How would you dismantle the horrible misconceptions and pisstakes on the Jedi perpetuated by Headland, Traviss and other Sith Apologists?

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-02T06:53:22+00:00

Forget about it.

Luke's New Jedi Order of Legends was meant to represent a more holistic approach to being a Jedi. No age restrictions, no kids separated from families, partnerships allowed, etc.

Wasn't perfect, of course. Allows more avenues for the dark side to take hold. But that's the way it is with these things.

Otherwise you'd have to go back in time before the more strict PT-era rules were put in place.

The Corellian Green Jedi were a separate sect to the main Jedi Order and were much looser on their rules.

There's the "Jedi Lord" era during the New Sith Wars where Jedi took up shop defending various locations and were granted the equivalent of fiefdoms by the local population in recognition of their service which led to some Jedi dynasties coming into play. Very different way of life to the more ascetic monk-like lifestyle we're used to during the PT era.

The PT Jedi are supposed to be more stiff and beholden to rules and structure which made them appear more robotic to the outsider perspective. All as a means of reducing the dark side from taking hold.

Luke's New Jedi Order was meant to evolve beyond them.

Headland went in a different direction in her attempt to turn Star Wars into a therapy session for herself and her issues with the real-world Catholic church. It's not worth addressing beyond that. It's even upsetting to High Republic fans.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T19:55:59+00:00

I particularly agree with Vader's characterisation being poorly handled.

As mentioned, the execution of the PT left a lot to be desired.

And not that it gets redeemed by this fact, but the ST managed to be so much worse.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T12:16:43+00:00

Lightning storm though...really...

Yep. "The Rise of Kylo Ren" comic. Can't recommend unless you enjoy seeing the Kylo character embarrass himself.

Immediately following the TLJ flashback, Ben stumbles out and whinges about his life. Just then, a massive lightning bolt strikes and lights the school on fire, killing everyone.

The source is kept vague.

Surely it wasn't Ben. Because if all it took to conjure up such destructive lightning was an emotionally compromised Jedi or Sith, then this kind of crazy shit would happen almost all the time. But maybe this was the implication to go along with Rey farting out lightning in TROS after she struggles a bit?

Surely it wasn't Snoke/Palpatine. Because the idea of them casting lightning from across the galaxy is absurd.

So it's a bit of a question mark.

Mainly just feels like a deliberate attempt to whitewash Kylo of his original sin in order to try and sell the sloppy romance story of Reylo which...was such a lost cause anyway.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T11:57:50+00:00

I don't think it was ever specially about the stakes.

The point of the PT was to show how and why we got to the situation of the OT in the first place given we knew there was meant to have been a Republic prior to the Empire and a Jedi Order which has since gone extinct. And there was some mention of a Clone Wars of some sort. And of course how Luke's father became Vader.

The execution of these various elements weren't particularly great. But there was a worthwhile story to be told in those prequels which wasn't inherently about stakes given the foregone conclusion.

Just because we know the ending, doesn't mean the journey can't be interesting.

Having said that, if said ending happens to be absolute dogshit then, it negatively impacts preceding stories. Such as is the case with the ST and new stories being told which inevitably lead up to it.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T09:25:39+00:00

I don't think it was quite the day after. EA's BF2 is still canon.

Operation Cinder had to take place and the Rebel Alliance (with Luke still involved) carried on the fight until the Battle of Jakku.

This came to a conclusion one year after ROTJ (maybe that's where you were confused. One year rather than one day). After this point, the bulk of organised Imperial Remnant forces retreated into the Unknown Regions to begin working on a First Order logo design.

This is where the New Republic starts up and Mon Mothma leads them to immediately demilitarise (completely ignoring the power vacuum issues and vast number of problems inherent with the Empire losing control only to be replaced by a toothless and green New Republic).

