Timothy Zahn - Tumblr Posts
Talon Karrde: What are your concerns? Luke Skywalker: Well, you’ve kidnapped me. Talon Karrde: Hmm, noted. Go on. Luke Skywalker: And you threw me in this dungeon. Talon Karrde: I see. Anything else? Luke Skywalker: Uh, no. But... hmm. No, I guess those are the main two. Talon Karrde: Thank you. Your feedback is a gift.
Everybody on this website is talking about the space whales in the Mabdalorian, but nobody is talking about the recanonization of Mt Tantiss in Bad Batch?? I know not everybody on this website has read the work of art that is Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire/Original Thrawn trilogy but hooooooooo boy. Like, we all knew the space whales were coming (eventually) because the rest of the world needs to have preparation for Thrawn and Ezra's reintroduction. But not a thing on this planet could have prepared me to hear about Tantiss and cloning in any canon capacity ever again. God I hope we get to meet Jorus C'Baoth.
"Tim, knowing how much I loved one of his characters (Grand Admiral Thrawn for you fellow fans), has given me a namesake in three novels."
Admiral Ar'alani is named after a wedding photographer and Thrawn fan.
Eli Vantoad at your service. @mistr3ssquickly
Guest starring Horatio Frogg!
Oh boy am I happy to oblige. I've been reading and absolutely obsessed with Heir to the Empire by the Timothy Zahn. Thanks to that book, which I'm reading for the first time ever, I now understand why people would want to have multiple of the same book. I've been listening to it in audible and want to buy a physical copy. I want to reread it. I've read through 20 chapters within about a week and a half and can't get enough. I'll be reading the rest of the trilogy, the duology, and whatever books come next.
If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading
Tales of the Empire review, the problem with Filoni
Spoilers for "The Path of Anger" below
So, to start off with the obvious, Dave Filoni has never read a single Cannon Thrawn novel. The timeline of events in this episode made no sense for the timeline of the novels. Thrawn was an admiral, yet he was already accompanied by Rukh and Pallean, whom he wouldn't even MEET until he reached grand admiral status. At this point in the Cannon novels, he would have been accompanied by Eli Vanto, not Pallean. In fact, he wouldn't even meet Pallean until the events of Treason. The choice by Folini to overhaul this story erases the conical nature of the "Cannon" Thrawn novels.
Before I get into my real point on the problem with how Filoni writes, I'll give my review of the episode as a whole. It was fine, not much to write home about. The animation was beautiful as to be expected, and very expressive. The writing was... just ok. The empire was depicted as cartoonishly evil, though it is a cartoon so, maybe that's justified. For a short that was supposed to teach us more about Morgan and her motivations, I feel like we didn't learn much about her that we didn't already know? She's good with ship design, she wants revenge and power, etc. Nothing new. Personally, I found the pacing of the episode to be quite boring, it was very slow despite the short runtime. Overall, I don't know if I would recommend it, though I thought the episodes following Barris were quite enjoyable.
Now for the real problem I have with these episodes: Filoni's insistence on his own version of cannon at the cost of others' work. I don't deny Filoni is a good writer and director, Rebels is one of my favorite shows of all time! But he's been on this power trip after being essentially being handed the reigns to Star Wars. There was a period where Star Wars was a collaborative effort between a ton of creatives working on something they loved, the second golden age, that made it into a beloved franchise for a new generation. But now it's just Filoni, and he decides what part of other creative works he'll pick and choose to tell his own story. I feel so bad for Zhan. He created this beloved character, and wrote AMAZING NOVELS, only to have his incredibly complex character be forced into a 2d stereotype. Filoni needs to do better because if he keeps going down the path of writing he has been Star Wars is going to be a shell of its former glory.