have been that ineffective to have zero effect once he declares his desire to rebel ?
It almost made me wonder why there were any stormtroopers left at all.

Anyways … High Republic.
First they throw out the baby with the bathwater and now they insist on reinventing the wheel and presenting it as something ‘new’. Not impressed yet. And a track record that hasn’t given me reason to be hopeful.

[yoshiParticipant 3197xp 0]

It doesnt get more corporate and soulless than this. But we´ll always have 3 real Star Wars movies.

[jodain 12433xp 0]

In terms of timing, the Old Republic is much further back in time that this High Republic, so they aren’t throwing out the stuff based in the Old Republic timeline, but trying to fill a gap in.

To be honest I hope they remember that Yoda is very much around in the High Republic given that it is based only 200 years before the prequels, and Yoda claimed to be 900 in Empire.

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