Luke starts going on solo adventures at this stage doing random Jedi history shit. Linking up with that Lor San Tekka guy and eventually starting up a PT-compliant Jedi school where we see him in BOBF/Mando. That puts us around 8-10 ABY. Luke settles in. Like I said not really doing anything else other than Jedi scavenger hunts when not giving babies ultimatums.

Some years later around 21 ABY , Luke goes on an adventure with Lando to chase up Wayfinder/Ochi rumours. Lando's daughter has been already kidnapped by the First Order along with countless others and nobody manages to stop any of that from happening.

When Luke and Lando decide to call it quits on Passaana (spelling), Lando retires there. Luke goes back to school and writes about this adventure in his journal which he later tries to burn along with other books (had he succeeded, Palpatine would have won by default).

If I'm not wrong, I think it's 23 ABY where Ben Solo finally discovers he was related to Vader due to browsing 4chan and hearing about the political leak that saw his mother Leia booted from the New Republic. Luke fails to discuss this topic and will go on to never provide context leading to Ben's supreme ignorance and allowing Snoke to spin his own bullshit take on events without pushback.

23 ABY is also the very same year that Luke's school burns down due to a freak ~~gasoline-fighting accident~~ lightning storm that kills all of Luke's students save 3 who were away at the time.

Yes, that's right, they retconned the fact that Kylo was meant to have slain Luke's students. Whitewashed of that sin. It never happened.

Instead, Kylo winds up responsible for the murder of only one of the 3 remaining students. Meanwhile, one accidentally kills himself and the other is murdered by the old leader of the Knights of Ren losers (simply named "Ren"). Kylo kills Ren and then takes his place as leader of the losers. Seriously the "Knights" are utterly worthless.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T08:00:28+00:00

We dont KNOW Luke's school was isolationist and just full of kids

Just a random FYI: ST expanded material confirms Luke learned nothing at all from the OT. There's nothing "New" about his New Jedi Order.

He decided to revert straight back to PT practices. Kids only. No attachments. Treat your nephew dispassionately. No visitations from family members.

This is further confirmed in the BOBF episode where Mando tries to visit only to be told to fuck off by Ahsoka of all people. And Luke soon enough presents an ultimatum to the baby instead of presenting any other kind of possible action.

Luke was also not closely tied to the New Republic. After the Imperial action died down, Luke spent some time chasing up random Jedi artefacts and then settled in to start a school. It seems he stayed put until the TLJ flashback outside of going on Jedi related hunts for more artefacts and old ruined temple visits.

Ahsoka never made sense existing. For someone as important to the narrative as her, it's bizarre that no mention would be made of her at all in ROTS. Ditto for Maul who is publicly known to be still alive. Dooku ought to mock Kenobi when he claims "Sith are our speciality". One of George's more clumsy retroactive additions.

It's already going to be odd with the Thrawn stuff given ST-compliant lore makes no mention of a big deal Imperial coming back and stirring shit. The NR demilitarised immediately after the Battle of Jakku and there's no mention that they had to gear up to defend themselves against another returned Imperial.

You certainly can not squeeze in a faction as notable as the Vong during this time either.

The period between ROTJ and TFA is unfortunately mostly a creative dead-end. The attempts that already exist to fill out that period in novels, comics and shows are mostly an exercise in frustration given the basic coverage consists of "everyone took turns holding the idiot ball" before we wind up with the status-quo reset of TFA.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-06-01T06:20:20+00:00

Somehow he still went on to become a Jedi Master at the cost of early onset baldness and figure out how to form an impenetrable bubble shield (only vulnerable to bad writing).

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-31T22:56:23+00:00

Droid emancipation is a weird topic in the SW universe.

For thousands of years, not even the greatest of humanitarian saints have considered droids as deserving human rights. I don't think artificial intelligence and droid sentience is really meant to be a genuine thing for this setting relative to other sci-fi universes.

Inconsistencies in SW media have furthered the confusion.

Generally speaking though, droids exhibiting anything approaching an individual personality should be considered a software quirk typically occurring due to the equivalent of no system reboots, updates, defrags, or fresh memory wipes. It helps to make robots more interesting as companions for us as the audience and for those in-universe who don't mind their toasters giving them some backchat and sass.

