Star Wars TV Megathread: Neel before Jod. (2025)

fartknocker

Oct 28, 2012

Damn it, this always happens. I think I'm gonna score, and then I never score. It's not fair.

Wedge Regret

Yeah, I gave up reading that halfway through and now understand why you're one of the most ignored users on this forum, which says something. By the way, I'm apparently gonna be the 1000th poster to add you to their ignore list, so congrats on that achievement

Again, as my last response on this, I'll repeat that I think your logic is grossly overcomplicated. Mine may be overly simplistic, but it boils down to these are works that are very popular and widely liked by Star Wars fans, both extreme die hards, and more casual fans of the franchise, for a litany of reasons, regardless of medium. It's not complex to say "Hey, if you liked the prequels and Star Wars in general, go to Clone Wars, which then opens the door to other well regarded shows that happen to be animated" rather than going through more esoteric works whose quality, impact, and relevance (However you wish to define any and all of those words) are greatly debated. For someone who is a new fan or less familiar with the depths of a franchise, you don't necessarily want to throw them in the deep end with weird poo poo right off the bat. Like, if someone was asking where to start and for a basic list of old EU novels, most people would point to Heir to the Empire and the Thrawn trilogy, your nonsense is the equivalent of saying to go read Children of the Jedi and The Crystal Star and a dozen other mediocre-to-bad books (Including stuff that isn't even Star Wars as you insist with Prospect) before getting to the good stuff like the X-wing series or Shatterpoint.

Heh, I guess trying to make an "easy list" gets complicated pretty quickly. You're definitely correct that you don't need to have seen the relevant Clone Wars arcs or Rebels to understand what gets presented in Mandalorian, as Mando does more than enough through it seasons to explain the backstory so one follows and get what's important. I will mention that Mandalorian politics aren't everything in Clone Wars or Rebels. For the former, which at various points is either episodic or groups plots into arcs of 3-4 episodes, it comes and goes at various points and doesn't really get intricate until like the 4th season, but it also gets used to tie several other arcs/plots together, so "Mandalorians doing Mandalorian things" isn't a hyper focus there. For Rebels, it's mostly a minor subplot until late in the 3rd season or early in the 4th, but it again ties in well there. Those shows have a lot of other great stuff to offer, and the Mandalorian stuff mostly develops along later.

That said, to go back to the order I recommended, it's sorta hard to make it a simple, straight forward list once you get beyond the OT and PT because so much of the other stuff gets interconnected to various degrees. Like, to use Mandalorian as an example, the first season can be understood basically just with the OT. Season 2 does a fine job explaining Bo-Katan and Ahsoka enough for the purposes of its own story, but season 3 is set up by a pair of episodes from Book of Boba Fett and heavily influenced/references events from certain arcs of Clone Wars and Rebels, and obviously the Ahsoka show even more so since it draws directly upon Rebels and to a lesser extent, Mandalorian. Really, you almost need an interconnected flow chart, as at a certain depth into all the various works, poo poo does get messy with what is impactful on other stuff that comes after it (Whether "comes after it" means it was made later, or works that were set later).

To go back to your original list:

Really, the only major changes I'd make to this are to move the sequel trilogy down quite a bit, probably near the bottom of the list after a bunch of optional level stuff set decades prior, and push Bad Batch up to any point after Clone Wars. I'd also probably bump Skeleton Crew up a ways, since it's been very good thus far. Otherwise, you could give that list to your friend and just put some asterisks and say "Hey, these can be skipped, or these work best if you've seen X or Y" and let them go with what they want. To work off your list and provide some more detail about what I mean for that last part:

1: OT and PT first is the obvious starting point, but from there you can go in several directions.

2A: Clone Wars after PT is the next step, but it isn't strictly required. You're dead on about not needing to watch it all, which is why I mentioned the early seasons not being in chronological order and their being guides that tell you "Hey, here's the important/good episodes so you can skip Jar-Jar shenanigans", so you can easily skip about half of it if one wanted.
2B: Rebels after Clone Wars again makes sense. One could watch it without Clone Wars, as it does enough to explain things, but at a certain point (Namely, the end of season 2 and beyond) stuff will come up that references big, big events from Clone Wars. Rebels is strictly liner and has far less filler than Clone Wars, so just going through it is the best route.
2C: Andor, Rogue One, and Solo all work once you've seen the OT. For what it's worth, Andor season 1 is set around the same timeframe (5 years before A New Hope) that Rebels starts.
2D: Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2, which are obviously set after the OT and don't require major backstory beyond that.

So really, where to go after the OT and PT would depend on what your friend is interested in. If they want more Jedi lightsaber action, Clone Wars would be the way to go, since it'll expand on what they've already seen and there will be more from there. If they're more interested in the Rebellion vs Empire conflict, Rebels or Andor/Rogue One would be the logical routes. If they aren't sure and just want some cool Star Wars stuff, Mandalorian is a very accessible show and the first two seasons are very enjoyable, so that's an easy option.

Once they've gone down any one of those branches, then it obviously opens additional options based on that. If they liked Clone Wars and watched the final season, the next logical step is Bad Batch, whose characters are introduced in that final season and it starts during the final events of Episode III/Clone Wars S7, so its more of that timeframe. If they liked Mandalorian, then going to Book of Boba Fett/Mando season 3 is the way to go. Opinions on BoBF are mixed, it's an uneven show, so if they just want to get back to Din and Grogu, they can just watch episodes 5 & 6 (Aka: the Mandalorian episodes that bridge the gap between how Mando S2 ended and where season 3 began) and then go to Mando S3. If they watched and enjoyed Rebels, going to Ahsoka is also an option. Starting the Sequel Trilogy at this point is also an option, The Force Awakens is a perfectly cromulent movie and I still find it enjoyable, but from there things get complex. The last movie is simply not a satisfying conclusion to that trilogy and given how removed they are from everything else in the franchise, there's no reason to hurry toward that when there's so much better stuff.

So yeah, sorry it's not an extremely simple list to go A, B, C, as there are different ways one can go with things if they want. Really, the only bad choices IMO would be pushing the more lackluster stuff too soon (I.e. Obi-Wan or Rise of Skywalker) or trying to dive into shows that really work best with prior knowledge (Ahsoka, which is also kinda meh at times, Mando S3).

fartknocker fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jan 14, 2025

#?Jan 14, 2025 18:32

• Profile
• Post History
• Rap Sheet