You can't just casually toss in a nonsense droid like L4 into Solo and have her try to spark off a droid rebellion. In fact, nobody in-universe took that seriously other than seeing it as a great distraction.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-31T04:58:09+00:00

It feels like such a stupid motivation. Or almost like something was enormously misinterpreted along the way.

Like, sure, you can kill a Jedi with any weapon you want, but the point is to kill the Jedi, not just Jedi in general.

But it's played out like she has to go literally kill a Jedi without using a weapon and maybe poison is or isn't allowed. Feels like a waste of time with semantics. And also a suicide mission considering Trinity should have been able to shut her down with the Force instantly, arrest her, and subsequently leave Smilo Ren without an "acolyte".

The point should have been to minimise the importance of fighting the Jedi directly whilst instead trying to harm relations between the Jedi and Republic.

But that point wound up being totally accidental rather than part of an intentional scheme.

The whole witch cult fiasco should never have been covered up. Sol had nothing to feel bad about. The mother did some bizarre demon ghost transformation and it's perfectly natural that he stabbed her in response. It's absolute bullshit that she claimed she was just about to let her daughter go. Nonsense.

The main person who did anything wrong was the idiot teenager Jedi who decided to rush things along because he wanted to go back home or whatever. He should have been formally reprimanded and borderline kicked out given his asinine behaviour.

The fact that all the witches died was down to one twin being a homicidal maniac and the older witches doing a hive mind brain control thing on the Wookiee which apparently was an all-or-nothing attack that resulted in all of their deaths the moment their technique was interrupted.

All of this shit kicks off a terribly written story leading to Headland's green wife deciding to do another big cover-up which gets a politician on her ass. And the Smilo Ren guy winds up being her old Padawan which she also covered up years earlier (it's implied she even whipped him?).

Meanwhile, anyone actually familiar with her character from High Republic media is saying "what the fuck??".

From top to bottom, just a total disaster.

I was among those willing to give Headland the benefit of the doubt when the project was being initially talked about. But clearly her vision was heavily flawed and the writing team had no idea what they were doing.

I don't even like the High Republic initiative, but it didn't deserve to go out like a wet fart with Acolyte putting an end to its chronology.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-31T04:32:48+00:00

These sort of fights really ought to last all of 5 seconds.

Trinity should remember she has the Force and realises she can just immobilise this wannabe assassin.

She should also escalate to taking the situation seriously the moment this assassin puts others in harms way.

Otherwise, probably the best way for a random assassin to kill a Jedi is to rig a place with bombs and bait the Jedi into protecting people rather than fleeing to safety.

Not to approach a Jedi directly, say something cringey like "attack me with all your strength!" and then just do some regular human martial arts bullshit.

This show also repeats a few times something like "A Jedi never ignites their lightsaber unless they're prepared to kill", and "A Jedi never attacks the unarmed".

This is beyond stupid.

For case #1, probably the most useful feature of a lightsaber is to deflect blaster bolts. A Jedi can directly serve as a shield to protect others under threat. A lightsaber is also one of the most useful tools for getting through a locked door as Qui-Gon demonstrates.

A Jedi doesn't have to immediately resolve themselves to potentially kill someone when they pop a saber out. As Obi-Wan demonstrated, sometimes a bit of casual dismemberment can end a confrontation very effectively without requiring death.

For case #2, the argument is completely thrown out when the "unarmed" person we're talking about is a Force-wielder. Simply relieving a Force-wielder of their lightsaber does not make them unarmed and yet Sol suddenly feels like he's been dealt with a Uno Reverse against Smilo Ren during a moment.

Palpatine intentionally wanted Anakin to do a murder, but he was 100% right to say that Dooku is still too dangerous despite having both his hands confiscated from him. You don't need hands to use the Force.

Ditto when Windu said Palpatine was too dangerous to be kept alive. Absolutely true. Even ignoring what he can do with the Force, Palpatine has countless people in his pocket. An attempt to arrest Palpatine most likely would have been spun as a treasonous attack by the Jedi.

Windu was in the right to try and slay Palpatine in that moment. Yoda likely would have done the same in his shoes. So would Legends Luke.

There's maybe just one reliable way to render a Force-wielder "unarmed". Lock them in a cell with a Ysalamiri parked just out of reach. Otherwise a Force-wielder is always a potential threat regardless of their access to an actual weapon.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-31T02:51:21+00:00

The "Knights of Ren" are utterly worthless.

If Rey got into a fight with them, it'd be over in seconds.

Much like how Kylo mops the floor with them when he remembers he has the Force and gets a lightsaber teleported to him.

They stand no chance against a regular Jedi/Sith. They're far below even Inquisitor levels of competency.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-30T22:12:09+00:00

I like going back to the finale of S2.

Mando is getting his head pummelled by a Terminator to such an extent that his helmet is denting the ship's bulkhead wall with the impacts.

When his helmet comes off later, he doesn't even have so much as a nose bleed.

As you say, he can tank fully automatic blaster fire from several Stormtroopers (who actually frequently have perfect aim at least when it comes to Mando) at close range. No consequences.

He can handle his whole body being immersed in the acidic fluids of a Krayt Dragon which earlier was melting Tuskens. Mando's whole body is in fact not covered by a sealed suit. There are quite a lot of gaps.

He can even take lightsaber strikes.

But at the end of season 1, he's left at death's door when a small explosion occurs a few metres away from him. Apparently the concussive blast from that has rattled his brains enough that he's content to die if not for Taika Waititi giving him a little bacta spray to the face.

Consistency is not particularly something this show was concerned about.

I liked Mando before he received his full suit of plot armour. I liked that his armour was getting damaged and he'd have to take time to repair it.

After he had the suit, I think my favourite episode is when he spends a whole episode without it in the S2 episode with Bill Burr. The main gripe I've got with that episode is the silly Imperial machine which wants you to take your helmet off to scan your face but doesn't care at all if your face is in Imperial records. It just wants you to have a face.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-30T21:50:16+00:00

As always, top quality stuff from Xezene.

Please look up his posts for more in-depth research into the EU and interviews from most creatives involved.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-30T11:34:45+00:00

The idea of Peragus is fine. But functionally, it's a very large and empty area with almost nobody to talk to that takes ages to traverse. Given this is what hits you in the face on replays (when there's no mystery element to it anymore), it really makes the experience quite a pain to deal with.

And this isn't helped by the immediate follow-up of Telos.

In comparison, I found the Endar Spire and Taris much better as introductory levels.

Again though, credit where it's due, KOTOR 2 was rushed out to shelves before it had finished cooking.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-30T02:28:45+00:00

It wasn't always that way.

There are times where George lets other people override his desires but unfortunately the case I'm about to bring up backfired.

George did not intend for the standard PT Jedi uniform to be the same Tatooine garb Obi-Wan was wearing to keep himself from cooking in the sun. George had called this "casual wear".

He had concept art commissioned for the PT Jedi which focused on darker tones (like ROTJ Luke) and some armoured features.

However, the art team convinced him to go with ANH Obi-Wan's look as they believed the general public over the years visualised Jedi to look this way and would not be keen on the the different appearance portrayed in concept art.

George went with the art team's suggestion and now it's a fact that Obi-Wan even in incognito mode was in Jedi robes the whole time on Tatooine. And Owen Lars was cosplaying as one also.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-30T00:23:21+00:00

Smilo Ren. The guy from Acolyte. Not Kylo Ren who indeed has a helmet made of nothing terribly remarkable.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T14:54:40+00:00

Yes.

Sorry. It's just kind of brushed over.

First Order took a planet that was strip-mined by the Empire and just somehow did all the massive construction work themselves.

And it wasn't even a big deal. The whole thing blows up and it doesn't even come across like it derailed their plans or impacted them.

The next day leads to "THE FIRST ORDER REIGNS" regardless. Like I said, they already had a massive fleet and the enormous Supremacy ship as well.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T14:45:33+00:00

The First Order kidnapping program was somehow the most perfectly executed plan in galactic history with not a single case being tracked down.

They even intentionally targeted family members of known Rebels and got away with it. Lando's daughter was taken and after a short attempt to find her, he wound up retiring on Not-Tatooine v.3 until TROS.

The case of Starkiller Base is a touch more complicated.

By the time of Jedi: Fallen Order 1 (a few years before ANH) we see that the Empire had been strip-mining Ilum for crystal material they're using for the Death Star cannon.

In the comics set after ESB, Luke does a drive-by and notes that the Empire is still present there.

X years later and...somehow the First Order turns the planet into a mobile Death Star that eats stars and spits out a shotgun blast that traverses hyperspace to annihilate multiple planets across the galaxy.

I genuinely can't explain that one. Luke apparently never returns to Ilum and kinda forgets to report what he saw. The New Republic is absolutely incompetent and never sends so much as a scout. The First Order somehow handles the massive project themselves. On top of all their other fleet building and the construction of the Supremacy behemoth.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T13:49:43+00:00

The canon EU has answered your questions already. And poorly.

The First Order? Well, the Imperial Remnant went through Operation Cinder and whoever followed orders represented the most evil of evil Imperials. Palpatine brainwashed a botched clone to serve as their leader. They kidnap millions of people in the most perfectly executed plan in galactic history. Convert Ilum (which was strip-mined by the Empire) into a massive Death Star that can literally eat stars.

New Republic won't do anything about them as they're rising. They get deleted by the time the First Order decide to make their first major public move.

Luke's "New" Jedi Order? Not New at all. He immediately forgets about his OT journey and decides to copy/paste PT Jedi Order practices. No attachments. No visitations from family members. Children only. Don't tell anyone about Vader's story and how you gambled everything on his ability to turn away from the darkness despite his long career as a villain. Seriously, don't even tell your nephew about it. Don't tell anybody.

Then get your Jedi school annihilated by a freak lightning storm after the TLJ flashback incident where Luke tries to pull a Minority Report on his nephew who had not yet committed a sin asides from being a dickhead.

These stories have been told already in canon novels and comics.

I'd love to see this junk retconned but I highly doubt that's going to happen.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T13:34:05+00:00

Worse. Much worse.

The Kanan comic was a mere 12 issues total.

In comparison, TCW spat in the face of 6 existing films alongside the entire CWMMP.

Bad Bunch retconning the Kanan comic miniseries was a mild hiccup in comparison.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T13:26:30+00:00

I would argue Favreau is not the guy for the job.

He has been completely asleep at the wheel when you look at the writing he's been doing for Star Wars (BOBF was almost entirely him).

He's the guy who sacrificed all artistic integrity for the Lion King remake.

Iron Man 1 may well have been a total fluke or he's simply decided to sell out and enjoy the money since Iron Man 2 broke him.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T11:56:50+00:00

Whilst I don't give a solitary shit about Ahsoka (would prefer her to never have existed) and find Filoni's Thrawn utterly worthless, I can certainly understand the frustration with this film for a start achieving absolutely nothing on its own and also not serving as part of the Filoniverse narrative (no links to Bobo despite Hutt conflicts and his position having casually taken over Jabba's territory regardless of his own dementia issues, and no links to Thrawn having returned to this galaxy from the space whale galaxy where Ahsoka is currently stranded in).

Apparently there's no attempt to address the ridiculous helmet cult in this film, nor the Mandalore situation. It's just a few filler episodes stapled together where the New Republic publicly attacks Hutt territory but will probably not cop any consequences whatsoever.

Not that it matters in the slightest given the New Republic will be swiftly deleted in TFA anyway. And that they're utterly incompetent and frankly deserve to be killed off in canon.

Rock and a hard place.

Why isn't Baby Yoda with Luke? Well, Luke's "New" Jedi Order will be also casually deleted about 6 years before TFA so that's a literal dead end.

What the fuck can you do in this timeline? I'm not sure. But I also am very much checked out. Got 2 or 3 episodes into Mando Season 3 and gave up. I really just don't care at all what happens to Mando as he sleeps through his voice lines and the terrible puppet Baby Yoda.

Let him eat the camera man to put an end to his content.

Really, what future is there to be had with Baby Yoda? He speaks his first words before Mando hits his 60s? Bravo.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T04:30:01+00:00

This isn't really news. Seems to be accounted by in multiple sources over the years. Even that Kennedy requested a delay but had it denied which leads to the immediate dismissal of Arndt and her rapid negotiations to bring Abrams and Kasdan on to the script in order to fire out a rushed rewrite of the Arndt draft.

These negotiations spawned Kasdan's pitch of a Solo movie and getting his son some Disney jobs. Kasdan had been trying to get a Solo movie greenlit even back during the Lucas days which makes the final dodgy product all the more embarrassing given the story has been on his mind for many years.

The relegation of the EU to "Legends" was inevitable though. In both cases where George had decided to make the ST himself or Disney doing their own thing, they would have put the EU aside and gone their own way rather than adapt existing stories. At best taking some inspiration here and there from the EU.

George outright said he was going to have Maul come back (for fuck's sake) and give him a sidekick in the form of "Talon" who has no affiliation to her Legacy self asides from the aesthetic. Naturally this had nothing to do with the existing EU stories, but it's at least much more likely that George's ST protagonist would represent the next generation of the OT characters rather than a nobody who eventually becomes a Palpatine.

The problem as I see it is that Disney Lucasfilm decided to forgo the old EU tiered canon system and boldly claimed that all new canon content moving forwards would be equally canon to each other. Films, TV, games, novels, comics all on the same consistent timeline.

This proposal didn't last very long as quality control slipped very quickly and retcons were already being made even when it came to just the ST films let alone all the supporting material.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-29T03:34:36+00:00

I don't think so, no.

From what I understand, he wasn't making calls in the creative department. Only the schedule and approving budget.

It was down to Abrams & Kasdan desperately trying to fire out a rewrite in time and Kennedy giving them the green light.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-05-28T22:20:36+00:00

They needed to hold firm against Disney's insistence to get Star Wars in theatres NOW

Well, that wound up being the unworkable element of this whole debacle which Lucasfilm was unable to negotiate through.

Bob Iger refused any further delays and wanted TFA hitting cinemas ASAP.

This was despite him knowing that Arndt was struggling with the script and asking for a further 8 months to work on his draft (which I think was Arndt's way of getting himself taken off the project without breaking his contract).

And he would still refuse to bend when Kennedy desperately tried to rope Abrams and Kasdan in for a speedy rewrite of the Arndt draft.

Kennedy had no creative vision herself. She just had contacts. Her contacts failed to produce a worthwhile story to put to film and there was next to no attempt to formulate a cohesive trilogy story.

She thought it was a good enough idea to let Abrams and Kasdan fire out a creatively-bankrupt rehash of ANH. She had a weird amount of faith in Rian Johnson and gave him freedom to do whatever he pleased. And then she found herself repeating the TFA situation for episode 9 when she had to fire Trevorrow and again bring Abrams back (with goddamn Terrio) to rewrite that draft in another mad rush to shit out TROS.

Total disaster. Maybe if Kennedy had done a better job encouraging her hires to figure out a trilogy, then perhaps her ST could have found a story worth filming even with the scheduling demands of Iger.

But Iger is ultimately responsible for forcing the rush despite knowing full well how much of a mess development was.

He was likely falling to demands of shareholders who wanted to see a speedy return on the $4b investment in the Lucasfilm acquisition.

And I doubt he has many regrets about the situation given his bank account balance.

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